Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies

by Mimi Sheller

From sugar to indentured labourers, tobacco to reggae music, Europe and North America have been relentlessly consuming the Caribbean and its assets for the past five hundred years. In this fascinating book, Mimi Sheller explores this troublesome history, investigating the complex mobilities of producers and consumers, of material and cultural commodities, including:

*foodstuffs and stimulants - sugar, fruit, coffee and rum
*human bodies - slaves, indentured labourers and service workers
*cultural and knowledge products - texts, music, scientific collections and ethnology
*entire 'natures' and landscapes consumed by tourists as tropical paradise.

Consuming the Caribbean demonstrates how colonial exploitation of the Caribbean led directly to contemporary forms of consumption of the region and its products. It calls into question innocent indulgence in the pleasures of thoughtless consumption and calls for a global ethics of consumer responsibility.

Genres: Nonfiction, Anthropology, Africa, History

264 pages, Paperback

First published February 27, 2003

About the author

Mimi Sheller is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy at Drexel University. She is the author of Democracy after Slavery, Consuming the Caribbean, Citizenship from Below, and Aluminum Dreams.

Reviews

[leni swagger · Rating 4 out of 5]

very insightful and interesting!

[Dimity · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was enjoyable while also being thought provoking. I bought this book for a Caribbean history class years ago but the professor ended up dropping it from the reading list. I wish he hadn’t because I think it would lead to great class discussions. Of course, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to read it for a class as closely as I did now. This is pretty much the academic version of Jamaica Kincaid’s "A Small Place". Sheller synthesizes a lot of information from many sources and I think most of her analysis is spot-on. I loved chapters 2-5 and found them fascinating.

I wasn’t wholly convinced by her arguments in the concluding chapter and found it strange that for all her discussion of “creolization”’s many meanings, she never provided a strong definition of her own. I have an undergraduate background in history/anthropology and the final chapter was inaccessible in some parts for me because of its heavy reliance on theory. In the last chapter, she also reveals her own ethnic and national background and I must say it makes me uncomfortable how this revelation changes my opinions of some of the things she said in the book.

The book’s cover image and back cover description belies its depth and reliance on complicated theoretical arguments, but I think it is a worthwhile read for people interested in Caribbean history and culture who are willing to work while they read.

[Edurne · Rating 5 out of 5]

!!!!

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense, but well-supported analysis of the core economies exploitation of the Caribbean body. And soul.
Read selected chapters.