Anthropology 610                               Geoffrey White

Spring semester 2001                          Anthropology/East-West Center

Monday 3:00 - 5:30 p.m.                    SSB 322/Burns 2106

Burns 2118                                          956-5601/944-7343; white@hawaii.edu

anth610-l@hawaii.edu                        Offc Hrs: Tue/Th 2-3 pm or by appt.  

 

THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF TOURISM

 

 

As daily news in Hawai‘i makes clear, global tourism is on the rise. But what is tourism in an age of globalization where “culture”’ itself is increasingly a traveling commodity? In what ways might the ethnographic study of tourism shed light on formations of culture and identity in a postmodern world? Specifically, what are the consequences of tourism for host communities, especially the identity struggles of (post)colonial societies? What is the experience of tourists, performers and others who daily enact rituals of encounter in today’s expanding circuits of travel? This course raises these questions by examining practices of tourism in Hawai‘i, Asia, and the Pacific. It looks at tourism in terms of its immediate contexts of cultural display and performance as well as its location in wider spheres of global capital and transnational flows of people, goods, and images.

Given the central place of tourism in Hawai‘i’s economy and history, the course gives particular attention to tourism in Hawai‘i, using readings, guest speakers, and field trips. Students will be encouraged to develop class projects that afford the opportunity to develop research skills in the ethnographic study of tourism in context.

This course is open to graduate students in anthropology, geography, cultural studies, and related fields. It will explore interdisciplinary approaches to the social and cultural analysis of tourism practices and experience.

 

Requirements. Grading is based on class participation (25%), written assignments—including a weekly journal--(30%), and a final paper of appx. 15-20 pages (45%). Participation will be assessed on the basis of engagement with readings, discussions, course website and class activities. Students will share responsibility for directing discussion of readings, and keep a journal of reflections evoked by readings, films, and activities. In addition to the collective work of seminar sessions, each student will undertake an individual project in the form of a final paper. Projects may be based the student's own fieldwork or on original material gathered from popular media or library research.

 

Required Books

Desmond, Jane. 2000. Staging Tourism: Bodies on Display from Waikiki to Sea World

Kincaid, J. 1989. A Small Place. New York: Plume

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. 1998.  Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage.

Lippard, Lucy. 1999. On the Beaten Track: Tourism, Art and Place

MacCannell, D. 1976. The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class.

Picard, M. & R. Wood. 1997. Tourism, Ethnicity, and the State in Asian and Pacific Societies.

Stanley, Nick. 1998. Being Ourselves for You: The Global Display of Cultures.

Urry, J. 1990. The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies.

COURSE OUTLINE

 

I. INTRODUCTION: TRAVELLING CULTURE

 

Jan 8  1. Introduction

MacCannell, Forward, Intro to 1989 Edition, Epilogue, ix-xxvi, 189-203

Lippard, “Introduction: On Rubbernecking,” 2-11

Desmond, “Introduction: Touring the Essential,” xii-xxv 

 

optional: (Castañeda in press)

 

film (in class):  Incidents of Travel in Chichen Itza

 

 

Jan 15  2. No Class Holiday (Martin Luther King Day):

 

 

Jan 22  3.Tourism, Travel, Culture Theory

MacCannell, “Introduction,” “Modernity and Touristic Experiences,” 1-37

Urry, “The Tourist Gaze,” 1-15

Dominguez, “The Marketing of Heritage,” 546-555

Graburn, "Tourism: The Sacred Journey" in Smith 1989, 21-36

Goss, “’From Here to Eternity’: Voyages of (Re)Discovery in Tourist Landscapes of Hawai‘i,”1-30

 

optional:  Pratt 1992, “Introduction”

 

 

II. THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF TOURISM “DEVELOPMENT”

 

Jan 29  4. Global Tourism / Local Cultures

Errington and Gewertz 1989,“Tourism and Anthropology in a Postmodern World,” 37-54

Gewertz and Errington 1991, “The New Traditionalism: Tourism and its Transformations,” 25-57

O’Rourke, 1997, “Beyond Cannibal Tours,” 32-47

Bruner and Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1994, “Maasai on the Lawn,” 435-470

Lippard, “The Tourist at Home,” 12-23

Besio, “Caught Looking”

 

film (view before class):  Cannibal Tours

 

optional:

Lutkehaus, “…An Interview with Filmmaker Dennis O’Rourke,” 422-437

Yamashita et al., 1997 “Introduction: Tourism and Cultural Development…,” 13-31.

MacCannell 1992, “Cannibalism Today,” 17-73

 

guest speaker: Kathryn Besio, PhD Candidate, UH Dept of Geography

 

 

Feb  5  5. Geographies, Economies and Politics of Tourism

 

DUE: First journal reflection

 

Urry, “Mass Tourism…and the Seaside Resort,” “The Changing Economics…,” 16-65

R E Wood, "Tourism and the State" in Picard and Wood 1997, 1-34

Trask, H., 1993, “Lovely Hula Hands,” 179-197

Minerbi, L., “Hawai‘i” 190-204

Minerbi, L., 1999, “Tourism and Native Hawaiians”

Hawai‘i Ecumenical Council, 1989, 1-7

 

optional:

Okamura 1998, The Illusion of Paradise: Multiculturalism in Hawai‘i,”  264-284

Kent, Noel, “A New Kind of Sugar”

Kahn, "Culturalizing Malaysia" in Picard and Wood 1997, 99-127

guest speaker: Luciano Minerbi, UH Department of Urban and Regional Planning

 

 

Feb 12 6. Small Places

 

DUE: Final project proposal: one-page statement

 

Lippard, “Trespassing on Common Ground,” 24-32

Kincaid 1989, A Small Place, 81 pp.

Helu-Thaman, 1993, “Beyond Hula, Hotels, and Handicrafts,” 104-111

Wesley-Smith, 2000, “Introduction: Migrant Labor and Tourism in … Palau,” 307-316

Yamashita, 2000, “…Japanese Tourists in Palau,” 437-463.

 

optional: Bank of Hawaii: Palau Report

 

 

Feb 19 7. Holiday (President’s Day): No Class

 

 

III. TOURISM AND THE PRODUCTION OF CULTURE

 

Feb 26 8. Tourism’s Identities: Primitive / Ethnic / Modern

 

Urry, “Working Under the Tourist Gaze,” “Cultural Changes and the Restructuring of “Tourism, Culture, and Social Inequality,” 66-103, 135-156

Wood 1998, “Touristic Ethnicity: A Brief Itinerary,” 218-241

Lippard, “Surprise Packages,” “Santa Fe’s Tricultural Trip,” 33-49, 59-87

optional:

MacCannell 1992, “Majority Discourse,” 121-180

Adams, "Tourism, Ethnicity and National Integration in Sulawesi" in Picard and Wood 1997, 155-181

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, "Objects of Ethnography," 17-78; "Exhibiting Jews," 79-128;

Oakes, "Ethnic Tourism in Rural Guizhou" in Picard and Wood 1997 pp. 35-71

Lutz and Collins 1993, "... Strangers," 1-14; "...the Ethnic Other," 119-153

 

guest speaker:  Quetzil Castañeda, Visiting Professor, UH Dept of Languages &

Literatures of Europe and the Americas

 

March 5 9. (Per)Forming Culture

 

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, "Introduction," 1-13

MacCannell, “Staged Authenticity,” 91-107

Desmond, “Let’s Luau,” “Picturing Hawai‘i,” “Pictures Come to Life,” Advertising, Racializing and Performing Hawai‘i”10-97

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Confusing Pleasures,” 203-248

 

film (view before class):  Bontoc Eulogy (Filipino experience at the 1904 St. Louis World's fair)

 

guest speaker: Vicky Takamine Holt, UH Department of Music

 

 

Mar 12  10. Consuming Culture: Commodification & Tourist Desires

 

DUE: Second journal reflection

 

Stanley, “Preface,” “Why Should We Look at Each Other,” 11-33

Lippard, “Seduction and Hyperbole,” 50-58

Desmond, “Tourism and the Commodification of Culture, 1930-1940,” 98-121; “Up to the Present,” 131-141.

Linnekin, "Consuming Cultures" in Picard and Wood 1997, 215-250

Hamilton, "Primal Dream: ...Thailand's Sex Trade" in Manderson & Jolly 1996, 145-65

optional:

Teaiwa 1994, “Bikinis and other s/pacific n/oceans,” 87-109

Jolly 1994, “Kastom as Commodity: The Land Dive … in Vanuatu,” 131-146

Leong, "Commodifying Ethnicity" in Picard and Wood 1997, pp. 71-98

Greenwood, "Tourism as Cultural Commoditization" in Smith 1989, 171-186

 

guest speaker: Andrea Feeser, UH Department of Art

 

 

IV. TOURIST SITES / CULTURAL SPACES

 

Mar 19 11. Museums

 

MacCannell, “The Other Attractions,” 77-89

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, "Destination Museum," 131-176.

Lippard, “Exhibitionism,” “Curioser and Curiouser,” 88-117.

Clifford 1997, "Museums as Contact Zones" 188-219; "Four ... Museums" 107-145

optional: Clifford 1997, "Paradise"147-187

 

Field trip: Wahiawa Plantation Village?  Bishop Museum?

 

 

Mar 26 12. Spring Break: No Class

 

 

April 2 13. Historic Sites

 

DUE: Revised project statement & bibliography (to be discussed in class)

 

Urry 1990, “Gazing on History,” 104-134

Lippard, “Parking Places,” “Taken Aback or The Nostalgia Trap,” 135-164

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Ellis Island,” “Plimoth Plantation,” 177-188, 189-200

Wallace, "Portraying the Past at Disney World," "Disney's America," 133-157, 159-167

 

optional: O'Brien 1996, “Marketing and Managing Colonial Spectacle,” 103-144

 

guest speaker: Bill Chapman, Professor, UH Department of American Studies and

                                                Director, UH Historic Preservation Program

 

 

April 9 14. War Tourism: Sacred Ground(s)

 

Lippard, “Tragic Tourism,” 118-134

Diller and Scofido, “Introduction: Back to the Front, Tourisms of War,” 17-30 ­

Ledgerwood 1997, “…The Cambodian Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide,” 82-98

Kennedy 1996, “…The Manufacture of Nostalgia in Vietnam's Tourist Industry,” 1-36

Kelly 1996, “Enshrining History,” 45-57

White 1997, “On Not Being a Theme Park,” 1-11

optional:

MacCannell 1992, “The Vietnam Memorial,” 280-282

Turnbull 1996, “Remembering Pearl Harbor,” 407-433

 

Guest speaker: Daniel Martinez, NPS Historian, Arizona Memorial

 

field trip: USS Arizona Memorial

 

April 16  15. Theme Parks / Cultural Centers

DUE: Third journal reflection

 

Stanley, “Ethnographic Theme Parks,” “Revolt of the Represented,” 36-114

Ross 1993, “Cultural Preservation in the Polynesia of the Latter Day Saints,” 276-84

optional:

Stanton, “The Polynesian Cultural Center,” in Smith 1989, 247-262.

 

guest speaker: Prof. Jon Goss, UH Department of Geography

field trip: Polynesian Cultural Center

 

 

V. PROJECT PRESENTATIONS

 

April 23 16. Project presentations

Project presentations (presenters hand in 2-3 page outline or notes)

 

 

April 30 17. Project presentations / Conclusion

Project presentations (presenters hand in 2-3 page outline or notes)

 

 

May 2: Final Papers Due

Course Bibliography

 

 

Besio, Kathryn

2001    Caught Looking: Photography, Travelers and Askole. Unpublished paper. Department of Geography, University of Hawai‘i.

 

Bruner, Edward, and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett

1994    Maasai on the Lawn: Tourist Realism in East Africa. Cultural Anthropology 9(4):435-470.

 

Castañeda, Quetzil E.

in press Maya Mysteries, Mirror for Man: Monumentalized Public Sphere of Tourism at Chichén Itzá. In Journeys into Otherness. Keith Hollinshead and Chuck de Burlo, eds. Clevedon, England: Channel View Publications.

 

Clifford, James

1997    Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

 

Desmond, Jane C.

2000. Staging Tourism: Bodies on Display from Waikiki to Sea World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

 

Diller, E. and R. Scofidio

1994            Introduction. In Back to the Front: Tourisms of War. Diller, E. and R. Scofidio, Eds. Princeton, Princeton Architectural Press.

 

Dominguez, Virginia

1986    The Marketing of Heritage. American Ethnologist 13(3): 546-555.

 

Errington, Frederick, and Deborah Gewertz

1989            Tourism and anthropology in a post-modern world. Oceania 60:37-54.

 

Fujitani, T.

1997            National Narratives and Minority Politics: The Japanese American National Museum's War Stories. In Public History and National Narrative. Special Issue of Museum Anthropology 21(1): 99-112.

 

Gewertz, Deborah, and Fred Errington

1991    The New Traditionalism: Tourism and its transformations. In Twisted Histories, Altered Contexts: Representing the Chambri in a World System. Pp. 25-57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Goss, Jon

1998    "From Here to Eternity": Voyages of Re(dis)covery in Tourist Landscapes of Hawai'i. Unpublished paper, 30 pp.

 

Hawai'i Ecumenical Coalition on Tourism

1989            Tourism in Hawai'i: Its Impact on Native Hawaiians and Its Challenge to the Churches. The 1989 Hawai'i Declaration of the Hawai'i Ecumenical Coalition on Tourism Conference, Honolulu, 1989, pp. 1-7. American Friends Service Committee.

 

Helu-Thaman, Konai

1993, “Beyond Hula, Hotels, and Handicrafts: A Pacific Islander's Perspective on Tourism Development,” The Contemporary Pacific 5(1): 104-111.

 

Jolly, Margaret

1994    Kastom as Commodity: The Land Dive as Indigenous Rite and Tourist Spectacle in Vanuatu. In Culture, Kastom, Tradition: Cultural Policy in Melanesia. L. Lindstrom and G. White, eds. Pp. 131-146. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies.

 

Kelly, Marjorie

1996            Enshrining History: The Visitor Experience at Pearl Harbor's USS Arizona Memorial. Museum Anthropology 20(3):45-57.

 

Kennedy, Laurel B.

1996    Re-presenting Vietnam War's War Experience: The Manufacture of Nostalgia in Vietnam's Tourist Industry. Paper presented at meetings of the Association for Asian Studies, Honolulu, 1996, pp. 1-36.

 

Kincaid, Jamaica

1989    A small place. New York, NY: Plume Book.

 

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara

1998            Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press.

 

Ledgerwood, Judy

1997    The Cambodian Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocidal Crimes. Museum Anthropology 21(1): 82-98

 

Lippard: Lucy.

1999. On the Beaten Track: Tourism, Art and Place. New York: The New Press.

 

Lutkehaus, Nancy

1989    "Excuse Me, Everything is Not All Right": On Ethnography, Film and Representation [An Interview with Filmmaker Dennis OíRourke]. Cultural Anthropology 4(4):422-437.

 

Lutz, Catherine A., and Jane L. Collins

1993            Reading National Geographic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

MacCannell, Dean

1989    The tourist : a new theory of the leisure class. New York: Schocken Books.

 

MacCannell, Dean

1992    Empty meeting grounds : the tourist papers. London ; New York: Routledge.

 

Manderson, Lenore, and Margaret Jolly, eds.

1997    Sites of Desire / Economies of Pleasure: Sexualities in Asia and the Pacific. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

Minerbi, Luciano

1999             Tourism and Native Hawaiians. In Ecotourism, Sustainable Development, and Cultural Survival: Protecting Indigenous Culture and Land Through Ecotourism. Cultural Survival Quarterly Summer 1999 (23.2)

 

Minerbi, Luciano

1996            Hawai‘i. In Tourism in the Pacific. Hall, M. C. and S. J. Page, Eds.Andover, Hampshire, Thomson International Business Press. pp. 190-204

 

O'Brien, Aine

1996            Marketing and Managing Colonial Spectacle as National History: In the Belly of the Archive. The South Atlantic Quarterly 95(1):103-144.

 

Okamura, Jonathan

1998    The Illusion of Paradise: Privileging Multiculturalism in Hawai'i. In Making Majorities. D. Gladney, ed. Pp. 264-284. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

 

O’Rourke, Dennis

1997    Beyond Cannibal Tours: Tourists, Modernity, and "The Other." In Tourism and Cultural Development in Asia and Oceania. S. Yamahita, K. Din and J. Eades, Eds. Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia. Pp. 32-47

 

Picard, Michel, and Robert E. Wood, eds.

1997            Tourism, Ethnicity, and the State in Asian and Pacific Societies. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.

 

Pratt, Mary Louise

1992            Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge

 

Ross, Andrew (1993). . In. Pp. .

1993    Cultural Preservation in the Polynesia of the Latter Day Saints. In  The Chicago Gangster Theory of Life: Nature’s Debt to Society. A. Ross, ed. 21-98; 276-84.

 

Smith, Valene L.

1989    Hosts and guests : the anthropology of tourism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

 

Stanley, Nick

1998    Being Ourselves for You: the global display of cultures. London: Middlesex University Press.

 

Teaiwa, Teresia

1994    Bikinis and other s/pacific n/oceans. The Contemporary Pacific 6:87-109.

 

Trask, Haunani-Kay

1993    Lovely Hula Hands:Corporate Tourism and the Prostitution of Hawaiian Culture. In From a native daughter : colonialism and sovereignty in Hawai'i. Pp. 179-197. Monroe, Me.: Common Courage Press.

 

Turnbull, Phyllis

1996            Remembering Pearl Harbor: The Semiotics of the Arizona Memorial. In Challenging Boundaries: Global Flows, Territorial Identities. H.A. Jr. and M. Shapiro, eds. Pp. 407-433. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

 

Urry, John

1990    The tourist gaze : leisure and travel in contemporary societies. London ; Newbury Park: Sage Publications.

 

Wallace, M.

1996    Mickey Mouse History: Portraying the Past at Disney World. Mickey Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Pp.133-167.

 

White, Geoffrey

1997    On Not Being a Theme Park. Paper read at meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., 1997, pp. 1-11.

 

Wood, Robert E.

1998            Touristic Ethnicity: a brief itinerary. Ethnic and Racial Studies 21(2):218-241.

 

Yamashita, Shinji

2000    The Japanese Encounter with the South: Japanese Tourists in Palau. The Contemporary Pacific 12(2): 437-463.

 

Yamashita, S., J. Eades and K. Din

1997            Introduction: Tourism and Cultural Development in Asia and Oceania. Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia. Pp. 13-31.