Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
8
In the Eye of the Beholder?
Tourism and the Activist Academic
Freya Higgins-Desbiolles
Introduction
Image and Representation in Tourism
The one path that still leads in the direction of
scholarly objectivity, detachment, and neutrality
is exactly the one originally thought to lead
away from these classic virtues: that is an
openly autobiographical style in which the
subjective position of the author, especially on
political matters, is presented in a clear and
straightforward fashion. At least this enables the
reader to review his or her own position to
make the adjustments necessary for dialogue.
(MacCannell, 1992, pp. 9-10)
Image and representation have long been fruit-
ful lines of enquiry for tourism analysis. Accord-
ing to Gartner (2000, p. 295), images are the:
perceptions, beliefs, impressions, ideas and
understanding one holds of objects, people,
events or places. An image is a simplifi ed,
condensed version of which the holder assumes
to be reality. Held and stored images are the
means humans use to organise the various
stimuli received and processed on a daily basis,
and help to make sense of the surroundings
and the world in which one lives.
In the interests of scholarly objectivity, some
analysts of tourism are at pains to put aside any
personal predilections and experiences that
might colour their perspectives.
In the new millennium, tourism has offered
a few rare works of exception that demonstrate
that scholarly understanding can develop from
material which is both personal and scholarly
(Botterill, 2003; Hall, 2004; Nash, 2007). The
analysis contained within this chapter suggests
the image of tourism held in the mind of the
researcher can shape and infl uence their
engagement with the study and analysis of tour-
ism and that an exploration of such images is
worthy of investigation. Here, I offer an auto-
ethnographic narrative, which reveals the source
of my vision of tourism as a societal phenome-
non as well as insights to my approach as an
'activist academic'.
Image analysis in tourism has usually concerned
the images held of people, products, experi-
ences and/or the destination. The encounter
between the tourist and the host of the tourist
destination is mediated in effect by the images
held in the mind's eye of each of these key play-
ers leading to complex and nuanced interac-
tions that defy simple description and analysis.
Dennis O'Rourke's classic fi lm
Cannibal Tours
(1988) illustrates this beautifully as he 'docu-
ments' the encounter between western tourists
and the toured 'Other', embodied in this case
by locals of the Sepik River region of Papua
New Guinea. A startling feature of the fi lm is the
lack of any real contact and understanding
between the interviewed western tourists and
the local Papuans, as each group responds to
Search WWH ::
Custom Search