“Good morning, misty mountains!” exclaimed my 5-year-old son as we walked to his kindergarten soon after our arrival in Hualien. Since then, that greeting has become part of our morning ritual. His middle name, “Sahn,” is the Korean word for “mountain” so that may explain his affinity for the elevated landforms. Lately, I have been reminding him to appreciate these mountains because we will not be seeing any when we return to the flat topography of central Ohio.
As a Fulbright Scholar at National Dong Hwa University (NDHU) in Hualien, I incorporated the commodification of indigenous tourism into my courses and plan to integrate these pedagogical experiences into my future research. During this past year, I shared my current research involving the impact of tourism on an indigenous population in the Philippines in three conference presentations and four academic articles.
Vision & Challenge: A New Era of Indigenous Peoples
Teaching
My appointment as a visiting lecturer at NDHU serendipitously coincided with a brand-new International PhD program in Indigenous Studies for which I contributed two original courses:
- Indigenous Tourism (Fall 2023)
This course provided the opportunity for students to explore the impacts of tourism on indigenous peoples and the economic, social, cultural, environmental, and political motivations that encourage indigenous peoples to engage in tourism. It explored alternative insights into tourism as a social and cultural phenomenon by examining tourism from a different worldview. Themes of the tourist gaze, authenticity, identity, consumption, and pilgrimage were considered throughout the semester. I accompanied the students on a field trip to tour Taiwanese aboriginal arts, culture, events, and foods.
- Special Topics on Ethnic and Cultural Studies (Spring 2024)
This course focused on the indigenous peoples and cultures of Native North America. It addressed two basic questions: first, what does it mean to be Native American?, and who gets to decide? We investigated the primary markers of Indian identity (biology, culture, and self-identification) as they apply to a sampling of three tribal groups: the Cherokees, the Lumbees, and the Pequots. Students assessed the roles that stereotypes, biological and cultural interaction with non-Indians, and urbanization have had on Indian identity, and appreciated the richness and complexity of Native American life as it was and continues to be lived in diverse ways and in different places in North America.
International Collaboration
Generous support from Fulbright’s East Asian & Pacific Regional Travel Program enabled me to visit two different institutions during the month of April 2024:
- Fiji National University
Although my visit overlapped with FNU’s mid-semester break, I was still able to offer a range of events including a teaching presentation that explored “The Ethics of Representation in Mass Media” for a course in Broadcast Journalism, a screening of my documentary film, PastPresentFuture: Archaeology and Tourism in the Yucatan (2022), and a public lecture titled “The Role of Anthropology in the Digital Era.” All of these events were organized by my gracious host, Dr. Victor Alasa, the Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching at the College of Humanities and Education (CHE).
The highlight of my visit was participating in a two-day strategic workshop at the Fiji Hideaway Resort in Sigatoka where I delivered a well-received presentation titled “Chapters of Your Life: The Power of Digital Storytelling.” Workshop participants learned how the same digital tools that connect us in some ways while profoundly disconnecting us in others can also be utilized to share our personal stories with one another.
I intend to shift my research focus to Oceania for the next stage of my academic career so I am exceedingly grateful for this valuable opportunity to facilitate this transition by building professional and personal connections as well as establish collaborative relationships with colleagues at one of the major research institutions in the region. Perhaps the most promising outcome to emerge from this visit was an invitation to join FNU’s faculty as an Adjust Professor by offering a two-week short course at FNU’s Natabua campus in the summer of 2025. I am looking forward to experiencing the “Bula Spirit” of Fiji once again.
- Sebelas Maret University
Only two weeks removed from my first RTP-funded visit to Fiji, I embarked on another trip to Surakarta, Indonesia to review the curriculum for Sebelas Maret University’s new doctoral program in Cultural Studies. I also offered two campus-wide lectures in my areas of expertise. The first, which was sponsored by the Department of English, explored the topic of “Transnationalism and Cultural Identity” through a case study of my current research on cultural tourism in the Northern Philippines. The second addressed the topic of “Audience Ethnography” through a case study of my previous research on television spectatorship on the Navajo Reservation in the Southwestern United States. It was hosted by the students and faculty in the Department of Anthropology, Sociology, and Education.
This busy but productive visit was punctuated by two workshops that I presented for the campus community. The first was dedicated to Ethnographic Research Methods in which I shared some effective strategies for conducting ethnographic interviews. The second focused on Academic Publishing in scholarly journals, which appeared to be a topic of great interest based on the number of people in attendance. While there is no magic formula to getting an article published, I offered some insights about finding the right journal, writing tips, and an effective organizational structure for research articles.
Surakarta is colloquially known as Solo, which means “alone” or “unaccompanied” in the English language. Ironically, I experienced a strong sense of community throughout my visit thanks to the friendliness and hospitality shown to me by my hosts, in particular, Dr. Sri Kusumo Habsari, who meticulously organized my entire itinerary.
Funded Research
By far, the most memorable experience of this past year was a collaborative research project funded by NDHU’s International Academic Cooperation and Exchange Program titled “Indigenous Tourism in Laos: A Case Study of Phou Iu Travel and Ecotourism Agency.” I accompanied nine graduate students from the College of Indigenous Studies to the Luang Namtha province in Laos. Indigenous tourism can present a paradox of sorts. On the one hand, the tangible economic benefits of tourism serve as a driver to restore, protect, and promote local cultures. But it can also undermine these cultures when tourism activities impinge on the rights of indigenous peoples to self-determination. Indeed, the leaders of Phou Iu Travel and Ecotourism Agency unwittingly find themselves in a double bind; that is, they face an uncertain future if they do not conform to tourists’ expectations of an idealized past. Our specific objectives were: to identify the major social, political, and economic issues facing residents of the local community; to determine how tourism has influenced the community, specifically with regard to how residents reconcile the “traditional” with the “modern;” to investigate the performative aspects of those directly involved in the tourism industry and the ways in which they utilize “staged authenticity;” to contextualize the relationships between community hosts as cultural generators and information senders vis-à-vis the tourists as consumers and information receivers; and to explore the potential for more responsible and sustainable forms of indigenous tourism.
Taiwan embodies the simultaneity of traditionalism and modernity—or what the sociologist Roland Robertson calls “glocalization.” In my former research area of Native North America, much has been said and written about indigenous peoples being figuratively and literally trapped between two very different worlds. This discussion, unfortunately, is invariably framed in notions of victimhood: their traditional value system under siege by rapidly encroaching Western influences.
However, the terms “traditional” and “modern” are problematic because they connote a false watershed demarcating a pristine past that has been sullied by contemporary forces. Anthropologists do not conceive of “culture” as fixed or static but dynamic and constantly in flux. In other words, it is not something that you can “lose” like a set of car keys. For example, the Navajos with whom I had lived and worked for almost two decades have a long history of actively and creatively incorporating outside influences and making them their own. If you ask a Navajo to name the types of things that are “traditional,” the most common responses will include sheepherding, silversmithing, and weaving—all of which were appropriated from outsiders. I often mention this case study to my students in order to demonstrate the process whereby that which was modern and strange yesterday becomes modern but familiar today and “authentically traditional” tomorrow.
Taiwan has changed significantly since my first visit here 14 years ago. The past two months alone have witnessed a devastating earthquake and a new president. In more rural areas such as Hualien, it is not difficult to notice the struggles associated with a rapidly aging society and a decreasing fertility rate. The young Taiwanese with whom I come into contact feel discouraged by the stagnant wages and rising cost of living; as such, the prospect of having a family or owning their own home seems like a distant reality.
Tremendous uncertainty lies ahead, particularly with the perpetually looming threat of Cross-Strait relations. Nevertheless, like the rugged mountains around Hualien, certain things will remain indelible. The commodification of traditional cultural practices does not necessarily diminish or undermine the ideal of authenticity in tourists’ imaginations. Indeed, indigenous tourism may constitute the most recent iteration of an ongoing process of cultural domestication in which continuity is located in change.
