A Small Place 653kinCaiD, jamaiCa A Small Place
(1988)
Kincaid was born and raised in Antigua while it was
still a British colony. She received a British educa-
tion and learned the British view of history. Leaving
Antigua at 16 to become an au-pair (live-in babysit-
ter) in New York, she did not return to Antigua for
20 years. By that time, Antigua was no longer a Brit-
ish colony but had become an independent nation,
with a freely elected black government. However,
the average Antiguan was worse off than before,
buildings were in disrepair, the government was
corrupt, and the people seemed unable to believe
that anything could change for the better. A tiny
minority of well-to-do white people still exerted a
tremendous negative influence on the island’s native
inhabitants, the descendants of slaves who had
begun to arrive shortly after Columbus discovered
the island in 1493.
Kincaid begins her essay from the point of view
of a white male tourist from North America or
Europe. She shows how the tourist commodifies
Antigua and Antiguans in the same way the Brit-
ish colonizers did—the island and its inhabitants
become things to be consumed, to be experienced
for a price. Because the tourist feels so superior to
the poor ignorant native, tourism to third-world
nations is a form of imperialism, very similar to
the attitude of innate superiority adopted by white
British colonial officials. The corrupt black govern-
ment, which is now impoverishing Antiguans even
more, learned its methods from the colonizers. The
very poor Antiguans who continue to freely elect
the same corrupt government are, after six centuries
of degradation by slavery and colonialism, passive,
ignorant of any world history or political theory that
could change their lot, and unable to imagine that
they have the power to change anything.
Barbara Z. Thaden
commodiFication/commercialization
in A Small Place
Jamaica Kincaid begins her acerbic commentary on
the life of the inhabitants of a tiny island by look-
ing at it through the eyes of a tourist. Antigua is
an island of breathtaking beauty, a popular tourist
destination because the constant drought, a bane to
the poor islanders who must conserve every drop
of water, almost guarantees sunny weather for the
tourists fleeing their cloudy and cold climates. The
tourist sees the beauty of the island commodified for
his consumption, but does not see the government
corruption responsible for this commodification,
and does not notice the poverty and ignorance in
which the inhabitants live because their government
(the post-colonial, post-British government) has
robbed them of their wealth and land.
The government is all too ready to allow
the commodification of the island’s only natural
resource—its beauty—to enrich itself. It sells large
pieces of land to foreign investors, who build ugly
condominium communities designed for foreigners
on Antigua’s “commodity,” the land itself. The tour-
ist thinks he is eating fresh, locally grown vegetables
and locally caught seafood, while in reality this food,
a commodity like any other, has first been shipped to
Miami for “processing,” then sent back to Antigua,
at a hugely inflated price, to sell for a profit, a profit
that finds its way into American and not Antiguan
hands.
To the tourist, Antigua itself is a commodity,
something to be purchased and enjoyed for a week
or two. The native Antiguans also are, for the tourist,
commodities to be enjoyed, as he watches them cre-
ating small souvenirs from scraps of cloth, observes
their quaint and, to him, primitive customs, and
their colorful (but incorrect) use of the English lan-
guage. But the Antiguans know they are being com-
modified, being sold along with the tourist package
as local scenery and culture. They know that the
tourist can never imagine them as people like him-
self. He cannot imagine that the native Antiguan
hates and despises him, because she is too poor to
leave Antigua and tour other places where she could
feel superior. Antigua is not only a home but also
a prison. “Every native of every place is a potential
tourist,” writes Kincaid: Every native would like to
escape the monotony and boredom of his or her own
life. But almost every native everywhere is not able
to do this; capitalism, the creator of commodities,
has not left the native with the resources necessary
to live comfortably in his homeland, much less to
travel as a tourist to another country and be diverted
by the natives there. The tourist, who makes of the