What is it that motivates the interest of tourists in others, prompting them to travel to distant lands, sometimes under uncomfortable conditions, often only to see the mundane rituals of daily life? The answer to this complex question may lie in what John Urry has labelled the 'tourist gaze' . After examining the significance of tourism as a major industry in the waning years of the twentieth century, Urry suggested that this gaze is now a core feature of an industry in which the contemporary tourist - like the old-world pilgrim - seeks authenticity and truth in times and places away from his/her own everyday life. But this gaze is not the same everywhere, and its spatial dimension changes from place to place. In fact, the process by which tourists engage the built environment and are engaged by it is one that deserves special identification. I will call this 'engazement', a term I use to mean the process through which the gaze transforms the material reality of the built environment into a cultural imaginary. It is this imaginary that this book attempts to explore.
Here the historical realities and political economy that have marked the development of a global heritage discourse become relevant. Specifically, in looking at the First and Third Worlds, one may notice that, while both possibly possess equal desire to explore the heritage and culture of the 'other', they have fundamentally different motivations for wanting to do so. These differences may be attributed to or explained by earlier relationships of colonialism, political nationalism, and economic dependency. Today, as a result of such historical and economic forces, Third World countries often wish to emulate the 'progress' of the First World and adopt its developmental practices - but only without risking the destabilization of their local cultures. This is clearly a situation of wanting to have one's cake and to eat it too. Thus, as Benjamin Barber has pointed out in the appropriately titled Jihad vs. McWorld, such nations want the veil, but they also want the World Wide Web and Coca Cola. IS Meanwhile, for its part, the First World appears more interested in consuming the cultures and environments of Third World societies. First World nations are often the main advocates for and financial patrons of the preservation of Third World built environments as part of what they define as 'universal' heritage - even when the 'natives' do not recognize its historic value. As a wealthy bloc, which often feels a sense of guilt and responsibility toward its former colonies, the First World has also tried at times to maintain or assist in preserving the dying or disappearing lifestyles and traditions of underdeveloped peoples and places. Yet it is also often the case that First World organizations, foundations and governments have engaged in such efforts while at the same time condemning or rejecting much of the social and political practices of the societies whose traditions they claim to want to preserve - especially when it diverges from Western standards of human rights, gender equality, and environmental sustainability.
As an example of the above dynamic one might consider the island of Bali, Indonesia. Here the First World has come to play the role of guardian of Third World traditions, but only so that would-be First World visitors can continue to appreciate them. In such an environment, the behaviour of the local people becomes fundamentally conditioned by the expectations of tourists. But, unlike Disneyland, where employees are given the title of 'cast members', here tourist industry workers are merely supposed to continue 'being themselves', and act out their supposedly still-genuine culture. Such a theatre, which is globally constructed but locally produced, is, of course, continually in danger of coming apart, since it depends on the willingness of the locals to act for the cameras.
Two other examples of this phenomenon were recently presented as chapters in David Howes's Cross-Cultural Consumption: Global Markets, Local Realities. Carol Hendrickson's contribution to this volume looked at how handicrafts heralded as Guatemalan or Mayan may now be purchased through US mail-order catalogues. Not only does this reveal the powerful marketing value of 'cultural difference', Howes pointed out in his introduction, but it also may create a situation of considerable cultural misrepresentation. According to Howes: 'For example, the industrialized cities where many of the Guatemalan artefacts come from are presented as pre-industrial villages in the catalogues. This is so as to agree with the American purchaser's preconceptions about "Mayan life" as well as to foster associations with both "tradition" and "uniqueness".
~~Consuming Tradition, Manufacturing Heritage: Global Norms and Urban Forms in the Age of Tourism -by- Nezar AlSayyad
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