Paper short abstract:

A travers cette communication, je propose d'examiner la manière dont les visions stéréotypées des identités de genre polynésiennes sont mises en scène ou contestées - par l'usage de l'humour notamment - dans les performances touristiques tongiennes.

Paper long abstract:

Since the first contacts between Europeans navigators and the inhabitants of what is now called « Polynesia », the image of Polynesian women that predominates in literature, films and other media is one of sensual beauty and sexual freedom, while men - Maori men in particular - are thought as fierce and strongly-built warriors. These images not only apply to Tahiti and French Polynesia, but also to other archipelagos such as Samoa, Tonga, or the Cook islands. Images now used for tourism marketing are shaped according to these representations. Tongan tourist brochures for example display young, smiling and welcoming women. This idealized Polynesian femininity is also displayed in tourist performances, where the Tahitian hip-shaking dances are generally performed (Tahitian dances being very different from the Tongan dance performances).

I will thus examine whether the Polynesian feminine identity as defined by tourism marketing correspond to the normative femininity as it is defined in Tonga or not. If the two definitions do not fit with each other, this will take us to investigate the following questions : how do local actors and performers cope with the hegemonic definition of feminine identity ? Is it performed to satisfy tourists or is it contested? If the feminine identity as defined by the tourism industry is locally contested during tourist performances, what are the strategies used to do so and what is the place of irony in this process?