Suspect Others: Tourism and development in the field of anthropology

This dissertation examines the relationship between anthropology, international development, and tourism in the fieldwork space of anthropology. Attempts to transform international development and tourism into anthropological objects must recognize the place these practices inhabit within anthropology. Just as colonialism made anthropology possible before WW II by providing fieldwork sites, international development programs in the decades since have enabled fieldwork to continue; just as one form of tourism (elite-exploratory) preceded anthropology to the field, contemporary tourists follow on the heels of fieldworkers. What I shall argue is that tourism and development are the dangerous supplements which have always been present in anthropology, and which it has always sought to deny.;The relationship between these three modes of encountering Others becomes clearer when we examine World Bank- and UNDP-funded tourism development projects such as that found on Bali. Planners first categorize a place as a site possessing a distinct "culture" on the basis of past western fieldwork. This culture is in turn defined as resource that can be exploited in the name of development through the creation and management of tourist projects. However, planners also presume that this "culture" must be protected from contamination by tourists, meaning that tourism development must be planned and controlled by the state. State-planned tourism, then, justifies itself on the grounds of cultural protection and preservation, while seeking to control the economic benefits tourism might bring. Paradoxically, local residents, at least in the case of Bali, benefit most by engaging in activities that state authorities, local elites, and western anthropologists view as culturally degrading and polluting, activities that escape central planning.