TOURISM AS A MEDIUM OF NEO-COLONIALISM: A READING OF JAMAICA KINCAID’S A SMALL PLACE (1988)

Öz

Being a contemporary Antiguan-American writer, Jamaica Kincaid in her writings explores the themes of colonialism, colonial legacy, post colonialism and neo-colonialism. In her short but highly effective work of creative nonfiction, A Small Place (1988), she explores the British colonial legacy in Antigua from both an outsider and native perspectives through her experiences of growing up in Antigua. The book comprises of four sections with a combination of social criticism upon colonial effects still functioning in every aspect of life in Antigua. Based on the idea that “Antigua where the sun always shines and where the climate is deliciously hot and dry…” Kincaid argues that Antigua made itself exist only for the pleasures of its previous colonizers, thus, although it is a free country on paper, it is not totally free from the colonisers (1988, p. 4). Upon this perspective, my aim is to analyse Kincaid’s discourse from a point that tourism has become a new tool for colonizing a country. The main aspect of the paper will be to demonstrate certain references to the characteristics of tourism functioning as a medium of colonialism. By revealing these characteristics we will prove that the notion of tourism in this travel writing has acquired another dimension by being a metaphor for neo-colonialism.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Neo-colonialism,Tourism,Travel-writing

Kaynakça

1. Bhabba, K. H. (1994). The Location of Culture, Routledge: London.
2. Buzinde, N. C. (2011). “Culture and Postcolonial Resistance-Antigua in Kincaid’s A Small Place”, Annals of Tourism Research, 38/1, 210–230.
3. Byerman, K. E. (1995). “Anger in a Small Place: Jamaica Kincaid's Cultural Critique of Antigua”, Third World Women's Inscriptions, 22/1, 91-102.
4. Gauch, S. (2002). “A Small Place: Some Perspectives on the Ordinary”, Callaloo, 25/3, 910–919.
5. Kincaid, J. (1988). A Small Place, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York.
6. McLeod, C. (2008). “Constructing a Nation: Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place”, A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 12/1, 77–92.