Tourism and Postcolonialism

Contested Discourses, Identities and Representations

Michael C. Hall, Hazel Tucker, Michael C. Hall, Hazel Tucker

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9781134329663
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

Due to its centrality to the processes of transnational mobilities, migration and globalization, tourism studies has the potential to make a significant contribution to understanding the postcolonial experience. Drawing together theoretical and applied research, this fascinating book illuminates the links between tourism, colonialism and postcolonialism. Significantly, it creates a space for the voices of authors from postcolonial countries.

Chapters are integrated and examined through concepts taken from the wider postcolonial literature, which identify tourism not only as an international industry but also as a postcolonial cultural form, which by its very nature is based on past and present day colonial structural relationships.

The first book to explicitly explore the contribution tourism can make to the postcolonial experience, this book is an essential read for students of tourism, cultural studies and geography.

1 Tourism and postcolonialism
An introduction

C. Michael Hall and Hazel Tucker

Postcoloniality arguably became the central, controversial site for literary studies in the last decade of the twentieth century, or what could claim to have been, more than anything else, the imperial (and the colonial) century.

The ‘postcolonial’ appears to signify challenge yet, of course, literary challenges to the hegemonic power of the centre are not new phenomena. But, as the authors of The Empire Writes Back (Ashcroft et al. 1989) have demonstrated, there is something particularly potent (something powerfully challenging) about the current set of so-called ‘postcolonial texts’. While acknowledging the potency of much recent writing in this field, it is true to say that the central question – what constitutes a postcolonial text – remains a contentious issue. If we follow Edward Said’s thought that ‘to be one of the colonized is potentially to be a great many different, but inferior, things, in many different places, at many different times’, there is no reason to think that to be one of the post colonised is a homogenous position (de Reuck and Webb 1992).

The concept of postcolonialism, which for much of the 1990s has informed cultural theorising, is increasingly influencing the intellectual terrain of tourism studies. Studies of tourism in the less developed countries, concerns over identity and representation, and theorising over the nature and implications of the cultural, political and economic encounters that are intrinsic to the tourist experience, have increasingly led to reference to postcolonial discourse. However, such examination of and reference to intellectual space should not be seen as occurring in an uncritical fashion. Instead, postcolonial analysis in tourism reflects the essential contested nature of postcolonial studies elsewhere in the social sciences and humanities. Indeed, the oft-noted difficulty of finding an acceptable definition and academic ground with which to describe tourism studies is no different from the experiences of those engaged in postcolonial studies. Nevertheless, just because something is hard to describe does not mean it is not there or that it is unimportant.

The purpose of this book is to examine some of the various means by which the idea of the postcolonial may contribute to tourism studies. In this it seeks to present not only the means by which postcolonial thought may be of relevance to the study of tourism, but also how tourism itself may shed some insights on the postcolonial. However, it is remarkable that recent key texts in the postcolonial field (e.g. Loomba 1998; Young 2001; Goldberg and Quayson 2002) have failed to acknowledge the potential contribution that tourism studies can make to understanding the post-colonial experience (Edensor 1998), despite the centrality of tourism to the processes of transnational mobilities and migrations, and globalisation (Hall and Williams 2002; Coles and Timothy 1994; Coles et al. 2004; Hollinshead, this volume). As Craik (1994) recognised:

Tourism has an intimate relationship to post-colonialism in that ex-colonies have increased in popularity as favoured destinations (sites) for tourists (the Pacific Rim; Asia; Africa; South America); while the detritus of post-colonialism have been transformed into tourist sights (including exotic peoples and customs; artefacts; arts and crafts; indigenous and colonial lifestyles, heritage and histories).

(Ibid.)

Tourism therefore both reinforces and is embedded in postcolonial relationships. Issues of identity, contestation and representation are increasingly recognised as central to the nature of tourism, particularly given recent reflection on the ethical bases of tourism and tourism studies (Butcher 2003). However, much of this discussion has tended to take place on what are, arguably, the fringes of academic tourism discourse, although such issues have received more attention in cultural geography, anthropology and cultural studies.

Postcolonialism represents both a reflexive body of Western thought that seeks to reconsider and interrogate the terms by which the duality of coloniser and colonised, with its accompanying structures of knowledge and power, has been established as well as the state of being ‘post’ or ‘after’ the condition of being a colony. Students of postcolonialism are therefore interested in spatial and temporal dimensions of the cultural production and social formation of the colony and postcolony and the ongoing construction and representation of specific spaces and experiences. Examination of neocolonial relationships, a situation in which an independent country continues to suffer intervention and control from a foreign state, is also often incorporated into the postcolonial corpus, although in recent years, rather than just refer to external state intervention, neocolonialism has also been used to refer to the expansion of capitalism and economic and cultural globalisation so that the core powers exercise influence over the postcolonial periphery. In many of these cases the term postcolonial is often applied to jurisdictions that have yet to achieve political independence but which remain highly peripheral. In addition, the term is also applied to internal spatial and social peripheries, including minorities that are dominated by a metropolitan core. More generically, the postcolonial can refer to a position against imperialism, colonialism and Eurocentrism, including Western thought and philosophy. However, as noted below, such a situation may create numerous tensions and contradictions that have not been resolved within postcolonial studies.

Although there are exceptions (for example, see the discussion in Finnström 1997), the relationship between (post)coloniser and (post)-colonised is primarily seen in the context of the interactions between European nations and the regions and societies they colonised since the onset of European mercantile expansion and imperialism in the fifteenth century, and its subsequent disintegration. Undoubtedly, the European imperial influence was considerable, incorporating over 80 per cent of the earth’s land surface by the commencement of the First World War in 1914 (interestingly, much of what remained outside the European powers’ imperial domains was controlled by the colonial powers of Japan and the United States). However, it is important to note that the state of being postcolonial, particularly in tourism, may not be directly informed by what is generally referred to as postcolonial studies. Both of these representations of postcolonialism are to be found in the contributions to the present volume. This first chapter seeks to introduce some of the concerns and issues within postcolonial studies and indicate their relevance to contemporary studies of tourism, as well as wider concerns with colonial relationships.

Positioning postcolonialism

As a terrain of knowledge the concept of postcolonialism is problematic and at once contested (Bahri 1995, 1997). Indeed, a concept such as post-colonial never ends a discussion, it begins it. Labelling something, such as an event or text, or even an attitude, as ‘postcolonial’ therefore places it within a broad category of things under discussion. Such postcolonial sites of argument and questioning encompass different scales, from the local to the global, and incorporate issues of geographic, cartographic, cultural, economic, gender, literary, political and socio-linguistic specificity and heterogeneity. Although the development of postcolonial studies has been heavily influenced by Said’s seminal work on Orientalism (1978) and the development of the notion of the other in Western thought, arguably one of the lynchpins of postcolonial thought was Ashcroft et al.’s study of postcolonial literature, The Empire Writes Back (1989). Ashcroft et al. (1989: 2) used the term ‘postcolonial’ (also ‘post-colonial’) ‘to cover all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day. This is because there is a continuity of preoccupations throughout the historical process initiated by European imperial aggression’. They also suggested that as a term it was the most appropriate to describe ‘the new cross-cultural criticism which has emerged in recent years and for the discourse through which this is constituted’ (1989: 2). In the case of the latter, in literary and cultural studies cognate terms such as ‘Commonwealth’ (with references to the countries and literatures of the former British empire and members of the present-day Commonwealth) and ‘Third World’, which were used to describe the literature of Europe’s former colonies, have certainly become rarer and have tended to be replaced by the term ‘postcolonial’. However, interestingly, in tourism this term has not been so readily adopted and instead the notion of ‘developing’ or ‘less developed’ countries has been far more significant in replacing the concept of ‘Third World’ (e.g. Harrison 1992, 2001), possibly because of the historically greater influence of theories of economic development on the field than literary studies.

Ashcroft et al. (1989) identified four main areas of interrelated investigation in postcolonial studies which continue to inform the postcolonial project to the present day: hegemony, language and text, place and displacement and the development of theory, and it is to these we will now turn.

Hegemony

Ashcroft et al. (1989) posed the question as to why postcolonial societies should continue to engage with the imperial experience, since nearly all postcolonial societies have achieved political independence. Why is the issue of coloniality still relevant at all? Here debate is substantially focused on the ongoing political, economic and cultural influence of the former imperial powers, often regarded as including the United States, in post-colonial states as well as the deep inequalities that exist between North and South (Ferro 1997). Much of this debate has focused on the core-periphery relationship that exists in economic and political terms between the developed and the less-developed countries, as well as some debates on internal peripheries, and this has had some influence on the tourism literature, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. For example, Matthews described tourism as potentially being a new colonial plantation economy in which ‘Metropolitan capitalistic countries try to dominate the foreign tourism market, especially in those areas where their own citizens travel most frequently’ (1978: 79). Air services, bus companies, hotels, resort developments, recreational facilities such as golf courses and food and beverage are all potential markets related directly to tourism which may become owned by foreign interests (see Jaakson, this volume). The elements of a plantation tourism economy are that:

1. tourism is structurally a part of an overseas economy;
2. it is held together by law and order directed by the local elites;
3. there is little or no way to calculate the flow of values.

(Best 1968)

Matthews’ thesis was developed in relation to the influence of American and multinational corporations on Caribbean tourism development, but may well be applied to other situations where core-periphery relations are seen to exist, particularly with respect to island microstates. In the case of the Pacific, it has been argued that tourism development, along with other foreign economic services such as tax havens, demonstrates elements of a plantation economy (Britton 1982a, 1982b, 1983; Connell 1988), in which the island nations are nothing more than the place of production in a system of trade and production in which control lies with the demand for produce in the First World and with the merchants (Girvan 1973). Within the plantation economy overseas interests are critical for creating both the demand and supply of the tourist product. For example, Britton argued:

without the involvement of foreign and commercial interests, Tonga has not evolved the essential ties with metropolitan markets and their tourism companies. It would seem that Tonga’s tourist industry has paradoxically suffered because the country was not exploited as a fully-fledged colony.

(1987: 131)

Clearly, such a situation also reflects one of the ironies of postcoloniality that in terms of the development of international economic networks then being a former colony may be advantageous. However, as Matthews cautioned:

Tourism may add to the numbers of jobs available and it may increase the trappings of modernity with modern buildings and new services, but if it does not contribute to the development of local resources, then it differs little from the traditional agricultural plantation.

(1978: 80)

The situation of economic and political dependency arising out of sets of postcolonial core-periphery relationships has been likened by some commentators to a form of imperialism. For example, Crick argues that tourism is a form of ‘leisure imperialism’ and represents ‘the hedonistic face of neocolonialism’ (1989: 322). Similarly, Nash perceived the concept quite broadly:

At the most general level, theories of imperialism refer to the expansion of a society’s interests abroad. These interests – whether economic, political, military, religious, or some other – are imposed on or adopted by an alien society, and evolving intersocietal transactions, marked by the ebb and flow of power, are established.

(1989: 38).

According to Nash:

Metropolitan centers have varying degrees of control over the nature of tourism and its development, but they exercise it – at least at the beginning of their relationship with tourist areas – in alien regions. It is this power over touristic and related developments abroad that makes a metropolitan center imperialistic and tourism a form of imperialism.

(1989: 39)

However, the extent to which power is able to be exercised, and hence development is controlled in any nation or destination by an external agency is somewhat problematic as a more complex notion of globalisation has replaced simplistic ideas of imperialism (Hall 1998). Indeed, there is a general failure of critics of cultural imperialism to grasp fully the ambiguous gift of capitalist modernity inherent in contemporary globalisation, that is, there is a need to probe the contradictions of capitalist culture and its implications for tourism (Britton 1991; Jaakson, this volume). Nevertheless, in terms of the relationships between the former colonisers and the colonised it is apparent that a substantial legacy continues to exist with respect to political economy that clearly may have relevance for the pattern and nature of tourism development and, of course, for the wider society. This observation continues to have resonance in some more recent analyses of tourism (e.g. Mowforth and Munt 1998; Meethan 2001), but arguably the condition of postcoloniality and the power relationships that it situates have not received anywhere near the level of overt recognition or interrogation in tourism studies that it deserves.

Language, te...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Tourism and Postcolonialism
• Contemporary Geographies of Leisure, Tourism and Mobility Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contributors
• Preface
• 1: Tourism and Postcolonialism: An Introduction
• 2: Tourism and New Sense: Worldmaking and The Enunciative Value of Tourism
• 3: Saying the Same Old Things: A Contemporary Travel Discourse and the Popular Magazine Text
• 4: Cultural Tourism in Postcolonial Environments: Negotiating Histories, Ethnicities and Authenticities in St Vincent, Eastern Caribbean
• 5: About Romance and Reality: Popular European Imagery in Postcolonial Tourism in Southern Africa
• 6: Commodifying Heritage: Post-Apartheid Monuments and Cultural Tourism in South Africa
• 7: Tourism and British Colonial Heritage in Malaysia and Singapore
• 8: A Colonial Town for Neocolonial Tourism
• 9: Neocolonialism, Dependency and External Control of Africa’s Tourism Industry: A Case Study of Wildlife Safari Tourism in Kenya
• 10: Postcolonial Conflict Inherent in the Involvement of Cultural Tourism in Creating New National Myths in Hong Kong
• 11: Globalisation and Neocolonialist Tourism
• 12: Conclusion