Overview

In The Pursuit of Happiness Bianca C. Williams traces the experiences of African American women as they travel to Jamaica, where they address the perils and disappointments of American racism by looking for intimacy, happiness, and a connection to their racial identities. Through their encounters with Jamaican online communities and their participation in trips organized by Girlfriend Tours International, the women construct notions of racial, sexual, and emotional belonging by forming relationships with Jamaican men and other ""girlfriends."" These relationships allow the women to exercise agency and find happiness in ways that resist the damaging intersections of racism and patriarchy in the United States. However, while the women require a spiritual and virtual connection to Jamaica in order to live happily in the United States, their notion of happiness relies on travel, which requires leveraging their national privilege as American citizens. Williams's theorization of ""emotional transnationalism"" and the construction of affect across diasporic distance attends to the connections between race, gender, and affect while highlighting how affective relationships mark nationalized and gendered power differentials within the African diaspora.

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9780822370369

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Reviews

The Pursuit of Happiness is an engaging book that makes an important contribution to scholarship on tourism in the Caribbean. Bianca C. Williams's vivid language and keen analysis of her respondents are particularly enjoyable, and her interview data-which was obviously collected with care-make for a very rich and interesting read. -- Jafari Allen, author of * iVenceremos? The Erotics of Black Self-making in Cuba * This is the book that I have been anxiously waiting for. The Pursuit of Happiness is about how electronic media enables a group of middle class black American women to find peace, love, and friendship outside of their geographical space. This novel and innovative ethnography pushes the boundaries of what anthropology can be considered in its broadest definition. -- A. Lynn Bolles, author of * Sister Jamaica: A Study of Women, Work, and Households in Kingston *

This is the book that I have been anxiously waiting for. The Pursuit of Happiness is about how electronic media enables a group of middle class black American women to find peace, love, and friendship outside of their geographical space. This novel and innovative ethnography pushes the boundaries of what anthropology can be considered in its broadest definition. -- A. Lynn Bolles, author of * Sister Jamaica: A Study of Women, Work, and Households in Kingston *

Breathtaking. . . . Simply reading this book felt like an act of self-care for me--a breath of fresh air. -- (06/11/2018)

This is the book that I have been anxiously waiting for. The Pursuit of Happiness is about how electronic media enables a group of middle-class black American women to find peace, love, and friendship outside their geographical space. This novel and innovative ethnography pushes the boundaries of what anthropology can be considered in its broadest definition. --A. Lynn Bolles, author of Sister Jamaica: A Study of Women, Work, and Households in Kingston The Pursuit of Happiness is an engaging book that makes an important contribution to scholarship on tourism in the Caribbean. Bianca C. Williams's vivid language and keen analysis of her respondents are particularly enjoyable, and her interview data--which was obviously collected with care--make for a very rich and interesting read. --Jafari Allen, author of iVenceremos? The Erotics of Black Self-making in Cuba

Author Information

Bianca C. Williams is Associate Professor of Anthropology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York.

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