TOUR GUIDES AS CULTURAL MEDIATORS Performance and Positioning
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TOUR GUIDES AS CULTURAL MEDIATORS Performance and Positioning Jackie Feldman, Ben Gurion University of the Negev Jonathan Skinner, University of Roehampton Introduction: Hosts, Guests and Mediators industry” (Greenwood 1989; Cohen 1988; Watson & This special issue devotes comparative and ethno Kopachevsky 1994). While the “gift of hospitality” is graphic attention to the topic of the tour guide as often promoted by tour operators and vacation des cultural mediator.1 Based on studies in a panoply tinations, this classification mystifies and obscures of countries (UK, Israel, Peru, Cuba, La Réunion, the economic relations between visitors and service Germany) and sites (museums, pilgrimages, casual providers in the tourism industry (Candea & da Col streetguiding, mountain treks, folkloric displays), 2012). we demonstrate how various settings, power rela As empirical research at tourist venues increased, tions, and tourist gazes enable or constrain inter and postcolonial movements removed the veil of in cultural guiding performances. Tour guides embody nocence from many takenforgranted practices of a wide range of roles, cultures and positions on the power (such as exoticization), anthropological and tourism stage. Their presentation of “their” culture sociological studies of tourism often turned their to others carries a certain authority and implicates attention to the power differentials of the tourism them in positions towards aspects of their own cul encounter and the practices that propagate it. Fou ture and those of the tourists that they may come cault’s medical gaze was adapted by John Urry (Urry to acknowledge, appreciate or resist over time. Thus, & Larsen 2011) to describe the power of the tourist approaching tour guides as cultural mediators offers gaze: how it is propagated through media images, new insights into the anthropology of tourism and itineraries, and discourses; how it changes as a result cultural contact as a whole. of sociohistorical processes in the touring society, The anthropology of tourism was first concep and how it affects the toured culture. These gazes tualized under the rubric of hostguest relations often extend and mask the oppressive relations of (Smith 1977). In their retrospective survey, Candea financial and social inequality (Crick 1989). They and da Col (2012) asserted that “hospitality” could were also reproduced by managementoriented be a term no less productive to think with than “the tourism research and the neoliberal values of per gift”, which has generated a multitude of reflections formativity, consumerism and profitability that have and research since Marcel Mauss’ initial work pro dominated those research interests (Ren, Pritchard duced nearly a century ago. The past three decades & Morgan 2010: 887). have witnessed a shift from the conceptualization Under the influence of the critical turn in an of tourism as an interaction of “hosts and guests” thropology and sociology, the notion of “culture” (Smith 1977), to the processes of institutionalization was called into question in tourist studies (Ateljevic and commodification that underlie the “hospitality et al. 2005), as the integrated (and isolated) whole Jackie Feldman and Jonathan Skinner 2018: Tour Guides as Cultural Mediators. PerformanceETHNOLOGIA and EUROPAEA Positioning. 48:2 5 Ethnologia Europaea 48:2, 5–13. © Museum Tusculanum Press. societies, often promoted by tourist industry litera- processes of selection, provision of information, in- ture (“romantic Paris”, “exotic Thailand”) were ex- terpretation and fabrication make sites and societies amined in detail. This led to the application of new accessible and interesting for visitors. The commu- analytic categories of class, race, ethnicity, gender, nicative role, in which interpretation is the essential etc. Thus, empirical research began to ask “which component, Cohen adds, becomes most prominent natives?”, “what kind of tours?”, “what kind of tour- as the tourism infrastructure and institutionaliza- ists?”. tion expand, while new roads, signage, communica- Most “natives” do not engage with tourists. Rath- tion and infrastructure may make the pathfinder’s er, the encounter – especially in the framework of role superfluous. the guided tour – is specific to certain members Heidi Dahles writes that: of the “host” culture and certain members of the “guest” group. It usually takes place in contact zones Guides […] sell images, knowledge, contacts, sou- or what Ed Bruner called “touristic border zones”: venirs, access, authenticity, ideology and some- “distinct meeting places between the tourists who times even themselves; their knowledge of the come forth from their hotels and the local perform- local culture is not limited to facts, figures and ers, the ‘natives’, who leave their homes to engage the other couleur locale, it includes the art of building tourists in structured ways in predetermined locali- a network, of monopolizing contacts, a familiar- ties for defined periods of time” (Bruner 2004: 17; cf. ity with the operations of the tipping and com- Edensor 2001: 63–64). In such spaces, the tourists missions system […] Successful guides know how and locals can be considered to be actors improvis- to turn their social relations and narratives into a ing their interactions (Bruner 2004: 19). Among the profitable enterprise. (Dahles 2002: 784) most prominent persons inhabiting such zones, and often demarcating them, are tour guides. A nuanced Insofar as they master this role, they may be clas- look at the performances and perceptions of guides sified as culture brokers (Salazar 2014). The guide in a variety of situations can thus teach us a great integrates the tourists they guide into the visited set- deal about the cultures and their boundaries as re- ting as well as insulates them from that setting. They flected and shaped through the tourist encounter. do this by interposing themselves between the party J. Christopher Holloway (1981: 385–386) was the and the environment, thus making it non-threaten- first to place mediation at the centre of tour guide ing to the tourist. They thereby come to represent analysis, citing the multiplicity of roles played by the party to the setting, as well as the setting to the tour guides acting variously as directors, chore- party (Cohen 1985: 13). Thus, the guide may bridge ographers, stage hands and virtuoso performers. conflicted relations and build understanding across (Note the theatrical metaphor and suggestion of communities, as in Sarajevo (Causevic & Lynch performance that we return to in this special issue). 2011) or up the Falls Road, Belfast (Skinner 2016). Among the roles he lists are: information-giver and Alternatively, guiding may perpetuate power rela- fountain of knowledge, teacher or instructor, mo- tions inherent in colonialism and Orientalist under- tivator and initiator into the rites of tourist experi- standings of “natives” (Bruner 2004: 33–70; Bunten ences, missionary or ambassador for their country, 2008, 2015; Crick 1989). entertainer or catalyst for the group, confidant, More recently, Weiler and Black (2014: 32–43) shepherd and ministering angel, group leader and developed and modified Cohen’s typology, employ- disciplinarian. We find a similar approach to the ing an expansive use of the term “mediation” in tour guide taken in Erik Cohen’s path-breaking article guiding to include provision of access, encounters, (1985) where he provided a classification of tour understanding and empathy. This includes media- guide roles into pathfinder, animator, mediator and tion between visitors and destinations, within tour communicator. In the guide’s communicative role, groups (this subsumes Cohen’s “animator” catego- 6 ETHNOLOGIA EUROPAEA 48:2 ry) and within individuals as guides to inner jour- impose on guides’ behaviour. Some countries, sites neys (Weiler & Black 2015: 266). They claim that and institutions exert a great deal of control over with the shift to an experience economy, the com- guide narratives, either through intensive training municative role has been to some extent pre-empted courses which limit guides’ explanations to tightly- by media (including social media), so that drama- controlled scripts, or through licensing regulations turgical and interactive skills have become more or surveillance (Dahles 2002; Simoni, this issue). In important in tailoring tours to the individualized many cases, however, guides have great agency in de- demands of the public. Insofar as what tourists are veloping their own narratives and tours, loosely di- seeking is to broaden their experience (rather than rected by shared points or values (Wynn 2011). The obtain information or access to places) and become step-on guide who boards the tour bus for an hour’s “co-producers” of tours, the broker of experience city tour may be evaluated by different criteria than and the “mediator” are synonymous (Weiler & Black the trek pathfinder or the museum docent (Dekel, 2015: 365–366; Salazar, this issue). Skinner, this issue). Guides hustling for business We have chosen to frame the various guide roles on street corners or near tourist attractions may and tasks discussed in the articles in this issue as perform differently than “official” guides licensed “cultural mediators”, rather than “brokers” (Sala- by governmental bodies (Simoni, this issue). The zar, this issue), in order to highlight the multiplex, guide hired for two hours by a shop-owner to pre- performative, interactive dimensions of guiding