Elizabeth S. Manley, “Imagining the Tropics: Women and Tourism in the Caribbean”

Widely understood as a destination for leisure and pleasure, the Caribbean has drawn visitors from the global north for over a century. Women have played a central role in establishing this image of the islands, from the proliferation of women's travel writing beginning in the late nineteenth century to their active roles in shaping the tourism and hospitality industry. In this podcast, Elizabeth S. Manley (NHC Fellow, 2021–22), associate professor of history at Xavier University of Louisiana, analyzes the contradictions that have fueled narratives of the Caribbean from the colonial period to the present. By examining the ways that notions of gender, commerce, global mobility, and discourses of exoticism have changed in the region over time, we can better understand how the Caribbean has been culturally constructed as a site for escape and rejuvenation.