Hat tip to x-ray delta one, via Copyranter.
NEW! (Dec. ’09): Larry (of The Daily Mirror) found two images of Earhart from 1937 in the L.A. Times photo archives. In both Earhart was asked to pose in flirty or cutesy ways that it’s hard to imagine a famous male pilot being posed in:
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
How much of the earth can humans now access? Some images developed by the New Scientist (via ChartPorn) give us some great visuals showing just how thoroughly we’ve colonized the (non-ocean) planet.
A map of all roads:
A map of all railroads:
A map of all navigable rivers:
Considering all of these modes of transportation and the type of terrain, the New Scientist calculated how long it would take, from everywhere on the planet, to get to a city of 50,000 people or more:
They estimate that less than 10% of the world is more than two days from the nearest city. The most remote place, they calculate, is the Tibetan plateau.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Way back in June Missives from Marx sent in a link to a story at Dark Roasted Blend about tourism in the rainforest along the Amazon River near Manaus, Brazil. One stop was at a small riverside village where tourists are taken to have an “encounter of two different cultures.” Here’s a photo from the post:
Underneath the photo was the following caption:
A cruise ship arrival is a great event for the small village located on the mouth of Valeria River. The friendly villagers are always happy to welcome all visitors, eager to make contact and get news from foreign lands.
“Friendly villagers” “eager to make contact” and learn about “foreign lands”? It’s an incredibly patronizing description that sounds like it could have been in a travel brochure for the British Empire decades ago.
From the post:
Because of the small space, the visitors are literally poking into the river people’s lives. But they look happy enough to share with us their ways of life: we are being shown their schools, the local market and even the way their houses are made.
They seem to understand that visits like these sustain the little trade they are able to make by selling souvenirs and exquisite crafts. There are very few inhabitants and they are all very proud of their amazonian heritage. Although modern living is slowly making its way through, they dress up with traditional costumes.
Yes, they do understand that the tourist visits sustain their economy. They let people poke into their lives because they need the money. And they dress up in traditional “costumes” (?) because it makes tourists happy and then the tourists give them more money.
The kids, apparently, haven’t learned the etiquette for dealing with tourists. The post has several images of children with labels like “Little Warrior,” with descriptions such as:
They are not used being on display for the large audience and they all look like they would be happier playing, rather than demonstrating their skills. One particular girl attracted the crowds with her beautiful, magnetic eyes. She was demonstrating archery, but her eyes were throwing the real darts.
The poster acknowledges that the children don’t like being on display, but doesn’t think that might mean that a) you shouldn’t then treat them like tourist attractions or b) maybe the adults don’t really like being on display much either but have learned to play along better. I also wonder whether the children are demonstrating “their skills” or whether a kid holding a bow and arrows is part of the play-acting for tourists.
I once went on a river tour outside of Manaus; the one described here sounds almost identical. I felt uneasy about the idea of visiting the village but there wasn’t really a choice (they forced us off the boat at each stop) and my boyfriend at the time was excited, and so we walked around. It was an incredibly creepy experience. The people there were obviously poor, and tourists were walking around gawking at them, feeling entirely comfortable looking right into their yards and houses. I felt terribly awkward; even my boyfriend felt weird and just wanted to leave. I would not say the people looked thrilled to see us. Some did, especially those selling soda at the cantina (part of that “modern world”). But more than one person, mostly children, glared. And it was very clear that they were being nice to us and offering to be in photos with tourists in hopes of making a little money.
The whole thing felt like cultural tourism–hey, Americans/Europeans! Look at these people in their pre-modern villages and traditional “costumes”! Isn’t this a neat cultural encounter? Feel free to roam around and look at anything you want–the jolly villagers are just thrilled to death to have you here!
In another case of this, James T. sent in this video, found at 3quarksdaily:
It’s distressing to see this type of tourism prestened in such a positive light without at least discussing the ethical issues that might arise when relatively wealthy tourists encounter an impoverished group dependent on tourists’ money for some of their livelihood.
Reading Resist Racism, I found a link to an article in this Sunday’s Washington Post by a journalist by the name of Amit Paley who chronicled her exploration of “tribes” in Thailand. The article is a study in class privilege, with a global twist. It begins with the sentence: “You can see almost anything in the world if you pay enough.”
She wanted to see women of the Padaung (or Kayan), who are from Burma but now live in Thailand as refugees. The Kayan women are famous for wearing brass rings around their necks, leading to the illusion of an elongated neck created by the depression of their collarbone. Paley writes:
Ever since I glimpsed the Padaung as a child in my grandfather’s National Geographics, I had wanted to see these curious women, who suffer painful disfigurement to emerge as graceful beauties.
Her description of human beings, indirectly, as curiosities, combined with the comment that you can see “anything… if you pay enough” (my emphasis) is an excellent example of the objectification of ethnic others.
Paley’s desire to see these women is almost thwarted by the majority of tourist companies in Thailand who describe her effort as exploitative and immoral. They even suggest that the women are “prisoners held captive in the villages by businessmen” making money off of tourism. This is confirmed by Wikipedia, for what it’s worth.
This doesn’t stop Paley, who keeps asking until she finds a company that will take her to one of the remote villages in which Kayan women live.
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.
Paley says that one powerful male village member said that the women “must wear the dress because of tradition” and “spoke excitedly about its appeal to tourists and noted that half of the village’s income of $30,000 a year comes from tourism.”
A woman in brass rings told her “We do it to put on a show for the foreigners and tourists!”
Paley finishes with this lackluster reflection:
So is it unethical to visit the long-necked women? It is clearly true that money spent to visit them supports an artificial village from which they essentially cannot leave. On the other hand, many of them appeared to prefer living in virtual confinement as long as they are paid and safe. According to what they told me, their situation beats the alternative of living in a repressive country plagued by abject poverty and hunger.
I don’t feel guilty about visiting the Padaung, but my feelings might be different if I had traveled solely as a tourist rather than as a journalist. And I certainly don’t like their lot in life: Shouldn’t everyone have the freedom to live and travel wherever they want?
Well, Paley has shown that she certainly does have that freedom. And she is apparently willing to use her “journalist” identity to justify just about any advantage that her privilege affords her.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Toban B. sent us a link to a video that condenses 24 hours of air traffic into a minute and 12 seconds. It’s fascinating to see where planes are going to and coming from on a typical day:
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
In this cartoon, titled “Plane Dumb” (1932), Van Beuren’s Tom and Jerry put on black face in order to disguise themselves in Africa. Putting on black face affects their intelligence as they go from being smart to dumb. Idoicy ensues. The “natives” come out at the very end:
Thanks to Steve W. for the link!
For more vintage racist cartoons, see these clips from Fantasia, these Bugs Bunny stills, this racist reinterpretation of Snow White, and this Bugs Bunny cartoon that caricatures the Japanese.
And this one’s just for fun.
Erin S. sent in this ad suggesting that the quickest way to rekindling a romance is to take an epic vacation.
Text:
Drift together rather than apart. Their quest led them here.
Whether it is dinner at the world’s most romantic table or strolling the cobblestone streets of the world’s oldest cities, the perfect setting begins with The Leading Hotels of the World.
According to the ad, a strong relationship is built on the expensive and exceptional moments in a marriage. Data on marital satisfaction, however, suggests that it is the daily, mundane tasks that make or break a marriage (who does the dishes, who puts the kids to bed, whether the bills get paid on time, and so on).
Arlie Hochschild’s The Second Shift is the classic book on the topic.
In the wake of the embarassing incident where car company executives were called out for flying in private jets to beg Congress for money, Cessna, manufacturer of private jets, is fighting back. At their new website, www.cessnarise.com, they’re framing the attack as skeptical hyperbole that doesn’t take into account the facts and recommending that potential purchasers of private jets “rise” above it all. Some screenshots:
Notice that Cessna frames the resistance to private-jet-flying chastisement as a “challenge” that should be overcome.
I don’t know whether private jet ownership is, in fact, economically smart. I am rather sure that it depends on the company/person. I do, however, think it’s interesting the way that Cessna is framing a rejection of the point made by Congress (that it is, perhaps, indulgent to insist upon private jet travel) in moral terms. Customers should “rise” above, take on the “challenge,” fight the “naysayers,” beat the “skeptics.” Real economics, then, appear to take a backseat to resisting the accusation that some of us enjoy extreme class privilege that is not necessarily justified by the books.
