Brand Jamaica: Reimagining a National Image and Identity (Hardcover)
Brand Jamaica is an empirical look at the postindependence national image and branding project of Jamaica within the context of nation-branding practices at large. Although a tiny Caribbean island inhabited by only 2.8 million people, Jamaica commands a remarkably large presence on the world stage. Formerly a colony of Britain and shaped by centuries of slavery, violence, and plunder, today Jamaica owes its popular global standing to a massively successful troika of brands: music, sports, and destination tourism. At the same time, extensive media attention focused on its internal political civil war, mushrooming violent crime, inflation, unemployment, poverty, and abuse of human rights have led to perceptions of the country as unsafe.
Brand Jamaica explores the current practices of branding Jamaica, particularly within the context of postcoloniality, reconciles the lived realities of Jamaicans with the contemporary image of Jamaica projected to the world, and deconstructs the current tourism model of sun, sand, and sea. Hume Johnson and Kamille Gentles-Peart bring together multidisciplinary perspectives that interrogate various aspects of Jamaican national identity and the dominant paradigm by which it has been shaped.
Brand Jamaica explores the current practices of branding Jamaica, particularly within the context of postcoloniality, reconciles the lived realities of Jamaicans with the contemporary image of Jamaica projected to the world, and deconstructs the current tourism model of sun, sand, and sea. Hume Johnson and Kamille Gentles-Peart bring together multidisciplinary perspectives that interrogate various aspects of Jamaican national identity and the dominant paradigm by which it has been shaped.
Hume Johnson is an associate professor of public relations and media studies at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. She is the author of Challenges to Civil Society: Popular Protest and Governance in Jamaica. Kamille Gentles-Peart is an associate professor of communication and media studies at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. She is the author of Romance with Voluptuousness: Caribbean Women and Thick Bodies in the United States (Nebraska, 2016) and the coeditor, with Maurice L. Hall, of Re-constructing Place and Space: Media, Power, Discourse and the Constitution of Caribbean Diasporas.
"This collection offers new ideas for fuller global representation of Jamaica."—R. Berleant-Schiller, Choice
"The contributors to Brand Jamaica write from the perspectives of political science, tourism and hospitality studies, media studies, cultural and literary studies, and Caribbean studies. The book contributes new material to all of these fields. Making an original contribution to studies of Jamaican tourism and national identity, it also models a multidisciplinary approach to the critical assessment of the promises and shortcomings of the nation-branding trend, worldwide."—Colleen Ballerino Cohen, New West Indian Guide
“In the realm of tourism and tourism development, questions of the social, economic, and political ramifications of state-directed policies and their impact on local stakeholders are of utmost importance. An interesting scholarly study, this book is also a manifesto that lays out potential policy strategies that might be applied by the Jamaican government.”—Evan Ward, associate professor of history at Brigham Young University
"The contributors to Brand Jamaica write from the perspectives of political science, tourism and hospitality studies, media studies, cultural and literary studies, and Caribbean studies. The book contributes new material to all of these fields. Making an original contribution to studies of Jamaican tourism and national identity, it also models a multidisciplinary approach to the critical assessment of the promises and shortcomings of the nation-branding trend, worldwide."—Colleen Ballerino Cohen, New West Indian Guide
“In the realm of tourism and tourism development, questions of the social, economic, and political ramifications of state-directed policies and their impact on local stakeholders are of utmost importance. An interesting scholarly study, this book is also a manifesto that lays out potential policy strategies that might be applied by the Jamaican government.”—Evan Ward, associate professor of history at Brigham Young University