EN
In this paper I examine the social and cultural impact of tourism and tourists on social relations and ethnic imaginaries in the local communities in Jamaica including those where the industry has not been developed. Global spread of the tourist industry and its impact on the growing number of everyday life aspects of people across the world, both tourists and host communities members, make tourism-related issues crucial for anthropology. The tourist industry is the main sector of Jamaican economy and also a powerful force in the Jamaican social life. The interplay between tourism and Jamaican communities cannot be reduced to the Jamaica’s subordination to the global capital, overwhelming neoliberalism, Western imaginaries and foreign tourists needs evident in mass tourism expansion which are symbolised by the image of the enclave resorts – “the all-inclusive prisons”. Jamaica is a relatively young nation still internally negotiating its multiple identities and confronting imaginaries of the Other and Self with the external imaginaries of Jamaica inhabitants and their conditions of life on which the country’s and local communities ability to absorb tourist money heavily depends. These sets of imaginaries subsequently influence the Jamaicans’ life-aspirations and everyday living strategies. The paper draws on observations and reflections deriving from the ethnographic research conducted by the author in Jamaica in 2011.