An angry voice from paradise: Jamaica Kincaid's a small place as a teaching resource

Abstract

This paper describes the advantages of using a ‘non‐academic’ text (A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid) as a resource for teaching undergraduate geographers about colonialism, neo‐colonialism and international tourism. Its values as reading material for seminars include: it is very provocative and invariably inspires students to comment; it encourages students to understand the specifics of ‘a small place’ in the context of an historically constructed world economy; it urges students to reflect on their role as participants in the contemporary international political economy; and it may be used to introduce some important contemporary debates about the nature of knowledge creation and assumptions of academic objectivity.

Keywords:

• Reading texts
• non‐academic literature
• Jamaica Kincaid
• Antigua