Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how ethnography has been applied to the study of backpacker tourism. An introduction to backpacker ethnography is presented, conceptual and methodological challenges are identified, and the value for anthropology of insights gained through the study of tourism is discussed.

Paper long abstract:

Backpackers are probably the type of tourists that has been most intensely studied by means of ethnography. With good reason. Ethnographic research of the phenomenon is encouraged by factors such as the conspicuous social interaction among backpackers, the existence of backpacker enclaves, the relatively prolonged duration of most backpacker journeys (not least when compared with more conventional tourist trips), and the inviting traits of a classic anthropological subject, rites of passage. Parallel with the growth and expansion of the phenomenon itself, research into backpacker tourism has grown dramatically too, and a noteworthy share of that research has been conducted by means of ethnography, while a large share of the remainder display much influence from ethnographic methodology. The author has been part and parcel of this development as he, since 1990, in total has conducted more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork among backpackers and has published several papers on the ethnography of backpackers.

However, the relatively large amount of published material about backpacker tourism, based on ethnography or ethnographic methodology, also reveal a need to initiate conceptual and methodological reflections. The purpose of this paper is therefore to take a closer look at how ethnography has been applied to the study of backpacker tourism. As a foundation for the following reflections, a short introduction to backpacker ethnography is presented. Following this, key conceptual and methodological challenges in the application of ethnographic methodology to the study of backpackers are identified and discussed, not least the seeming re-emergence of the much debated "ethnographic present." After this the coin is flipped, and the remainder of the paper discusses the value for ethnography and anthropology in general of the conceptual, methodological and empirical insights gained through the particular study of tourism.