Paper long abstract:

This paper seeks to probe these different facets within a new line of tourism research, involving consumer culture and cultural studies, merged with sociological explorations of food studies and touristic experiences. By approaching tourism from a socio-cultural perspective and applying theories of consumer culture and representation issues, the project examines how indigenousness, as a sign, is desired, experienced, consumed, interpreted and represented, based on the analysis of tourist consumption of indigenous foods and restaurants in Hualien, Taiwan. Multiple qualitative methods are used in this project. Drawing upon fieldwork, participation observation, visual analysis of tourist-ordered indigenous meals, and in-depth interviews, this project explores what Hualien and indigenous food mean to tourists and what forms of representation and consumption culture arise within these tourism practices. One theme which I will address in my analysis is the relationship between the construction of tourist experiences and their encompassing relationship with food culture. This paper argues that the relationship between tourism, food consumption and representation is complex and multifaceted. It also calls for the recognition of the significance of tourism objects and visual texts as these provide multiple contested meanings and perspectives (especially those of indigenous people versus tourists) from which the complex dialectical relations among tourism, consumption and issues of ethnic representation can be examined.