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Almost Paradise: The Cultural Politics of Identity and Tourism in Samaná, Dominican Republic

Kathleen N. Skoczen S o u t h e r n C o n n e c t i c u t S t a t e U n i v e r s i t y

R e s u m e n

En la República Dominicana, el turismo es la base fundamental del desarrollo

económico, transformando no sólo el paisaje social y cultural, sino también los

reflejos individuales del yo, de la comunidad y de la nación. En la región noreste de

Samaná, donde el turismo ha crecido y se ha establecido como una fuente importante

de empleo y de especulación, los esfuerzos para controlar esta industria se han

politizado. Este estudio investiga los esfuerzos de una empresa extranjera para

controlar los recursos del turismo local, y la consecuente resistencia por parte

de grupos locales. Este conflicto, aunque cimentado en los recursos materiales, a

menudo se articuló mediante el complejo discurso de la identidad. La cultura polı́tica

se convirtió en el vehı́culo principal por el cual se luchó para controlar bienes

materiales y simbólicos. Estas disputas descubren un campo cultural en continua

transformación, exponiendo la inestabilidad de unas categorı́as consideradas tiempo

atrás como indudables.

In the Dominican Republic, tourism is the dominant development strategy trans-

forming not only the social and cultural landscape, but also individual reflections

of self, community and nation. In the northeast region of Samaná, as tourism has

grown and become an important source of employment and profit, the struggles to

control the industry are politicized. This case study examines the attempts of a foreign

company to control local tourist assets, and the ensuing struggle on the local level to

resist. The conflict, although grounded in material assets, was often articulated

through the complex discourse of identity. Cultural politics became a primary vehicle

through which the control of material and symbolic assets was fought. These struggles

Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 141–167. ISSN 1935-4932, online ISSN 1548-7180.

Almost Paradise 141

bring to light a changing cultural field, exposing the instability of categories long

taken for granted.

KEYWORDS: tourism development, cultural politics, Dominican Republic.

They are offering a lot to buy property, if they offer me all the money in the world,

I am not going to sell because I live here, I love it here and no one is going to take me

(sacarme) from the (water)front and throw me behind, it’s the truth. They can offer

me a million Canadian or American and they won’t take me from here y if the

government dislocates me I will go, but because I have to, not for the money.

[A Dominican living along the waterfront in Samaná, 2004]

No, I don’t like it because everything here is only for the people from Samaná,

the people born here. The foreigners come and invest their money, but they should

not reap any benefits, nothing is for them (foreigners), the Samanese see this as

stealing y Everyone is a foreigner, only the people born here have rightsFall of the

world is a foreigner if you are not from here. (Capitaleña who had been living in

Samaná for one year, responding to my query of how she liked life in Samaná, 2005)

They eat meat, while we eat bones. [Often heard sentiment in Samaná in ref-

erence to foreigner-owned businesses in Samaná]

Al pan pan y al vino vino. [Translated by a university student from Samaná as: If

you’re American you’re American, if you’re Dominican you’re Dominican (there’s

no changing that), 2005]

As these quotes suggest, people in Samaná in the northeast region of the Dominican

Republic are in a struggle to control not only the public discourse surrounding who

should benefit from tourism development, but also the tangible assets of the tour-

ism infrastructure. This struggle came to a head in the late 1990s when a foreign

owned company moved into the region, with the sanction of the national govern-

ment, and attempted to usurp power, control, and economic benefits from locals.

Local elites, the primary target of the takeover, felt they built the business (in this

case day-long boat excursions to a beach) from the ground up and were seeing the

fruits of their labor appropriated by a politically and economically stronger foreign

entity. Claiming their Dominican identity and therefore, privilege, the boat owners

organized strikes and protests to protect their control over the industry. On the

other hand, local vendors (food and crafts) who had only ever minimally benefited

economically from this activity, threatened to side with the international company

and erode the veneer of solidarity.

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Tourism has become the most important source of economic development in

the Dominican Republic over the last two decades, primarily as a result of liberal

economic policies and adherence to structural adjustment programs. As a country

that was mired in economic stagnation, tourism is anticipated to solve economic

woes, yet who benefits from tourism is a hotly debated issue in Samaná, itself often

seen as distinct from the rest of the country based on a cultural heritage that

includes a large settlement of African Americans. At times, in this country where

many racial groups have settled Samaná was neglected if not isolated (Rodrı́guez

Demorizi 1973). Now having the potential for developing beach resorts, large

marinas, ecotourism, and cultural tourism the region has gained the attention

of international tourism developers who are eager to reap the rewards of this

undiscovered paradise. The anticipated boom in tourism, however, has been

looming in the region since the era of the dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina

(1931–61), and has also attracted a large number of expatriates and local elites

who have been waiting to realize the potential wealth that will come with the tourist

boom. Finally, there is the majority of the population who are poor yet feel pas-

sionately about their ownership and rights to the region and its assets and are

determined to lay claim to the profits when development finally arrives. This paper

explores a case study where various factions struggle to gain control of the elusive

benefits of tourism, and the cultural politics that surround these struggles. Cultural

politics play an important role in staking a claim to the benefits and payoffs of the

industry, on the one hand, and on the other, assigning blame when things are not

going so well.

Tourism development has redefined the social and cultural landscape in the

Dominican Republic over the last 20 years; positions and perspectives continue to

shift, adjusting to an altered ‘‘situatedness’’ vis-à-vis understandings of history,

politics, and global processes (Appadurai 1996; Gregory 2003). These transforma-

tions are complex and multilayered, affecting Samaná residents’ conceptions of self,

community, and nation, and in turn challenging identity, particularly surrounding

relationships with other Samanese, the community and the state. Hutchins (2007)

explores the ‘‘mutability’’ of ‘‘physical bodies and cultural meanings’’ in the context

of ecotourism in Ecuador’s Upper Amazon ‘‘where local nature is reordered as

global commodity, and local meanings are reinterpreted to better align with con-

sumers’ desires’’ (2007:76). Nonetheless, as he demonstrates convincingly, the

cultural accommodation is not a simple or straightforward process, and native

compliance has its limits. Here too, following Hutchins (2007), I recognize the

distinction between identity politics and the politics of identity whereby the former

can be seen as the appropriation of culture at the expense of native society. As Hill

and Wilson have noted, this can contribute to ‘‘essentializing social identities

by isolating them from their historical contexts and removing them from

Almost Paradise 143

communities of real people’’ (Hutchins 2007:76) while the latter refers to local

people resisting this redefinition and etching spaces where cultural identity can be

protected and reasserted. In Samaná, residents find a need to appeal to, or at least

newly promote aspects of their history, folklore, culture, and identity as a means of

resisting complete redefinition by outsiders, be they Dominicans from the capital

of Santo Domingo or foreigners from North America or Europe.

At the same time, the elites and even expatriates find themselves having to

readjust cultural meanings to maintain their own positions of hierarchy and priv-

ilege in ways that may have been unimaginable only decades earlier. Elites, for ex-

ample, have embraced a Eurocentric identity and heritage, distancing themselves

from Dominicans of African descent; this case study suggests that elites may turn to

their ‘‘Dominican-ness’’ and seek to form alliances with lower class, darker citizens

when it gives them leverage against ‘‘the other,’’ foreigners of non-Dominican cit-

izenship. But foreigners, too, may be redefined as part of the Dominican commu-

nity if this allows solidarity against ‘‘outsiders.’’ Tourism development becomes a

canvas on which identity politics and the politics of identity are played out, some-

times creating wedges between groups, other times drawing them together for re-

definitions of ‘‘us’’ and ‘‘them’’ (Hutchins 2007).

A tourist economy, at once transnational but also rooted in ‘‘place,’’ forces

questions of identity on many levels. Identity is no longer seen as absolute,

immutable or fixed in time or place (Rahier 1999). Instead identity is far more

complicated, involving processes that might be fluid and subject to cooperation

and compromise: ‘‘constructed through complex processes of relationality and

representation; it is a process, not a thing, and it is constantly under negotiation’’

(Wade 1997:81; Rahier 1999). While ‘‘place’’ does not signify identity, identities

are constructed in contexts, contexts that are mutable. Attention to these contexts

allows us to gain a better understanding of the complex processes driving

individuals to negotiate a piece of themselves that would be of vital concern.

Thus, following Bisharat (1997), I argue that struggles over identity can also be, and

frequently are, ultimately struggles over symbolic and material assets:

statements about identity are virtually never idly made but are typically coded with

implications for future action and sometimes with claims fielded with reference to

some, not necessarily conscious, purpose. The negotiation of an identity is thus a

step toward an end, not an end in itself; identity is always ‘‘identity for’’ something.

It follows that the social identity of an individual or group ‘‘for’’ one thing may shift

and be transformed as it is constituted ‘‘for’’ something else. [1997:205]

As Bisharat points out, these struggles over identity can be ‘‘spatialized’’ in

attempts to claim and control ‘‘place’’ (Bisharat 1997; Davila 2005). For Samaná

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residents working in the center or on the periphery of the encroaching tourist

economy, transformations of space and place are ever more visible and urgent.

Place is thee commodity in a tourist economy; political control over that place is

negotiated through the production of identity in a cultural space, particularly as

that identity plays a central role in political relationships and struggles (Hutchins

2007). In addition, more recently, emergent relationships with the state are both

pressing and intimate as globalization filters down to local communities through

new, novel, and sometimes invasive processes (Appadurai 1996; Trouillot 2001,

2003). In a post-Trujillo era, where his protégé, President Balaguer, held power for

12 consecutive years, the state had generally been, at its best, an abstract concept

that held potential for improving daily life and, at its worst, was a series of corrupt

officials who only periodically imposed themselves onto the local social landscape,

thus only ever so slightly and temporarily inconveniencing the rhythm of daily life.

With the growing power and imperative of international tourism, as well as man-

dates of neoliberal reforms, the local community is acquiring a transnational flavor,

which is inviting an expanded and more intimate presence of the national gov-

ernment, thus presenting an ever more complex set of challenges for individuals

and groups (Ferguson 1994). Yet, at the same time as the state imposes itself onto

daily life, the limits of the state’s power in the face of globalization is also being

realized (Trouillot 2001). This ambiguity is often felt most tangibly in everyday

practices by the recipients of ‘‘development’’ strategies.

Following Bourdieu (1977), tourism development in Samaná has given rise to a

cultural field where a reorganization of relationships is creating spaces and oppor-

tunities for particular individuals and groups to experience and attempt to control

the transformation of a cultural field. Examining individual and group agency in

the Caribbean needs to be grounded in history, as these concerns are rooted in

colonial relationships that have been forged over centuries of domination (Trouil-

lot 1992). The heterogeneity of the Caribbean and its distinct communities needs to

be contextualized to appreciate how and why particular groups end up competing

or cooperating for power (Mintz 1974; Allahar 2002; Trouillot 2003).

Tourism in ‘‘Almost Paradise’’

Tourism in the Caribbean is a fiercely competitive industry, yet the Dominican

Republic has significantly improved its participation in the last two decades: Fuller

reports overnight visitors increased from 747,000 to 2.2 million between 1986 and

1997 (1999:6). In 1995 its market share in the region was 1.6 percent, yet by 2000 it

rose to 2.2 percent with an average growth rate during these years of 12.8 percent,

one of the highest in the region (WTO 2002). Nonetheless tourism is dominated by

foreign interests that reap most of the profits while the host countries realize limited

Almost Paradise 145

benefits and may even suffer (Gmelch 2003; Pattullo 2005). Few Caribbean coun-

tries have the power to resist or rearrange these business conditions, predicated,

as they often are, on agreements with the International Monetary Fund and

the hegemony of the United States (Deere 1990; Safa 1995; Raynolds 1998).

The Dominican Republic only seriously focused its efforts on tourism development

with Balaguer’s return to power in 1986, following the IMF reforms of 1984.

Between 1985 and 1994 the economic power of tourism doubled and it became

the most important source of employment (Gregory 2003). Within a decade it

became the largest tourist market in the Caribbean leaving behind a failing agri-

culture sector. Thus, the Dominican Republic has experienced major economic and

social transitions (Raynolds 1998).

The peninsula, province, bay, and city of Samaná are found in the northeastern

region of the Dominican Republic. Although it is cast as a newly discovered par-

adise, Samaná’s tourist potential has been simmering for decades. Long admired for

its natural beauty of coconut-covered mountains rising up from sandy inlets, the

Samaná Basin is a United Nations biosphere reserve (see Fig. 1). During winter

months North Atlantic hump-backed whales congregate to breed. Crossing the bay

Figure 1 A coconut plantation laced with a sandy inlet beach, now an all-inclusive tourist resort catering to

a primarily European clientele.

Photo by Kathleen N. Skoczen

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by boat, visitors visit Los Haitises National Park where pristine mangrove forests

conceal caves where Taino Indians left hieroglyphs and petroglyphs. A small key sits

in the center of the bay, a 15-minute boat ride from the town dock. Briefly renamed

by Germans to Cayo Bacardi (after the rum company) as a promotional pitch, Cayo

Levantado (Elevated Key) is the image of an island paradise with unspoiled beaches

and the best snorkeling in the region, making it a magnet for day excursions (day-

pax) and holding the potential for larger development in town. The bay, with its

calm waters, has long been a respite of boaters who come to refuel and escape

dangerous storms.

Although the peninsula offers many tourist attractions, its potential has never

been fully realized. At times resistance to foreign developers has been significant, yet

more important is the poor transportation, lack of infrastructure, and govern-

mental and administrative mismanagement of local resources. A seventy-room

hotel overlooking town, with satellite cottages, was built in the early 1960s but

frequently was left empty or neglected by either the government, foreign manage-

ment companies or, more frequently, because of contract disputes between the two.

Recently it has been upgraded to a five star hotel with 350 rooms, but lacks the water

to run its Jacuzzi tubs or newly installed toilets.

In concert with the 1992 quincentenary of Columbus’ arrival to the ‘‘New

World’’ the opening of a five star hotel, funded by a consortium of investors from

Washington, DC, brought notoriety to the region. After a brief period of success,

the hotel now caters to a ‘‘low-class trade’’ of all-inclusives. A small community of

expatriates at the end of the peninsula is trying to establish a spin-off resort town as

an alternative to the more commercialized boom they expect closer to the town

of Samaná. Nonetheless, business in Samaná is slow and sporadic, except for the

all-inclusive hotels and ‘‘day-pax’’ visitors.

Day-paxs are bussed in from outside resorts for daylong excursions year round

to Cayo Levantado, Los Haitises, and in winter for whale watching. These visitors

affect the local economy most directly through contracts for food and tours.

Because of complaints over service, sanitary conditions, harassment by locals, and

so forth, there is significant juggling of contracts. Garbage on Cayo has long been a

problem and attracts hoards of flies that disrupt meals and tarnish the image

of ‘‘paradise.’’ The local cuisine is rarely appealing to foreigners’ taste, giving

expatriates, who have capitalized on the local specialties by adapting them and their

presentations for a European pallet, an edge over local caterers, who are primarily

poor women.1 Vendors selling jewelry and souvenirs are predictably aggressive in a

tight market where their alternatives for making money are all but nonexistent.

In the late 1990s there had been a decline in the once reliable business from boat

travelers. Blamed for the decline are young men who, lacking steady employment,

attempt to pick up odd jobs from boat owners. There has been a significant increase

Almost Paradise 147

in crime since the early 1990s and it is assumed these young men are responsible.

Referred to as ‘‘tigres’’ or ‘‘buscones,’’2 these young men have been important go-

betweens for the boaters, many of whom have no Spanish-language skills, much less

a familiarity with the local markets. As economic conditions have declined and the

economy offers young men few prospects for employment (Safa 1995) they have

become more aggressive. Unattended yachts and vulnerable expatriates become

easy targets. Several of Samaná’s business and community leaders with whom

I spoke lamented the actions of these young men who they feel are ‘‘ruining business

for everyone.’’ The more aggressive these young men, the worse their reputation,

the less likely lone tourists will venture off on their own, and a vicious cycle is

established. It is far from clear, however, that the tigres are primarily responsible for

the increase in crime: rarely are they implicated and charged with the most violent

crimes, which are often found to be perpetrated by men from outside the area

working alone or in groups.

The tourism market slowly increased throughout the 1990s in Samaná as the

country overall saw an explosion in the number of tourists. New hotels opened, new

projects are planned and at least started, and the region continues to move into a

tourist economy. One company reported the growth in whale watching from 60

passengers on one boat in 1985 to 28,000 passengers on 32 vessels in 1998.3 In 1997

the average number of passengers traveling on boats daily was 500, increasing sig-

nificantly during the whale season and slowing to a trickle during off-season. The

various actors, the conceptions and expectations of development and the clashing

realities on the social landscape in Samaná need to be fully explored in order to

better appreciate the transformations that have been unleashed with the growing

tourist economy.

The ‘‘scapes’’ of Samaná

Appadurai defines ethnoscapes as groups that are ‘‘no longer tightly territorialized,

spatially bounded, historically unselfconscious, or culturally homogeneous’’

(1996:191). While recognizing that stable social relations are still in place in

many localities, Appadurai, nonetheless, draws attention to the shifting context

that results in the process of globalization. In a tourist haven, people with varying

interests (hotel workers, hustlers, expatriates, developers, government officials,

etc.) converge, bringing with them differing visions of the world. For the local

population, encountering and interacting with different groups of people contrib-

utes to a redefinition of ‘‘self ’’ and ‘‘nation.’’ Reality begins to look quite different, as

does their imagination of possibilities for themselves and their children (Appadurai

1996). While the local population, struggling for daily survival, adapts to and

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attempts to control changing social and political identity,4 these struggles are find-

ing new and shifting contexts within which they are played out.

Through state intervention individuals and their communities are expected to

adapt to the changing needs and desires of the latest development strategy (in this

case tourism development), yet communities rarely have any say on the direction

this development will take. In addition, while the state’s role is to protect the

interests of the population it is in serious conflict as it too needs to assuage

developers, the international community and most importantly the IMF and

World Bank (Safa 1995). While imposing tourism development (and other

economic strategies, e.g., free trade zones) there are significant adjustments of

relationships between the individual, community and the nation state, particularly

as the necessities, agency, and ultimately control of the population becomes more

closely tied to power from the state (Watts 1993; Ferguson 1994; Foucault 2006).

Individuals are often in the ambiguous position of trying to manipulate such power

or capture a piece of it (Appadurai 1996).

In Samaná (and elsewhere) these relationships are further confused as tourists

and, more importantly, expatriates arrive and insert themselves into the social

landscape, carrying their ideologies surrounding race, class, nation, development,

and so forth, as they enter into intimate contact with the local population (Gregory

2003; Brennan 2004). As Gregory notes in reference to male sex tourists on the

south shore of the Dominican Republic these interactions are often more about

reifying the tourist’s ideological construction of the world, and eliciting native

compliance, than it is about the sexual relationship:

Through the social practice of this form of hetero-normative masculinity y these

men collectively construct and naturalize ideologies of racial, class, ethnic, and sex/

gender difference that both register and reinscribe the sociospatial hierarchies of the

global economy. [2003:325–326]

In the context of globalization, tourism is available to a far wider range of in-

dividuals than it was in the past (Urry 1990), thus not only are the influences more

varied, the range of intimacy has also expanded (Gregory 2003; Brennan 2004).

Thus while Gregory is referring to a masculine discourse of hierarchy in the context

of sex tourism, it is clear this hierarchy is played out in subtler forms in the everyday,

mainstream practices of tourism.

Not to be overlooked, however, are the shifting positions and motivations of

Samaná residents that also complicate and confuse such encounters (Bruner 2005).

Individual histories and experiences frequently conform to emerging demands and

necessities, particularly for those close to the center of tourism where the largest

rewards are anticipated. Local understandings and perspectives are destabilized as

Almost Paradise 149

influences beyond class, race, and ethnicity become pivotal for negotiating the

changing social landscape. Transnationalism, for example, plays a more crucial role

in cultural knowledge and symbolic capital as Dominicans are ‘‘on the move,’’ in-

creasingly participating in a circuitous process of migration (Deere 1990; Pessar

1997; Duany 2000). Many local residents have migrated for months and sometimes

years to work outside the region, either in larger cities, the capital, other islands, or

less frequently but more desirably, the United States or Europe. Thus, there are

many complex and even contradictory understandings and images of reality that

occupy the shared spaces of an emerging tourist community which itself is chang-

ing the very structure of the society.

The local community is inevitably affected by a larger national discourse, but its

take on it is not predictable or consistent. Samaná is often observed as a distinct region

of the Dominican Republic for historical reasons. Aiding this distinction has been a

somewhat consistent movement of foreigners into and out of the region; most visibly

are the visitors who travel on boats but stay for extended visits, and with much

different aims, the missionaries who make yearly ‘‘pilgrimages.’’ Adding to this chang-

ing cultural field are the returning or departing migrants, and the mass media (Soren-

sen 1997; Torres-Saillant 1998). The different perspectives with which the foreign is

viewed and viewing and the ensuing reflection of ‘‘self ’’ is complicated by the diversity

of groups and interests. Collected and refracted images of the ‘‘other’’ and ‘‘self ’’

contribute to the shifting ‘‘ideoscapes’’ within which locals operate (Appadurai 1996).

Conceptions of reality often clash in the intimate contact that is readily sup-

plied in the interactions within the tourism industry. This intimacy is increasingly

circumscribed and restricted to farther distances, placing tourists in tighter and

tighter bubbles outside of local reach at the behest of the tourist industry as a

‘‘security’’ measure (Gmelch 2003). Of course, locals are highly ambivalent over

this intimacy as well, some retreating and others ambiguously leaping in and out of

the fray, while still others embrace this ‘‘space’’ which is at once a place in the world,

but also, an imagined world (Appadurai 1996:33). The space created in tourist

interactions is an intimate frontier, where locals are redefined and where they re-

define ‘‘foreign’’ and ‘‘other,’’ but where both are often based on biased and/or

attenuated information. Denise Brennan explores this space in her work on ‘‘sexs-

capes’’ (1998:16) where Dominican sex workers encounter foreign clients in unique

and unconventional liaisons, with expectations that are realized by few women.

Likewise Steven Gregory demonstrates how complex these encounters can be: while

showing how European and American men reassert their ideology of a global order

with themselves at the apex, the agency of the Dominican women is not to be

underestimated: ‘‘Women who do sex work ignore, parody, and disrupt these

practices of homosociality as well as the attempts of male tourists to render them

docile ‘nonbeings’’’ (2003:344).

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Another example of borderless, unchecked, and haphazard cultural exchange is

the dramatic increase in violence, both domestic and public. A prominent physi-

cian attributes the increases in crime in Samaná to the visibility and dispropor-

tionate distribution of wealth through tourism, the lack of opportunity and

exposure to violent films. In Samaná there is an anxiety that has risen up around

tourism development in the community. Even those who are at the center and are

benefiting handsomely have voiced concern with the toll it is taking on Samaná

‘‘society.’’ In the following paragraphs I would like to position the various actors in

Samaná, by first unpacking some of the local ideology, then describing individuals

and groups and how the different ideoscapes come together in problematic

encounters.

The peninsula-province of Samaná is home to approximately 100,000 inhab-

itants who are primarily descended from Dominicans, Haitians, and U.S. African-

Americans. There are also people of French, English, and Spanish ancestries in the

area, and it is these heritages that are most commonly and publicly privileged de-

spite genealogies of African origin (Sagás 2000). On a national level there is a sys-

tematic denial and discrimination against ancestries associated with Africa and

HaitiFEuropean ancestries are exalted, particularly at an official level (Davis 1987; Sorensen 1993; Sagás 2000). The reasons behind this institutionalized racism are

based in complex historical events but encouraged by international racism.

Dominicans often deny the weight and significance of race. However, in

Samaná, where the range of skin color varies considerably, where a majority are

derived from African-Americans and Africans, and where African and Haitian

ancestries are outright denied, race, particularly for those of dark skin, is as im-

portant as it is complex (Torres-Saillant 1998). There are two concepts that clarify

this complex stance: pigmentocracy and blanquiando (whitening) (see Wade 1997;

Sagás 2000). Sagás (2000) examines the ‘‘hegemonic ideology’’ of anti-Haitian,

anti-African, and ultimately anti-black constructions in the Dominican Republic.

Emphasizing that Dominican racism has its origins in the light-skinned elite,

themselves often descendents of the Spanish colonizers, who create myths sur-

rounding Spanish origins and identity, Sagás clarifies how economic and nation-

alistic interests are served by convincing Dominicans that Haitians are the source of

their economic woes. This politically and economically divisive strategy has served

the elite for centuries and gets played out in everyday politics whereby there is

always someone of lesser status on whom to assign blame, thereby forfeiting any

attempt at class or race solidarity (Torres-Saillant 1998).

According to Sagás (2000), there is a ‘‘pigmentocracy’’ in the Dominican

Republic where the darkest skinned individuals, those most closely associated with

Haiti, and by extension Africa, occupy the lowest end of the economic strata.

Moving up the economic class system one finds a corresponding ‘‘lightening’’ in

Almost Paradise 151

skin color. This cultural and political stratification of a coordinated race and class

hierarchy in the Dominican Republic is supported by ideology surrounding race

and ‘‘anti-Haitianismo’’ (Torres-Saillant 1998). Perhaps to protect one’s family

from this discrimination, the notion of blanquiando, is the idea that you should

‘‘whiten’’ the family, thus the preference for daughters and sons to marry lighter

skinned partners (Sagás 2000). This ideology was heavily influenced by Trujillo, a

former dictator who ruled brutally for three decades and made it one of his goals to

lighten or whiten the Dominican population (Turits 2003; Martı́nez 2003). None-

theless, as a social construct the ‘‘pigmentocracy’’ is easily transgressed in the

interests of economics, thus someone can buy their way into a lighter skin category

and conversely, light-skin does not guarantee a space at the table: there are many

poor light-skinned Dominicans who nonetheless subscribe to the race ideology in

hope of gaining an advantage at some unforeseen time in the future.5

Not all in Samaná accept this mainstream discourse, and in limited contexts

some individuals, families and groups have taken to not only recognizing but ex-

alting their African ancestry through what is often labeled Dominican Vùdú (Davis

1987). The ideology surrounding race, at least in some contexts, is highly contested,

and it is here I find ‘‘ideoscapes’’ an important concept to clarify the myriad of

understandings and perspectives that exist. While there are clearly competing ide-

ologies surrounding race, there are also many individualistic understandings of

race, which further inform an individual’s position vis-à-vis the visitors or expa-

triates in the area. These understandings, particularly as they attend to notions of

race, origin, and identity, are undergoing significant shifts and are becoming more

central as exposure to foreigners increases. For example, North American notions

of race and hierarchy are quite distinct from Dominican understandings. Locally,

few people would consider themselves ‘‘black’’ by North American definitions, and

it is the contact with Europeans and North Americans that has brought these racial

categories home for the local Dominican population in a way not experienced be-

fore. Locally the terminology of race is categorized by the terms blanco (white),

indio (indian), moreno (dark-skinned) and negro (black). These categories not only

refer to skin color but are complicated by hair texture, facial features, and other

more obscure qualities, not least of which is wealth. These terms are employed

officially, that is, on identification cards (cedulas) and in everyday practice, for

example, nicknames (apodos, e.g. Rubio, Moreno, and Negro). Collapsing all

Dominicans into black/white categories and ignoring local nuances can be outra-

geously offensive to lighter-skinned, upper-class Dominicans, and those aspiring to

occupy these categories.

Another area where the notion of race, ethnicity, and identity is being refor-

mulated is in the context of religion. Dominicans, primarily the poorer segments,

unite with foreigners in the context of the Protestant-Evangelist movement, the

1 5 2 J O U R N A L O F L A T I N A M E R I C A N A N D C A R I B B E A N A N T H R O P O L O G Y

fastest growing religion in this predominately Catholic country. The relationship

with the United States is routinely reinforced as sister churches come south pro-

viding devotees with such irresistible spoils as new schools, churches, clothes, and

other benefits, which may include cash. Not to be overlooked is the growing im-

portance of forming wider alliances in a changing economic environment. The

consensus in Samaná is that evangelists are hardworking and trustworthy and often

there are unwritten rules of hiring only from this community.

The strict Protestant work ethic is conducive to a global economy based on

capitalism and cheap wage labor. Evangelists are prohibited from participating in

local politics, thus never confront the larger social structure; liberation will

come through hard work and following the bible, which is filtered through a North

American ideology. Any African heritage is denied and derogated in this context.

The Evangelist Protestant church members explicitly denounce Dominican Vùdú,

claiming it is Satan worship. As some of these practitioners are revering African and

Haitian Gods, the message is clear; African religious practices are evil and satanic.

Locals who work in and benefit from tourism reflect the class and race hierarchy.

There is a small group of local ‘‘elites,’’ primarily light-skinned or foreign whites who

have benefited handsomely. This elite is found among (transport and whale watch-

ing) boat owners, restaurant owners and certain, usually European, shop owners.

Less satisfied in the tourist industry are the majority of low-paid workers, generally

darker-skinned who are economically disadvantaged. They find the hours grueling

(six to seven-day work weeks), the wages insufficient and the tourists less than

amiable. Low-level workers are usually happy to be employed (particularly in close

proximity to their homes) but are, nonetheless, frustrated by barely tolerable work-

ing conditions, as my friend Bella described: ‘‘I work on Cayo, so I’m gone 12 hours a

day. I leave when it is dark and I return when it is dark and I’m working 6 days a week

right now, with one day off. How can you live like this?’’ Among the locals who are

the most disenchanted and frustrated with tourism are local unemployed and un-

deremployed individuals, accounting for a significant percentage of the population.

The tigres/buscones mentioned above are an example of this populace.

High-level managerial employees may be Dominicans from other regions of the

country or foreigners. As mentioned above, there is an expatriate community yet

few individuals actually maintain residence; that is, individual expatriates seem to

come and go but nonetheless, there is always an expatriate ‘‘presence’’ in Samaná.

The heterogeneity of this group is usually missed by the local population. Expa-

triates in Samaná range from young adults to octogenarians, from the very wealthy

to the very poor, and include North Americans and Europeans. Overwhelmingly

they are somehow connected with the tourist industry; many waiting to cash in on

the large scale development that is assumed to be coming, although some have

gotten old and died waiting. Yacht owners making a Caribbean tour were once

Almost Paradise 153

central to the waxing and waning tourist industry, supporting the few restaurants

and stores in town. Their significant absence has been a growing concern since

1998, both for its economic impact and the reflection on where the once sleepy

town is heading. There is a palpable sense in town that tourism is an economic

industry that should benefit the local community. There is resentment on both

sides: natives are resentful that expatriates are capitalizing on the local potential

they should be enjoying; and expatriates feel like they are doing all the hard work,

doing it the ‘‘right way’’ but are never able to realize the benefits of their labor. Many

expatriates leave frustrated and poor.

In Samaná, there are varying and contested ideas and experiences that create

contexts for misunderstanding and conflict. While tourism is the primary devel-

opment strategy of the country, the industry that will provide opportunities to lift

people out of dire poverty, it is rarely these same people who realize any benefits.

This happens for several pragmatic reasons, one obvious reason being the skewed

expectations of the varying groups vis-à-vis each other: Dominicans are not

schooled in the subservience expected of them, foreigners find paradise desanitized

and filled with demanding natives, and expatriates are looking to strike gold under

conditions over which they have little control or of which they have little/no

knowledge. The answer to this conflict, almost universally, has been to place tour-

ists into bubbles outside the reach of the local community, further ‘‘verticalizing’’

profits to fewer participants (Gmelch 2003; Pattullo 2005). This bubbling causes

further resentment on the side of Dominicans and even expatriates, and further fear

and misunderstanding on the side of tourists.

Reactions to the increasing transnational nature of the community and shifting

scapes of Samaná are multifaceted. The following ethnographic case study high-

lights the complex cultural politics in a transnational context. In the rubric of

Bourdieu (1977), the fields of race and class become the context where cultural and

symbolic capital intersect, and where, following Trouillot (1992), the larger context

constrains or allows individual agency. This case study highlights ‘‘the crucible

of cultural politics where transnational influences have been reworked through

grounded livelihood struggles’’ (Moore 2000:656). Tourism development becomes a

cultural field where individuals can respond, resist or accommodate according to

their interests, albeit in a context where the state is increasing its power and influ-

ence. The actors occupy very different spaces, but spaces that are highly fluid, shifting

with context. Here challenges to and of ‘‘Dominican identity’’ are direct and specific.

‘‘Ride the Surf ’’: A Small Town in a Big World

Eight boat owners participate in the Samaná Bay Boat Owners Association

(Asociación de Barcos de la Bahia de Samaná, hereafter the Association), which

1 5 4 J O U R N A L O F L A T I N A M E R I C A N A N D C A R I B B E A N A N T H R O P O L O G Y

enforces rules and regulations regarding transportation, fees, boat capacities, and so

forth, surrounding the tourist industry.6 The Dominican Navy generally monitors

the actions of the boats and works closely with the Association. Another nonprofit

organization, Center for the Conservation and Ecodevelopment of Samaná Bay and

its Surroundings (CEBSE), also works closely with the Association. CEBSE has been

in existence since 1991 and serves to increase community awareness regarding

natural resources, promote sustainable and eco-tourist enterprises, and promote

community development. There is a Cayo Levantado Vendors’ Association which

monitors the sale of foods, drinks, jewelry, clothes and crafts to tourists on the

island. Generally these agencies work together. In the past, issues of garbage, san-

itation of food preparation, harassment of tourists, organization of docking boats,

and so forth, have been mediated through these organizations. Approximately 200

families belong to the Vendor’s Association.

Cayo Levantado is featured in a rum commercial on German television and has

thus become something of a shrine to German tourists, who are now the most

numerous visitors to the region as a result. Sometime in 1996, a German company

called ‘‘Ride the Surf ’’ (RTS), 7

working out of its office in the United States, began

to investigate Samaná as a site to expand their business, after ‘‘visiting all of the

coastal regions of the country,’’ according to their letter of introduction to the Boat

Owners Association (letter from RTS to the Association, translation by author).

This company already had an operation in the Bahamas and declared their inten-

tions to expand into Samaná to offer water sports such as diving and submarining

in ‘‘bobs,’’ underwater scooters ‘‘of the newest technology.’’ Describing their similar

operation in or near a protected national park in the Bahamas, the company em-

phasized their concern for the natural environment. They also told the Association

they had received a provisional license for six months from the Marina de Guerra

(Dominican Navy). At a meeting the Association had with the company and re-

iterated in their letter, RTS confirmed that it would not infringe on the tourist

markets of the Association, but would only be introducing a new activity into the

area. By this time, however (as stated in their letter), they had already undertaken

an ‘‘exhaustive cleaning’’ of the north beach on Cayo Levantado and begun the

construction of two muertos, ten-ton moorings that would enable them to avoid

dropping anchor directly onto the bay floor. Using river boats modified for water

sports allowed them to essentially run a resort on the water; they brought the con-

cept of all-inclusive for day-pax to a new level.

RTS quickly realized, however, that the real market in Samaná lay not in the

limited diving possibilities, but in excursions to see whales and visit Los Haitises,

and the transport to Cayo Levantado, all the while providing tour and catering

services. Within six months, by April of 1997, RTS began transport to Cayo. The

Association quickly organized to protest this invasion of their market, particularly

Almost Paradise 155

considering the ‘‘irregular’’ conditions under which this German company received

its license. The Association first wrote to all authorities possible, looking for sup-

port. Failing this they took their forum to the newspapers in November and De-

cember of 1997 and eventually turned to a strike to keep RTS off of Cayo on January

4, 1998 (the start of the tourist season).

RTS responded quickly and on January 7, 1998, sent a letter to the Association

where their intentions were outlined in the proposal. RTS declared unilaterally that

it would combine operations of the Association and RTS because it had ‘‘excellent

marketing and sales capacity’’ and ‘‘specialized in the operation of marine trans-

port.’’ RTS also noted that most visitors to the area have ‘‘uncomfortable voyages,’’

and by working together tourists could ‘‘enjoy whatever and all options that

Samaná offers.’’ A series of 19 ‘‘basic points’’ essentially dismantled the Association

members’ power, autonomy, and agency, handing this over to RTS who would

redefine and control all aspects of tourism in the region. The Association members

would in effect become subcontractors for RTS.

The final point of the agreement included the following statements: ‘‘Our in-

terest is in securing the highest quantity of persons possible: our projections are to

have approximately 2,000 persons a day. With this agreement with the association we

will manage the clients who visit Samaná no matter what excursion they take: ‘Ride

the Surf,’ Isla Bacardi, Los Haitises or Whale Watching’’ (Proposal of RTS to the

Association, January 9, 1998). RTS apparently hoped that by outlining the poten-

tially large profits the boat owners would overlook their loss of autonomy or con-

trol over their businesses, as well as forfeiting their roles in the marketing and

promotion of their products. Despite their mention of a concern for the environ-

ment earlier in the proposal, their clear intentions were to increase business and, by

appealing to that aspect of the Association, they assumed complete compliance.

Compliance, however, was not forthcoming from the Association. While they

had to accept the presence of RTS in Samaná they wanted to control its encroach-

ment onto the Association’s territory. Their response was both formal and infor-

mal. Strikes were organized which limited or prevented access to the peninsula for

all travelers, thus arousing national and even international interest on the eve of the

tourist season. Strikes in the Dominican Republic are reminiscent of blockades as

their purpose is to halt transportation upon which, of course, tourism hinges.

Formally, a letter was quickly drawn up by the Association president and sent to the

secretary of tourism directly addressing the terms of the proposal. In sum, the letter

outlined the limited economic opportunities in the community, the monopoly RTS

would have on the market, the lack of knowledge regarding the culture and history

of the area, the ecological impact a huge increase in tourist traffic would have on the

delicate ecosystem, and finally that this proposal would be serving foreign interests

with no benefits for the community or region. Here they discussed the role of

1 5 6 J O U R N A L O F L A T I N A M E R I C A N A N D C A R I B B E A N A N T H R O P O L O G Y

tourism development in aiding the local economy and community, stressing that a

foreign company would be monopolizing an industry and resource the community

had built from the ground up. A meeting was then called in February 1998 by the

minister of tourism with the Association and RTS. RTS was then prohibited from

entering Cayo and was directed to subcontract with the Association. The terms of

subcontracting with members of the Association were still under negotiation, until

RTS eventually took its operation elsewhere.

Other details surrounding this issue that worked in the community’s favor,

according to several informants, were the rumors of the company’s involvement in

a larger parent company who had a questionable reputation, the ‘‘irregular’’ con-

ditions under which RTS obtained permission to operate, and the inside connec-

tions that the company had with an outgoing government. Many payments are

suspected to change hands during negotiations for rights and contracts surround-

ing tourist development projects, frequently benefiting individuals rather than the

community. Thus, in this case, a new administration would have had little left to

gain from supporting RTS, while its image as a government for the people was

enhanced by siding with the community. Despite the concern for the administra-

tion’s image internationally as one of welcoming investment, it gave in to pressure

from the community.

Cultural Capital in Tourist Development

Anthropology’s concern for the ‘‘other’’ has been its hallmark, and in promoting

this concern anthropology has also both mirrored and promoted a popular interest

in foreign lands and peoples by the West, without the result scholars may have

anticipated. The booming stock market in the 1990s and the ensuing foreign in-

vestment plays on popularly construed notions of the ‘‘other’’ living in places that

are at once pristine and untouched while also inhabited by the not quite civilized

native. These sweeping generalized views of foreign countries invite investors who

are convinced they are providing a service for the local community while reaping

substantial profits. The American representative of RTS told one boat owner:

‘‘Don’t these people know we are going to help them? That we are good at this?’’ The

boat owner’s indignant reply demonstrated the transparency of the public tran-

script: ‘‘Why do you think it is alright for you to come down here and make money

for your investors and pay off your debt, while Samaná gets nothing out of this?

No one wants your help.’’

The actors of the Association who defended their right to maintain sovereignty

over the industry they helped build deserve further scrutiny. The founders of the

‘‘whale watching’’ industry, which gave rise to commercial excursions to the Na-

tional Park, were a Canadian expatriate and a Dominican national. The Dominican

Almost Paradise 157

eventually left for the United States, leaving the Canadian behind to build the in-

dustry, which she did very successfully. So successfully in fact, that an ambitious

and well-connected businessman (and aspiring boat owner) in the town quickly

seized the opportunity to displace her, calling on her expatriate status versus his

Dominican status (as his justification to exploit the natural resources for local or

‘‘native’’ advantage). When expatriates are visibly benefiting from the industry it is

seen as being at the expense of natives. The discourse around tourism in Samaná

recounts a long history where foreign entrepreneurs encounter insurmountable

legal, logistical, and financial obstacles before they give up and leave. At times co-

vert resistance turns into outright sabotage: I have documented several events in my

field notes. While foreigners are targets and events are disturbing, more important

is the discourse surrounding such incidences in both communities. The strong

anti-foreign attitude is linked to who gets to profit from locally based enterprises.

This bias has often been extended to Dominicans from other regions and countries

(e.g., Dominicans from New York). This appears paradoxical: the area is econom-

ically depressed, yet attempts to integrate tourism into the local economy, because

they were initiated by foreigners, were undermined or thwarted. This distinction of

‘‘us’’ versus ‘‘them’’ is taught at quite a young age.

In the summer of 2004, I attended an outing with a summer remedial reading

program for elementary school students. Graduation was celebrated with a trip for

the children and their families to spend the day on Cayo Levantado, sponsored

by tourist businesses. An American expatriate was one of the teachers who attended

the outing. Sitting with the group she witnessed a quarrel between one of the

Dominican families and two children of Italian tourists. Lounging nearby I heard

the end of the conflict and asked for details. She recounted the incident for me as

follows:

The Dominican boy was telling his dad about this crab that the Italian boy had

caught and his father told him, ‘‘you go and take it’’ (vengate macho, vengate grapo)

(encouraging him) y ‘‘you go and take the crab’’ encouraging him to go y and he

apparently took it from the Italian boy y the Italian boy protested and was really

upset y and here’s the Dominican mother and father arguing and taunting and

making fun of this little Italian boy who’s no more than eight or nine.

After much ado the Italian boy’s elder sister intervened with her fluent Spanish

and convinced the parents to return the crab.

This incident is indicative of the hostility and resentment fostered through

tourism in the region, where many necessities are siphoned from the needy to meet

the demands of tourists. Infrastructure, like potable water, decent roads, electricity

grids, are all set up for the foreign visitors, while most rural and urban areas do

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without. Moreover, expatriates all too often follow the model of privilege set by the

local elite, whereby the majority of the population, poor and uneducated, is both

exploited and at times outright abused by business owners.8 Many Dominicans

question expatriates’ motivations for relocating to the region, especially as few are

schooled in the cultural sensitivity and managerial skills that can assist them in their

entrepreneurial adventures. Many expatriates in Samaná benefit from the power of

their foreign currency and their skin color, and proceed to treat the lower classes in

ways unimaginable back home (Brennan 1998; Gregory 2003). The antiforeigner

discourse, not unexpectedly, is played out in various milieus. Relationships are

often strained: marriages between expatriates and Dominicans in the region fre-

quently end in divorce; the Dominican partner taking a Dominican lover is seen not

only as natural and inevitable, but almost an obligation of the girlfriend or boy-

friend to ‘‘take back what is ours’’ (c.f. Brennan 2004). The tendency to take ad-

vantage of foreigners who are perceived as naı̈ve and ripe for exploitation by locals

who share emic understandings is also reported by Sorensen (1993).

The ‘‘local’’ businessman mentioned above who tried and briefly succeeded in

taking over the whale-watching industry from the Canadian, using this same dis-

course to his advantage, is nonetheless a relative newcomer to the region. His father

migrated to Samaná as a young man. Reportedly the father set up colmados (small

neighborhood stores), liberally extended credit and then repossessed land when

payment was not forthcoming. The narratives behind their rise to wealth and

power were usually recounted as confirmation that the family used ruthless and

underhanded methods. This family is now seen as native, a point emphasized by two

family members, who have vowed never to leave or sell their property to ‘‘foreign-

ers.’’9 During the RTS negotiations, the Canadian played an important role in

resisting the takeover. During this time, she noted, the Association included her as a

local, a fact that she mentioned with irony. When does an outsider become native? Or

in Bourdieu’s language who defines cultural capital in Samaná? (Bourdieu 1977).

A wrinkle in negotiations between RTS and the Association occurred when the

president of the Vendors’ Association negotiated a deal with RTS without consult-

ing or notifying the Association. This move compromised the arguments of the

Association and weakened their bargaining power. While one member of the ne-

gotiating team declared that it was the current president merely having a show of

power, it nonetheless complicated the situation significantly. Surprisingly, solidar-

ity on the local level was highly fragile if not imaginary. While vendors struggle to

etch out an existence, much larger profits (in U.S. currency) are realized by the boat

owners. Thus the Association was ‘‘sandwiched’’ between the threat of control from

a larger, more powerful foreign entity while being challenged from below by a less

powerful, but pivotal organization. What was left for the Association to negotiate

on both these levels was the appeal of the Association’s Dominican-ness, its cultural

Almost Paradise 159

capital, even as two of the eight members had questionable claims to this identity,

one being Canadian and another from Spain.

Following Bourdieu (1977), this case study illustrates the transformation of a

cultural field. Dominican-ness was presumed to be ‘‘inalienable cultural capital’’

that is, having value ‘‘above the values of the marketplace’’ (Webb et al. 2002:28)

from the perspective of the Association. However, the Vendor’s Association, made

up of lower-class residents of the area, had long shared inalienable cultural capital

in the values of loyalty and allegiance to their Dominican identity, yet here are

willing to forgo this capital to embrace market assets. Hutchins identifies a similar

agency among the Kichwa: ‘‘what Whitten calls ‘the duality of power patterning,’

through which a subordinate group can turn acquiescence to a more powerful

institution y into a form of protest’’ (2007:83). While the Association made their

cause public, the Vendor’s protest was less visible, but perhaps more significant. In

Samaná predictable and stable relationships are challenged in ever more unex-

pected milieus, redefining individual and group status and identity; old hierarchies

are challenged, race and even status as ‘‘insider’’ versus ‘‘outsider’’ become ever

more pliable to the demands of globalization and tourism development.

Local history suggests that there has been occasional conflict between various

sectors of Dominican society, yet there has also been a privilege and loyalty enjoyed

by Dominican elites that now, at least in Samaná, is beginning to erode as economic

conditions continue to shift. Thus the movement away from cultural to material

capital is a slow change in Samaná but one that may prevail. Ultimately the vendors

did not win the higher-priced contract with RTS as the Association’s resistance, by

appealing locally and nationally to a cultural capital, was successful. However, as

international and national businesses move into the area both Associations are

finding their positions attenuated in their quest to define cultural capital.

Hutchins (2007) demonstrates that tourism development and the ensuing cul-

tural politics not only creates but also plays on existing tensions within and between

communities. Yet conversely, as we see here, it may also draw in unlikely alliances.

In contrast to the Ecuadorian Amazon, where the ‘‘natives’’ are as much a com-

modity in tourism appeal as the ‘‘sacred places,’’ Samaná natives have neither. It is

the Samaná natives who must stake their claim to ‘‘place’’ in the Samaná context, a

practice that is rife with contradiction and conflict, and may be a losing battle. As

Hutchins points out, ‘‘place is not only a location where physical processes are

carried out, it is also where possibilities are played out, and where y agency and

attitude are developed’’ (Hutchins 2007:88). Thus while the Kichwa in Ecuador

may need to redefine ‘‘places’’ to conform to transnational demands, in Samaná

individuals or groups are constantly needing to redefine themselves and bring the

urgency of this definition to the table to affect agency and attitude; mutability may

be Samanese only means of capturing power. The fluidity and instability of tourism

1 6 0 J O U R N A L O F L A T I N A M E R I C A N A N D C A R I B B E A N A N T H R O P O L O G Y

development in Samaná is perhaps the only constant. As I write, the challenge to

Samaná is growing in intensity. New hotels are being built, expansions of existing

hotels are opening, Cayo is all but private. Local food vendors on Cayo, once as

many as 45 were a mere 15 in 2007, selling a tipico buffet of local cuisine for $8, while

Bahia Cruise sells an international buffet for $10. Transnational power continues to

threaten Samaná yet there is no sense that Samanese are ready to give up their

‘‘weapons of the weak’’ (Scott 1990).

Conclusions

In this paper I have attempted to draw attention to globalization, emphasizing its

influence through and on the international level (e.g., IMF policies), the national

level (e.g., regulating tourism), and transnationalism (e.g., the changing ‘‘scapes’’

in Samaná) and the local-level struggles, often articulated through a discourse of

identity, that are ‘‘simultaneously material and symbolic’’ (Bisharat 1997, Moore

2000:656). Tourism development, like other development projects, as Moore el-

oquently points out, ‘‘needs to be conceptualized not as a machine that secures

fixed and determined outcomes but rather as a site of contestation, its boundaries

carved out through the situated practices that constitute livelihood struggles’’

(2000:656). Tourism in the Caribbean is frequently developed in line with the

Western imagination of paradise (Sheller 2003; Pattullo 2005). Isolated, ‘‘out of the

way’’ places are targeted as potential hotspots, attracting both people and capital.

Small towns in the path of major touristic development are being radically trans-

formed to meet the needs of travelers and guests. Tourists bring the promise of

jobs, economic development, and increased wealth and security to the local

community, yet the increases in employment, wealth, and security are not evenly

distributed. The visibility of inequality confronts people on a daily basis, yet,

at the same time, it keeps alive the promise of prosperity. Several cultures come

together in ways that are often circumscribed yet unpredictable, creating an imag-

ination surrounding development and modernity. There is much at stake for

Samaná residents in the newly constructed space of tourism development: cultural

capital is being redefined and material concerns are becoming ever more urgent in

a changing economy. Shifting ethnoscapes and ideoscapes converge on ‘‘place’’

since, as suggested earlier, it is both the attraction and commodity for sale in a

tourism context.

Place, however, is not the only commodity, nor the only concern. I would argue

it is not coincidental that Samaná in the late 1990s was the focus of intense interest

from Dominican sociologists and tourism officials. The distinct identity of

Samaná, Dominicans of dark-skinned African-American and Haitian descent,

had long been a stigma and suspected reason for neglect of the region. In the field of

Almost Paradise 161

tourism, marketing of the exotic began to shift values at a national level, this oc-

curring at a time when concerns over identity are more liberally voiced, and selling

Dominican culture is a key enticement in an extremely competitive tourist market.

Subaltern definitions (e.g., embracing your African identity, practicing Dominican

Vùdú, etc.), ironically, can assist in attracting tourism, putting the state in an

ambiguous position as it has long tried to deny these aspects of Dominican-ness

(Torres-Saillant 1998; Sagás 2000). Moreover, the sterilized identity of Dominican-

ness promoted by the elite is directly challenged through tourism as locals are

confronted with Western definitions of race and ethnicity which are all too often

contrary to the official or public transcript (Scott 1990). Thus tourism produces

shifting or new ideoscapes, while legitimizing some and undermining still others.

Meanwhile changes in the ethnoscapes create further instability of and challenges

to Dominican identity. This case study reminds us that the processes of disentan-

gling individual and group interests with the concept of ‘‘identity’’ is

always conditioned by both larger forces in the world (e.g., history, geo-politics,

etc.) and local discourses and practices. Identity in Samaná has always been a mul-

tifaceted and complex process, situated in historical processes that are intended to

destabilize issues of identity so that national political and economic interests might

prevail (Mintz 1974). The current cultural politics of identity and tourism in

Samaná suggest that this process is now more complex and challenging than ever

before:

It is important to point out that the transformation of a field, whether it is dramatic

or gradual, does not occur in a consistent or homogeneous fashion. Certain

sub-sections or even pockets of a field may embrace the transformation of the field

much more quickly. As a result, that field is usually ‘‘traumatised’’ by fairly overt

disagreements and agonistics, primarily over which part most truly represents or

embodies the field and its values. [Webb et al. 2002:29–30]

Attention to the details of these struggles through ethnography, reveal both

contemporary and historical processes that give us new insight into resistance and

accommodation between the ‘‘powerful’’ and the ‘‘powerless,’’ demonstrating the

instability and fragility of such spaces.

Acknowledgments

Research funding for this project was provided in part by a grant from a Rockefeller

Foundation Humanities Fellowship and a Connecticut State University summer

research grant. I thank four anonymous reviewers and particularly, Jean Muteba

Rahier whose insightful and thoughtful comments allowed me to strengthen my

1 6 2 J O U R N A L O F L A T I N A M E R I C A N A N D C A R I B B E A N A N T H R O P O L O G Y

theoretical analysis, thus significantly enhancing this article. I also thank Andrew

Canessa and his assistant Lucy Glover for their very patient editorial assistance.

Several colleagues have read, commented on, and significantly contributed to the

development of this article including Ann Miles, Chaise LaDousa, Shubhra Gu-

rurani, Gretchen Herrmann, and Ann Schiller. In Samaná, I have received unlim-

ited support from Kim Beddall, Mayra de la Cruz, Mario Jhonson, Jody, Dr.

Fernandez, Dr. Caccivelli, the staff at CEBSE, particularly Patricia Lamelas, and

countless other dear friends and helpful informants. An earlier version of this paper

was presented at the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological

Sciences Conference in Florence, Italy in 2003.

Notes

1This situation has transformed throughout the tourism development of the 1990s as local chefs

have learned to adapt the buffet to European tastes, hygiene, and presentation. 2 The term tigre in the Dominican Republic has evolved from meaning a young, single male, street

wise and manipulative, to someone involved in crime (hustling, drugs, robbery, etc.) and is identified by

flashier, New York-style dress. In Samaná independent tour guides who race to greet itinerant travelers

are called tigres and/or buscones, thus a less extreme interpretation than elsewhere in the Dominican

Republic. One informant laughingly remarked that the tigres can get you anything from ice to a pros-

titute. (See, for a historical discussion, Derby 2000) 3Personal communication with Kim Beddall, owner of Whale Samaná. 4 Quincentenary events in Samaná forced questions surrounding identity: a statue was constructed

in a central location paying tribute to the Tainos, a Caribbean visiting theater troupe portrayed black

slaves being brought to the Caribbean, and graffiti expressed discontent against ‘‘500 years of thievery.’’ 5 See Sagás (2000) for a discussion of race and politics in the Dominican Republic.

6The Asociación de Dueños de Barcos de la Bahia de Samaná Inc., is a non-profit organization set

up by presidential decree dedicated to (1) the involvement of everyone who participates in marine

transportation either commercially or for touristic purposes and (2) with the intent to improve and

develop marine transportation and activity in compliance with the norms and regulations of the navy to

benefit the community of Samaná and the Dominican Republic. 7 A pseudonym.

8 Aside from the demanding work conditions is the key complaint that most workers are terminated

at the end of the season. 9The government has appropriated land along the waterfront in Samaná for development.

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