"Barbados, the land of pretense..."
 A Conversation with Diva
 Alexander de Beauvoir

 Interview by Carmen R. Gillespie
 University of Toledo
 Recorded in St. James, Barbados on July 27, 2002

 Contemporary Barbadian culture is a postmodern and variegated

 terrain comprised of multiple perspectives emanating from the
 histories of colonization, slavery, tourism, independence, post-
colonization, and neo-colonization. The people who live on the small island
nation of Barbados continually absorb a confluence of complex cultural and
historical currents; however, textual representations of Barbados and the
Caribbean in general gravitate towards two extremes. On one hand, there is
an important and growing range of interdisciplinary scholarship about the
Caribbean as well as an acclaimed body of literature. On the other hand,
there is also a pervasive counter-narrative that, unfortunately, is more familiar
to the general public. Tourist guide books, films, and advertisements create
a powerful portrait of the Caribbean that reduces its complex histories,
cultures, and intellectual traditions to invisibility and erects a portrait of the
Caribbean as the ultimate earthly paradise-a terrain at once primal and
contained, where the fantasy of happy and accommodating "natives" reduces
the residents of the various islands to the status of willing and benign
servants.
 The complex economic negotiations generated by the Caribbean's
arguably necessary dependence on tourism perpetuate homogenous
constructions of the region and even motivate reductive and complicit self-
depictions. For example, the official website of Barbados' Tourism Authority
describes Barbados, and more importantly, Bajans themselves in the
following manner:

 Barbados is a very beautiful island, with lots of art, activities, night life,
 music, history, and some of the best restaurants to be found anywhere.