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Research notes and reports / Annals of Tourism Research 38 (2011) 708722

Received 25 February 2010; revised 9 August 2010; accepted for publication 4 November 2010
doi:10.1016/j.annals.2010.11.002
Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 714718, 2011 0160-7383/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain

A PHOTO ETHNOGRAPHY OF TOURISM AS NEO-COLONIALISM

Ranjan Bandyopadhyay San Jose State University, USA

Social anthropology and sociology have had a rather troubled relationship with the visual image, and its use in the representation of social knowledge and of society itself. (Banks, 2001, p.14) Journals no longer need to be totally text bound. . . cutting edge research should challenge the status quo. . . encourage reection on the limitations of simple text in social sciences. (Tribe, 2008, p. 925)

Scholars have well documented the power of western tourism discourse to construct the Third World destinations as Exotic Other. Manning (1978) and Britton (1979) were the rst authors to argue that Western touristic representations portray destinations as stagnant and thus open to all the exotic fantasies for tourists. Later, these claims have been conrmed by authors (Bruner, 1991; Pratt, 1992) that Western tourism representations perpetuate the colonial ideology of the past. Recently, Echtner and Prasad (2003), Bandyopadhyay and Morais (2005) and Bandyopadhyay (2009) strengthened this argument using postcolonial theory. All these authors were unilateral in their opinion that these representations are embedded with a colonial discourse adding to Edward Saids notion of Orientalism (1979). But what happens when these tourists persuaded by fantasies created by the media arrive at these destinations? Surprisingly, apart from few contributions (Bandyopadhyay, 2010; Bandyopadhyay & Nascimento, 2010; Maoz, 2006; Palmer, 1994), scholars have ignored to study how tourism acts as an instrument of imperialism in these destinations. Encouraged by John Tribes (2008) inuential article, The Art of Tourism, in which he lamented on the narrowness in our understanding and representation of tourism and discussed a unique method called virtual curating to advance the eld of tourism theoretically and methodologically, this research note seeks to add to an increasingly growing body of work exploring the relationship between visuality and tourism. In so doing, this photo ethnography reafrms that a picture is worth a thousand words and the camera does not lie (Albers & James, 1988), thus emphasizing this importance of photography in tourism research.

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In the last two decades, there has been an explosion of interest on aspects of visual culture in anthropology, sociology, geography, and cultural studies. However, photography has mostly remained an under-utilized methodological tool in tourism. Scholars have lamented that tourism researchers have not paid attention to the study of photographs, since the visual plays such a crucial role in the production, practice and performance of tourism (Pritchard & Morgan, 2003, p. 119). Recently, there have been some notable studies from scholars understanding the visual in tourism (Burns, 2004; Cohen, 1993; Crang, 1997; authors in Crouch & Lubben, 2003; Dann, 1996; Larsen, 2005; Palmer & Lester, 2007; Pritchard & Morgan, 2003; Scarles, 2010). This research note is part of a larger project understanding the relationship between visuality, tourism and neocolonialism in various parts of India and Brazil. The theoretical perspective of the project is derived from Barthes (1967) semiotic visual analysis. The data used in this study were collected in Goa, the most popular beach resort destination in India, by conducting a photo ethnography (all photos were taken by the author) supplemented by intensive interviews. In four consecutive years (i.e., 20052008), the author conducted one month of participant observation among western tourists (both packaged tourists and backpackers) in the tourist enclaves of Goa. This study focuses on eldwork carried out in two such enclavesthe famous beaches of Baga and Anjunawhere only hedonists come! Figure 1 shows a French couple, while enjoying the sun, having their feet massaged by two Indians. Interestingly, these French tourists had a long chat on ethics and human dignity with the author on the previous night. When the author approached, the French couple agreed to be photographed, and emphasized that the Indians were working hard in feet massaging and earning a livelihood rather than begging. They also reiterated, One can do anything in Goa! Sufce it to say that a large segment of tourists like these believe, despite their imperial attitude, that they are ethical (Shepherd, 2003). This supports Maozs (2006) comment on the Israeli backpackers visiting India who demonstrated a sophisticated and subtle conquest describing themselves as ha-kovshim or conquerors. In Figure 2, one American male tourist can be seen getting introduced to a little Indian girl through a woman. After observing for half an hour, the author apparently saw the American tourist taking only the little girl to his hotel room. The pro-

Figure 1. French Tourists Imperialist Nostalgia

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Figure 2. GoaWests Pleasure Periphery

motion of Goa as a seductive tourism destination makes it the pleasure periphery on which the sexual fantasies of Western men are played out. Ryan (2000) has commented precisely on this aspecthow modern sex-tourists seek out experiences in the Third World countries in order to ll what they consider to be a deciency in themselves or their home culture. Figures 3 and 4 vividly portray what happens in the back stage at tourist enclaves. These Indian savages and slum dogs take care of the tourists while some of whom become the playthings and toys of lust in sex-tourism. The elderly man in the photograph narrated to the author how two poor boys who used to work in his restaurant got involved with sex-tourists. These unfortunate children originate from more than 150 million Indians who survive on less than $0.10 a day, thus continue to play their roles as waiters, massagers, beggars and eventually prostitutes. Unfortunately, child sex-tourism has not been seen as one for serious intellectual investigation. What is striking about this study, in retrospect, is the degree to which the touristic culture has become implicated in the minute texture of everyday life in Goa. As discussed in the context of four photographs in Goa, foreign tourists take control of different beaches by establishing their colonies, for example British beach, French beach, German beach, Israeli beach. What better than Goa to provide western tourists with their way of enjoying Victorian comfort and cooks and servants in personal attendance? This resembles colonial times and clearly emphasizes who conquers whom (Dann, 1996). Thus, during the tourists imperial travel and conquest, rekindled by imperialist nostalgia (Rosaldo, 1989), the power remains in the hand of the tourists as the subalterns cannot speak! (Spivak, 1985). Indeed, colonialism is still pervasive in the 21st century. This study reects on the limited explanatory power of words (Tribe, 2008, p. 941), and highlights a need for tourism researchers to have greater regard for visual evidence in their work. The discussion of this study intends to take photography and thus visual evidence in tourism research into a different trajectory. Therefore, tourism scholars in future studies, instead of solely concentrating on questionnaire or the contributions of ethnography (interviews, participant observation), must pay attention to the importance of visual data (photo ethnography) which has the power to intensify, supplement or contextualize non-visual data. Hopefully then, by intermingling text and photographs, tourism researchers

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Figures 3 and 4. Indian Savages and Slum Dogs

may attend to Malinowskis (1922, p. 25) famous observation, how to grasp the natives point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world? Ranjan Bandyopadhyay San Jose State University, Department of Hospitality, Recreation & Tourism Management, One Washington Square, San Jose, California 95192-0211, USA. Email <Ranjan.Bandyopadhyay@sjsu.edu>.

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Received 3 June 2010; revised 23 November 2010; accepted for publication 9 December 2010
doi:10.1016/j.annals.2010.12.003