The new Caribbean complexity

Mobility systems, tourism and spatial rescaling

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20153783
AutoresMimi Sheller (0000-0001-9097-9563, Swarthmore College, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen30
Número2
Páginas189-203
Fecha de publicación2009-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSingapore Journal of Tropical Geography (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0129-7619 • E-ISSN: 1467-9493
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9493.2009.00365.x
OpenAlexW2078776370
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas43
Referencias citadas39

The Caribbean region is being respatialized, rescaled and reterritorialized in the face of contemporary processes of neoliberal development, shifting mobilities and spatial restructuring. Drawing on the field of mobilities research, this paper argues that new transregional approaches to spatial dynamics are needed to describe the complex, polymorphic, and multiscalar geographies in the neoliberalizing Caribbean. It first analyzes how new spatializations of Caribbean mobilities are part of larger transnational processes of urban restructuring. It then examines how neoliberalizing policies have promoted the ‘opening’ of once publicly owned infrastructures such as ports, airports, and telecommunications, contributing to a rescaling of Caribbean territoriality. Finally it considers how tourism mobilities associated with the cruise ship industry and private luxury property developments facilitate interlocality competition and outside access to the region while circumscribing local access and mobility rights. The paper proposes a postcolonializing island studies that recognizes the complexity of contemporary Caribbean rescaling and the subtle ways in which modernized built environments and infrastructures of mobility and connectivity contribute to the weakening of island‐state sovereignty, territorial integrity and democratic citizenship

Citizenship · Economic geography · Economics · Economy · Geography · Mobilities · Nexus (standard) · Political science · Politics · Restructuring · Sociology · Sovereignty · Tourism · Cruise Tourism Development and Management · Maritime Ports and Logistics · Travel Writing and Literature