Week 19. Tourism and the Environment in a Postcolonial World
The mass commodification of nature and culture for the benefit of corporate tourism has raised pressing questions about environmental degradation, the expropriation of vast tracts of land, and the wealth and power inequalities that structure the global tourist economy. Focusing on two case studies - the packaging of Hawai'i as a holiday paradise and the politics of safari tourism in Tanzania - this seminar examines how transnational corporations and conservationists have worked hand in glove with colonial and post-colonial authorities to dispossess indigenous communities in the name of economic development or wildlife preservation. Looking at the different strategies for navigating tourism of the Maasai and Native Hawaiians, we address the question whether tourism is inherently exploitative.
Core Reading
Vernadette Vicu帽a Gonzalez, 'Making Aloha: Lei and the Cultural Labor of Hospitality', in: Daniel E. Bender and Jana K. Lipman (eds.), Making the Empire Work: Labor and United States Imperialism (New York: NYU Press, 2015), pp. 161-182. .
Benjamin Gardner, Selling the Serengeti: The Cultural Politics of Safari Tourism (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 2016), Ch. 1: 'Introduction: Safari Tourism, Pastoralism, and Land Rights in Tanzania', pp. 1-27. .
Primary Sources
Haunani-Kay Trask, From A Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii (rev. ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), '"Lovely Hula Hands", Corporate Tourism and the Prostitution of Hawaiian Culture', pp. 136-147. .
Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (London: Daunt Books, 2018 [1988]), Ch. 1, pp. 10-15. .
Seminar Questions
- How was the indigenous Hawaiian concept of aloha commodified for touristic consumption, and with which consequences?
- Gonzalez uses the term 鈥渢ourist-settler鈥� (p. 168). How instructive do you find the concept of tourist-as-settler and how widely applicable is it?
- How do capitalism, conservationism, and decolonisation come together in East African safari tourism?
- Does the global tourist economy offer indigenous communities routes for resisting dispossession and marginalisation?
- Both Trask and Gardner raise the point of (false) consciousness: whose argument do you find the most compelling and why?
- Has reading Trask and Kincaid changed your perspective on being a tourist?
Further Reading
Baker, Anthony David, Identity and Intercultural Exchange in Travel and Tourism (Bristol: Channel View Publications, 2015). .
Bhimull, Chandra D., Empire in the Air: Airline Travel and the African Diaspora (New York: New York University Press, 2017). .
Brazie, Jana Evans, Caribbean Genesis: Jamaica Kincaid and the Writing of New Worlds (Albany: SUNY Press, 2009). .
Carrigan, Anthony, Postcolonial Tourism: Literature, Culture, and Environment (New York: Routledge, 2011). .
Chio, Jenny, et al., 'Discussion: Tourism and Race', Journal of Tourism History 12.2 (2020), pp. 173-197. .
Cock, Catherine, Tropical Whites: The Rise of the Tourist South in the Americas (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). .
Crane, Kylie, 鈥楨cocriticism and Travel鈥�, in: Nandini Das and Tim Youngs (eds.), The Cambridge History of Travel Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 535-549. .
Creech, Brian, 鈥楶ostcolonial Travel Journalism and the New Media鈥�, in Robert Clarke (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Travel Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 157-172. .
De Mul, Sarah, Colonial Memory: Contemporary Women鈥檚 Travel Writing in Britain and The Netherlands (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011)..
Devine, Jennifer, and Diana Ojeda, 'Violence and Dispossession in Tourism Development: A Critical Geographical Approach', Journal of Sustainable Tourism 25.5 (2017), pp. 605-617. .
Devine, Jennifer A., 'Colonizing Space and Commodifying Place: Tourism's Violent Geographies', Journal of Sustainable Tourism 25.5 (2017), pp. 634-650. .
Didur, Jill, 鈥榃alk This Way: Postcolonial Travel Writing and the Environment鈥�, in: Robert Clarke (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Travel Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 33-48. .
Didur, Jill, 'Strange Joy: Plant-hunting and Responsibility in Jamaica Kincaid's (Post)colonial Travel Writing', Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 13.2 (2011), pp. 236-255. .
Edwards, Justin D., 鈥楶ostcolonial Travel Writing and Postcolonial Theory鈥�, in: Robert Clarke (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Travel Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 19-32. .
Edwards, Justin D., and Rune Graulund (eds.), Postcolonial Travel Writing: Critical Explorations (Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011). .
Fic, Christy, 'Prepare Yourself for the Worst: Narratives of Fear in Late-Twentieth Century Women鈥檚 Travel Guides', Journal of Tourism History 10.3 (2018), pp. 211-224. .
Gissibi, Bernhard, Sabine H枚hler, and Patrick Kuppe, Civilizing Nature: National Parks in Global Historical Perspective (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2012). .
Griffiths, Jay, Wild: An Elemental Journey (London: Penguin, 2008). .
Hall, Michael C., and Hazel Tucker (eds.), Tourism and Postcolonialism: Contested Discourses, Identities, and Representations (London and New York: Routledge, 2004). .
Holden, Andrew, and David A. Fennell (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Tourism and the Environment (New York: Routledge, 2013). .
Holden, Andrew, Environment and Tourism (London: Routledge, 2000). .
Huggan, Graham, and Helen Tiffin, Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment (2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2015). .
Lisle, Debbie, Holidays in the Danger Zone: Entanglements of War and Tourism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016). .
Little, John Irvine (ed.), Fashioning the Canadian Landscape: Essays on Travel Writing, Tourism, and National Identity in the Pre-Automobile Era (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018). .
Macfarlane, Robert, The Wild Places (London: Granta Books, 2008). .
Mackintosh, Will W., Selling the Sights: The Invention of the Tourist in American Culture (New York: New York University Press, 2019). .
Scott, Blake C., 'Revolution at the Hotel: Panama and Luxury Travel in the Age of Decolonisation', Journal of Tourism History 10.2 (2018), pp. 146-164. .
Scott, Noel, and Jafar Jafari (eds.), Tourism in the Muslim World (Bingley: Emerald, 2010). .
Singh, Tej Vir (ed.), Critical Debates in Tourism (Bristol: Channel View Publications, 2012). .
Sobocinska, Agnieszka, and Richard White, 鈥楾ravel Writing and Tourism鈥�, in: Nandini Das and Tim Youngs (eds.), The Cambridge History of Travel Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 565-580. .
Urry, John, and Jonas Larssen, The Tourist Gaze 3.0 (London: SAGE Publications, 2011). .
Van Vleck, Jenifer, Empire of Air: Aviation and the American Ascendancy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). .
Viken, Arvid, Emily H枚ckert, and Bryan S.R. Grimwood, 'Cultural Sensitivity: Engaging Difference in Tourism', Annals of Tourism Research 89 (2021), pp. 1-11. .
Young, Patrick, 'Tourism, Empire and Aftermath in French North Africa', Journal of Tourism History 10.2 (2018), pp. 183-200. .
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