Tourism and Informal Encounters in Cuba [Hardcover]

Based on a detailed ethnography, this book explores the promises and expectations of tourism in Cuba, drawing attention to the challenges that tourists and local people face in establishing meaningful connections with each other. Notions of informal encounter and relational idiom illuminate ambiguous experiences of tourism harassment, economic transactions, hospitality, friendship, and festive and sexual relationships. Comparing these various connections, the author shows the potential of touristic encounters to redefine their moral foundations, power dynamics, and implications, offering new insights into how contemporary relationships across difference and inequality are imagined and understood.

Foreword
Nelson Graburn

Acknowledgments

Introduction:Relating through Tourism

PART I: ACHIEVING ENCOUNTERS

Chapter 1.Tourism in Cuba
Chapter 2.Shaping Expectations
Chapter 3.Gaining Access
Chapter 4.Getting in Touch

PART II: SHAPING RELATIONS

Chapter 5.Commodity Exchange and Hospitality
Chapter 6.Friendliness and Friendship
Chapter 7.Partying and Seducing
Chapter 8.Seduction and Commoditized Sex

Conclusion:Treasuring Fragile Relations

References
Endnotes

WINNER OF THE 2018 NELSON GRABURN BOOK PRIZE

Tourism and Informal Encounters in Cubaoffers useful material for academics such as ethnographers and sociologists and researchers in the business community, but also for politicians, tourists, and commercial enterprises to understand the nature and impact of the Cuban husl5