A Small Place

The tourist goes to "exotic" lands to get away from "a life of overwhelming and crushing banality and boredom and desperation and depression." I was enthralled by Kincaid's sardonic tone and the critiques she gave throughout A Small Place, as she articulates issues that have crossed my mind on my multiple abroad experiences. Here, she calls on tourists to recognize themselves and what they are doing in their practices. As Western tourists, we treat these decolonized/post-colonial countries as "untouched paradises", and forget the livelihood and existence of the people that live there. We Westerners (if we have the money) have the luxury to temporarily escape our condition.  But as Kincaid points out, this escapism isn't available to everyone.

Colonization created certain systems of oppression (creating certain sexist and racists structures that remain in place today) in Kincaid's Antigua. When the British withdrew in the middle of the 20th century, post-colonial life did not equate with Antiguans suddenly having political autonomy. Instead, something of a political vacuum occurs, where there is a scramble by multiple groups to seize power. Kincaid asks, "Have you ever wondered why it is that all we seem to have learned from you is how to corrupt our societies and how to be tyrants?" (34) Post-colonialism the way Kincaid describes it does not mean that suddenly everything is in order, but that the Antiguans are still struggling with the past through everyday events. Kincaid lists the problems in the wake of decolonization. There's the continued stripping of resources, however this time it looks a little different. Money is being funneled out of the country by "foreigners" who establish themselves in Antigua and then exploit the people and the land, as well as take control of political and economic power.

I think Kincaid really gets at life post-colonialism. We Westerners assume that life in these countries has established and maintains some sort of "normalcy". Instead, life for the Antiguans is more about grappling with the past in the present, and the new problems the country faces. The reason that the first chapter works so well is that it poses the question of what has changed. How far have "we" come, really? In the era of globalization and neoliberalism, everything becomes commodified. Those that can travel go off to distant lands to escape their "boring" lives. But in this era of post-colonialism, I don't know how much we are removed from the structures in place from colonialism. These islands like Antigua are places we go to visit, where the people there are "expected" to provide us with an ideal experience. It always has made me cringe when, on school sponsored study abroad trips, members of my group can only think of relating to service people by asking the questions "Have you been to the United States?" or "Do you ever plan on visiting [the US]?" This places us at the center of not only our world, but their's too, and some tourists cannot fathom life beyond their purview. To me, it seems as those tourism ends up being almost an extension, an outgrowth, of colonialism. Colonialism 2.0. [Obviously, this is a little reductive.] It begs the questions: why is it called "post-colonialism," who get to name it that, and can there ever really be a separate and distinctive "after colonialism" that is concretely separated from the past? Or that the present is not wrestling with the past, that there's not a sort of hangover from this arbitrarily defined period?