Bocas Del Toro

Arriving fresh from a wild 2 weeks in Costa Rica, jam packed with jungle adventures, volcano hikes, snake sightings, and (too) many rounds of ring of fire, we set sail for an island province off the coast of Panama. Clothes soaked and bums bruised from a particularly bumpy boat ride, my arrival in Bocas was saturated by an air of exhaustion and unenthusiasm. The next day, determined to be less of a disappointing grump, I immersed myself in the captivating destination I had stumbled upon, venturing out to explore its wonders.

The central motivation for this travel detour was that of ‘Filthy Fridays’. Far removed from the cultural and historical awakening that I pitched to my family before leaving Scotland, this was a glorified pub crawl only the pubs were actually bars scattered across numerous neighbouring islands and the crawl was facilitated by small (slightly nauseating) motorboats. I did feel like an 18-year-old in Malia, sipping on watered down drinks, listening to spicy, gym-lad house tracks but I can’t lie, it was class. Whilst our drunken antics would certainly be a source of amusement they are not the focus of these blog posts. Instead, I bring together memories from my time in Bocas with broader questions related to the politics of tourist expansion, the troubling legacy of globalisation and the inequities in human happiness. I do hope you are impressed with that seamless Segway from ‘spicy, gym-lad house tracks’ to the ‘inequities in human happiness’. I know the latter sounds like a more intimidating read but stay with me.

When spoken of, Bocas Del Toro can refer to a province in Panama, a district within this province or a town within this district. I was staying in the town (‘Bocas’), recognised as the capital of the province. Despite its modest population of around 15,000, the town and its neighbouring lands have recently become inundated with foreign tourists (mainly American) catered for by the simultaneous influx of foreign capital and intrigue (again, mainly American). This intervention, like many of those catalysed by the explosive forces of globalisation, modernisation and neo-liberalism, has altered the fabric of social existence amongst Bocas’ native communities.

The politics of tourism expansion are bound within a web of broader transformative processes, gaining traction at different frequencies across the globe. Two such processes include capitalism and its accelerative motor, globalisation. The former term is thrown around with foolish frequency. Through the years countless academics have debated over the origins/definitions of capitalism producing a disparate array of dense and usually quite boring explanations if you lack interest in socio-economic history. Generally, I think it’s best to remember that capitalism is a concept: not a concrete thing. It describes a shift (arguably) in 19th century Western Europe, wherein social relations and practices were re-structured so as to nourish the accumulation of capital. i.e. making money became the be all and end all and social life became organised accordingly.

Western Europe has since encountered a new age of neoliberalism, the widespread belief in the idea that supporting the profit maximisation of capitalists will improve everyone’s quality of life. A central mechanism for achieving this is reducing the influence of governments in markets and in industry. There is massive political and economic debate surrounding the efficacy of such mechanisms which I’m not bold enough to get into.

With the transnational spread of goods, people and ideas (globalisation), capitalist practice and politics are cropping up just about everywhere, even on the island regions of Bocas del Toro. Unlike in Euro-America, where governments are being edged out of industry to allow capitalists unregulated (often unethical at best, unlawful at worse) money making, the government have a large role here. The Panamanian government’s tourism authorities actively encourage the infiltration of foreign capital in Bocas. They have endorsed numerous developments including the American Red Frog Beach Club on Isla Bastimentos in the Bocas Del toro Province. Take a look at the website…

https://www.redfrogbeach.com/

Disgusting isn’t it.

No obviously not. It looks unbelievable. Yet equally, it looks nothing like Bocas. Having censored the interesting quirks and corners, made vibrant by their heterogeneity, the landscape is blurred into a blanket postcard almost indistinguishable from other Caribbean island resorts, dripping in lavish luxury but devoid of true culture and substance. The evolution of the tourism industry is no small feat. Yet whilst the Panamanian government rejoice in their vision of tourism as a vehicle for transformation and multinational companies enjoy the unregulated exploitation of the cheap land and its people, local communities suffer. In other words, whilst those with power, wealth and privilege maximise their lot, those without become further marginalised; a path well paved by the historic legacy of oppression, exploitation and marginalisation from north to south.

The suffering of locals materialises in the mode of fear. They fear that that which once animated life in Bocas, ‘culture, traditions and core principles of respect, fairness and generosity’ (Claiborne, 2010: 29) are flickering, soon to become extinguished. The interviews conducted as part of the research cited above found that local residents felt a deep sense of mistrust and resentment towards the Panamanian government and the various multinational corporations now occupying a visible and destructive position in their home. These sentiments are lodged on multiple bases. One area of concern is the harm caused by these interventions on the environment, now scarred by a plethora of concrete blobs blemishing the imperfect natural beauty of the physical landscape. Elderly residents also spoke of how their younger relatives’ behaviour had changed as they replicated aspects of foreign tourists’ conduct. From adolescences’ dress, alcohol and drug consumption and lifestyle habits older residents feared that the loss of respect for tradition and custom was feeding into a dilution of their sacred, cultural ways of life. Yet simultaneously, effort is put into teaching the younger generation about tourism and their inevitable vocational role within the industry. This demonstrates how this economic activity has sept into diverse crevices of local life and livelihoods in Bocas.

However the continuous resistance and disinterest from local residents’ troubles tourist authorities who believe ‘our challenge is to change their mentality, since they are so much behind when it comes to modernity’ (ibid: 25).

I really hate this statement. Its douched in elitism and an imperial sense of supremacy that is blind not only to the value of cultural difference, but also the prolonged memory of colonial exploitation, slavery and abandonment that lies at the heart of local concerns. The last time Bocas Del Toro welcomed (were forced to welcome) foreign capitalists onto their land was in the late 17th century with the banana plantations coordinated by ‘United Fruit Company’. Bringing in a work force from across the Caribbean and west India, colonial administrators uprooted the social demographic and ignored the potential for disjuncture between native Ngöbe-Buglé tribes and their new neighbours. Not only did disjuncture and division arise, but the banana industry failed after minimal success and both people and capital withdrew.

In perhaps overly succinct detail, western Europe took over and disrupted these lands, exploited them for their natural resources and marginalised communities who could not fight back. When this enterprise proved less financially valuable they up and left, with little regard for the costs they had created. Fast forward to the 1990s, and the process has begun again only it is not bananas on sale but the land and people of Bocas, gradually being moulded into desirable commodities for the western European appetite. And yet any resistance to this is a source of confusion and annoyance even to their own government.

If only they could just be a good sport and simply change that silly out of date mentality (italics because I’m being sarcastic xx).

Thus these conflicts and concerns, however un-progressive they may sound to foreign ears, are cast in the reminiscent shadow of abandonment and disruption. Whilst foreign affairs and public policy are present through a lexicon that is often so expressively bland and formulaic, wherein x leads to y, (e.g. tourism leads to wealth), what is forgotten is the extent to which we are beings who think and feel. Our past and present experiences have an emotional resonance that is often ineffable but remains packed within our actions, relations, political claims and conflicts. This is why I take particular interest in the inequities in human happiness – although I’m now going to have to write another post on it because I got carried away in this one. The chat about global inequalities has lost its substance. Not only that but perhaps we have become used to the idea that one group might steal land, money and power from another group – after all we’ve seen it all throughout history. Yet I feel like there is something uniquely unpleasant about the notion of stealing the happiness of another, something that makes politics and international relations personal and something that accounts for the fact that at the end of the day we are all very emotional beings.

So, in my next (slightly more up-beat) blog post I give greater credence to the beauty of Bocas whilst discussing these troubling dynamics in reference to the anthropology of happiness; where happiness lies, how it is cultivated and how, unfortunately, it is often stolen from those most vulnerable.

Claiborne, P. (2010) ‘Community Participation in Tourism Development and the Value of Social Capital-the Case of Bastimentos, Bocas del Toro, Panamá.’