Week 19. Tourism and the Environment in a Postcolonial World
The mass commodification of nature and culture for the benefit of corporate tourism has raised pressing questions about environmental degradation, the expropriation of vast tracts of land, and the wealth and power inequalities that structure the global tourist economy. Focusing on two case studies - the packaging of Hawai'i as a holiday paradise and the politics of safari tourism in Tanzania - this seminar examines how transnational corporations and conservationists have worked hand in glove with colonial and post-colonial authorities to dispossess indigenous communities in the name of economic development or wildlife preservation. Looking at the different strategies for navigating tourism of the Maasai and Native Hawaiians, we address the question whether tourism is inherently exploitative.
Core Reading
Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez, 'Making Aloha: Lei and the Cultural Labor of Hospitality', in: Daniel E. Bender and Jana K. Lipman (eds.), Making the Empire Work: Labor and United States Imperialism (New York: NYU Press, 2015), pp. 161-182. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Benjamin Gardner, Selling the Serengeti: The Cultural Politics of Safari Tourism (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 2016), Ch. 1: 'Introduction: Safari Tourism, Pastoralism, and Land Rights in Tanzania', pp. 1-27. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Primary Sources
Haunani-Kay Trask, From A Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii (rev. ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), '"Lovely Hula Hands", Corporate Tourism and the Prostitution of Hawaiian Culture', pp. 136-147. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (London: Daunt Books, 2018 [1988]), Ch. 1, pp. 10-15. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Seminar Questions
- How was the indigenous Hawaiian concept of aloha commodified for touristic consumption, and with which consequences?
- Gonzalez uses the term “tourist-settler” (p. 168). How instructive do you find the concept of tourist-as-settler and how widely applicable is it?
- How do capitalism, conservationism, and decolonisation come together in East African safari tourism?
- Does the global tourist economy offer indigenous communities routes for resisting dispossession and marginalisation?
- Both Trask and Gardner raise the point of (false) consciousness: whose argument do you find the most compelling and why?
- Has reading Trask and Kincaid changed your perspective on being a tourist?
Further Reading
Baker, Anthony David, Identity and Intercultural Exchange in Travel and Tourism (Bristol: Channel View Publications, 2015). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Bhimull, Chandra D., Empire in the Air: Airline Travel and the African Diaspora (New York: New York University Press, 2017). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Brazie, Jana Evans, Caribbean Genesis: Jamaica Kincaid and the Writing of New Worlds (Albany: SUNY Press, 2009). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Carrigan, Anthony, Postcolonial Tourism: Literature, Culture, and Environment (New York: Routledge, 2011). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Chio, Jenny, et al., 'Discussion: Tourism and Race', Journal of Tourism History 12.2 (2020), pp. 173-197. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Cock, Catherine, Tropical Whites: The Rise of the Tourist South in the Americas (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Crane, Kylie, ‘Ecocriticism and Travel’, in: Nandini Das and Tim Youngs (eds.), The Cambridge History of Travel Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 535-549. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Creech, Brian, ‘Postcolonial Travel Journalism and the New Media’, in Robert Clarke (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Travel Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 157-172. LinkLink opens in a new window.
De Mul, Sarah, Colonial Memory: Contemporary Women’s Travel Writing in Britain and The Netherlands (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Devine, Jennifer, and Diana Ojeda, 'Violence and Dispossession in Tourism Development: A Critical Geographical Approach', Journal of Sustainable Tourism 25.5 (2017), pp. 605-617. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Devine, Jennifer A., 'Colonizing Space and Commodifying Place: Tourism's Violent Geographies', Journal of Sustainable Tourism 25.5 (2017), pp. 634-650. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Didur, Jill, ‘Walk This Way: Postcolonial Travel Writing and the Environment’, in: Robert Clarke (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Travel Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 33-48. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Didur, Jill, 'Strange Joy: Plant-hunting and Responsibility in Jamaica Kincaid's (Post)colonial Travel Writing', Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 13.2 (2011), pp. 236-255. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Edwards, Justin D., ‘Postcolonial Travel Writing and Postcolonial Theory’, in: Robert Clarke (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Travel Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 19-32. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Edwards, Justin D., and Rune Graulund (eds.), Postcolonial Travel Writing: Critical Explorations (Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Fic, Christy, 'Prepare Yourself for the Worst: Narratives of Fear in Late-Twentieth Century Women’s Travel Guides', Journal of Tourism History 10.3 (2018), pp. 211-224. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Gissibi, Bernhard, Sabine Höhler, and Patrick Kuppe, Civilizing Nature: National Parks in Global Historical Perspective (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2012). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Griffiths, Jay, Wild: An Elemental Journey (London: Penguin, 2008). LibraryLink opens in a new window.
Hall, Michael C., and Hazel Tucker (eds.), Tourism and Postcolonialism: Contested Discourses, Identities, and Representations (London and New York: Routledge, 2004). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Holden, Andrew, and David A. Fennell (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Tourism and the Environment (New York: Routledge, 2013). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Holden, Andrew, Environment and Tourism (London: Routledge, 2000). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Huggan, Graham, and Helen Tiffin, Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment (2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2015). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Lisle, Debbie, Holidays in the Danger Zone: Entanglements of War and Tourism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Little, John Irvine (ed.), Fashioning the Canadian Landscape: Essays on Travel Writing, Tourism, and National Identity in the Pre-Automobile Era (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Macfarlane, Robert, The Wild Places (London: Granta Books, 2008). LibraryLink opens in a new window.
Mackintosh, Will W., Selling the Sights: The Invention of the Tourist in American Culture (New York: New York University Press, 2019). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Scott, Blake C., 'Revolution at the Hotel: Panama and Luxury Travel in the Age of Decolonisation', Journal of Tourism History 10.2 (2018), pp. 146-164. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Scott, Noel, and Jafar Jafari (eds.), Tourism in the Muslim World (Bingley: Emerald, 2010). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Singh, Tej Vir (ed.), Critical Debates in Tourism (Bristol: Channel View Publications, 2012). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Sobocinska, Agnieszka, and Richard White, ‘Travel Writing and Tourism’, in: Nandini Das and Tim Youngs (eds.), The Cambridge History of Travel Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 565-580. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Urry, John, and Jonas Larssen, The Tourist Gaze 3.0 (London: SAGE Publications, 2011). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Van Vleck, Jenifer, Empire of Air: Aviation and the American Ascendancy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). LinkLink opens in a new window.
Viken, Arvid, Emily Höckert, and Bryan S.R. Grimwood, 'Cultural Sensitivity: Engaging Difference in Tourism', Annals of Tourism Research 89 (2021), pp. 1-11. LinkLink opens in a new window.
Young, Patrick, 'Tourism, Empire and Aftermath in French North Africa', Journal of Tourism History 10.2 (2018), pp. 183-200. LinkLink opens in a new window.
