Comments on: Ethnic Curiosities: The Trouble With Tourism

By: Links for Sunday Brunch « The Mex Files

Links for Sunday Brunch « The Mex Files — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:32:22 +0000

[...] Dr. Lisa Wade (Sociological Images) dissects Washington Post travel writer Amit Paley’s article on Thailand, and gaping at the “colorful native costumes”: The women she meets confirm that they wear traditional garb, continue traditional practices (such as the brass rings), and are even forced to remain in the villages, in order to attract tourists. Men, largely, appear to be exempted from earning their keep in this way. [...]

By: Louche

Louche — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 05:37:34 +0000

That she’s a journalist would be okay, I think, if she actually went there to, as the above person said, raise awareness. But it sounds like she went there to see a “curiosity” and claim a story that only people with lots of money could. The journalist excuses herself while neglecting to shed light on any possible solutions, and she leaves the only alternative as abject poverty.

By: karinova

karinova — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:57:36 +0000

Well, not in this case.
One would assume that she since she was ogling the Padaung “as a journalist,” she wasn’t personally paying. So in this case, it seems her job (and her own privilege) gave her the freedom to travel there.

By: theunbeatablekid

theunbeatablekid — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:56:55 +0000

I wouldn’t presume to give any hard and fast rules for determining what is and what is not a “traditional” practice. This is an issue (authenticity) that is constantly under negotiation within each culture (ie. What is and what is not authentic, who gets to say so, and why).

That said, tourism and trade can provide powerful incentives to purposefully manufacture or invent traditions. Several social scientists that I know have had these kinds of experiences doing field work. For example, villages have been known to invent a ceremony merely to get coverage from a visiting documentary film crew. Businesses in some small towns have constructed a false history of the town to attract tourists and fit their preconceived notions of foreigners. Because these practices are only considered authentic by those outside of the culture and are perpetuated only as a charade, I would say that they are not “traditional.” Of course, there is a big grey area between the authentic and the manufactured – big enough for questions about numbers of generations necessary and other such considerations.

Neck bands may be perfectly traditional for all I know. I was hoping that someone more knowledgeable could provide a little insight because Paley does not.

By: Doro

Doro — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:20:21 +0000

Yeah. “Freedom” doesn’t do much good if all your options suck. Which seems to be the problem here. Not to mention that “travel” is a luxury many people can’t afford, no matter where they live.

By: Raluca

Raluca — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:47:32 +0000

As an activist for human rights in Burma, I know some stuff about their issue too, and I can say this is a really tough question. In Burma, their ethnic group, like many others, is opressed by Burma’s military dictatorship; they often face forced labour, forced relocations and a lot of other human rights abuses and also severe poverty; that’s why so many of them flee to Thailand, where their life isn’t much better as they are either neglected or downright exploited by Thai authorities and they often cannot enjoy any protection of the law whatsoever.
As for the ethical approach to tourism; my oppinion: if you just go there to see and say “how ghastly” you won’t be doing any good; you’re just perpetuating exploitation. If you go there to do anthropological field work, to do humanitarian work or at least with the intention to rise awareness at home about the poor conditions they live in & ways they can be helped, then it is perfectly alright.
I’m sure that after Burma will become a democratic country (which I’m pretty sure it will, sooner or later, after they will achieve sustainable development and education for both men and women, it will only be up to them whether to continue these traditions or not; but most likely I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t; I have a feeling they are only keeping this alive because it attracts tourists, which helps them gain a little money that they desperately need.

By: Mary Cotter

Mary Cotter — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:39:45 +0000

Wow! You are so amazingly awesome! And so smart!

By: Woz

Woz — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:34:40 +0000

One thing I always think about in discussions like these is how much of this is lurid exploitation and how much of it is making a living in whatever crappy way you can. The text quoted in the post indicates that while the women aren’t particularly fond of the neck rings, they do it to earn a (meager) income they otherwise have little way to earn. I guess I’m thinking of it in the context of other such crappy jobs that are taken as the “better than nothing” option (e.g. coal mining) that we don’t really think of as exploitative in this way, even though it’s far more harmful to those individual’s (coal miner’s) health than are the neck rings

By: Leerie

Leerie — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:00:55 +0000

It’s not “freedom” that lets you live and travel where you like, it’s your bank balance. Fairly big difference there, considering that you can have cash physically in your hand whereas freedom will never stop being an abstract concept.

By: mercurianferret

mercurianferret — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:35:25 +0000

As far as I understand, these people are refugees from Burma, and the Thai government doesn’t consider them Thai, and gives them few benefits.

By: John

John — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:34:39 +0000

Part of something that can be done is try to figure out how to get these peoples back to their home country of Burma (aka Myanmar), which requires the removal of the military junta. Without that step, they are basically refugees that have the additional “draw” of tourism that keeps them from going into abject poverty (since Thailand isn’t known for its benevolent attitude toward Burmese refugees).

In the mean time, it would have been nice if Paley would have said something about the condition of the tourism vis a vis their status as refugees. (Of course, too, it would be good to make sure that there isn’t a case of goal displacement if this practice were to continue when they were able to return to Burma.)

By: EKSwitaj

EKSwitaj — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:35:26 +0000

The key to understanding what Paley was doing is in the use of “see” rather than “meet”. That pretty much gives away how she regards these women.

By: R

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:12:29 +0000

To clarify, I’m saying, “we should do things to improve economic/educational opportunities in Thailand. Hopefully, then women won’t need to resort to this practice,” instead of “we should do nothing.”

By: R

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:09:07 +0000

I’m not sure that tourism is the morally-significant problem here.

I’d agree that this ‘tradition’ is probably a symptom of exploitation. These women feel pressure to participate in tourism to avoid taking their next-best option.

So, in my view, the issue is “the next-best option is terrible” more than, “their current situation is exploitative.” (I’m assuming that they’re ‘prisoners’ in an economic sense, rather than a physical restriction sense)

Would these womens’ lives improve if everyone stopped visiting their towns tomorrow?

By: mercurianferret

mercurianferret — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:44:56 +0000

You’re leaving yourself open to the “no true Scotsman” argument here. What do you mean by “actually traditional” and “manufactured traditions”? At some point, a tradition had to have started or become somehow normalized. What is your requirement for “actual tradition” then: 1 generation? 2? 7? 10?

If you need more than 3 or 4 generations, then many modern “traditions” of the United States are not “actual traditions,” such hospital parturition, embalming the dead, in-hospital male circumcision, blue-for-boys/red-for-girls, the onesie, etc.

In short: please define your requirement for “actually traditional” and “manufactured traditions”.