Foreign Affairs. January-February 2020

Recent Books

January/February 2020 191

Christian Bendayán critically explored

the way Europeans eroticized the

Amazonian jungle and its populations.

In the Chilean pavilion, Voluspa Jarpa

reduced Latin American history to a

series of degrading impositions by

“hegemonic” powers. In sharp contrast

to these offerings from South America,

the art in the pavilions of China and the

United States—today’s preeminent

powers—while not ignoring the contra-

dictions of the human condition,

reveled in those countries’ respective

national achievements.

Sounds of Vacation: Political Economies of

Caribbean Tourism

EDITED BY JOCELYNE GUILBAULT

AND TIMOTHY ROMMEN. Duke

University Press, 2019, 248 pp.

In this innovative but uneven collection

of essays, anthropologists and ethnomu-

sicologists explore the sounds and music

of the all-inclusive resorts (hotels offering

prepaid vacation packages that include

lodging, meals, and entertainment) that

are booming all over the Caribbean. The

scholars borrow from critical theory—in-

cluding a Marxist focus on the alienation

of labor and postmodern pessimism—

with some going so far as to compare the

resorts to slave plantations. None of the

contributors brings a business background

to the study of what are, after all, com-

mercial enterprises. In their ethnographic

interviews of resort managers and musi-

cians, some of the contributors discover

that studious deliberations go into

choosing the melodies, tempos, sequenc-

ing, volume, and placement of songs in

public areas, with attention paid to

carefully balancing familiar tunes with

the discovery of new sounds; such

transgender rights, sex and gender
education in public schools, and abor-
tion. In Smith’s view, the ultimate
impact of the rise of evangelicals remains
to be seen. On the one hand, an intoler-
ant dualism—dividing the world into
sinners and the faithful—would threaten
democratic norms. On the other hand,
Smith suggests a more hopeful outcome
if clergy and their congregants enter
electoral politics and have their beliefs
moderated by involvement in democratic
practices. In Smith’s surveys, clergy
expressed strong support for democracy
“as the best form of government.”

May You Live in Interesting Times, the
58th International Art Exhibit,
Biennale Arte 2019
CURATED BY RALPH RUGOFF AND
ORGANIZED BY LA BIENNALE DI
VENEZIA. Biennale Foundation, 2019.

At the 58th edition of the contemporary
art world’s most prominent international
event, Latin American and Caribbean
countries hosted 13 of the 87 national
pavilions. Ministries of culture or foreign
affairs, often in collaboration with
national experts, selected local artists for
the high honor of showcasing their
creative works in Venice. Among the
Latin American offerings, Swinguerra, a
Brazilian video installation, dazzled with
exuberant Afro-Brazilian dancers
proudly asserting their complex identities,
including some who identified as
nonbinary. Other Latin American artists
presented much darker visions. In the
Argentine pavilion, Mariana Telleria
erected a parade of large, ominous
creatures gathered in what her curator
described as a “dystopian cultural
landscape.” In the Peruvian pavilion,