The inflammatory headline of a recent article in The Dartmouth ("Reggae tourism' hurts Jamaican identity, prof says," Oct. 5) misrepresents the substance of my argument in a public lecture hosted by the Leslie Humanities Center on Oct. 2. Quotation marks are used only for "Reggae Tourism," but the misleading headline makes it appear as if the sound bite is a quote. My argument is much more subtle than this simplistic generalization would suggest.
The title of my lecture, "Welcome to Jamrock': Reggae Tourism and the Politics of Identity in Jamaica," signals the power dynamics at play in the production and consumption of Jamaican identity. Indeed, the tourism enterprise is a site of contestation in which competing constructions of the nation are ambiguously articulated. Marketing "Brand Jamaica" is a project that requires both sophistry and sophistication.
The unadulterated truth about the complex social, political, economic and moral catastrophes that engulf the Jamaican nation state is not a commodity that can be readily marketed for tourist consumption. Instead, "bedtime stories" (to cite Damien "Junior Gong" Marley's "Welcome to Jamrock") are fabricated to narrate an alternative, picture-perfect representation of a welcoming tropical landscape stripped of persistent mendicants with tenacious problems.
"Heritage tourism" constitutes a potential resolution of the conflict manifested in these divergent accounts of Jamaican society. The attention to "heritage" is a compelling attempt to counter the usual "paradisal" projection of the island by underscoring the undeniable richness of both the culture and the landscape in which the Jamaican people struggle to sustain hope.
Reggae tourism illustrates many of the contradictions at the root of this business of "heritage tourism." Conventional "sun and fun" priorities often undermine the grand objectives of heritage conservation. In fact, in the early years of the evolution of reggae music, government institutions such as the Jamaica Tourist Board made it a firm policy not to use reggae music to advertise the island. This downtown, down-market music did not conform to the image of Jamaica that was being constructed for tourist consumption.
The new nation's motto, "Out of many, one people," served to consolidate an idealized view of Jamaica as a multiracial paradise in which all would feel welcome. One love. Apocalyptic reggae lyrics that evoked the imminent collapse of Babylon (a biblically-derived Rastafari term for state authority) could not be allowed to penetrate the consciousness of the carefree tourist.
By the 1970s, references to reggae begin to creep into the print ads of the Jamaica Tourist Board: "A Jamaican welcome. It's as warm as our sun on your shoulders. As heartfelt as our reggae music. As friendly as our waterfalls." Reggae is naturalized as part of the background scenery. Like the warm sun and the friendly waterfalls, heartfelt' reggae is part of the soothing island ambience.
Reggae music thus becomes muzak, the perfect auditory accompaniment to a restful vacation. Nothing of the disturbing message of roots reggae music remains. Adulterated Jamaica Tourist Board reggae is thus, essentially, elevator music taken to the great outdoors.
The facile report on my lecture in The Dartmouth also misses one of the main conclusions of my analysis of the history of Reggae Sunsplash as an example of successful "reggae tourism" in which both tourists and residents equally participate. There is a long-established tradition of Jamaicans going on excursions to beach destinations, particularly at major holiday seasons. These events are always accompanied by music, be it the saintly hymns of churchical celebrants or the secular sounds of ungodly gatherings.
The excursion element in the original Sunsplash package clearly synchronized with local cultural practices. The weeklong, out-of-town reggae festival concept was a fortuitous consummation of a long "heritage" tradition of both beach- and music-oriented recreational activities. Unlike participation in regular dancehall sessions in Kingston, annual reggae excursions to resort destinations allow the "native" the freedom to play "tourist," a concept that is elaborated with much irony in Jamaica Kincaid's biting critique of tourism in the Caribbean, "A Small Place."
