| Since the seminal work of Britton (1979), research on tourism representation has found that the tourism industry uses stereotypical images to promote destinations in developing nations. Positioning Trinidad Carnival as both a signifier of Trinidadian national identity and a cultural tourism product, this study explored visual representation of the 21st century Carnival. From its historical origins of resistance, and conflicts of race, nation, class, gender and sexuality, representation of the Trinidad Carnival has developed along two main dominant representations; folkloric and jump and wave (Green, 2007). Folkloric representation is often valued as more culturally significant than the jump and wave representation that is commonly associated with the Carnival in the 21st century. Using Homi Bhabha's concept of Third Space as a framework, this study critically examined popular representation of Carnival in Digital Video Discs (DVDs) and sought to uncover resistance to the jump and wave representation. Considerations of how resistance to and negotiation of commercialization revealed a hybrid representation of Trinidad Carnival that is not completely traditional nor is it totally new. |
