Arguing Over The "Caribbean": Tourism on Costa Rica's Caribbean Coast1

[...]the pick-up lines of some men, who ask women directly: "do you want to be with a Rasta?" This suggests a blithe awareness and acceptance of the "commodification" railed against by various scholars (Crystal 1978, Ford-Smith 1995, Sanchez Taylor 2000, etc) - and the need for consideration of agency in complaints about "commodification" of culture and bodies (see also Selwyn 1996, Tilley 1997, Abram & Waldren [eds.] 1997). [...]it has frortt its very origins, owing to the possibility of "multiple readings" (Hepner 1998: 212) of its "fundamentally ambiguous symbols" (Yawney cited in Hepner 1998: 213). [...]while some in Cuba, for example, have adopted the "style," some have taken on the "religion" (its beliefs and rituals), and others its "philosophy" (oneness, equality, justice) (Hansing 2001: 737-40). If they are successful in attracting and attaching themselves to what Loke (2000) calls the "Western currency" of affluence, mobility and prestige held by the Euro-American tourists, they will participate in the symbols of prestige and status that are important in Cahuita, such as travel, goods (as gifts from the women), and so on. [...]while "Rasta" is a readily "readable" symbol of opposition, a visual indicator of marginality, it is, surprisingly perhaps, also an attempt to comply with village norms of status. [...]one could posit Rastafarianism's symbols and even the Rasta body as a metonym for the Caribbean itself.