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- Convenors:
-
Marc Morell
(Rīgas Strādiņa Universitāte)
Dan Hirslund (University of Copenhagen)
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- Discussant:
-
Don Kalb
(University of Bergen)
- Formats:
- Panels Network affiliated
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 22 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
The expansion of the tourism industry through new horizons of consumption reveals widespread forms of labour exploitation and extraction that have rarely been accounted for in anthropology. This panel encourages the explanation of the labour at large that makes tourism possible.
Long Abstract:
Thinking about tourism, and particularly the labour it takes, invites us to consider the challenges posed to anthropology by the societal changes that are currently taking place in Europe and beyond.
Tourism is a fast growing global industry and the second major worldwide generator of employment. It constantly expands by unevenly developing new "peripheries of pleasure" while incorporating fresh horizons of consumption, often organised under a colonial and patriarchal tourist gaze. It is against this backdrop of consumption the tourist embodies that this panel focuses on the labour processes that take place within the tourism industry by encouraging a political economy of enchantment, in which one person's leisure is another's labour.
Within this capitalistically organised activity, we encounter an intensive labour exploitation, as well as other forms of extraction that capitalise on wider commoned spaces of social reproduction via gentrification and rising housing rents and prices, all of which are reinforced by the recent spread of digital platforms. Together with the severe ecological conflicts caused by the industry, these social inequalities have given rise to the re-politisation of the discussion of tourism, thereby superseding earlier approaches that draw attention to tourism's development, impacts and responses.
We will consider papers focusing on labour at large, that is, both at sites of production and social reproduction, by looking at processes of commodification, enclosure, dispossession and gentrification, as well as working conditions, labour regulations, the role of unions and community organisations, and wider class struggles within the tourist industry and its historical development.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 22 July, 2020, -Paper short abstract:
In this paper I elaborate on the concept of 'cultural labour' to discuss how tourist activities affect social relations in Gran Sabana, southern Venezuela. I use this concept to shed light on the crystallisation of new forms class-based stratification among the local population.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper I elaborate on the concept of 'cultural labour' to discuss how tourist activities affect social relations in Gran Sabana, southern Venezuela. For approximately a decade (2004 to 2014), before economic crisis struck the country, tourist activities expanded very rapidly in this region, and land enclosures accompanied this process. These enclosures entailed the emergence of private ownership claims over land that the indigenous Pemon had previously treated as a common pool resource. Claimants of these private rights were often Pemon people who developed tourist projects in search of a local source of income (in a region that lacks employment opportunities outside mining and civil service jobs are very scarce). People involved in this process linked to tourist expansion have articulated a discursive strategy that involves appeals to what I call 'cultural labour'. Appeals to this type of labour present the environment of Gran Sabana as permanently inscribed with (Pemon) labour, and thus contribute to strengthen land ownership rights for the whole of the Pemon people in face of continuing threats of territorial dispossession (indigenous land titles are still an exception in the region). But, in parallel, those appeals to (Pemon) collective labour disguise a growing erosion of (Pemon) collective rights over land and other resources, in a process that finds manifestation in the aforementioned enclosures but, more generally, in the crystallisation of new forms class-based stratification among the local population.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on in-depth interviews and participant observation, this paper aims to explore the social construction of seasonal migrant workers as a way of legitimizing forms of labour exploitation and extraction against the backdrop of the development of the ski industry in Val d'Aran (Spain).
Paper long abstract:
In the last decades, the decline of farming activities in Val d'Aran and the engagement in a postindustrial economy based on leisure and tourism related to the development of the ski industry has led to new ways of inhabiting the mountain. The presence of international, national, permanent, temporary and multi-local residents in these rural area entail socio-cultural diversity as a factor of production of the locality in a global context, changing local social dynamics and structures and creating new forms of social and cultural distinction and otherness.
Temporal migrants, both national and international, are currently involved as seasonal winter workers in the tertiary sector, particularly in services for tourists and second-home owners, and are essential economic and social agents, contributing to the development and reproduction of the local communities. However, these workers face poor working conditions, difficulties to find an accommodation due to gentrification, and negative stereotypes.
In the framework of the research project, "Becoming local in mountain areas: diversification, gentrification, cohabitation. A comparison between the Swiss Alps and the Spanish Pyrenees" (funded by Swiss National Foundation), in this paper we will present partial findings from ongoing ethnographic research being carried out in Val d'Aran (Spanish Pyrenees). Drawing on in-depth interviews and participant observation, we aim to explore the social construction of seasonal migrant workers as a way of legitimizing forms of labour exploitation and extraction against the backdrop of the development of the touristic industry in the mountain areas and its unending race for profits.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, I explore daily aspects of the invisible yet essential physical and "emotional labour" performed by migrant hospitality workers in a Swiss touristic village. While this labour brings about a certain financial stability, it simultaneously confines the workers to a precarious present.
Paper long abstract:
The Alps have been shaping tourism imaginaries (Salazar and Graburn 2014) for the past two-hundred years, thanks to Romantic ideals of what life in the mountains entailed: that of a simple, traditional, farming culture. In this presentation, I look at the "backstage" and what enables such imaginaries to endure in a Swiss-German-speaking Alpine village which depends on tourism. Although rarely acknowledged in knowledge productions which have celebrated the mountain farmer as the original, local dweller, the village has historically relied on the labour of foreigners from countless European countries since the end of 19th century to build the tourist infrastructure or work in the hospitality industry. Despite the essential role they have played in the flourishing tourism economy - and contrary to the "win-win situation" that many locals described as a mediation between local demand for cheap, flexible workforce and the workers' eagerness to come to Switzerland for higher wages - most hotel and restaurant employees I met during my fieldwork felt exploited, excluded and made invisible from the village community. Following these workers, I discuss the daily aspects of the physical and "emotional labour" (Hochschild 1983) they perform when welcoming the "mass tourists" in the village, a task that locals are reluctant to perform and are able to avoid. I explore how the hospitality industry is for workers both a way to achieve financial stability and to legally stay in the village, as well as an entrapment and dispossessing force confining their lives to the precarious present.
Paper short abstract:
Many of those that work in tourism in Puerto Escondido have suffered exploitation at home in Mexico and in the USA as undocumented migrants. This paper looks at the blurring of leisure and labour, pleasure and pain, under the guise of ethical tourism and development.
Paper long abstract:
Puerto Escondido in Oaxaca, Mexico has grown dramatically over the last few decades from a tiny port to a thriving tourist town. For many of the locals tourism offers a vision of limitless wealth that always seems to be just over the horizon. This echoes the experience many have of crossing over to, and/or having family in, the USA. In many cases the exploitation is replicated on both sides of the border, no matter how hard they work it is never enough. The growing wealth divide is clear in the rapid change from a tourism of backpackers to luxury stays. Without huge increases in capital it is simply impossible for locals to compete in the luxury tourism marketplace. While on the one hand this uneven development starkly juxtaposes leisure and labour, pleasure and suffering, on the other, the boundaries begin to blur through ethical tourism and the increase in those who combine work and travel (digital nomads). Rather than being hidden away, the suffering and endless labour of the locals proves to the ethical tourists the value of tourism and becomes part of the development spectacle. To explore this I will look at the case of a mother and daughter from Puerto, who crossed to the USA and are now back renting out rooms and cooking for the construction workers of the new hotels. Their story of ceaseless labour (wage and care) across borders illustrates how the promises of capitalism and tourism as development are endlessly deferred for some.
Paper short abstract:
Homeowners and tour guides in Granada, Spain often rely on tourism labour generated by economic models that promote continuous growth and result in overtourism. Sustainable models proposed align with their desire for conviviality and governance yet call for consideration of their complex situation.
Paper long abstract:
During the recent recession, tourism-related practices have intensified, yet in Granada, Spain, the overtourism that this labour serves has sparked only limited implementation of effective strategies for sustainable tourism. Based on fieldwork in Granada over a span of 10 years, I consider narratives of tourism workers that participate in, and residents that are affected by, overtourism in the historically Moorish neighbourhood of the city. I provide an account of groups that garner monopoly rents (Harvey 2006; 2002) on Granada's cultural capital through two types of tourism labour: historical tours and gentrification. Newly created companies offering "free tours" employ recently graduated tour guides in precarious positions. These tours allow these workers to avoid labour migration (Ladkin, 2011). The presence of this exponentially increased number of tours hinders everyday movement of residents. Nevertheless, many homeowners have turned to online lean platforms (Fletcher et. al, 2019) to convert their homes and/or properties into tourist apartments which they manage. These practices, according to residents, have disintegrated the "community feel" in the neighbourhood (McIlwraith, 2018). However, I argue that the same groups, younger tour guides and homeowners, that depend the most on capitalist models of continuous growth to get through, or recover from, periods of precarious employment are often those that desire sustainable tourism and the implementation of strategies of degrowth, but may not be in a position to advocate for them. Consequently, in ignoring the complexity of wider class struggles, this contradiction could create an obstacle to the success of any strategies implemented.
Paper short abstract:
Jamaican migrant agricultural workers to Canada support gastronomic tourism. In Jamaica, some of these same workers provide tourism services as drivers and guides. Through this contiguous provision of tourism labour, bodies in the global south sustain the leisure of those in the global north.
Paper long abstract:
Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL) is a tourist destination that emphasizes local food and wine, alongside theatre and heritage, to curate its bourgeois appeal. In addition to its gastronomy, the area is also known for its fruit and grape production such that its rural roads are framed by picturesque orchards and vineyard, which has led the development of cycling tourism in the region. Despite its embeddedness in farm-to-table practices and its commitment to the 'local', NOTL's agricultural production is deeply dependent upon the labour of transnational migrant farmworkers, primarily from Mexico and the English-speaking Caribbean, both of which are also tourist destinations. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork in Jamaica, I map the ways that workers from tourist-receiving countries support tourism in Canada and, more tellingly, those very same workers who support tourism in Canada through their labour on farms also provide touristic services such as driving and guiding in their home countries as well. In this continuity of their transnational labour, Jamaicans are rendered always available to facilitate the experiences of pleasure for those who are globally mobile and have access to leisure, categories that overlap with class, racialization, and citizenship.
Paper short abstract:
The study examines state and community tourism projects in Quintana Roo (Mexico) and their impact on indigenous community organization by analyzing actors, new modes of labor processes, objectives versus results and acceptance within the village population.
Paper long abstract:
Since the 1930-ies the Mexican state has inaugurated various programs to foster tourism industries which developed to be the third major sector of employment and income. Generally focusing on "sun and beach"-tourism, policies shifted to include archaeological and historical sites as a commodity in the tourist market in the 1980-ies. Mexican federal states with less splendid historical cities or archaeological breathtaking ruins, thought of alternative 'cultural' proposals. In that regard, Quintana Roo, federal state in the southeast of Mexico and one of the major tourism booming regions because of its Caribbean beaches, invented for the more backward areas the "Route of the Caste War" in the 1990-ies by refurbishing battle places of the 19th century conflict and by founding new memory sites (museums and parks) where specially trained young guides lead the tourists through the local history. New public-private tourism projects are following that pattern. On the one side the state creates new forms of income resources by commodifying historical places and recollections in order to prevent the young from leaving their hometowns. On the other side, inherited patterns of historical knowledge transmission are turned upside down, since local community organization within the Cruzó'ob settlement area (former Caste War region) understand collective memory as an expertise of senior men. The study examines state and community tourism projects in Quintana Roo (Mexico) and their impact on indigenous community organization by analyzing actors, new modes of labor processes, objectives versus results and acceptance within the village population.
Paper short abstract:
The paper looks at how emerging work models redefine work ethics and social relations in the context of increased professionalization of dance teaching aimed at foreign tourists, through the analysis of small businesses centered on dance instruction, in an economy strongly regulated by the state.
Paper long abstract:
The paper looks at how newly emerging work models redefine work ethics and social relations in the context of increased professionalization of dance teaching aimed at foreign tourists. Emerging work practices are related to identity construction processes and social change, often surpassing the simple dichotomy socialism / capitalism, and being characterized by constant negotiations and ambivalence.
The acute lack of foreign currency and the economic difficulties that Cuba faced after the fall of the Soviet Union led to reorienting the economy towards tourism, a decision which highlighted one of the big paradoxes of the revolutionary government: recreating prerevolutionary images of a sensual, luxuriant paradise. With music and dance at the core of Cuban popular culture and the tourist sector, their transnational moves and popularity abroad brought about processes of commodification that are simultaneously cultural and political. The increased number of small businesses centered on dance instruction creates the premises for capitalizing on cultural heritage both in Cuba and outside of it, allowing the space for innovation in an economy still strongly regulated by the state. Economic realities and social inequalities that stem from contact with foreigners result in creative approaches for financial gain, perpetuating expectations about Cuban fantasies. Not only do such interactions reinforce fantasies of sensuality and sexual availability, they also reshape work related practices and bring about new attitudes towards work and new definitions of 'being a professional', based on a perceived superiority of work models and ethics functioning outside the island.
Paper short abstract:
The political importance of LGBTQ Pride events in major European cities may hide appropriated activist labour, digested and simplified into amenities and attractions for queer tourism. Drawing from fieldwork in Madrid, this paper explores the appropriation and domestication of past activist labour.
Paper long abstract:
LGBTQ—lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer—Prides have become one of the most relevant tourist events in major Western cities. According to anthropologist Begonya Enguix (2009, 2019) and the event's organisers, Madrid's Pride is not only Spain's largest LGBTQ event but also the most attended one throughout Europe. Since 1996, this event has grown into a party and a political occasion that transcends the main gayborhood, Chueca, scattering into several downtown locations as well as nearby cities. The event's growth in public funding, private sponsorship and media visibility and publicity has not been free of controversies and conflicts, resonating several of the key debates in most Western Prides: those of the boundaries between party and politics, or consumption and protest (Kates & Belk, 2001); the role of LGBTQ tourism in the geopolitics of unequal discrimination and oppression (Puar, 2002); or the intersection of gender and sexual diversity within the capitalist mode of production (Drucker, 2014). Drawing from these prisms with which to analyse the role of LGBTQ tourism promotion, this paper explores the role of past activist labour for the construction, definition and consolidation of cities as LGBTQ or diverse destinations. This paper draws from field work in Madrid 2016-2019 and uses Marc Morell's (2015) concept of urban labour in order to analyse the appropriation of the historical goals and victories of local LGBTQ social movements as implicit or explicit amenities and building blocks for the tourist destination.