Ethno-Tourism: Demeaning or Disadvantageous - Essay Example

Ethno-Tourism: Demeaning or Disadvantageous? Word Count: 1520 (6 pages) "Although in the short-term ethno-tourism can be beneficial, in the long-term the negative consequences far outweigh any advantages." Using existing literature and data, evaluate this claim from the perspective of visitors and tribal communities. I. Introduction Let’s pretend, for a moment, that you were born in an impoverished country in Africa. You had no access to clean water, a reliable food source, a free education, or adequate medical care. However, other local peoples close to you say that they will pay you a stipend every month for allowing a tourist group to come and visit the home where you live, for preparing the tourists daily meals more substantial than what you are used to eating in a week, and for visiting other sites of interest in your local village, such as the village plaza and so forth. You might be tempted to take the money because this is more money than you see in a year. So, a little bit reluctantly, you agree to the plan. While you’re taking care of your children the best you can and just living a normal life, you can afford to eat a little better—but not that much better—as tourists traipse through your home, which is just a grass hut, and your backyard which consists of a few minor plants and vegetables. As demeaning as it may be, you realize that there is some value in staying in the conditions which you are in, deciding not to improve your living circumstances. Ethno-tourism invades peoples privacy, and, although it may indeed raise awareness of the status of indigenous peoples, ethno-tourism is indeed a form of exploitation and neocolonialism—encouraging people to continue to live in squalor and abject poverty. II. The Argument: Ethno-Tourism Invades Peoples’ Privacy Ethnotourism essentially is allowing for outsiders to invade peoples’ privacy in their own natural environments. Perhaps think how you might feel if some strangers were paying you money to traipse around in your living room. Imagine how you would feel if they pointed at your household objects, made comments about your house, and even picked up household objects of yours without your permission. Then, to add insult to injury, they might talk to you or try to communicate in a language that is foreign to yours—only compounding the shame. Of course, part of what these peoples might feel is shame, but on the other hand—they will have pride in their home and might feel honored that someone would want to pay to come see how they live. On the other hand, this is a negative for the impoverished indigenous individual, who is not offered enough money to get out of poverty but only enough so that oneself can sustain oneself and his or her family. This is not an amount of money that would help the person leave his or her impoverished situation or enough money to improve. Rather, this is a form of colonialism that will be discussed later on. For now, let us just say that this is a demeaning way for the former colonizers to capitalize and benefit from indigenous peoples without giving them recourse for upward social mobility either. III. The Counterargument: Ethno-Tourism Raises Awareness It could be argued that ethnotourism is simply a cultural exchange which harms no one. “Ethnotourism involves efforts to experience the way other peoples live, often people very different from the tourists” (Ritzer, 2009, pp. 329). This is a way for people having little familiarity with a culture to at least—in some cases—just get an idea of what peoples’ daily lives are like. Extended ethnotourism visits include exotic foreign locales which may include whale-watching, cliff-diving, scuba diving, windsurfing, canoeing, and kayaking. However, these activities are usually reserved for only the very wealthiest of people who can afford to take extravagant vacations and plan trips that Third World residents could only dream of, in fact. Much of ethnotourism includes ecotourism as well. “Eco- and ethno-tourism discourses partly converge…In the rural areas, the emphasis is more specifically on environmental issues and conservation, highlighting the eco-theme and combining this with elements of oral history and local customs” (Papen, 2007, pp. 129). For example, one might combine whale-watching (ecotourism) with a lunch afterward of various kinds of local fish found in the sea, such as mahi-mahi—cooked by the local people of the area in their native environment (ethnotourism). People have much money to make, and thus have vested interests in the stake of “raising awareness”—thinly veiled as that, but in actuality the entire operation is a money-making venture due to the fact that people are curious. This also feeds into the idea that people are studying foreign locales for the sake of educational reasons, when in reality they are just wanting to become “well-traveled” individuals. This belies the dark underbelly of the tourism industry and how such tourism never actually helps the service providers become more financially independent nor gives them upward social mobility—but rather perpetuates a system of poverty upon which a neoliberal, progressive agenda feeds upon continually. IV. The Refutation: Ethno-Tourism is Exploitation and Neocolonialism Ethnotourists seek to see people in native or indigenous habitats, along with their antiquarian ways of doing things. “Along with ecotourism there is growing interest in cultural tourism, or “ethno-tourism,” that seeks to encounter people of other cultures, preferably as non- Westernized or as nonmodern as possible” (Sernau, 2007, pp. 201). This encourages people to resist modernization because there is a great value attached to indigenous culture being practiced—and it is not intrinsic value. The extrinsic value of more money in the pockets of airlines, tour bus operators, and tour guides is what motivates most of the people caught up in the brouhaha over ethnotourism. In addition to keeping people in poverty, ethnotourism advocates the idea that foreign locales are exotic and therefore must be filled with indigenous people. This assumes a certain standard of living that people are used to, and thus people adhere to this preconceived notion because it is their only source of income. In that sense, perhaps indigenous people might consider themselves lucky that they can find a way to make money off of the way they dress, the way they act, and the way they carry themselves in their own home—a familiar environment. However, this is sending the wrong signal—that culture can be turned into a commodity, and be bought and sold like objects. “Ethnotourism is a site at which identity politics joins with market demand, and this union has inspired concerns about the commodification of culture, the perpetuation of Western imperialist nostalgia, and the promotion of a neocolonial quest for the exotic Other” (Inda and Rosaldo, 2008, pp. 406). It is this desired encounter with the Other that keeps the former colonizers and their countries interested in getting into ethnotourism—because it feeds on the notion that these people are just like exhibits which can be visited in a natural sciences museum, the only difference being that the people involved are alive. Although people may not realize it, ethnotourism provides a platform to do tremendous disrespect to these peoples and their respective cultures. Since many people who live in countries that were former colonizers of indigenous peoples, there are people who are hooked on ethnotourism because it is a form of patronizing the colonial system in a new sense—encouraging people to live in poverty due to its lucrative nature. “Even new forms of alternative tourism such as ecotourism, ethnotourism and voluntourism need to be approached with caution…[i]t is clear that [fortune and misfortune] are interlinked with the wider tourism industry, which happily co-exists with and is dependent on the neoliberal global system” (Brockington, Duffy, & Igoe, 2008, pp. 147). Thus, it only makes sense that the gap between the rich and the poor is only going to be perpetuated by such a cultural show-and-tell which people from former colonizing countries are paying to witness. In turn, indigenous peoples realize that limiting or eliminating the former colonizers’ access to their world would mean a loss of income. Although former colonizers may come to a foreign country with interest thinly-veiled and propagated as tourism for educational purposes, there is little education actually going on—because a person from a former colonizing country has no idea what the lives of the indigenous are really like until they feel the pinch of hunger and the true difficulty that poverty presents. That’s not something you can experience on a tour. V. Conclusion While many people may think ethnotourism is actually helping local economies, it is more doing harm than good. People who rely on ethnotourism for their livelihoods are increasingly becoming dependent upon others, instead of becoming more financially independent themselves. Consistently and continually selling their ways of life as a cultural commodity, those who are involved in the business of ethnotourism are utilizing each other—the customer, to gain a new cultural experience, and the service provider, who is allowing his or her home and village life to be exploited. In this exchange of money, there is little hope for upward mobility for villagers, while tourists can add these excursions to a resumé in order to enhance their status in society. Thus, these tourists give them the appearance of being learned, educated individuals, not realizing that what they are really doing is exploiting people. Just because people pay to have a cultural experience does not mean that such an exchange is proper or morally sound. So, the argument is that ethnotourism invades peoples’ privacy; and, although such tourism can indeed raise awareness, to refute this counterargument, one must view ethnotourism as a form of exploitation which helps poverty persist in third-world countries. BIBLIOGRAPHY Brockington, D., & Duffy, R., & Igoe, J. (2008). Nature unbound: conservation, capitalismo, and the future of protected areas. US: Earthscan. Inda, J.X. & Rosaldo, R. (2008). The anthropology of globalization: a reader. US: Wiley-Blackwell. Papen, U. (2007). Literacy and globalization: reading and writing in times of social and cultural change. US: Taylor & Francis. Ritzer, G. (2009). Globalization: a basic text. US: John Wiley & Sons. Sernau, S.R. (2007). Contemporary readings in globalization. US: Pine Forge Press. Read More