In the isle of the beholder : traversing place, exploring representations and experiences of Cook Islands tourism

Abstract

Tourism is a salient contemporary context for tangled cross-cultural experiences and representations. Holidaying tourists, and those people who deal with tourists in 'host' countries, focus on making the present holiday moment a significant event. But while emphasis appears to be on the present time this relies on recourse to notions of past. For most tourists to the Cook Islands their own societies' pasts are imagined (even fictionalised), romanticised, and reflected in their experiences on holiday of a simpler, more relaxed pace of life. Further connections are made by contemporary tourists to other pasts - those earlier perspectives of other Western travellers, such as explorers and travel writers, who have gazed at and experienced the islands in former times. Tourists seek authenticity both in themselves and in the people and places they visit and for Cook Islanders engaged in the tourism industry there is also a concern with authenticity. Expressions of national and cultural identities are performed to tourists and to themselves. Tourists are encouraged to participate in life in the Cooks while there, emphasising Cook Islanders' capacity for generosity and inclusivity - a statement of cultural authenticity. This is a story of tourists' ('guests') and Cook Islanders' ('hosts') experiences and representations of peoples and places through the tourism industry. It questions the relationship of 'tourism' and culture' in tourism encounters. Rather than assuming that the hosts' culture is necessarily negatively impacted by tourism, it examines the lived experiences of Cook Islanders who work with tourism and how they talk about and perform their own expressions of identity. The ethnography further questions notions of dwelling and movement, considering tourists and Cook Islanders in place and on the move. Being on the move and being in place are examined through narrative points of reflection made by the ethnographer. Broader reflections on how anthropologists practise and how we conceive of our practice ripple out from this ethnographic inquiry.