ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a historical study of a specific material and its modes of visualization, while linking this visual economy to a grounded political economy of its modes of production and consumption. Bauxite mining underpins a crucial connection between the production of the material culture and visual image of modernity in the United States and the parallel consumption of raw materials and visual images of tropical backwardness in the Caribbean. The protean Caribbean appears as a series of renaturalized yet traditional places, outside of modernity yet accessible to the mobilized tourist. Amidst the dying embers of the British Empire, Fleming conjured up the juxtaposition between super-modern Agent 007's extreme forms of hyper-mobility and the sinister tropical profusion, ancient Voodoo rituals, and racial/sexual intrigue of the 'primitive' Caribbean. A fascinating interrogation of technology, modernity, and Caribbean materiality can be found in the recent work of Bahamian artist Tavares Strachan.
