Cruise Ships, Community, and Collective Memory at Millars Plantation, Eleuthera, Bahamas

Abstract

Tourism is a central part of contemporary Bahamian life. Yet, the complex relationship between Bahamian cultural identity and dependency on the tourism industry has also created an interesting space for resistance for many Bahamian communities. Incorporating Black feminist archaeological theory and a community-collaborative approach, this project has provided a plausible alternative interpretation of the larger effects of the remnants of the colonial past, the contemporary tourist economy, and the complicated relationship between developing cultural heritage sites in the region and the needs of local community members. The Millars Plantation, in the southern region of the island of Eleuthera, provided the research team an opportunity to explore, through oral history and small-scale memory mapping, a concentrated view of how the plantation landscape operated as a site of captivity, then a site of survival, and ultimately a space of ancestral connection between people, history, landscapes, and contemporary tourism.