Initial Impressions: A Year Abroad in Barbados

A week and a bit before I left for my Year Abroad at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, I was stood at a stage named The Lion's Den, at Boomtown, one of the UK's biggest festivals. Rather intoxicated and looking around at the middle-class white people (myself included) dancing and performing hedonistic activities to the backdrop of symbols of Caribbean culture and the sound of jungle, reggae, ragga and other Afro-Caribbean inspired music, I could not help but think about Mimi Sheller's theory of the Western imagined geography of the Caribbean. (I know, I'm really lame). Though I was having a great time (I saw Sister Nancy man!), I couldn't help but think about the way in which Westerners use the Caribbean and Caribbean cultural forms as a vehicle for hedonism.

Mimi Sheller's Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies identified two main ways in which Westerners perceive the Caribbean: through the imagined geographies of Hedonism and Edenism. Similar to Edward Said's imagined geography of Orientalism, Sheller argued that people view the Caribbean as an Eden: a place untouched by human activity, and as a site for Hedonism: of increased sexual activity, alcohol and drug use. Though I completely agreed with Sheller's point after reading her book, the past few weeks have really shown me the extent to which these imagined geographies are real.

Since deciding to go to UWI for my year abroad, I have consistently encountered problematic views of the Caribbean. From people asking me whether I was going abroad for a volunteering activity, and people outright denying the existence of an tertiary education institution outside of the West, I would say three out of four responses to my plan to study in the Caribbean were problematic. Furthermore, after telling people I would be studying History, specifically the history of the Caribbean, and of Africa and African Americans (what I would call a Pan-African syllabus), I was met with remarks that this would be a fun time for me. How is studying the brutal exploitation of 12 million people who were forced to migrate across the Atlantic and enslaved by rich white Europeans a fun activity? It's one of the most important things to study, and I'm extremely passionate and interested in this field of study, but never would I attempt to say that it is fun? Have white people still not learned the lesson that everything they did from 1492 onwards was awful? Their comments felt like they went even deeper than a misunderstanding of the extent of the brutality committed by Westerners in the Black Atlantic. It was almost impossible for people to see the Caribbean as anything other than a site for Western enjoyment and hedonism.

Let me make some things clear. The Caribbean is a beautiful region, with amazing plants and trees and birds and lizards. Carnival is brilliant and soca is great genre, and rum is fun! The Caribbean tourist industry capitalizes upon these features of the Caribbean, and though some might disagree with this, I don't see anything inherently wrong with displaying an amazing, fun culture (if you do it correctly). People can, and people should come to the Caribbean and leave feeling satisfied and knowing they have had fun and visited one of the most beautiful regions in the world. However, the inability to see beyond the tourist poster view of the Caribbean, of a natural, untouched region, with wild, sexual music and dance and loads of rum is very problematic, and has been built upon long-standing Western concepts of the Caribbean, as being a place filled with wild and uncivilised Amerindians and Africans.

A year spent studying in Barbados is a great opportunity, not only for the beautiful scenery, the potential adventures and the rum punch, but also for the chance to study the history of the Black Atlantic from professors, most of whom are people of colour, in a country that did not benefit from this exploitation. This is a chance almost impossible in the Western world, especially in the UK, which has an extremely low percentage of professors of colour. Though this is relatively specific to the study of History, or other subjects from the Humanities or Social Sciences disciplines, the aspect of studying should be somewhat important and relevant for anyone who is studying abroad. Nevertheless, I have encountered several people who have claimed that studying whilst in Barbados feels wrong, perpetuating the idea that the Caribbean region should only be used as a site for Western enjoyment; for the health vacations of the British to West Indian colonies in the nineteenth century, for the American vacations to the Caribbean in the twentieth century, and as the destination of North American students on Spring Break, eager to drink prior to their nation's legal drinking age. Somehow, in the post-emancipation period, white Westerners have forgotten the brutal enslavement and exploitation of people of African descent in the Caribbean, and suddenly see the region as a site for their enjoyment only.

Cuban tourism poster, displaying the Western amnesia of enslavement, through citing "Havana's Glamorous Past" (presumably different from the Havana where slavery was legal until 1886?)

Though in some cases, a white Westerner enjoying the Caribbean space is not problematic, the involvement, and in some cases encouragement, of hedonistic activities is an issue. Several people I have met whilst being on nights out in Barbados, have told me that in their week spent in Barbados, they have experienced things they never would in England: going to a strip club, drinking double or triple the amount they would normally, or smoking cannabis. Though I have nothing against people doing these things, it is the fact that they believe it would be unacceptable to participate in such hedonistic activities whilst in the UK, or Canada, but it is perfectly acceptable in Barbados, the relaxed, laid-back island. It is worse in other places, with the hotel Hedonism II in Jamaica literally playing upon these expectations of the Caribbean and Caribbean culture. Fyre Festival also, despite being a complete failure, represented the epitome of how Westerners view the Caribbean, as a place where you can exploit locals, exploit the environment with the simple aim of providing an enjoyable experience to the mostly white, middle class of the Western world. These ideas developed from colonialism. The idea that the Caribbean is a place for rampant sexual activity is developed from the notion that Amerindians or Africans were 'uncivilised', and therefore were in need of European rule.

Tourism poster for the Bahamas, presenting the idea that the Caribbean region is an untouched Eden - "Walk in the footsteps of Christopher Columbus"

Even worse than people merely viewing the Caribbean through the Tourist Lens, are those who argue that studying the history of the Caribbean would be fun, showing a complete ignorance of the brutal history of the Black Atlantic. This is why the need for a museum of slavery in Barbados is so great. Though most tourists would come to the Caribbean as a place for fun and enjoyment, it is not beyond expectation that these wealthy tourists could also attend a museum of the history of Barbados, to show how it is not an untouched Eden that the tourist posters would have you believe. Michael Manley's vision of tourism in the Caribbean included cultural activities, visiting art galleries and museums, yet the market for this has barely been reached. People prefer to engage in the activities that represent their imagined idea of the Eden of the Caribbean: visiting the national botanic gardens, or interesting and newly discovered caves, furthering the lie that the Caribbean is an untouched Eden. In encouraging engagement with historico-cultural tourist activities, and explaining to people on their tour of rum distilleries that one way in which people manage to get their delicious drink is through the boiling process which scarred so many enslaved people and boiled and burned their skin, tourists will leave less ignorant of the Caribbean, and the history which is so vital in understanding the wealth of the UK, and the worldwide economic disparity and economic systems.


Deconstructing these long-standing perceptions of the Caribbean is an immense task - these perceptions have been around since Columbus's arrival in 1492, and probably even before then. That's over five centuries of a problematic imagined geography to break down. However, with the encouragement of more cultural activities, and the development of a museum of slavery in Barbados, tourists will start to leave the Caribbean less ignorant from when they arrived. It only takes a second for someone's perception of something to be changed. For someone to learn that a third of the European armies in the Napoleonic wars were stationed in the Caribbean, due to the importance of these colonies to European powers.  For someone to learn that Rastafari, at it's centre is an anti-colonial religion, rather than a faith based on the consumption of cannabis. For someone to look at the government building in Bridgetown and acknowledge that Barbados was a part of the British Empire before Ireland, before Scotland (officially, anyway). For someone to realise that the rum they are drinking was one export that made Britain rich, and funded the industrial revolution. For someone to realise that every row of palm trees in Barbados symbolizes the site of an old plantation (and there are a lot of rows of palm trees).  There is so much to Caribbean history and culture that the Western world is ignorant to, and in doing tourism right, we can begin to change the problematic and ignorant ideas and notions regarding the region and deconstruct the imagined geographies of Edenism and Hedonism.