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- Convenors:
-
Antonio Miguel Nogués Pedregal
(Universitas Miguel Hernández)
Ramona Lenz
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- Format:
- Workshops
- Location:
- 0.2A
- Sessions:
- Thursday 28 August, -, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Ljubljana
Short Abstract:
Tourism contexts are versatile. Social relations and things both change rapidly. Increasingly the 'new' mobilities (labour migrants and new residents, mainly northern Europeans) arrive to coastal territories where there are already local population and thousands of tourists. How can anthropological theory manage this and how can fieldwork be carried out in these contexts?
Long Abstract:
The objective of this workshop is to dialogue about the complexity of interculturality in tourism contexts. Local population (insiders), new residents, labour inmigrants and tourists are distinct social and cultural groups that share a common ground. Their practices are usually observed, ethnographically described and anthropologically analysed on the basis of a relation between the local population and any of the other groups. For instance, Northern european residents in the Mediterranean and the local population, the social integration in the local society of the labour inmigrants, the impacts of the presence of tourists on the local culture… The reason for the prevalence of this approach may be due to the hegemonic role played by the dialectical conceptualisation of social and cultural life within anthropological theory and social practice, or to the methodologies used for data collection during fieldwork. Despite this, and fortunately, a vast majority of anthropologists agree that interculturality is produced, and reproduced, by all the agents and social groups involved in the general process.
For this reason the workshop will focus on the "relations among relations", rather than on the relations between any pair of these groups. We will specifically inquire into the cultural mobilities in territories already constructed for mass tourism consumption. Example of questions to be addressed are: how is social organisation within these groups being modified by the presence of any of these groups? Is the seasonal nature of these mobilities (european residents are part-time residents, individual inmigrants keep moving from city to another, tourists come and go, and local population can hardly be defined) an obstacle for fieldwork methods and anthropological analysis? In these contexts, can 'culture' still be conceived as the central and most distinctive anthropological notion for ethnographic research and theoretical thinking?.
Interested researchers are invited to send statements rather than finished papers. For this reason participants are strongly encouraged not to read their papers but to explain them. After the workshop authors of selected statements will then be asked to write a full paper for a specialised publication.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 28 August, 2008, -Leif Selstad (University of Stavanger)
Paper short abstract:
Recent research among North-West European long-term visitors to Spain indicates that there is not a single adaptation for tourists and other visitors.This raises challenges in how to represent activities that in some circumstances are represented fairly straightforward as tourism, but in other settings verge on topics such as migration, transnational identities and multicultural relations.
Paper long abstract:
Abstract: It is becoming clear in recent research among North-West European long-term visitors to Spain that there is not a single adaptation or mode of existence for tourists and other visitors. The case in point is Norwegian visitors who in preliminary interviews voiced concern about their image in the media and in other representations. The visitors wanted to express their varied activities and involvements during their stay in Spain. This raises a number of dilemmas and challenges in how to represent activities that in some circumstances are represented fairly straightforward as tourism, but in other settings verge on topics such as migration, transnational identities and multicultural relations. Theories of discourse, symbolic construction and social practice will be employed to discuss the implications of a more composite view on long-term visitors and tourism in Spain. (This abstract is preliminary and will be rewritten for the final paper).
Jens Kr. Steen Jacobsen (University of Stavanger)
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores challenges and opportunities for involvement with the host communities among Nordic long-term visitors and expatriates in Costa Blanca, based on an exit survey.
Paper long abstract:
Many people from North-Western Europe have quite long stays in Mediterranean Spain, partly related to phenomena such as seasonal movements and sabbatical holidays, to a large extent to their own houses or apartments. It has been suggested that some long-term visitors and migrants to Spain are part of international communities; developing transnational identities. Simultaneously, it has been maintained that many foreigners in Spain actively request the services of functional mediators from their home country and/or seek out compatriot enclaves, including associations established for and by expatriates. This paper explores challenges and opportunities for involvement with the host communities among long-term visitors and expatriates in Costa Blanca/Alicante. The paper includes the respondents' assessments of vital aspects of their (temporary) life in Spain, for instance their relations to local people in general, the authorities and various aspects of Spanish culture. The paper is mainly based on an exit survey of people who had stayed in the Alicante area for four weeks or more, on their departure to Norway.
Alja Kotar (Ljubljana Graduate School of Humanities)
Paper short abstract:
In the presentation I will analyse how local people in Huancayo (Peru) deal with tourism and how they perceive international and domestic tourists as well as try to light on what are the consequences of (cultural) interaction of local people with tourists for their identity and environment.
Paper long abstract:
In Huancayo which is the regional capital in Peru, local people engage mainly in trading, while tourism is a growing field of occupation. Host communities engage differently in tourism; some have indirect, and others direct contacts with tourists. With growing awareness of importance of tourism as important income opportunity local people try to develop different kinds of tourism which is in opposition to mass tourism. The emphasis is in search of (experimenting with) alternative forms of combining development and tourism. In the paper I will explore how locals receive new forms of tourist planning. I will be particularly interested how can alternative forms of tourism generate social, economic, and environmental benefits for local communities while also creating truly transformative experiences for tourists (Stronza 2001). Local communities are no longer passive in the decision making. On the contrary, they are active participants (Due to endeavours of local authorities). Local authority and some institutions in Huancayo are trying to involve local residents as decision makers in tourism projects.
Many local people in Huancayo see tourism as "economic bridge" which will rescue them from poverty and the one which will give them better conditions of living.
What are the effects of tourists on local community? What is the degree of their active participation? What is their role in transforming culture and identity? Will people in host destination lose their cultural identity as a result of tourism?
Sigalit Ben-Zion (International Relations and Ethnic Relations)
Paper short abstract:
The paper examines whether gender roles and ethnicity are influenced by tourism in Central Himalaya? The main focus of this paper is on the dialect between gender relations and ethnicity and the impact of reconstructing women's identity on the border between traditional and modern society.
Paper long abstract:
"When there are no longer slaves, there are no longer masters." (Fanon 1967:219)
This paper seeks to focus on the dialect between gender relations and ethnicity and to examine the impact of reconstructing women's identity on the border between traditional and modern society. In this lecture one case study will be presented, namely gender relations in North India in relation to tourists who represent modern society.
The main research question is whether gender roles and ethnicity are influenced by tourism in Central Himalaya?
In order to elucidate this research several issues will be examined:
(i) Women are expected to maintain their cultural identity and its boundaries ("border guards"), symbolized by retaining their traditional role, i.e. a traditional style of dress, public behaviour, restriction on social and physical mobility, etc.
(ii) While women are expected to play the role of "border guards", men allow themselves to cross over the social borders and bring social changes into their traditional society.
(iii) Nevertheless, hidden power is exercised on men by women; masculine identity can be achieved only as long as women's traditional identity is symbolically reconstructed.
The analytical framework is based on three interrelated paradigms; (i) within post-colonialism I will use Fanon's psychoanalytical perspective about the dialect between the master and the slave (ii) Scott's theory about the art of resistance. (iii) Geertz's paradigm about negotiating primordial identities.
Heath Cabot
Paper short abstract:
The Greek island borders of Mytilene and Samos, known primarily as tourist definitions, are also first EU points of entry for asylum seekers from throughout the Middle East and Africa. This paper examines how these sites serve as crucial nodes in the delineation of who and what is "Europe."
Paper long abstract:
The Greek islands of Samos and Mytilene are known for sea and sun, prime destinations for recreation and tourism. However, only a few kilometers from Turkey, they are first points of arrival on EU territory for many asylum seekers, who have traveled from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, and farther to cross these short but dangerous distances. As stepping-stones into the EU, these islands figure powerfully in the experiences of new arrivals, shaping expectations and imagined possible futures in Europe. While sites of dangerous sea crossings, often violent policing, and months in detention, these islands are also points of intense hope and possibility, as new arrivals board ferries to Athens, attempting to move onward to new lives, education, and prosperity. This paper examines the tensions that surround these island borders, where tourism mixes with violence, danger, and imagined possibilities of Europe. I enlist ethnographic data from detention centers, interviews with local officials, asylum seekers' stories of crossing and "arrival," and European Parliament discussions of the Greek borders. While new arrivals on these satellite European coasts imagine European futures, locals accustomed to serving foreign tourists express both fear and hospitality toward these new "foreigners" (ξένοi). Meanwhile, the power centers in the European North condemn Greece for not maintaining its borders and detracting from the EU's realization as a site of "freedom, security, and justice." I show that these tourist centers of coast and sea are central in multiple re-delineations of who and what is Europe.