Bali and Beyond: Case Studies in the Anthropology of Tourism

by Shinji Yamashita, J.S. Eades

Overview

Based on field research carried out over two decades, the author surveys the development of the anthropology of tourism and its significance, using case studies drawn from Indonesia, New Guinea and Japan. He argues that tourism, once seen as rather peripheral by anthropologists, has to be treated as a phenomenon of major importance, both because the size of the flows of people and capital involved, and because it is one of the major sites in which the meeting and hybridization of culture takes place. Tourism, he suggests, leads not to the destruction of local cultures, as many critics have implied, but rather to the emergence of new cultural forms.

The central part of the book presents a detailed case-study of the island of Bali in Indonesia. It traces the development of tourism there during the colonial period, and the ways in which "Balinese traditional culture" was developed first by western artists and scholars in the colonial period, and more recently by Balinese government officials in the guise of "cultural tourism." The general theme of the "presentation of tradition" is also discussed in relation to Toraja funerals in the Indonesian province of Sulawesi, western visitors to the Sepik River in Papua-New-Guinea, and the small city of Tono in northern Japan which has become a center for the study of folk-lore.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781571813275
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	07/01/2003
Series:	Asian Anthropologies , #2
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.42(d)

About the Author

Shinji Yamashita is Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Tokyo.

Editorial Reviews

"…a succinct and thoughtful description and analysis of the development and haracter of Bali's 'touristic culture'…this is an excellent book for a student readerhip. It renders in straightforward language some quite difficult concepts."  · Anthropos

“This well-written, readable, and concise book forms an excellent introduction to the relationship between culture and tourism.”   · Focaal

"…there is much to enjoy in this book; the writing is uncomplicated, lively and engaging: the conclusions are both daring and thought-provoking. Above all, thee is the author’s readiness to engage with cross-cultural comparison in a theoretically driven and explicit way."  · Social Anthropology

From the Publisher