Ok, this is where you--the readers of this site--get to take part in the discussion. This is where you can post your reactions, corrections, theories...or pictures from your last trip to Skull Rock. Whatever. This is a blank slate. Go for it.
Recently, I found myself visiting Calico, CA, a silver mining town that now functions as a popular tourist destination in the middle of nowhere between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It was very similar to many other "historic" parks (you could pan for gold, take photos in the town jail, and hop on train for a short look at the mineshafts). Cheesy? Campy? Yes, but I enjoyed every minute of it. As much as I want to academically assess/investigate/CRITIQUE every tourist site I visit, I am happy that I can let my mind be free and enjoy the sites every once in a while. Oh, and I felt okay taking pictures in order to post of Facebook and my blog to show others that I had, indeed, "been there".
Okay, so this goes back to the so-called "switch". I wonder, at what point, is there no anthro switch anymore. I mean, I studied Anthro for years, but its not like I am strictly doing anthropology work all the time. It is anthropology-esque, but not "academic" or similar to a classroom and/or an ethnographic research setting. What becomes of anthropology when one leaves the academic sphere? Is it still "anthropology" or it is simply one's mode of thinking? I should go back and read the essays from last issue again haha.
On the topic of tourism and visual anthropology, folks might find Rachel Sokal's MA thesis on the tourist gaze and responses to it by Indigenous photographers in Chiapas Mexico interesting... you can download a pdf of her work at her website: http://www.rachelsokal.com/section275958.html
@Conor: Ya, I often ask the same questions. What does it take to call something "anthropology," vs just a way of looking at things? Is an anthropological perspective really just something that can be claimed by some academic discipline, or what?
6 comments:
Recently, I found myself visiting Calico, CA, a silver mining town that now functions as a popular tourist destination in the middle of nowhere between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It was very similar to many other "historic" parks (you could pan for gold, take photos in the town jail, and hop on train for a short look at the mineshafts). Cheesy? Campy? Yes, but I enjoyed every minute of it. As much as I want to academically assess/investigate/CRITIQUE every tourist site I visit, I am happy that I can let my mind be free and enjoy the sites every once in a while. Oh, and I felt okay taking pictures in order to post of Facebook and my blog to show others that I had, indeed, "been there".
Ya, Conor, I agree. Sometimes it's good to flip the anthro switch "off" and just be somewhere.
I thought this first person account on ayahuasca, ethnotourism, and the encounter with the other might be interesting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqk33s2-Hfk
Okay, so this goes back to the so-called "switch". I wonder, at what point, is there no anthro switch anymore. I mean, I studied Anthro for years, but its not like I am strictly doing anthropology work all the time. It is anthropology-esque, but not "academic" or similar to a classroom and/or an ethnographic research setting. What becomes of anthropology when one leaves the academic sphere? Is it still "anthropology" or it is simply one's mode of thinking? I should go back and read the essays from last issue again haha.
On the topic of tourism and visual anthropology, folks might find Rachel Sokal's MA thesis on the tourist gaze and responses to it by Indigenous photographers in Chiapas Mexico interesting... you can download a pdf of her work at her website:
http://www.rachelsokal.com/section275958.html
@Maya: Thanks for the comment. I'll check it out.
@Conor: Ya, I often ask the same questions. What does it take to call something "anthropology," vs just a way of looking at things? Is an anthropological perspective really just something that can be claimed by some academic discipline, or what?
Hmmm.
Post a Comment