Several scholars have emphasized that effective representations of polyphonic spaces such as the Caribbean are possible only from perspectives that acknowledge different imaginaries constituting these spaces. The critics have stressed that the examination of the nature of these imaginaries and the analysis of how they disrupt and alter each other can reveal complexities of multivocal regions. This project argues that Caribbean writers E. Lovelace, S. Mootoo, O. Kempadoo, E. Danticat, C. Phillips, and M. Cezair-Thompson have also looked at the Caribbean from the perspectives of different imaginaries. They have interrogated local and tourist imaginary representations of regional histories, carnivals, and sexualities.; A juxtaposition of imaginaries has allowed these writers to offer a more complex look at the tourist industry. They argue that tourism is not an innocent activity, but a political, economic, and cultural phenomenon that promotes ideologies of global capitalism and imperialism. Using tourism, they expose dangerous sides of the capitalist system and simultaneously show that this system can open spaces of resistance for dissenting voices. The Caribbean writers employ histories, carnivals, and sexualities to reflect on this contradictory nature of global capitalism. In their works, these categories are neither stable nor neutral. They constantly fluctuate and therefore function as both spaces of commodification and of resistance. Their internal instability performs a double task: it exposes limitations of agency locals obtain, and it reveals a malleable nature of global capitalism.; Juxtaposing imaginaries, this dissertation represents a third space and hence contributes to the body of literature that looks for meanings in interstitial settings. It introduces several pluralistic concepts such as multiculturalism, hybridity, chaos theory, mestizaje, creolization, and the decolonial imaginary, but does not advocate any specific concept as the primary basis for discussion, arguing that none of them, presented individually, can capture complexities of the Caribbean. In addition to considering (non)fiction, it also analyzes a number of tourist brochures and advertisements. A close reading of these texts helps understand that the Caribbean, constantly reinscribed by new forces, does not tolerate stasis and dualisms. Instead, it has a fluctuating nature that requires regular revisiting.
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