The Quest for the Other: Ethnic Tourism in San Cristobal, Mexico.By Pierre L. van den Berghe. University of Washington Press, 1994. xii + 169 pp. $24.95
The Quest for the Other: Ethnic Tourism in San Cristobal, Mexico.By Pierre L. van den Berghe. University of Washington Press, 1994. xii + 169 pp. $24.95
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对他者的探索：墨西哥圣克里斯托瓦尔的民族旅游。作者：Pierre L. van den Berghe。
DOI：
10.1093/sf/74.1.361
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发表时间：
1995
期刊：
影响因子：
4.8
通讯作者：
E. Cohen
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
E. Cohen
圣克里斯托瓦尔是恰帕斯高地的民族旅游中心，据作者称，这是小规模、环境友好型旅游开发的成功范例。这是一个拉迪诺小镇，周围环绕着印度小民族的低层农民阶层，这些小民族是游客寻求“他者”的所谓目标。可惜的是，它也是萨帕塔印第安人起义的中心，并于 1994 年初被叛军短暂占领，大约在本书付印的时间。这种巧合有些讽刺，特别是因为这本书的乐观基调（由一位在该地区拥有数十年经验的人类学家撰写，从民族关系理论的角度来研究旅游业）忽略了即将到来的风暴的任何迹象，尽管叛乱似乎已经准备了长达八年之久。然而，这种遗漏并不是作者的失败，因为他在 1990 年前往圣克里斯托瓦尔进行了为期三个月的实地考察，明确是为了研究旅游业。这表明，作者所居住的城市拉迪诺社会与乡村隐秘的印第安社区之间仍然存在着巨大的鸿沟；这也表明，任何旅游专业的学生在深入了解即使是谦逊的当地人向游客和其他陌生人呈现的前线时都会遇到困难，而在其背后往往隐藏着挫败感、绝望和敌意。印第安人被描述为有尊严的，但并不不友善。被压抑的紧张气氛只有在有关一起事件的报道中才得以爆发——几年前，一名外国游客在印度的一个村庄被杀害，当时他无视一再警告不要拍照的警告。起义不一定是从游客参观的社区开始的；但了解旅游业是否在引发这一事件中发挥了作用将会很有趣。
San Cristobal is the center of ethnic tourism in highland Chiapas--and according to the author, a rare example of successful small-scale, environmentally friendly tourist development. It is a ladino town, surrounded by a low-class, peasant stratum of Indian micronations that are the alleged goal of the tourists' quest for the" Other." Alas, it is also at the center of the Zapatista Indian uprising, and was briefly occupied by the rebel army in early 1994, about the time this book went to press. The coincidence is somewhat ironic, particularly since the optimistic tone of the book (written by an anthropologist with decades of experience in the area, who approaches tourism from the perspective of ethnic relations theory) misses any indications of the coming storm, even though the rebellion seems to have been under preparation for as long as eight years.The omission is hardly a failure of the author, however, who went to San Cristobal for a three-month period of fieldwork in 1990, explicitly to study tourism But it is an indication of the depth of the gulf still separating the urban ladino society, among whom the author lived, from the secretive Indian communities in the countryside; it is also an indication of the difficulty any student of tourism experiences in penetrating the front which even unassuming natives present to tourists and other strangers, and behind which frustration, despair, and animosity are frequently concealed. The Indians are described as dignified, but not unfriendly; the pent-up tensions break through only in the report of one incident--the killing, some years ago of a foreign tourist in an Indian village, after he had disregarded repeated warnings not to take photographs. The uprising did not necessarily start in the communities visited by tourists; but it would be interesting to know whether tourism played a role in triggering it off.