Tourism-Related Informal Interaction in Chembe, Malawi an Ethnographic Study
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Tourism-related informal interaction in Chembe, Malawi An ethnographic study Katja Vuorensyrjä Pro gradu – thesis University of Jyväskylä Department of Ethnology April, 2016 JYVÄSKYLÄN YLIOPISTO Tiedekunta Laitos Humanistinen Historian ja etnologian Tekijä Katja Vuorensyrjä Työn nimi Tourism-related informal interaction in Chembe, Malawi – An Ethnographic Study Oppiaine Työn laji Etnologia Pro-gradu tutkielma Aika Sivumäärä Huhtikuu 2016 150 Tiivistelmä – Abstract Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan turismin liittyvää vapaamuotoista kanssakäymistä paikallisten malawilaisten sekä ulkomaalaisten asukkaiden ja matkailijoiden välillä. Etnografinen pääaineisto on kerätty Malawissa keväällä 2013 ja se koostuu haastatteluista ja muistiinpanoista. Tosisijainen aineisto koostuu raporteista ja asiakirjoista, joiden tarkoitus on hahmotella ruohonjuuritason vuorovaikutukselle laajempi yhteiskunnallinen konteksti. Metodologisesti tutkielma hyödyntää ranskalaisen sosiologin ja etnologin Pierre Bourdieun esittelemää käytännön teoriaa ja sen keskeisiä käsitteitä, jotka ovat kenttä, pääoma ja habitus. Tutkielman tarkoitus on valottaa niitä tekijöitä, jotka määrittävät eri toimijoiden mahdollisuuksia toimia turismin kentällä sellaisessa matkailukohteessa, jossa elintasoero paikallisten ja ulkomaalaisten välillä on huomattavan suuri. Aineistoni pohjalta esitän, että epämuodollisen vuorovaikutuksen osalta sukupuoli ja englannin kielen taito ovat keskeiset tekijät, jotka määrittävät paikallisten ihmisten mahdollisuuksia hyötyä turismista. Merkittävin hyöty epämuodollisesta vuorovaikutuksesta paikallisten ja ulkomaalaisten välillä oli se, että monien paikallisten ihmisten koulutuksen on maksanut ulkomaalainen vierailija. Vastaavasti haittoja olivat lisääntynyt alkoholin ja huumeiden käyttö sekä paikallisten miesten ja ulkomaalaisten naisten suhteet, jotka aiheuttivat ongelmia paikallisissa perheissä ja heikensivät entisestään paikallisten naisten asemaa yhteisössä. Myös yleinen epäluottamus paikallisia ihmisiä kohtaan heikensi heidän toimintamahdollisuuksiaan turismin kentällä. Paikalliset ihmiset myös kokivat, ettei heillä ole mahdollisuutta vaikuttaa turismiin liittyviin ongelmiin. Asiasanat: Tourism – sustainable tourism – poor host community – interaction – ethnography – theory of practice – education – transactional sex – Chembe – Cape MacLear – Malawi CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 (ECO)TOURISM IN MALAWI ...................................................................................................................................................12 1.2 A BRIEF HISTORY OF ENCOUNTERS WITH EUROPEANS BY THE LAKE ..........................................................................19 2 DATA AND METHODS ................................................................................................................................. 32 2.1 ANTHROPOLOGY OF TOURISM...............................................................................................................................................32 2.2 DATA ..........................................................................................................................................................................................37 2.3 A METHODOLOGY BASED ON BOURDIEU’S CONCEPTS ....................................................................................................45 3 ANALYSIS ...................................................................................................................................................... 51 3.1 CASUAL COMMUNICATION ....................................................................................................................................................62 3.1.1 Casual interaction and general behaviour ..................................................................................................................63 3.1.2 Changes that were considered negative and locals’ reflections upon them ........................................................71 3.1.3 Summary ..............................................................................................................................................................................80 3.2 INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS .....................................................................................................................................................81 3.2.1 Local men and foreign women........................................................................................................................................82 3.2.2 Local women and foreign men........................................................................................................................................93 3.2.3 Same sex relationships .....................................................................................................................................................98 3.2.4 Summary ........................................................................................................................................................................... 101 3.3 INFORMAL SUPPORT FOR LOCALS..................................................................................................................................... 102 3.3.1 Begging ............................................................................................................................................................................. 103 3.3.2 Sponsorship for education ............................................................................................................................................ 107 3.3.3 Local people doing community work ......................................................................................................................... 118 3.3.4 Summary ........................................................................................................................................................................... 121 4 CONCLUDING DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................... 123 5 APPENDIX - INTERVIEWEES .................................................................................................................. 140 6 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................. 141 1 INTRODUCTION I undertook my first trip to Chembe on Cape Maclear after staying three weeks in Malawi. When I first arrived at the site of this study on the back of a matola1, I could sense the hostility of the local women travelling with me. I said my greetings in Chichewa2 and smiled in a friendly way at them, but instead of responding – as people in Malawi usually do – they looked at me as if they would have liked to kick me out of the car. The only man sitting with us looked at me more curiously and insisted that the women gave me some berries they were eating. Before we had travelled 18 kilometres from Monkey Bay to Chembe, I had managed to explain where I was about to go, and the male passenger had offered me a boat trip to the nearby island. This gendered dichotomy of how locals seemed to react towards me was followed by encounters in somewhat the same spirit during my first trip. It seemed that from women’s point of view I was considered trouble, whereas for men I was a potential client. During this first trip to the lakeside, I would not know if I enjoyed it there or not. However, when it came to studying tourism related interaction in a poor host community, Chembe appeared as a perfect place to be. The aim of this thesis is to study the factors that determine local participants’ possibilities to act in the field of tourism in a tourist destination where the wealth gap between locals and foreigners is significant. I focus on ‘the ground rules’ of informal interaction between three main groups of tourism-related actors in Chembe: originally Malawian locals, foreign residents and foreign visitors. I discuss the data in three sub-divisions: casual communication, intimate relationships and sponsorship (as far as it is based on one to one casual contacts). I use a concept ‘informal interaction’ to draw a distinction to more regulated forms of interaction which due to their characters have relatively clear structures and regulations. In my data, these were brought up in the context of trade, labour relations and the ownership of resources. My research questions are: 1) what are ‘the ground rules’ of informal tourism-related interactions in Chembe and 2) what difference does gender make? In my thesis, in order to answer these questions, I map out the field of tourism in the village by 1 Matola is a pickup truck that is used as a taxi or local bus for people and whatever they need to have with them. 2 Chichewa, the language of Chewa is, beside English, another official language of Malawi. According to 1998 population census it is mother tongue for 57,2% of population. Online19th Nov.2013: http://formin.finland.fi 1 adopting French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s central concepts of his theory of practice: field, capital and habitus. This introduction section presents the context of this study. I take a brief look at how the field of tourism in Chembe is related to the fields of power in Malawi and globally. A large role is played by the United Nations