"A single highway connects the Caribbean province of Limón to mainstream society in the highlands of Costa Rica. This paper explores the ways in which that highway affects the status hierarchy of mainstream society in Costa Rica, and how the construction of whiteness as an unexamined racial qualifier for total social incorporation constrains the perception of blacks as social liminars and blackness as a state of communitas. The argument elaborates the work of Victor Turner on ritual liminality to suggest the structural ambiguity of Afro-Latin Americans in the context of Costa Rica." (author"
"A comparative perspective of the tourism industry in the islands of Colón, Panama and Carriacou, Grenada is presented in this article. The islands have long histories of association with colonial powers, coupled with more recent histories of 'discovery' as tourist destinations. The historical constructions of 'paradise islands' and the appropriation of tourism for nation-building purposes in these territories are analysed. The discussion assesses the underlying reasons for the differing responses by African Caribbean populations toward tourism development, in spite of similar colonial and postcolonial histories." --The Author
Brings Afro-Caribbean women to the fore of a discussion of Costa Rican citizenship. Explores the relationship between ideologies of gender, imageries of black womanhood, and the dialectic of citizenship and exclusion.