Moore - Destination Anthropocene : Science and Tourism in the Bahamas

This book originated as a strange dissertation, and so I would like to begin by thanking the members of the Anthropology Department at UC Berkeley, especially Cori Hayden, Paul Rabinow, and Donald Moore, for their assistance with many of the foundational ideas in this book. In addition, I must thank Charis Thompson in the Department of Gender and Womens Studies for her welcome advice. My fellow graduate students also deserve my thanks for their heaps of support over the years, especially Alfred Montoya, Shana Harris, Beatriz Reyes-Foster, James Battle, and Theresa Macphail. Thank you for the phone calls, the emails, the texts, the Facebook groups, and the conversations over many cups of tea and pints of beer. This book is your book too.

The fieldwork that went into this book took place over several years in The Bahamas, and I must thank the fisheries officers at the Department of Marine Resources in the Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources for issuing me research permits and for participating in my research. I owe a debt to the University of The Bahamas for sponsoring my work, especially to Linda Davis, Jessica Minnis, Nicolette Bethel, John Cox, Stephen Aranha, Brenda Cleare, Michael Stevenson, Lisa Benjamin, Pandora Johnson, and Margo Blackwell. The Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation provided me with insight and access to its office, and the Bahamas National Trust, Nature Conservancy of The Bahamas, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Environment, Antiquities Monuments and Museums Corporation, Department of Archives, and National Public Library were all essential organizations whose staff did me many favors. I am also deeply indebted to Margot Bethel and the late Hub Community Arts Centre. Additionally, I must mention my dear friends Kareem Mortimer, Jonathan Morris, Isabella Boddy, Monique Wszolek, Andrew Jones, Alex Wassitsch, Augusta Wellington, Casuarina McKinney, Mallory Raphael, Eddie Raphael, Michael Edwards, and Adelle Thomas for their unfailing advice and enthusiasm, and I must especially thank Bryan Boddy for his invaluable commentary on several drafts.

Paige West, at Columbia Universitys Barnard College, without whom I would not have entered graduate school, changed the course of my life and must be thanked, even though she cannot ever be thanked enough. I must thank Fiorella Cotrina for believing in me, as well as everyone at the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy at the University of Miami, including Gina Maranto, Andee Holzman, and most especially Kenny Broad, who brought me to The Bahamas in the first place and who continues to inspire me with research possibilities. Laura Ogden, Danielle DiNovelli-Lang, Julie Guthman, and Kate Marshall provided essential reviews and edits and should be thanked by all my readers. Any remaining problems with the text are entirely of my own making.

I am appreciative of the faculty in the Department of Marine Affairs at the University of Rhode Island for their patience with my evolving publication schedule. I cannot forget to thank Scott Andrews, who helped me through the longest stretch of my fieldwork. Finally, I must thank my parents, Sandra Walker and Wesley Moore, and my brother, William Moore, for their love, advice, and support in all things.

The research for this book was funded at various times by the American Museum of Natural History, the National Science Foundations Graduate Research Fellowship Program, the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy at the University of Miami, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the U.S. Fulbright Scholar Program.

Map of the major islands of the northern and central Bahamas. Image created by Quail Lane (2017).