Full Description
A new reading of Panama's nation-building process, interpreted through a lens of transnational tourism.
Based on long-term ethnographic and archival research, From Temporary Migrants to Permanent Attractions: Tourism, Cultural Heritage, and Afro-Antillean Identities in Panama considers the intersection of tourism, multiculturalism, and nation building. Carla GuerrÓn Montero analyzes the ways in which tourism becomes a vehicle for the development of specific kinds of institutional multiculturalism and nation-building projects in a country that prides itself on being multiethnic and racially democratic.
The narrative centers on Panamanian Afro-Antilleans who arrived in Panama in the nineteenth century from the Greater and Leeward Antilles as a labor force for infrastructural projects and settled in Panama City, ColÓn, and the Bocas del Toro Archipelago. The volume discusses how Afro-Antilleans, particularly in Bocas del Toro, have struggled since their arrival to become part of Panama's narrative of nationhood and traces their evolution from plantation workers for the United Fruit Company to tourism workers. GuerrÓn Montero notes that in the current climate of official tolerance, they have seized the moment to improve their status within Panamanian society, while also continuing to identify with their Caribbean heritage in ways that conflict with their national identity.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Panameñismo and Panameñidad: Converging Ideologies in the Construction of Panamanian National Identity
Chapter 2. Panama's Temporary Migrants: The Afro-Antillean Presence in the National Narrative
Chapter 3. "Panama Is More Than a Canal": The Twenty-First Century and the Panamanian Tourism Industry
Chapter 4. Touring the Archipelago of Bocas del Toro
Chapter 5. Afro-Antilleanness Represented: Museums, Theme Parks, and the Manufacturing of History
Chapter 6. The Permanent Attractions: Music and Cuisine as Malleable "Ethnic Commodities"
Chapter 7. Conclusions: Afro-Antillean Identity Construction, International Tourism, and the New Symbols of Panameñidad
Glossary
Notes
References
Index
