'It's not all Sequins and Bikinis?' Power, Performance and Play in the Leeds and Trinidad Carnival'

This chapter examines the tensions between power, performance and play within the Caribbean carnival in Trinidad, whose carnival traditions have spread across the African diaspora, and Leeds in Northern England, home to the longest-running Caribbean carnival in Europe. One of the main criticisms aimed at contemporary Caribbean carnivals is that they no longer seek to challenge the power of the establishment but have become a spectacle of the body and a celebration of capitalist consumerism. This article asks if contemporary Caribbean carnival in Trinidad and Leeds are indeed all about sequins and bikinis, a vanity show that satisfies the tourist and male gaze, or if at the heart of carnival we still find a uniquely subversive performance aimed at overturning unjust, hierarchical systems of power. 

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