Cultural Tourism and Identity

Studies of cultural tourism and indigenous identity are fraught with questions concerning exploitation, entitlement, ownership and authenticity. Unease with the idea of leveraging a group identity for commercial gain is ever-present. This anthology articulates some of these debates from a multitude of standpoints. It assimilates the perspectives of members of indigenous communities, non-governmental organizations, tourism practitioners and academic researchers who participated in an action research project that aims to link research to development outcomes. The book’s authors weave together discordant voices to create a dialogue of sorts, an endeavour to reconcile the divergent needs of the stakeholders in a way that is mutually beneficial. Although this book focuses on the ≠Khomani Bushmen and the Zulu communities of Southern Africa, the issues raised are ubiquitous to the cultural tourism industry anywhere.

Keyan G. Tomaselli is Director of The Centre for Communication, Media and Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. He has been working on the topic indigeneity and cultural tourism for 17 years. He is editor of Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies

'This collection explores social and cultural issues relating to tourism and how tourist ventures collaborate with performative indigenous communities. A number of questions reoccur throughout the chapters. For example, how are such performative communities constituted by the
state, tourism businesses, tourists, and researchers? How do these communities interact with tourism businesses, organizations, and researchers? These issues are explored in 13 chapters, nearly half of which are penned by Tomaselli and colleagues at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. This makes for an edited collection that has considerable cross-referencing and coherence and includes the use of shared field notes and field experiences focused on the same people – the San – but through the eyes of different researchers. Collectively, this makes for reflective writing and deep analysis of the positionality of the researcher in recording interactions between the tourism system, tourists, and their hosts'.

Gustav Visser, University of the Free State, South Africa, in African Affairs, Volume 114, Issue 454, p. 149–170