Abstract
Islands have always fascinated the imagination (Gillis, 2007). An important aspect of this fascination has to do with the idea that ‘islands suggest themselves as tabulae rasae: potential laboratories for any conceivable human project, in thought or in action. There is something about the insular that beckons specificity, greater malleability, less inhibition’ (Baldacchino, 2006, p.5-6). For similar reasons, islands also seem to fascinate the tourist imagination. Thompson (2006) describes how already from the 1890s, the emerging British tourism industry engaged in a conscious effort to transform and visually promote the islands of the Caribbean ‘into spaces of touristic desire for British and North American traveling publics’ (Thompson, 2006, p.4).
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | A Research Agenda for Gender and Tourism |
Publisher | Edward Elgar Publishing |
Publication status | Published - 2006 |
Externally published | Yes |