Vanished Glories And Commercialized Town

Landscapes,seen as the objects of tourist gaze,are implanted with obvious purposes for the development of tourism,thus turning out to be a new kind of landscape;however,by means of representations,narratives,manipulation and disputes by different social actors,landscapes are transformed both in outlooks and meanings,which reshapes their version of landscape.This research aims to present the ethnography of a hometown of overland Chinese in southwest frontier from the anthological perspective in landscapes and tourism,combining with the concepts of"disembedded" and "re-embedded","front" and "back".It mainly discusses how the representation and practices of different social actors towards landscapes and their interaction reconstruct the local people’s relations to the lands and others.Firstly,the distinctive social and cultural factors in such transnational mobility as"Caravan","Border Trade","Jade exchanges","Going to Myanmar",disembedded from the daily life,but revives by the local narratives of "old houses" because of tourism.These narratives,embedded with historical memories,emotions and overland relatives,are borrowed and utilized by businessmen,which results in the boom of jade trade in the town.Secondly,the value of "old house" and "lands" draws lots of outsiders to run inns.The occurrence of massive inns reshapes the whole appearance of the town,and local people’s relations to outsiders and themselves.Meanwhile,with the arrival outsiders,the modernized factors,such as consumption,lifestyle,marketing strategies,"re-embed" in the local culture,bringing about the continuity and recreation of "tradition".Thirdly,with the impetus of capital and power,the ancestral temples and other vernacular landscapes become the tourist landscapes.The changes of their original meanings and functions thus occur,leaving impacts on livelihood of the locals.In this process,different social actors make the single social and cultural structures intertwine with conflicts,compromise and cooperation.It is found that the capital exchanges of landscapes reveal the changes of perception and cultural structure of local people.This process cannot be attributed to one single factor,but results from both inside and outside elements,such as cultural tradition,historical chances,economic environment,tourist activities,capital and power.The interactions among different social actors are also the vital forces in the reshaping process.Therefore,the thesis attempts to analyze the cultural representations,the transformation in space,social relations,as well as the causes,by taking into account regional ecology,socialization and global modernization,along with perceptions,experiences and subjectivity of local people,so as to take "landscape" as a method to reconsider the reproduction of culture and society,thus expanding the related research in the anthropology of tourism.