Based on a detailed ethnography, this book explores the promises and expectations of tourism in Cuba, drawing attention to the challenges that tourists and local people face in establishing meaningful connections with each other. Notions of informal encounter and relational idiom illuminate ambiguous experiences of tourism harassment, economic transactions, hospitality, friendship, and festive and sexual relationships. Comparing these various connections, the author shows the potential of touristic encounters to redefine their moral foundations, power dynamics, and implications, offering new insights into how contemporary relationships across difference and inequality are imagined and understood.
Based on a detailed ethnography, this book explores the promises and expectations of tourism in Cuba, drawing attention to the challenges that tourists and local people face in establishing meaningful connections with each other. Notions of informal encounter and relational idiom illuminate ambiguous experiences of tourism harassment, economic transactions, hospitality, friendship, and festive and sexual relationships. Comparing these various connections, the author shows the potential of touristic encounters to redefine their moral foundations, power dynamics, and implications, offering new insights into how contemporary relationships across difference and inequality are imagined and understood.
Foreword
Nelson Graburn
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Relating through Tourism
PART I: ACHIEVING ENCOUNTERS
Chapter 1. Tourism in Cuba
Chapter 2. Shaping Expectations
Chapter 3. Gaining Access
Chapter 4. Getting in Touch
PART II: SHAPING RELATIONS
Chapter 5. Commodity Exchange and Hospitality
Chapter 6. Friendliness and Friendship
Chapter 7. Partying and Seducing
Chapter 8. Seduction and Commoditized Sex
Conclusion: Treasuring Fragile Relations
References
Endnotes