Marketing the Nation

Carnival and tourism in Trinidad and Tobago

Bibliographic Data

ID2360587
AuthorsGarth L Green (Davidson College, North Carolina, corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume22
Issue3
Pages283-304
Publication date2002-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritique of Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0308-275X • E-ISSN: 1460-3721
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0308275x02022003759
OpenAlexW2077645427
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited10

Public festivals provide not only the occasion to make statements about national identity but also offer opportunities to culture brokers seeking foreign exchange through tourism. Within the matrix of the international culture industries and the hegemonic international order of nation-states, culture is both a commodity and a source of national pride. In this article I examine efforts at `cultural entrepreneurship' regarding the Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago. Attempts to market the Carnival and, in a larger sense, Trinidad and Tobago, reveal profound ambiguities about cultural authenticity, ambivalence regarding international recognition, and contested ideas about national identity in a complex multi-ethnic, multicultural, postcolonial state. I criticize what I call `academic nostalgia', the propensity of academics, including anthropologists, to lament the supposed inauthenticity and commercialism that is said to accompany changes in Carnival. I show how this concern mirrors local critiques of Carnival, and how this preoccupation was itself a recurrent theme throughout the 20th century

Ambivalence · Commercialism · Hegemony · Lament · Media studies · Multiculturalism · National identity · Patriotism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Pride · Sociology · State (computer science · Subversion · Tourism · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Cuban History and Society · Gender Studies · Law · South Asian Cinema and Culture

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