Remaking race, class, and region in a tourist town

As Cartagena, Colombia becomes more enmeshed in transnational cultural and economic circuits, a discourse of Caribbean identity has emerged. Elites promote this identity as part of their effort to attract foreign tourism and intensify the city's involvement in the international market. The discourse also helps mask racial discrimination, renders blackness nearly invisible, and attempts to “domesticate” blacks for service in the tourist industry. Thus, emphasizing a hybrid Caribbean identity forms part of a strategy of domination. At the same time, some middle‐class intellectuals and sectors of the popular class have appropriated this discourse to engage in cultural politics. However, the liberatory impact of these (potentially) oppositional visions is limited by the political, economic, and military power of the state and the dominant classes. This case study of the discourse of hybrid Caribbean identity in Cartagena serves as a critique of postmodern thinking that celebrates hybrid identities and the liberatory potential of cultural politics.

Key words:

• Globalization
• Race
• Identity
• Hybridity
• Postmodernism