13 Tourism Anthropology

Subhamay Kisku

Contents:

Tourism is a form of Imperialism

Themes of anthropology of tourism

Necessity of anthropological study of tourism

Approaches of anthropology of tourism Tourism as religion and ritual: is tourism a modern form of religion or pilgrimage?

Tourism as Social Change: Does Tourism Damage Culture?

Tourism as symbolism and mythology: can tourism offer ‘Paradise on earth’?

Tourism in local-global relationships: will tourism bring development?

Summary

Learning Objectives:

To learn about the subject matter of anthropology of tourism
To learn about the theoretical origin of anthropology of tourism
To learn about the themes of anthropology of tourism
To learn about the issues of anthropology of tourism

Introduction

Tourism is a rapidly growing industry in the world. It is ubiquitously present all over the world. With the improved communication system, this industry has got pace and this has made this industry profitable. Large numbers of people are being involved in this industry. This is a source of huge amount of revenue for any country. It gives the opportunity to interact between ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’ and it influences each other. As a result of tourism, cultures of both of these groups are being influenced by each other. So, anthropology has a strong relation with the study of tourism. The subject matter of anthropology and tourism are relevant to each other. This is the beginning how anthropology of tourism has been evolved.

Anthropology

The word ‘anthropology’ has been derived from two Greek words; anthropos (man or human) and logos (study). Anthropology is a scientific discipline that study humankind. It thinks that human being is composed of both biological and cultural components. They not only inherit biological qualities but also cultural qualities. Culture, that makes human unique in the animal kingdom. Anthropology deals with three basic aspects of human being, i.e. human origin, evolution and diversity. According to Haviland (1990) there are five key themes in Anthropology. These are the nature of culture, culture and survival, the formation of groups, the search for order and change and the future. Apart from there are applied aspect of anthropology where anthropological knowledge can be useful to solve the practical problems. Applied and practicing anthropologists put anthropological methods, information, and results to use, in efforts to solve practical problems (Ember, Ember and Peregrine, 2002:2). Not only that, earlier anthropologists mainly concentrate on local life, but anthropologists now study all kinds of societies and also because the methodological repertoire has become more varied (Erisen 2008). It has several branches like Biological Anthropology, Social Cultural Anthropology, Prehistoric Anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology and Applied Anthropology. It is also consist of lots of other sub disciplines. Anthropology of tourism is one such sub discipline of Anthropology.

Key themes in cultural anthropology

Source: after Haviland. 1990

Anthropology of Tourism

If we look back to the history of mankind, we could find that human nature is to roam from one place to another. There are number of reasons that are responsible for which man arrange tour for a particular place. Tourism is now considered as for pleasure making. So, tourism can be defined as the ‘combination of multiple facts, which make this matter as a complex phenomenon and it means travelling to a place which is away from home staying there for a certain period of time’ (Smith 1989 and Przeclawski 1993:11). Through the process of tourism at least two cultural groups come in contact with each other. Therefore, tourism is a subject matter of anthropology. According to Burns and Holden (1995) anthropology and tourism have an obvious synergy. Both seek to identify and make sense of culture and human dynamics. Tourism is a global set of activities crossing many cultures, there is a need for deeper understanding of the consequences and interactions between the generating and receiving tourism societies.

Anthropology has important contributions to offer to the study of tourism, especially through…basic ethnography…as well as the acculturation model and the awareness that tourism is only one element in culture change (Smith 1981:475).

Burns (1999: 67) has pointed out that the major themes of anthropology can be applied in the study of tourism. This may be possible like following ways.

Its characteristic comparative framework (studying a variety of phenomena in different locations in order to identify common trends);
A holistic approach (taking account of social, environmental and economic factors and the links between all three); (and)
Pursuit of deeper level analysis (i.e. what causes tourism).

Nash (1981) pointed out that the cross cultural encounters and the consequential social transactions are the result of tourism ‘that provide the key to the anthropologic understanding of tourism’.

According to Nash (1981) process of recognizing anthropology of tourism as a unique sub-discipline was not quite frictionless. Because earlier it was considered that tourism is the domain of economists, geographers or business managers. On the other hand anthropologists were reluctant to recognize themselves with tourists, as they consider themselves as expert in fieldwork. Not even this, anthropologists were not capable enough to understand the significance of social-cultural significance of tourism. Apart from this anthropologists were not interested on modern or post-modern phenomenon like tourism. Lastly, anthropologists were not considered tourism as a serious scholarly issue of study.

Theoretical origin of anthropology of tourism

The theoretical origin of anthropology of tourism was based on the ideas of some renowned social scientists like Emile Durkheim, Arnold Van Gennep and Victor Turner. Durkheim in his essay The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1915) has referred that society constantly creating sacred things among the ordinary things. In the process of creating sacred things rituals and religion have important roles. These rituals and religion provide society more social solidarity. Sacred is something which is above the real thing. Religious thoughts bring into a certain degree of intensified psychic conditions. Nelsion Graburn (Graburn, 1989:24) used the concept of ‘Durkheim’s notion of the sacred – the non-ordinary experience – and the profane’. Similarly Van Gannep (1960) theorized the transformation of the individuals during their life cycle and analyzed the rites of passage. He further put forwarded that rites of passage consist of three elements. These are separation, liminality and incorporation.

Separation is a ritual through which a person is separated from society and ‘ordinary’ life. Liminality is a period of isolation or seclusion after the period of separation. Incorporation is a period of re-integration into the society with a new social status. The rituals under rites of passage have the capability of strengthen the collective sentiments. From here Victor Turner (1967:30) developed the idea of transitions. According to him in social rituals, norms and values are ‘saturated’ with emotions. At the same time gross and basic emotions become ‘ennobled’ through the norms and values. There are certain behaviours which are not accepted in ‘normal’ life, but in special situation these behaviours accepted by the society. For instance drinking of alcohol is not accepted in Indian society. But in ceremonial time it is accepted to some extent. In case of a traveler, when he move out for travel trip he had to pass through series of rituals before leaving of home. This period may be considered as separation. When he roams in his trip this period is known as liminality. At the end of his trip when he returns back to his home and get involve in his daily life, this period is known as incorporation. Tourism may be considered as sacred. It is worshipped like totem as described by Durkheim. Tourism might be seen as totem of freedom. Thus worshipping of tourism is a symbol of social and economic freedom.

Tourism is a form of Imperialism:

Tourism is considered as an incursion of the urban culture into the rural culture. It has been damaging the rural culture wrought by the urban culture for the sake of tourism. Even this destruction process goes on unconsciously and unintentionally by the super-ordinate culture over sub-ordinate culture. According Nash (1989:37) there are several themes which have influenced the study of tourism from social science perspective. Following are the summaries of those themes (Burns 1999:74):

Touristic development should not be analyzed without considering productive centres that are responsible for generating surplus to enable leisure tourism and tourists.
Tourism creates a controlling mechanism by the generating regions over the receiving regions. As a result of that generating region makes an imperialistic approach and tourism a form of imperialism.
A kind of demand and supply relationship are developed through which a supportive infrastructure is developed in form of swimming pool, air conditioning, fast food, beverages and so on, which are not generally found naturally or traditionally.
An unequal transaction takes place between local people and tourists. Thus a ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’ relationship is grown up.
Due to economic disparities between ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’, a sense of superiority or super ordinate feeling is developed among the ‘guests’. They feel free to act as per their own self interests.
In case of an economically less capable country, tourism system may subsume the general economy to fulfill the needs of the fleeting tourists and strangers in vacation.

Themes of anthropology of tourism

Jafar Jafari has explained how five key themes of anthropology; the nature of culture; culture and survival; the formation of groups; the search for order and change and the future are interconnected with tourism (Burns 1999: 75).

Jafari has sub divided the tourism system into two sub-systems, the generating regions and the receiving areas. The generating regions supply an ‘outpouring’ of tourists. The receiving areas absorb an ‘inpouring’ of tourists. He further placed these two sub-systems within the context of the zones of mutual interdependence. He then tried to build up a relationship between demand and supply, which is beyond the concepts of economics. According to him, the industrialized or post-industrialized countries are dependent upon re-creative satellite areas failing to provide ‘recreational goods’ to their citizen. As a result of this they have to shift their attention to other locations. This theme of anthropology of tourism is quite different from the political scientists.

Necessity of anthropological study of tourism

There are ample scopes for anthropologists to study on tourism. Tourism provides opportunity to interact various cultures and sub-cultures. Therefore, chances change may be studied through anthropology. On the other hand tourism is a widespread global phenomenon. It happens all over the world irrespective of the complexity of the human culture.

Necessity of anthropological study of tourism

Source: after Nash, 1981 (in Burns 1199:77)

Not only this, tourism provides an opportunity to experience the non-instrumental travel, which is for the purpose of recreation of mind. Lastly, tourism is responsible for transformation of pre-industrial world in contact with industrialized or post-industrialized world. All of these reasons ultimately help anthropology to find out the underneath value systems of the complex and interconnected societies of modern world by considering tourism as a part of general social process.

Approaches of anthropology of tourism

According to Malcolm Cricks (Selwyn 1996) has categorized the enquiry of anthropology of tourism in three strands.

Semiology
Political economy
Social and cultural change

Semiology: as Ferdinandde Saussure (linguist and semiotician) has explained, it is the study of meaning and relationship between image and symbol, which is known as signifier and the meaning associated with it is known as signified. This signifying process is done through denotation and connotation by the members of the society. During a period of visit to a location, tourists try to imply special significance of a particular place, culture or even an object, though these things are non-significant in themselves.

Political economy: it studies the phenomena of power and control and forces that are responsible for tourism development in a particular area. It tries to examine political aspects of development and economy of an event associated with tourism.

Social and cultural change: it studies the process of commoditization of a particular space, culture and object due to the interaction of generating and receiving areas.

Issues of Tourism Anthropology

According Burns (1999:89) there are following four issues related to tourism anthropology, which may be explained by the respective questions.

Tourism as religion and ritual: is tourism a modern form of religion or pilgrimage?
Tourism as social change: does tourism damage culture?
Tourism as symbolism and mythology: can tourism offer ‘Paradise on earth’?
Tourism in local-global relationships: will tourism bring development?

Tourism as religion and ritual: is tourism a modern form of religion or pilgrimage?

In pilgrimage sacred places are visited by the pilgrims. During this journey they have to pass through certain rituals, after visiting the sacred place they will return back to home. These rituals may be considered as separation from daily life. During this limited period visit to the sacred place various relationships are developed with other pilgrims irrespective of their class, which is known as ‘role reversal’. This sort of spending of time provides mental satisfaction to the pilgrims. So, tourism may be considered as a form of pilgrimage, as it includes various rituals before going to a destination. Further, Burns (1999:91) has tried to indicate pilgrimage as paying tribute to the culture rather than religious. But he also mentioned that hardly in all tourism there is a chance of ‘role reversal’, because in case of travel agent scripted package tourism there is no scope of ‘role reversal’. This kind of tourism has very less difference from the daily life of the tourists. So it is difficult to come in a single agreed definition of tourism and tourist (Burns 1999:92). It may be considered that tourism provide knowledge regarding other’s thoughts on culture. So, a rich ethnographic research is required for establishing the fact that tourism is a pilgrimage.

Tourism as Social Change: Does Tourism Damage Culture?

Generally, tourists come from different cultural or sub-cultural background. Therefore, it is obvious that a kind cultural exchange takes place between the ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’. This cultural exchange may lead to the culture change. Then a valid question may arise that whether this culture change is beneficial or detrimental. Tourism is a kind of interaction between the ‘Hosts’ and the ‘Guests’, through which both sides face a reciprocal cultural changes. These cultural changes are depended upon following factors (Burns 1999:95):

type of the tourists
their length of stay, attitudes and expectations
the number of tourists
the length of season
the role of the ‘culture-brokers’ or ‘marginal-men’

Here, come the ‘culture broker’ or ‘marginal men’ means multilingual and innovative mediators that can control or manipulate local culture for tourists purposes (Smith 1977). They are responsible for manipulation of local culture for the sake of tourists’ purposes without affecting the cultural identity (1982:163). Apart from this there other pressures on host-guest relationship as identified by Burns (1999: 96) and depicted in the following figure.

Pressures on host-guest relationships

The main objective of the tourists is not to come in contact with the local people, rather to move away from their daily activities, monotonous regular life, to have joy and holiday. So, according to Burns (1999: 96) there are some other areas which are needed to be explained on host-guest relationships. These are the demonstration effect, internal and external exchange, acculturation and cultural drift and cultural symbiosis and assimilation.

The demonstration effect

It is a kind of effect which resulted for imitating the tourists by the local people at the tourist site. Generally there are certain stereotypes exist among the local people at the tourist site that tourists belong to the ‘superior’ culture and ‘well-to-do’ families. Therefore, younger generations are very much susceptible to be influenced by the demonstration of the tourist. Local young folks start to emulate life style, dress and language of the tourist. Though it is difficult to supplemented by the evidence that these things are happened only through the effect of tourism, there are some other factors like modernization, globalization and so on.

Internal and external exchange

Every culture is susceptible to culture change. There are no cultures stagnant in nature. It means every culture changes at least by two processes. One is internal and another is external (Burns 1999: 97). According to Burns in case of internal process changes come from innovation, invention and creativity. Here the rate of such changes is slow in the simple society than the complex society. Whereas, in case of external process changes come through the process of modernization, westernization and external pressure in the form of economic, political, cultural and environmental. Tourism is one such channel through which external changes takes place.

Acculturation and cultural drift

Acculturation is a process of culture change when two cultures come in contact with each other and borrow their ideas and materials. This borrowing is unequal in nature. The complex society will dominant over the simple society. Therefore, simple society will borrow more cultural components of the complex society. Cultural drift is a process when temporary cultural changes take place. The cultural drift takes place on the basis of time contact of these two cultures. If cultural contact takes place for more time then the cultural changes are permanent; otherwise it is temporary in nature.

Cultural symbiosis and assimilation

Cultural symbiosis and assimilation, both of these terms are derived from the term acculturation. When we talk about two cultures having unequal economic status, then we use the term acculturation. However, when we talk about two cultures having equal economic status, then we use these two words. So, when two cultures started to diffuse each other one point of time and when they started to converge together, then these processes are known as cultural symbiosis and assimilation respectively.

Tourism as symbolism and mythology: can tourism offer ‘Paradise on earth’?

It is been seen that name of the hotels are kept with the word ‘paradise’. It is tried to symbolize the place as a paradise, place lots of heavenly features. According to Graham Dann (1996) there are four types of paradise in front of the tourists. He studied more than 5000 images featured on almost 1500 pages in 11 British holiday brochures. These four types of paradise are as follows.

Paradise contrived: no people; natives as scenery; natives as cultural markets;
Paradise confined: tourists only – tourist ghetto;
Paradise controlled: limited contact with locals: natives as servants, natives as entertainers, natives as venders; [and]
Paradise confused: further contact with locals, attempt to enter locals-only zones: natives as seducers, natives as intermediaries, natives as familiar, natives as tourists, tourists as natives.(1996:68)

It is the process of depicting tourist site as paradise. In tourism brochure there are hardly hosts and guests are depicted together through images. It is tried to showcase that local people are the creator of the paradise. In case of rural area, local people or hosts are projected to welcome guests as a part of their family. On the other hand, in urban area hosts are projected as to welcome you with smiling face. In both the case, it is tried to pictures tourists are not alone during their tour in the new area.

Tourism in local-global relationships: will tourism bring development?

Tourism is considered as an industry, which is running the global economy. Therefore, it has a deep impact over the life of the people. Thus anthropologists can play an important role in this industry. It is seen that in many cases where tourism is playing as a factor of development. Therefore local-global relationship must be observed, because local people have the economic potential in this development. On the other hand the tourism systems can be enriched by the anthropological field work and observation. Apart from this recognition of social institutions and organization must be contextualized with the anthropological insights for the developmental process. So, tourism system should be developed from local to global, rather than ‘tourism from above’. Thus tourism can bring a developmental process which is quite beneficial for the local people.

Summary

Anthropology is the study of human origin, evolution and variation.
Interactions among people are the principal factors in tourism rather than business.
Anthropology provides an approach through its comparative framework to study the local and global scenario by emphasizing the social, economic and environmental domains.
The current anthropological understanding is that tourism is a complex phenomenon involving various events and facets.
According to Crick tourism may be studied by the anthropologists through the categories of semiology, political economy and social/cultural change.

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Glossary

Anthropology: is a scientific discipline that study humankind and composed of both biological and cultural components.
Tourism: is travelling to a place which is away from home and staying there for a certain period of time.
Separation: is a ritual through which a person is separated from society and ‘ordinary’ life.
Liminality: is a period of isolation or seclusion after the period of separation.
Incorporation: is a period of re-integration into the society with a new social status.
Semiology: it is the study of meaning and relationship between image and symbol, which is known as signified and the meaning associated with it is known as signified.

References

Burns, P. and Holden, A. 1995. Tourism: a New Perspective. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Burns, P. M. 1999. An Introduction to Tourism and Anthropology. London and New York. (Retrieved from Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. on 30.05.2017)
Dann, G (1996) The People of Tourist Brouchure, (in) Selwyn, T. (1996).
Durkheim, E. (1915) Elementary Forms of Religious Life, London: Free Press.
Ember, C. R., M. Ember and P. N. Peregrine 2002. Anthropology. 10th edition. Pearson Education Asia. pp. 2.
Erisen, T. H. 2008. What is Anthropology? Rawat Publications. New Delhi.
Gennep, A.V. (1960) The Rites of Passage, Psychology Press.
Graburn, N. (1989) Tourism: the Sacred Journey, (in) Smith, V. (1989).
Haviland, W. A. (1990) Cultural Anthropology. Thomson Learning; 6th ed. edition.
Nash, D. (1989) Tourism as a Form of Imperialism, (in) Smith, V. (ed.)
Nash, D. 1981. Tourism as an Anthropological Subject, Current Anthropology, 22 (5), pp. 461– 81.
Przeclawski, K. 1993 Tourism as a subject of interdisciplinary research. In Tourism Research: Critiques and Challenges. D.G. Pearce & R.W. Butler, eds. London: Routledge. pp. 9-199.
Selwyn, T. 1996) (ed.) The Tourist Image: Myths and Myth Making in Tourism, London: Wiley.
Smith, V. (ed.) (1977) Hosts and Guests: the Anthropology of Tourism (1st edition), Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Smith, V. 1981. Response to Nash, D. ‘Tourism as an Anthropological Subject’, Current Anthropology, 22(5): pp. 461-81.
Smith, V.L. 1989 Introduction In Hosts and guest: The anthropology of tourism. 2nd Ed. V. Smith, ed. Pp. 1-17. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Turner, V. (1967) The Forest of Symbols. Ithaca. Cornell University Press. pp. 30.

Suggested Readings

Benthall, J. 1988. The Anthropology of Tourism. Anthropology Today. Vo. 4, No. 3. Pp. 20-22.
Burns, G.L. 2004. Anthropology and Tourism: Past contributions and future theoretical challenges. Griffith Research Online. (https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au/)
Graburn, N.H.H. 1983. The Anthropology of Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research. Vol. 10, pp. 9-33.
Leite, N. and M. Swain. (in press 2015). “Anthropology of Tourism.” Encyclopedia of Tourism, 2nd ed., ed. Jafar Jafari and Honggen Xiao. London: SpringerReference. (eprints.soas.ac.uk/19859/1/Leite_Swain_EncyclTourism.pdf)
Nash, D. and V. L. Smith. 1991. Anthropology and Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research. Pergamon Press. Vol. 18: pp. 12-25.
Stronza, A. 2001. Anthropology of Tourism: Forging New Ground for Ecotourism and Other Alternatives. Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 30, pp. 261-283.