Indigenous Tourism And Authenticity

Question 1

Indigenous tourism issues

Answer 1

Who are the indigenous people?
The politics of heritage
World heritage
Issues of authenticity
Issues if commodification
Empowerment or neocolonialism
Cross cultural tourism impacts
Marketing of indigenous tourism
Indigenous cultural property rights

Question 2

Waitoc

Answer 2

West Australian indigenous tour operators committee
Formed in 2000
Practical response
Raise profile of indigenous tourism within the industry

Question 3

Notions of authenticity

Answer 3

Boorstin 1964
MacCannell 1973
Bruner 1994
Wang 1999

Question 4

Boorstin 1964

Answer 4

The pseudo event (image outshines the original)
Commodification if culture
Homogenisation and standardisation of tourist experiences

Question 5

MacCannell 1973

Answer 5

Front and back regions (goffman 1959)
The search for authenticity of experience
Staged authenticity
Desire to recapture our lost lives by submerging ourselves in the authentic experiences of the daily lives of others

Question 6

Bruner 1994

Answer 6

1. Authentic reproduction
   - giving the appearance of being original (museum)
   - historically accurate
2. Complete and flawless replication
   - historically genuine and accurate simulation
3. Original rather than copied
   - no reproduction can be authentic
4. Authority or legal recognition
   - authorised as real by those in power

Question 7

Wang 1999

Answer 7

Key approaches to discussion of authenticity
1. Etic (looking in from outside)
- objective, objectivism eg. Museums
Constructive, constructivism
2. Emic (insiders perspective)
- post modern
- Existential (intra/interpersonal)

Objective
- criteria based (something either is or isn’t)
Constructive
- socially constructed (points if view, beliefs, perspectives)
- symbolic authenticity derived from images and expectations
Postmodern
- inauthenticity is not the problem posed by boorstin and mac
- emergent authenticity (Disneyland, no original, irrelevant whether setting is real or false)
- notion of protecting original through acceptance of staged settings (eg. Cohens 4 areas: authentic people in authentic environments, authentic people in inauthentic environments, inauthentic people in authentic environments, inauthentic people in inauthentic environments)
Existential
- authenticity it being