Resisting Paradise

Angelique V. Nixon is a lecturer at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. She is author of Saltwater Healing—A Myth Memoir and Poems and co-editor of Theorizing Homophobias in the Caribbean: Complexities of Place, Desire and Belonging.

“Whether rooted resident, mobile diaspora, or open-eyed tourist, we all have something to learn from Resisting Paradise, Angelique Nixon’s empirically elegant and fiercely honest inquiry into the discursive, sexual, and material effects of tropical paradise. She teaches us how Caribbean cultural producers have created alternative ways of resisting and rerouting the damaging cultural, ecological and spiritual effects of tourism.”—Mimi Sheller, author of Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies; Tourism Mobilities: Places to Play, Places in Play; Citizenship from Below: Erotic Agency and Caribbean Freedom; and Aluminum Dreams: The Making of Light Modernity|“A deeply insightful reading of the ways Caribbean cultural workers from inside and outside the region negotiate the complexities of tourism and critique controlling cultural myths about the Caribbean as paradise. But as importantly, Nixon takes us beyond tourism’s double-bind and shows how writers and artists offer counter-narratives to exploitative tourism and neocolonialism that are grounded in resistance culture, shared histories, and diasporic connections. Resisting Paradise is an inspiring study, full of hope and love for the Caribbean, offering us new ways of thinking about ethical tourism and Caribbean freedom.”—Kamala Kempadoo, professor, Department of Social Science, York University and author of Sexing the Caribbean: Gender, Race, and Sexual Labor