Envisioning Eden: A glocal ethnography of tour guiding

Abstract

Title of the dissertationEnvisioning Eden: A glocal ethnography of tour guidingSupervisorProf. Dr. Sandra T. Barnes and Prof. Dr. Peggy R. SandayInstitution awarding the Ph. D. DegreeUniversity of Pennsylvania (USA)Date of defence21st May 2008Goal and objectives of the dissertationUsing international tourism as an analytical and ethnographic entry, this study explores the intricate ways in which local to global processes intersect, overlap, and clash. Destinations worldwide are adapting themselves to the homogenizing standards of global tourism while at the same time trying to maintain, or even increase, their local distinctiveness. Central to these deeply intertwined processes are tourism imaginaries, understood as representational systems that mediate reality and form identities, and their (re)production by local tour guides, key agents in the selling and telling of natural and cultural heritage. This study addresses the following issues: (1) the representation of peoples and places in globally circulating tourism imaginaries; (2) the perceived, officially sanctioned, and actual roles of local tour guides in this representational practice; (3) the formal schooling and informal learning of guides to appropriate images and discourses of tourism; (4) the (re)production and contestation of fashionable tourism imagery in guiding narratives and practices; and (5) the ways in which dominant imaginaries and personal imaginations of tourism stakeholders are (dis)connected.MethodologyThis study draws on 25 months of multi-sited and multi-temporal fieldwork in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and Arusha, Tanzania. The methodology used, labelled as "glocal ethnography", involves a mixed-methods approach including extensive observation, interviews, questionnaires, and the collection of secondary data.ResultsThe comparative and discourse-centred analysis of the data reveals how local guides in Yogyakarta and Arusha act as "mechanics of glocalization", assuring the continued circulation and localization of tourism fantasies, but also using the encounter with foreigners to foment their own imaginations of "paradise on earth" and to accumulate cosmopolitan knowledge.Theoretical conclusionsThis study exemplifies how a combination of discourse-centred and grounded ethnographic analysis allows us to go beyond mere description, and unpack some of the mechanics behind complex global processes. Tourism, for instance, embodies not only physical phenomena but relates also to imagination, social contexts, and to the process of making sense of practice and place. Local tour guides, key actors in facilitating the tourist experience, act as mechanics of glocalization, performing partially as actors of hegemonic forces well beyond their reach. They are part of an expansive but loosely structured system of global tourism that represents peoples and places in predefined and scripted ways. Guides in destinations as diverse as Jogja and Arusha are facing converging professional roles, rules, and regulations and standardized planned curricula. However, local guides are also able to use their privileged contact with foreigners to nourish their dreams of escape from the harsh local life and to enhance their cosmopolitan status. They do not physically travel "abroad", giving the traditional idea of cosmopolitanism a new meaning and making them much less 'local' than their name tag suggests.Practical application of the dissertationThis research is not a mere case study illustrating or developing certain theoretical points about globalization, transnationalism, or cosmopolitanism in the context of tourism. The findings add not only to the current theorizing on tour guiding and tourism, they demonstrate the potential of glocal ethnography as a methodology to move global studies from mere description or critique to grounded holistic analyses that unravel the complex human mechanisms underlying processes of glocalization. …