turismo (2)

"Concepts in tourism research, such as Urry’s (1990) “tourist gaze,” have tended to endow the tourist behind the camera with much power. The tourist gaze, objectified in the camera, is said to have the power to create a cultural revival, commodify local culture, and cultivate new forms of self-consciousness amongst the local citizens. However, the photographer–photographee relation is a complex interaction with at least two sides."
(...)

"Generally speaking, tourists are quite self-reflective about tourism. In Ladakh they are especially concerned about the way in which tourists interact with locals. Many tourists that I spoke to referred to the history of colonialism and were strenuous in their efforts to compliment Ladakh and Ladakhis. However, when talking about other tourists, there do not seem to be any norms of political correctness that curtail scorn and denigration. Indeed, it is difficult to understate the extent to which tourists, in Ladakh, are critical of other tourists, especially tourist photographers."

(...)
"The stereotypical representation of the ignorant, foolish, consumerist and duped tourist, one who methodically “does” the sights, enclosed in an insular bubble, has been an object of ridicule since at least the mid–19th century. Today a similar image is propagated through the mass media. From Tintin to the National Lampoon’s European Vacation, tourists are a source of humor. It is easy for Westerners to participate in, and cultivate, such a view of tourists while securely situated in one’s home country as a local. But a problem arises when these Westerners go on vacations: then Self becomes a tourist and the tables turn. The pejorative representation of Other threatens to return and be applied to Self. Accordingly, tourists are left with the difficult task of maintaining a positive sense of Self, while simultaneously engaging in the usual critique of tourists.
(...)

"There are several discursive positions that tourists try to claim when differentiating themselves from Other tourist photographers. Some tourists make a distinction between travelers and tourists. Travelers claim to stay for longer, take up a Ladakhi lifestyle, respect the local culture, and establish personal relationships with Ladakhis. In the later part of Marten’s excerpt, one can see Marten trying to claim this traveler identity position. Another identity position that tourists try to claim is that of the post-tourist. Post-tourists tour the tourists or embrace the usual tourist practices in self-mockery. For example, when I asked one English tourist why he took a photograph of a gonpa, he told me, “because that’s what you are supposed to do!” Each of these favored positions is constructed in opposition to an image of the “typical tourist.” As with ethnographies, one can read the ideal to which Self strives through Self’s representation of Other. Thus, for example, the tourist who has contempt for tourist photographers who do not engage with the local culture or people is implicitly claiming a traveler identity. Equally, the tourist who mocks the naivety of other tourists who see authenticity where there is, they claim, only inauthenticity, is implicitly claiming a post-tourist identity."

(...)
Modernity is based on a hegemony of vision. Tourism is one crystallization of this hegemony. Before modern times, the “Grand Tour” was based on learning languages, speaking to locals, and gathering facts. But during the 18th century, the emphasis of tourism shifted from the ear to the eye."

por Alex Gillespie em The Reversed Gaze

"Contemporary tourism is intrinsically constructed culturally, socially and materially through images and performances of photography, and vice versa. The tourism industry invests enormously in photographic images to choreograph desirable “place myths”, desiring bodies and photogenic places, and it has become almost unthinkable to embark on holiday without taking the camera along, writing postcards and returning home with many snapshot memories. We know that we are reproducing a cliché, but photography performances are pleasurable and our holiday photos that celebrate the world’s famous places, our achievements and personal relationships are precious belongings."

(...)
Tourism vision is increasingly media-mediated, and Urry suggests the “mediatised gaze” (2002: 151). This gaze celebrates places made famous in media worlds of global popular culture. Increasingly, people travel to actual places to experience virtual places. Major films and soap operas often cause incredible tourist flows where few roamed before the location was made visible on the silver screen."

(...)
"Thus, effectively, people travel in order to see and photograph what they have already consumed in image form: thus, mobile reproductions are far more important than the sight itself that, in turn, is reduced to nothing but (another) picture."

(...)
"The new temporal order of tourist photography seems to be ‘I am here’ rather than ‘I was here’."

Jonas Larsen em Geographies of Tourist Photography