Returning the gaze from the margins: decoding representations of gender, race and sexuality in tourist images of Jamaica

Abstract

The thesis adopts a post-colonial approach to examine the relationship between historical and contemporary visual representations of Jamaica and identifies the repeated visual associations made with blackness and servitude, and whiteness with luxury from the colonial period in Jamaica and the imperial context in Britain. The thesis addresses a range of tourist advertising images of Jamaica which are analysed in terms of their representations of race, gender, class and sexuality. The theoretical context of the thesis combines post-colonial theory with black feminist theory to make explicit the significance and relevance of conducting critical analysis of visual representations of Jamaica from a social, economic and politically marginal standpoint. Homi Bhabha's concept of ambivalence in colonial discourse, Foucault's approach to discourse analysis and Roland Barthes' semiotics were combined to establish the methodological framework of the thesis and to identify, historicise and deconstruct the repetition of familiar colonial relations constructed as privilege and servitude.The economic and social context, which led to the shift towards tourism in post-emancipation Jamaica, is discussed through the analysis of a selection of visual texts