Tourism

Paper Summary:

This paper first explains that Mary Louise Pratt's term "contact zone" refers to social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism. The paper then discusses the problems that tourism can create in the contact zones between tourists and natives. Tourism in the Okavango Delta of Botswana and the Borderlands between Mexico and the U.S. is explored as examples of contact zones. The paper stresses that tourist needs to consider sustainable tourism, where the socio-cultural identity of the natives is protected.

From the Paper:

"In places that foster enclave-tourism, the relations of power are very asymmetrical. The tourists have more money and more power, as do the international companies involved in the tourism industry, while the natives assimilate to the tourists and the industry. This assimilation happens because the minority culture wants to appeal to the tourists better. It also happens, and this is seen mostly in the younger generations, because the minorities find themselves wanting to be more like the dominant culture, which makes this case different from that of Poma."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Anzaldua, Gloria. "Entering Into the Serpent/How to Tame a Wild Tongue." Borderland/La Frontera. Ways of Reading. Ed. David Bartholomae & Anthony Petrosky. 8th Edition. Boston: Bedford, 2006. 64-89.
• Pratt, Mary Louise. "Arts of the Contact Zone." Ways of Reading Ed. David Bartholomae & Anthony Petrosky. 8th Edition. Boston: Bedford, 2006. 499-511.
• Bartholomae, David & Petrosky, Anthony. Ways of Reading. Ed. David Bartholomae & Anthony Petrosky. 8th Edition. Boston: Bedford, 2006.
• Mbaiwa, Joseph E. "The Socio-cultural Impacts of Tourism Development in the Okavango Delta, Botswana." Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 2.3 (2004): 163-185.
• "Botswana". U.S. Department of State. "Comp.". November 2008. February 15, 2009. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/1830.htm.

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