Jeremy Boissevain

Coping with tourists: European reactions to mass tourism.

Once content to sunbathe and follow guides and established itineraries, tourists are increasingly seeking authentic culture. This is taking them into the private areas and zones to which the locals retire in order to escape the tourist gaze, creating tensions between the two groups. Based on recent anthropological field studies, this book describes how European communities dependant on tourism have been affected by the commoditization of their culture and explores the ways they cope with the constant attention of outsiders. The collection demonstrates both varied and skillful ways in which individuals and communities react to and cope with the impact of decades of mass tourism on their lives and values, thus throwing new light onto questions of identity, boundary maintenance and cultural adjustment.

Network Analysis: A Reappraisal

by JEREMY BOISSEVAIN Department of European-Mediterrantean Studies, University of Amsterdam, Sarphatistraat 106A, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 3 iv 78 Since the network revival in anthropology in the late 1960s (Barnes 1968, 1969; Boissevain 1968; Mitchell 1969), there has been ever increasing interest in the field. There have been at least a dozen conferences and symposia, a flood of articles and discussion papers by anthropologists, ociologists, and political scientists, a computerized bibliography with almost 1,000 entries (Freeman 1975), the collection and consolidation of computer programmes, and, to crown this interdisciplinary activity, the establishment of the International Network for Social Network Analysis and the journal Social Networks. How is the enthusiasm for network analysis to be explained? Barnes (1954) and Bott (1957) planted the concepts in the mid-1950s, but they only sprouted into substantial growth 15 years later and now threaten to become an impenetrable jungle.

The impact of tourism on a dependent island: Gozo, Malta

Abstract Tourism for the 22,000 inhabitants of Gozo, Maltas underdeveloped sister island, means just over one hundred foreign residents, several hundred hotel visitors, and an annual stream of several hundred thousand day trippers from Malta. For Gozitans tourism has provided substantial earnings for a few catering and transport entrepreneurs, permanent employment for a few hundreds, and a modest income for some 1,600 women and girls producing handicraft souvenirs at home. However, the tourist connection to Gozo is controlled by Maltese, who obtain a disproportionate share of the industrys earnings. Increasingly Gozitans resent the way Maltese exploit their island, pollute it with picnic rubbish and treat them as backward. They compare their patronizating neighbours to the polite, free spending foreigners by whom they are treated with respect. Foreign appreciation of their rural environment and lifestyle has increased Gozitan self confidence, even as it has exacerbated their traditional resentment of Maltese cultural, social, and economic dominance. On balance, Gozitans from all walks of life regard tourism positively, especially its benefits to their underdeveloped economy.

Towards a Social Anthropology of the Mediterranean [and Comments and Reply]

Daviss People of the Mediterranean provides a detailed survey of the writings of anthropologists who have worked in Southern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Its author focuses on economic organization, stratification, patronage, family and kinship, and the way anthropologists have dealt with history. He concludes that they have failed to compare, to work in cities, to relate part to whole, and to make use of history. These failures, he argues, maybe the consequences of a mass inferiority complex among Mediterraneanists. While partly admitted, these failures are inherent in the structural-functionalism that until recently dominated most anthropologists, not just Mediterraneanists. Daviss work, while provocative and informative, is limited by his own failure to provide a set of problems that could have placed his abundant data in a meaningful comparative framework. The consequences of variations in the regions geography and economy, dimensions Davis ignores when discussing Mediterranean unity, might well have provided such a framework; they furnish part of the answer to some of the similarities and differences he notes but does not explain.

Towards a sociology of social anthropology

Conclusion The framework that I have used, I suggest, provides insights into how the paradigms in our discipline, or any discipline for that matter, are generated, become dominant and, ultimately, are replaced. Since the formulation of scientific theory is in part a social process, we may also have gained insights into the way this process is speeded up or slowed down.Let me summarize the essential steps in the argument: (1)The point of departure is the assumption that human beings seek to undertake or refrain from undertaking action in order to do that which they find most satisfying. In short, they try to free themselves from constraints over their capacity to pursue their goals.(2)All social relations are asymmetrical. Those with relatively more power can more easily attain their goals. Access to resources needed to accomplish those ends if often blocked by those with relatively more power. Therefore those with relatively less power seek new ways to acquire the necessary power. They do this by thinking up new procedures or by adopting ones available in the environment. These are forms of innovation. There is consequently an impetus to change in the asymmetry inherent in all social relations.(3)Acceptance of an innovation depends on what it is as well as on the climate of opinion and the power configuration of its opponents and advocates. Thus innovation and its acceptance are dependent upon processes going on both within and outside the community. Successful innovations are cumulative. In the long run most can be seen as contributing to the emancipation of man from the constraints of his social and physical environment. Those whose interests are threatened by new developments will oppose them. They may succeed in blocking them for relatively long periods of time because of a particular configuration of power. There may thus be temporary involution or apparent stability.(4)In social theory as in technology and culture, the pace of change is increasingly rapid. This is first of all because there is a cumulative effect of theories as well as political processes. Secondly increasing emancipation is reducing the power of the gate-keepers, thus allowing new ideas to penetrate into the scientific forum more rapidly. This is bringing about growing specialization and an increase in the number of scientific communities. The growing number of scientific communities causes an expansion of personnel, and thus the enlargement in absolute numbers of potential innovators.

The Dynamic Festival: Ritual, Regulation and Play in Changing Times*

ABSTRACT This article examines two Dutch secular celebrations: the celebration commemorating the 1572 capture and liberation of Den Briel (now called Brielle, near Rotterdam), and Brabant Day in Heeze (near Eindhoven). For each, it explores when and why it was created, and how and why its form, content and meaning have changed. The exploration shows that festivals, once introduced into a community or group, are dynamic. Their character, content and organisation change due to developments in the social and economic environment and the tension between internal factions competing to direct the mode of the celebration. Festivals can unite as well as divide a community. A moot point is whether the form of a festival in fact changes if the content or modes of celebration change.

Democracy, development and proportional representation: A Sicilian case

Summary Procedures watch operate well in certain democratic systems cannot always be implanted in other systems in which different political structures operate. If this is done, such procedures may lead to conditions in which scarce resources are used for sectional or personal interests. They may also block the decision‐making process and prevent or delay the allocation of such resources. Hence such procedures may have a negative effect upon a countrys development potential. It is argued that proportional representation is such a democratic procedure.