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In the encounter with the 'other' knowledge,
these tourists thus reconsidered the presumed
universality of Western knowledge productions.
The re- or displacement of the gaze similarly
contributes to a shift in perspective. Contrary to
its fi rst impression as a readily available sight,
Uluru does not open easily to the direct and
frontal gaze. On their walk, tourists often fi nd
signs that prohibit photography at sacred sites.
It is here that they encounter another paradox
of the tourist moment at Uluru: the authentic
experience lies in the disruption of the most
'natural' of tourist impulses, to capture their
experience of a place on photo or fi lm and in
the absence of the desired object. But tourists
cannot know or comprehend what exactly is
being withdrawn from their gaze. In this absence,
the cultural site of Uluru retains its auratic exis-
tence in the fabric of tradition. Aboriginal poli-
tics of representation, as Palmer states, 'meets
the Western desire to 'know' [. . .] not with 'nat-
uralized' objectivity, but through a process of
personalized and overt inter-subjectivity that
returns the non-Aboriginal gaze' (Palmer, 2007,
p. 267). Cultural markers - by marking an
absence or limitation to the gaze - thus function
as entry points into deeper levels of place mean-
ing and, by extension, a shared understanding of
place and culture of the sort that the tourist - in
her search for an 'authentic' or 'authenticated'
experience - is looking for. The prohibited and
dispersed gaze can thus open the senses for the
'real thing':
an Aboriginal space. It is an encounter across
difference that respects - and enjoys - the fun-
damental distance, the unavailability of the
Other as the core of its inalienable integrity. It is
this realization that the tourist may learn from
Anangu's direction of the gaze: the moment of
the encounter, of touching and being touched,
is irreproducible and unique.
Conclusion
Perspectives on landscape - and hence the pos-
tures of the body they seem to prescribe - are
culturally produced. Yet my analysis of perspec-
tives and performances - Aboriginal and non-
Aboriginal 'rituals of place' - at Uluru shows
how conventional postures and habitual ways
of seeing can be disrupted and reconfi gured in
the interplay of representation and embodied
experience. In my discussion, I worked with the
premise of an embodied visuality, arguing that
what is seen and how it is seen depends on the
tourist body's posture in space. Indigenous
knowledge management at Uluru invites visitors
to change posture, both physically and onto-
logically. In diverting and interrupting the
subject-object divide of the gaze, Anangu rep-
resentation offers the possibility to enter a per-
sonal, dialogic and therefore ethically responsible
relationship with place and culture. Anangu do
not simply return the outsider's gaze. Their reg-
ulation and prohibition of the tourist gaze turns
(a perceived) absence into the presence of dif-
ference. Most of my interviewees, having learned
about Anangu's cultural sensitivities and quite
contrary to the image of the tourist as pleasure
seeking consumer, perceived themselves as
guests on Anangu land and were prepared to
conduct their visit accordingly. The tourists'
search for the authentic(-ated) experience, as I
have shown, can strengthen the motivation to
subscribe to a cultural etiquette of place. In the
case of the climb at Uluru, this observation may
help to disperse some tourist operators' con-
cerns that a closure of the climb would lead to a
decline in visitor numbers. On the contrary, if
taken out of their habitual postures and being
'displaced' onto the embodied scale of the
face-to-face, tourists can no longer sustain their
self-perception as unattached consumers. Their
[I]f we look at a thing straight on, i.e.,
matter-of-factly, disinterestedly, objectively, we
see nothing but a formless spot; the object
assumes clear and distinctive features only if we
look at it 'at an angle', i.e. with an 'interested'
view, supported, permeated, and 'distorted' by
desire.
(Žižek, 1997, pp. 11-12)
As other ways of seeing open up other possible
ways of knowing, they create an ethical moment
for the recognition of difference. The space at
Uluru can thus be experienced as a ground for
an ethical encounter with place and across cul-
tures, that does not force the Other under the
possessive gestures of the gaze. Encountering
limits to their visual consumption changes the
tourist's self-perception as passing consumer
and raises the awareness of their being guests in
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