Grinding temporalities: Racial capitalism and social reproduction in tourism labor

Abstract

In this article, I analyze the formation of a labor ethos of acceleration in the context of the postpandemic, when tourism businesses experienced the pressure to reactivate the local economy in coastal Talamanca, Costa Rica. Using ethnographic methods and bringing to the fore conversations around “the Caribbean rhythm” and time, that appeared as a way of talking about race without stating it, I argue that the postpandemic provides a scenario through which we can understand the ways racial capitalism works by weaving crises and different temporalities to organize and sort out labor. Tourism, as a labor-intensive activity that seeks to produce leisure and pleasure for rest-seeking bodies, works as the analytical site for understanding the intricacies of racial capitalism. In the touristic beach towns of Talamanca, the call for acceleration and caring attention to customers that the half-staffed businesses demanded from their workers after the COVID-19 pandemic functioned to recreate hierarchies of employment and employability. This, in turn, deepened existing racialized and gendered inequalities, which are particularly useful for tourism's functioning as a form of commodified social reproduction.