Insular Contemporary Poetry in Dialogue: Glocal Alliances Against Mass Tourism

Abstract

This paper establishes a transnational dialogue between different island spaces impacted by mass tourism and highlights poetry’s contribution to the political reconfigurations of the Balearic and Caribbean islands. Notwithstanding these island spaces’ different historical circumstances, it acknowledges that the tourist industry illustrates crucial historical continuities in each archipelago. The poetics analysed question the pro-growth ideology of the industry, the subservient role of their islands’ political classes that disregard human well-being and environmental sustainability, and put the islands’ survival at risk. This study identifies resemblances in Caribbean and Balearic island spaces’ poetic responses to tourism and recognises local emancipatory alliances that not only bring to the surface shared forms of oppression, but also propose alternatives beyond the (hotel) chains of global capitalism.