Becoming ‘local tourists’

Abstract

This article questions the distinctiveness of hosts and guests, and blurs the boundaries between a commitment to established relationships and an emergent modern tourist identity among Biangai travelers in Papua New Guinea. As a result of colonial pacification, the Biangai increasingly experience the nation as travelers, while at the same time welcoming gold miners, researchers and eco-tourists to their mid-montane forests and wildlife management areas. When they travel, young men often stylize themselves as ‘local tourist’. Here, I examine what appear to be two ‘traditional’ trips -one for a redistributive feast, and another for a marriage ceremony -where expectations of commensurability, exchange, friendships, and some sort of shared space are not met. As travelers and tourists, the Biangai reveal a different gaze from those commonly associated with international tourists.