Irena Ateljevic

Representing New Zealand: Tourism Imagery and Ideology

Abstract The identities of destinations around the world are endlessly reinvented as marketing creates powerful social and cultural representations of place. This paper contrasts a series of promotional New Zealand texts produced by the central government agency at the beginning and the end of the 20th century. It employs discourse analysis to reveal the imagery of place representations as a reflection of the sociocultural (con)text and underlying ideologies of leisure. The article concludes that, historically, spatial discourses have reflected the institutional structures and social relations implicated in their production. The analysis reveals that class differentiation based on the political and economic capital of production has given way to consumption based classes of the global cultural economy.

Getting 'entangled': reflexivity and the 'critical turn' in tourism studies.

Reflecting a broader postmodern shift to unmask the cultural politics of research and knowledge-making in academia, tourism studies as a field is demonstrating a notable ‘critical turn’—a shift in thought that serves to provide and legitimize a space for more interpretative and critical modes of tourism inquiry. In response to this critical turn, this paper addresses the central issue of ‘reflexivity’ which, while alive in other disciplines and fields, has received rather limited attention within tourism studies. By drawing on our own personal academic/research experiences working at the crossroads of this turn in thought, we identify a range of ‘entanglements’ that influence and constrain our research choices, textual strategies and ability to pursue reflexive knowledge. These entanglements centre around four broad, but interlinking, themes: ‘ideologies and legitimacies’; ‘research accountability’; ‘positionality’, and ‘intersectionality with the researched’. In writing this paper, we aim to uncloak the current cultural politics in the tourism studies field, deferring as a basis to more mature debates on reflexivity in the social sciences. Ultimately, we stress the need to recognize reflexivity not only as a self-indulgent practice of writing ourselves in to our research, but also as a wider socio-political process which must incorporate and acknowledge the ‘researched’ and our responsibilities to them in the production of tourism knowledge. More importantly, in order to move the perceptions of reflexivity beyond the self, we urge all researchers to find a common territory and engage in the art of reflexivity, irrespective of their ontological, epistemological and methodological binds.

Circuits of tourism: stepping beyond the 'production/consumption' dichotomy.

The current blurring of the boundaries between economic and cultural geog raphies raises many issues within the geographical study of tourism. This paper addresses the crucial question of the value of dichotomous approaches, from either production or consumption perspectives. The neo-Gramscian concept of hegemony is then presented as a key theoretical framework that lays a foundation for stepping beyond binary logic. Critical theorists within cultural studies maintain that by creating a new Gramscian terrain based on negotiation between the production and consumption processes, both can be simultaneously considered, as each is interconnected through reproduction. These assertions then, lead to a framework that conceptualizes tourism as a nexus of circuits operating within production-consumption dialectics enabled by the processes of negotiated (re)production. Discussion reveals that geography lies at the heart of these processes, as tourism is inseparable from the spaces and places in which it is created, imagined, perceived and experienced.

Culture, economy and tourism commodities - social relations of production and consumption.

The contemporary global economy has become characterized by an intensity and sophistication of the processes of commodification of consumption where production is increasingly aestheticized, attaching meanings and symbolic associations to material objects. The traditional interpretations of cultural commodification suggest disempowerment of traditional cultures and cultural practices through the integration with global tourism. This study goes beyond these assumptions to explore social relations connecting production and consumption of tourist commodities. It follows the journey of tourist goods from the cultural context of their creation, to their consumption and appropriation in new locations where they become surrogates of human relations and representations of identity.

Dialectics of authentication: performing 'exotic otherness' in a backpacker enclave of Dali, China.

This paper explores dialectics of entrepreneurship and cultural consumption in the backpacker tourist enclave of ‘Foreigners Lane’ in Dali, Yunnan Province, PR China, focusing on the role of ethnic identities and their representation. The discussion uses the performance metaphor to conceptualise tourism as a carefully staged act and illustrates the context of authentification. The paper focuses on the activities of local entrepreneurs and their construction of ‘exotic Otherness’ that reflects the preconceptions and demands of identity obsessed backpacker travellers. It is argued that the agency of local entrepreneurs undermine traditional notions of cultural producers as passive victims commodified by the globalised tourism complex.

Perpetuating the male gaze as the norm: challenges for 'her' participation in business travel.

Shift in postindustrial societies, influenced by trends such as globalization and the growth of service economies, fuels the continuous growth of business travel—traditionally an arena of male dominance and reflective of womens historically domesticated role. Contemporary societal changes, however, have resulted in the increased participation of women as business travellers. Despite the importance of business travel to global tourism industries, scholarly research on business travel is lacking and gender issues have received even less attention. In the context of New Zealand, this study approaches women as active consumers in business travel, aiming to reveal the power relations perpetuating the male gaze as the norm that influences marketing and operational practices of the tourism industry. Both production and consumption arenas are investigated to uncover the perceptions of tourism managers, and to explore how women see themselves in the field. It is found that although women have gained access to perform in a globalized business world and see it as a form of empowerment, their travel experiences are negotiated within contexts of household and societal expectations. Multitudinous roles, ideological structures, and traditional dichotomies culminate in present tensions and challenges for ‘her’ participation in business travel, thus shaping and defining how women consume business travel products.

Searching for Nature and Imagining New Zealand

Abstract This paper discusses how certain travel motivations and holiday expectations are created by constantly evolving values within the cultural frame of everyday life in the generating countries. This argument imposes critical implications for planners and marketers of tourist destinations who constantly need to (re)create and (re)invent the image of ‘their’ localities. Interviews with international visitors to New Zealand have shown that emerging green values created the important socio-cultural frame for New Zealand to derive its lure as a tourist destination.