Luxury consumption and tourist landscapes in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean
Institute for Advanced Studies @ Lancaster University
11th and 12th of September 2008
Conference organised by the Departamento de Análisis Geográfico Regional y Geografía Física, Facultad de Geografía e Historia. UCM, Spain; Departamento de Antropología Social, Facultad de CC. Políticas y Sociología. UCM, Spain and ‘mediterranean mobilities’ – CeMoRe, Lancaster University, UK
Signs of conspicuous ostentation proliferate along Caribbean and Mediterranean landscapes. Megayatchs, private islands, ultra-expensive mansions, luxury hotels, and exclusive restaurants and country clubs speak of the prominence these regions are gainning in the transnational lifestyles of the super-rich.
Luxury has been no stranger to places like Antigua, Belize, Bahamas, Barbados, Saint Tropez, Mallorca, or Monte Carlo in the 20th century. Yet the scale and geographical scope of recent developments are a reflection of the rapid polarisation of wealth in the last two decades and the rising number of individuals engrossing the lists of the multi-millionaire, mega-rich and billionaire (increase of 200,000 people in 2003 totalling 7.3 million globally).
Social scientists are beginning to map out the spaces and practices of the super-rich in metropolitan areas of industrial countries and examine their significance in altering city landscapes. Understanding these mobile elites requires also a closer escrutiny of their transnational lifestyles and the constelation of places interconnected through their consumption patterns. This workshop will examine luxury consumption in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean paying particular attention to the wider social, economic and environmental implications of elite lifestyles and their role in articulating flows of people, images, fantasies, objects and money.
The Caribbean and the Mediterranean are particularly interesting areas for the study of the new high-earners. The democratisation of tourism in the postwar period partially eclypsed their earlier image as playgrounds of elite consumption and witnessed the emergence of discourses about their environmental destruction in the hands of herd-like tourists. Today their image of places spoiled by mass tourism co-exists in stark contrast with landscaped enclavic resorts evoking a sense of distinction and ecology. This should not be seen as a completely new trend. Mass tourism has always involved a paradoxical combination of narratives about accessibility and the democratization of travel along with unavoidable rounds of distinction games. Yet an interesting question in the age of the risk society and global resource scarcity is the way in which the rising aspirations and ‘luxury fever’ of the middle classes animated by the extravagant lifestyles of the super-rich are being negotiated with concerns about environmental limits.
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