Front and Back Stage of Tourism Performance

Imaginaries and Bucket List Venues

Frances Riemer, Frances Julia Riemer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429792175
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Gastgewerbe, Reise- & Tourismusbranche

Front and Back Stage of Tourism Performance situates our travel imaginaries, those dream destinations on our travel bucket lists, as co-constructed by the tourist industry, state development policies, and community negotiations, and as framed by modernity's new global cultural economy. As more people travel for pleasure than ever before, host communities and intermediaries are presented with tourism opportunities that all too often become flashpoints for local contestation and mechanisms for displacement.

The ethnographically-grounded chapters describe tourist encounters shaped by geopolitics, complicated by war, and troubled by and enacted within the economic inequities of neocolonialism. The points of contact afford a unique vantage from which to view cultural identity, entrepreneurial strategizing, and natural resource management as global politics and relations of difference. They also illustrate the power of social networks, cultural display, and artistic performance as collective presentation, management apparatus, and structural critique.

Drawing on a range of international case studies, this book will appeal to those interested in tourism, anthropology, global studies, environmental issues, microeconomics, and identity studies.

Part 1

Managing Tourism during War Time

1 Loose lips can sink tourism

True lies and evasion during Nepal’s Maoist insurgency

Sharon J. Hepburn

What if lies, evasions, and credible denials could constitute an authentic encounter?¹ I would say that during the People’s War in Nepal they did. Sometimes what can be said and seen, and what must be silenced and hidden, is not just a matter of performing for tourists; it can be a matter of life and death. During the People’s War between the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) and the state security forces (1996–2006), a culture of silence pervaded the social life of non-aligned citizens. Much of Nepali life was lived on front stages where people were silent about the war and wary of who might overhear their conversations. Likewise, with war-curious tourists, Nepalis were usually similarly reticent, playing the role of “person who knows nothing.” In such circumstances, maybe a lie can be truthful to the reality of an encounter between the tourist and the toured. Maybe in some circumstances a lie is the only sensible option the toured has.

I arrived in the town of Pokhara, Nepal, in December 2001, a month into a national state of emergency in which most human rights were suspended. Maoists usually concealed their presence from tourists, but there was one location—on the trails near Pokhara—in which they openly interacted with tourists. Tourists generally singled out these encounters as—in our terms—their authentic back stage experiences of the war. And yet the real war was all around them, in the lives of civilians the tourists encountered. This was hidden by a pervasive secrecy born of fear, and hidden so effectively that many tourists thought “everything seems fine here” when really it was not. Bruner discards the idea of “authenticity” as a red herring, to be examined only when tourists or locals evoke the concept (2004, 5). Many tourists valued and talked about their meeting with “real” (i.e. authentic) insurgents on the trails. But in the end, perhaps ironically, the most authentic encounter they experienced was in the town, when much was concealed. Here the local’s “little lie” (MacCannell 1976, 93) is not a show or mystification, but is practice coterminous with the rest of their life, given the constraints and dangers they faced.

1 This chapter has no photos. The research concerns people who guarded information closely. Likewise, and in respect for this, I was cautious about what notes I had on me at any time that could possibly have been read or confiscated. I emailed my notes from and to various accounts each day, and then deleted them from my laptop. I took no photos.

Pokhara is a popular tourist destination with a subtropical climate, a lake, and fine Himalayan vistas. Most non-Indian tourists stay by the lakeside with its array of hotels, restaurants, boats for hire, and trekking agencies. Although this chapter is about the conditions of December 2001 and January 2002, it is informed by my residence in Nepal for a total of four years over the past 30, including five one-month trips during the war. I told people I was researching tourists and travel writing. I only directly asked Nepalis about the conflict if I knew them quite well. I extensively talked to tourists about their assessment of risk, their motives, and their experiences.

Meeting a real insurgent: The Maoist as tourist attraction

Maoists met tourists on the mountain trails, and asked for money to support the insurgency and nascent regime. Maoists and tourists performed almost routinized interactions that tourists recognized as “meeting the Maoist.” These became the key incidents in their traveler’s stories about their mountain trek during the war. The encounters were routinized as the cadre had their orders of what to say and do. The tourists also knew their role, having consulted other tourists, online information sources, and Maoist pronouncements. This then is a front stage interaction, between (after Smith 1987) “hosts” (albeit insurgents with guns), and “guests” (those who would pay to be able to stay).

The tourists came to trek during the war despite embassy warnings and worldwide security concerns. Many found reassurance in the Nepal Tourism Board’s announcement (2001) that “visitors experience near normalcy in most of the prominent tourist destinations.” Many knew that the Maoist leader, Prachandra, had announced that tourists were safe provided they gave money when asked. Once convinced of their own immunity, many tourists considered this an ideal time to visit Nepal, especially with low prices and empty lodges.

By December 2001, police north of Pokhara were unable to defend themselves against surprise attacks, and police posts along the trails were abandoned. On these unpoliced trails tourists met Maoists and their demands for a “donation.” The Maoists carried guns and grenades, and the groups had one member who could speak at least rudimentary English. In exchange for cash the tourist received a “Maoist visa” granting permission to travel in the area. This served as a receipt that other Maoists in the area would recognize as proof that payment (one to three US dollars per day) had been made. The receipts bore images of communist leaders including Stalin or Mao, and some commentary about the cause. While some tourists feared meeting Maoists, others wanted to. Although toward the end of the war, tourist encounters with Maoists became more strained (Baral 2013), in 2002 many enjoyed meeting the Maoists, and some sought them out as an extra perk of travel in wartime. These visitors heard firsthand about their cause, and came away with both an authentic Maoist visa, the one material souvenir of the insurgency, and an encounter with a “real insurgent” to add to their store of travel experiences. The encounter also yielded a story to tell, as tourists in trekking lodges and restaurants compared adventures and Maoist visas. Some tourists actually wanted to give, inspired by the social justice concerns of the “very nice young men” with guns by the trailside. These guns, though: even the pleasant interactions sometimes sparked dissonance as the young insurgents generally held a weapon, and tourists often suspected that other cadre stayed hidden nearby, slightly off the “stage.”

Where are the back stage and front stage here? The Maoists encounters with tourists on the trails were framed by an historically deep back stage. Rallies, idealism, the history of oppression in Nepal, and how that has played out in thousands of lives formed the hidden backdrop of these interactions. Maoists described this political context to tourists to justify their armed requests for money. What they did not tell—what was unseen and unsaid—was that Maoists controlled the countryside by fear and the threat of bodily harm (see below). That was all tidily hidden though hinted at by the weapon clearly in sight. The situation could change quickly if a tourist resisted; there might be threats, or a tourist’s porter with an acute understanding of the situation might encourage them to pay. Maoists rarely harmed tourists, but they certainly obstructed their way and frightened their porters. Ongoing and potential violence shaped the encounter between tourists and Maoist Nepalis, but a cooperative tourist would generally have a friendly encounter. The tourist had the frisson of excitement of being close to the authentic, the real insurgent, and got a real Maoist visa. As one told me: “Where else do you get that? And safely?” In these encounters between clearly identifiable Maoists and tourists, only the tourist who resists paying fees risks harm.

The rest of this chapter concerns encounters tourists had with other Nepalis, and the conditions, largely unseen and untold, in which they took place. The “stage” exists any time a tourist says to a Nepali that “everything seems fine here” and the Nepali says “yes no problem here,” or “the problem is off in other places.” In asking their questions the tourist risked nothing, but Nepalis potentially risked much in answering. The ephemeral stage is formed in that moment of asking, exists as the Nepali answers, and effectively dismantled as the tourist is reassured, and the Nepali (and Nepali tourism) are protected.

Nepalis were variously situated in the conflict, and likewise in encounters with tourists. Some worked in the tourist industry, some fought as insurgents, some worked in the security forces, and some were simply non-aligned civilians trying to survive between two warring forces. Nepalis of all kinds encountered other Nepalis of course, with or without tourists around. In these encounters, to see, speak, or remain silent in part depended on the audience and the stakes. Behavior is always adapted to context, and much of Nepali life itself at this time was particularly influenced by the very thing MacCannell (1973) argued characterizes tourist experiences: performances that hide and performances that reveal—or selectively reveal—truth.

Thus, tourists and Nepalis met in contexts shaped by the conditions of war—conditions of wary silence in which it was often prudent to act as “someone who knows nothing.” The complexity of the interface between tourists and Nepalis during the decade-long People’s War was marked by silences and a “nod” (from Nepalis) to what tourists see as their authentic encounters (described above), implicitly confirming that the tourist saw the “back stage” and what was really going on. There was no fixed stage—as in a staged cultural performance—for these tourist–Nepali encounters, but there was the unsaid and unseen. There was potential violence, and there was the ever-present fear that formed the back stage of these encounters, much as it did when Nepalis encountered other Nepalis.

A culture of fear and silence: Historical, geopolitical trajectories

Why the fear when Nepalis encounter other Nepalis? In 1996 the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist launched the People’s War to establish a communist republic. The conflict lasted a decade. An Amnesty International (2002) report documenting the period covered in this chapter notes the widespread use of arbitrary arrest, illegal detention, disappearance, torture, and extra-judicial killings by the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA). Maoists frequently killed or maimed people who did not cooperate with their cause. Through this time a culture of silence emerged (Gautam 2004). People on both sides and non-aligned citizens caught in the middle all feared the consequences of being overheard by the “wrong” people.

“Loose Lips Sinks Ships” was a slogan used in United States propaganda supporting World War II efforts. This, and the British equivalent, “Careless Talk Costs Lives,” admonished people to avoid indiscretion, especially involving any information that the enemy could use. Posters to discourage reticence were not needed during Nepal’s war. Loose Lips during the conflict could endanger neighbors, relatives, or yourself. Parents taught children selective silence (Pettigrew 2007, 2013). Nepalis were cautious in talking about the situation to curious tourists, who came for beauty or adventure and seeing no evidence of conflict asked, “I guess there’s no war influence here?” Nepalis generally answered “That’s right. It’s fine here.” For tourists, on the whole, it was. Nonetheless, the war permeated Pokhara, including the lakeside area of tourist hotels and restaurants.

In January 2002 violence escalated in the state of emergency. This back stage of fear and caution, to which tourists were not privy, is an example of what can happen on the ground when global and local geopolitical forces intersect. In the wake of coordinated attacks by Al Qaeda upon the United States of America on September 11, 2001, security concerns and awareness of the United States’ “war on terror” contributed to tourism’s decline worldwide. Nepal’s case is interesting in that this external political event coincided with internal political struggles—namely a civil war and the massacre of most of the royal family—exacerbating the local effects of a worldwide phenomenon. In Nepal, arrivals dropped from about 464,000 in 2000 to fewer than 216,000 in 2002 (MTCA 2003).

A half-century of political experiments and change culminated in the People’s War in Nepal. From 1846 to 1951 a dominant elite, the Rana Dynasty, enforced an isolationist policy. Ruling Nepal like a vast feudal estate, they enacted a legal code that allowed them to extract labor and resources from a rural peasantry. Political movements elsewhere inspired dissent and when the Rana regime fell in 1951, political experimentation began. In 1960 King Mahendra implemented a one-party system of government. Many felt this perpetuated the inequities of the Rana period under a different guise. After three decades, catching the wave of democracy movements worldwide around 1990, a popular movement to establish a multiparty democracy under a constitutional monarch succeeded. Citizens could once again form political parties, freely debate, and contest in elections. Variously inspired left-wing parties with close links to India became vocal after decades of enforced silence. After a few years of the new order, Maoist members of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist found the pace of structural change too slow and the persistence of inequality still encoded in law unacceptable. When the Nepal Maoists launched their People’s War in 1996, they intended to replace a multiparty democracy with a communist republic. In five years the conflict grew to a guerilla force in the offensive position against the RNA. By the time they signed a peace accord in 2006, the Maoists had displaced the elected government throughout most of the country, and nearly a half-million people had been forced from their homes or land. The economy was in shambles, 13,000 people had died as a direct result of the insurgency, thousands more were maimed, and countless others missing (Bhattarai, Conway, & Shrestha 2005; Hutt 2004; Lawoti and Pahari 2010; Shah 2008; Thapa and Sijapati 2003).

In January 2002 casualties were rising dramatically. Before this, the world media did not widely report on the conflict, and tourism steadily grew (Bhattarai et al. 2005). But after the events of 2001, both inside and outside Nepal, arrivals declined rapidly. Inside Nepal in June 2001, King Birendra and most of his family (the royal lineage) were massacred in Kathmandu. In the midst of the national mood of shock, suspicion, and uncertainty which followed, the Maoists expanded their campaign.

Outside Nepal, the events of September 11 unfolded in the United States, precipitating a decline in tourism worldwide and a growth of discourses on terror and international relations. On November 26, 2001, after only six months on the throne, the new king, Gyanendra, declared a national state of emergency (noted above). Echoing post-9/11 global refrains of the “war on terrorism,” the Nepali government promulgated the TADO (Terrorist and Disruptive Activities [Control and Punishment] Ordinance), identified the Maoists as terrorists, and for the first time deployed the RNA to help stop Maoist expansion. King Gyanendra suspended rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, privacy, and information, and rights against preventative detention (Hutt 2004). In the post-9/11 world campaign to name and eradicate “terrorists,” the United States and Britain gave military aid to help Nepal overcome their recently named “terrorists.” Thus as the result of policies spawned by events half a world away, the recently engaged RNA was well armed and casualties mounted dramatically. As mentioned above, an Amnesty International (2002) report documenting this period described the widespread use of arbitrary arrest, illegal detention, disappearance, torture, and extra-judicial killing by the RNA. It also noted widespread killing and maiming by Maoists of people not cooperating with t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART 1: Managing Tourism during War Time
• 1. Loose lips can sink tourism: True lies and evasion during Nepal’s Maoist insurgency
• 2. From tourism to terrorism: Timbuktu and the traffic in global imaginaries
• PART 2: Staging Tourism as Identity Performance and Structural Critique
• 3. The presentation of collective self in touristic life: Dancing and painting for touristic consumption in highland Ecuador
• 4. Violence as tourist spectacle in eastern Indonesia: Exploring the imaginaries of pain, identity, and power in Manggaraian tourism encounters
• PART 3: Mediating Tourism Transactions and Neoliberal Logics
• 5. Waah Taj!: Mediating Agra’s heritage and local tourism economy
• 6. Seeing Fez
• PART 4: Imagining Tourism and the Production of Place
• 7. The Tulum Mayan ruins: A place for foreigners
• 8. Tropicality, purified spaces, and the colonial gaze: Exclusionary policies in cruise tourism and its impact on the Caribbean
• PART 5: Hosting Sustainable Tourism and Global Geopolitics
• 9. Setting the tourism landscape: Ethnic tensions and economic development on a small island in Mexico
• 10. Elephants are coming: Safaris, community, and Botswana’s hunting ban
• Contributors
• Index