Authenticity and Tourism in My Life
As I was reading MacCannell’s The Tourist, I couldn’t help reflecting back on my own various touristic experiences. During extensive travel with my family over the years, we have paid money over and over for the “authentic” experiences—a luau in Hawaii, camel rides in the Australian outback, ranger talks at Mt. Rainier, etc. Lately, as I’ve traveled separate from my family, I’ve strived to not be a tourist, and felt ashamed of being labeled as such. I’ve strived for the truly authentic experience. I didn’t want to be seen as someone who just has the surface experience, somehow who doesn’t get to know the “true” culture. MacCannell says, “sightseers are motivated by a desire to see life as it is really lived, even to get in with the natives, and at the same time, they are deprecated for always failing to achieve these goals.” (94) I certainly fit into this. When I was in Istanbul, I saw the true or authentic culture as what I experienced in the homes of the Turks I visited, in the restaurants and cafes were my friend and I were the only visible outsiders. I took pride in the fact that I knew people living there, that I “got in with the natives.” I looked down on people who weren’t seeking the authentic experience like I was. However, MacCannell made me realize that everyone is seeking the authentic experience, and you can’t escape being a tourist. I’m sure that at the restaurants I ate at and in the homes I visited, the servers and residents were putting on a show, trying to give my friend and I taste of “Turkish life”; they were very much “performing”!
I’m intrigued by the interaction of different cultures, often in an everyday setting, and what can be learned from this experience. I think it’s easy to forget about the everyday-ness of tourism. In places that experience many visitors, like New York, we are constantly performing “New York-ness” so these visitors will have an authentic experience. In my own research, I’m continually looking at identity formation and how cultural differences inhibit communication and collaboration and, lately, how this happens in youth. MacCannall points out how we manufacture our morality and social values through the other, and I’m struck by how this is continually being enacted in tourism, with both how we look at tourists who visit us and how we, when we are the tourists, see those we are visiting. I’m looking for practical applications to incorporate into conversations to have with kids about traveling and tourism. If these ways of thinking of the other are essential parts of who we are and our identity formation, yet we determine they’re problematic, how do we get rid of them? Does awareness make it better?