Paper short abstract:

Jamaican migrant agricultural workers to Canada support gastronomic tourism. In Jamaica, some of these same workers provide tourism services as drivers and guides. Through this contiguous provision of tourism labour, bodies in the global south sustain the leisure of those in the global north.

Paper long abstract:

Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL) is a tourist destination that emphasizes local food and wine, alongside theatre and heritage, to curate its bourgeois appeal. In addition to its gastronomy, the area is also known for its fruit and grape production such that its rural roads are framed by picturesque orchards and vineyard, which has led the development of cycling tourism in the region. Despite its embeddedness in farm-to-table practices and its commitment to the 'local', NOTL's agricultural production is deeply dependent upon the labour of transnational migrant farmworkers, primarily from Mexico and the English-speaking Caribbean, both of which are also tourist destinations. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork in Jamaica, I map the ways that workers from tourist-receiving countries support tourism in Canada and, more tellingly, those very same workers who support tourism in Canada through their labour on farms also provide touristic services such as driving and guiding in their home countries as well. In this continuity of their transnational labour, Jamaicans are rendered always available to facilitate the experiences of pleasure for those who are globally mobile and have access to leisure, categories that overlap with class, racialization, and citizenship.