Log in to star items.
Accepted Paper
Are there any natives in the West?: competing discourses of westerness and nativeness at a heritage site
Linda McNenly
(Wilfrid Laurier University)
Paper short abstract
ON-LINE
Paper long abstract
Cultural tourism and heritage sites are spaces for the production of national identity, culture and history. Tourist sites, however, produce partial histories and valorize selective identities. This paper considers the politics of recognition - that is the exclusion and inclusion of Nativeness - at a heritage site in Sheridan Wyoming. I examine how Westernness and Nativeness are constructed by and through reenactments and performances of the "wild west" at Sheridan's "Buffalo Bill Days" event. While the dominant discourse commemorates Western history and identity, I argue that Native participants contest this discourse through their performances, which celebrate contemporary Native culture and identity.
E-paper: this Paper will not be presented, but read in advance and discussed
Tourism as social contest
EPapers