Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies

by Sheller,Mimi

• ISBN13: 9780415257596
• ISBN10: 041525759X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-04-11
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

From sugar to indentured labourers, tobacco to reggae music, Europe and North America have been relentlessly consuming the Caribbean and its assets for the past five hundred years. In this fascinating book, Mimi Sheller explores this troublesome history, investigating the complex mobilities of producers and consumers, of material and cultural commodities, including:- foodstuffs and stimulants - sugar, fruit, coffee and rum- human bodies - slaves, indentured labourers and service workers- cultural and knowledge products - texts, music, scientific collections and ethnology- entire 'natures' and landscapes consumed by tourists as tropical paradise.Consuming the Caribbeandemonstrates how colonial exploitation of the Caribbean led directly to contemporary forms of consumption of the region and its products. It calls into question innocent indulgence in the pleasures of thoughtless consumption and calls for a global ethics of consumer responsibility.

Author Biography

Mimi Sheller is Lecturer in Sociology at Lancaster University.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	vi
Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction	1	(10)
PART I Natural and material mobilities	11	(94)
The binding mobilities of consumption	13	(23)
Iconic islands: nature, landscape, and the tropical tourist gaze	36	(35)
Tasting the Tropics: from sweet tooth to banana wars	71	(34)
PART II Bodies and cultural hybridities	105	(99)
Orienting the Caribbean: when East is West	107	(36)
Eating others: of cannibals, vampires, and zombies	143	(31)
Creolization in global culture	174	(30)
Appendix	204	(3)
Notes	207	(15)
Bibliography	222	(21)
Index	243