Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Mutual Impacts of Cross-Cultural Contacts

威斯康星州大学的研究生埃里卡罗布，由尼尔怀特黑德博士监督，将进行研究的社会和文化影响的替代，体验式旅游在较贫穷的国家。在世界范围内，从较富裕国家到较贫穷国家的旅游业越来越强调个人接触，因为旅游经营者在旅游行程中宣传贫民窟和与穷人的其他互动。Robb的目标是对这个新的旅游世界进行民族志研究，整合和分析游客的观点，他们寻找的人，以及那些调解他们经历的人。Robb将在巴西里约热内卢的选定贫民窟和社区进行研究。她将使用民族志方法的组合，包括参与观察，并与当地居民，外国游客和导游的采访。她还将采用文本分析技术来分析巴西在印刷和在线讨论和旅游文学的代表性。每年有近10亿人作为游客旅行。它们越来越多地与第三世界人民和文化直接接触。需要进行研究，以了解这些趋势的相互影响，而不仅仅是直接的经济影响。这项研究将有助于建立一个全球旅游的社会科学，以及研究生的教育。

University of Wisconsin graduate student Erika Robb, supervised by Dr. Neil Whitehead, will undertake research on the social and cultural impacts of alternative, experiential tourism in poorer countries. Worldwide, tourism from wealthier nations to poorer ones increasingly has come to include an emphasis on personal contacts, as tour operators promote slums and other interactions with the poor on tourist itineraries. Robb's goal is an ethnography of this new tourist world, incorporating and analyzing the perspectives of tourists, those whom they seek out, and those who mediate their experiences.Robb will carry out her research in selected slums and neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She will use a combination of ethnographic methods, including participant observation, and interviews with local residents, foreign tourists, and tour guides. She also will employ textual analysis techniques to analyze the representation of Brazil in print and on-line discussions and travel literature. Almost a billion people a year travel as tourists. Increasingly, they directly engage third world peoples and cultures. Research is needed to understand the mutual effects of these trends, beyond the immediate economic impacts. This research will contribute to building a social science of global tourism, as well as to the education of a graduate student.