Boundaries Versus Borders: Transforming Ethnic Cultural Representation into Place Identity Through Tourism

Abstract

This article addresses the complexity and dynamics of maintaining, representing, and differentiating identities in border territories, which are subject to multiple and heterogeneous mobility flows. Although there have been many studies of host–guest relationships in tourism, the field of intergroup relations within a heterogeneous host community remain hardly investigated. The Jing ethnic group is involved in the tourism industry of Dongxing, a border city between Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Regions of China and Vietnam, a multiethnic area where Han people have intermarried extensively with other ethnic groups and migrants from surrounding regions. Barth's ethnic boundary theory is employed in this research to unravel how tourism plays a significant role in maintaining Jing cultural boundaries, based on broader social interactions. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and participant observations. Observation notes and interview transcripts are analyzed using content analysis. The main findings indicate that: 1) tourism provides an important channel for Jing people to interact within the social structure; 2) tourism amplifies ethnic identities and reinforces the boundaries of ethnic culture; 3) tourism creates a "time–space compression" for ethnic groups to reflect on their own culture; 4) as a minor alternative source of income, tourism facilitates the negotiation of identity. It is found that when the representative community has intrinsic strength in terms of economic condition and cultural confidence, the challenge for tourist destinations is how to construct a collective identity (or even brand) to maximize the benefits created by the common activities that all host communities engaged in.