Bloom Spaces: Reproduction and Tourism on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica

“Bloom Spaces is grounded in sound ethnographic practice that covers a decade of fieldwork in Costa Rica. Susan Frohlick writes sensitively, and the use of an experimental narrative style brings to life enduring and important questions of power and inequality. This book makes a vital and original contribution to an anthropology of tourism and tourism studies more generally.” Hazel Andrews, Liverpool John Moores University

“Susan Frohlick writes with sensitivity and critical insight about the lives of women from the global North who travel to Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast seeking adventure and romance and then find themselves pregnant. Innovative writing and intimate stories of encounters with gender, race, and cultural difference – and the entanglements of tourism and reproduction – make Bloom Spaces a welcome addition to tourism and mobility studies.” Florence E. Babb, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“Evocatively written, Bloom Spaces is an absorbing read and an important contribution to the anthropology of reproduction. Susan Frohlick gives nuanced consideration to the questions raised by the experiences of unexpected pregnancy, travel and tourism, and gender, race, and racialization.” Sallie Han, State University of New York at Oneonta