Doctoral Dissertation Research: Resident Perspectives on Cultural Tourism in Tanzania

马里兰州博士候选人梅丽莎史蒂文斯大学，由博士监督。欧文钱伯斯，将通过研究身份形成的过程和居民-游客互动中的谈判种族，对居民对文化旅游的看法进行研究。直到最近，社会科学研究的影响，居民和游客之间的互动一直假设一个单向的权力动态，导致游客的动机和对居民的影响。但最近的研究表明，居民在这些互动中并不被动。本研究将通过对Longido村文化旅游企业的研究来探索这种可能性，Longido村主要是坦桑尼亚北方野生动物园旅游线路中心的马赛社区。研究人员将采用社会科学研究方法的混合，包括观察居民-游客互动，游客调查和居民访谈。这些数据将被分析，以确定影响的性质和方向，特别关注马赛人在文化旅游环境中对马赛人身份的表现，马赛人的动机及其对旅游关系的影响。旅游业对发展中经济体的重要性日益增加。因此，了解旅游过程和关系至关重要。基于社区的文化旅游倡议，如Longido企业，有可能减少贫穷和鼓励地方一级的保护活动，但这种潜力取决于东道社区的自治。通过探索居民-游客权力动态的双向性，本研究旨在更好地理解旅游目的地居民如何塑造以及如何被全球旅游现象塑造。支持这项研究也支持研究生的教育。

University of Maryland doctoral candidate Melissa Stevens, supervised by Dr. Erve Chambers, will conduct research on resident perspectives on cultural tourism by looking at processes of identity formation and negotiated ethnicities in resident-tourist interactions. Until recently, social science research on the impacts of interactions between residents and tourists has assumed a unidirectional power dynamic that resulted from the motivations of tourists and the impacts on residents. But more recent research suggests that residents are not passive in these interactions. This research will explore this possibility through research at a cultural tourism enterprise in the village of Longido, a primarily Maasai community in the heart of northern Tanzania's safari tourism circuit. The researcher will employ a mix of social science research methods, including observations of resident-tourist interactions, surveys of tourists, and interviews with residents. The data will be analyzed to determine the nature and direction of influence, with a particular focus on Maasai representation of Maasai identity in a cultural tourism setting, Maasai motivations, and its effects on the touristic relationship.Findings from this research will contribute to theorizing ethnicity as a malleable rather than inherent human characteristic. Tourism is of growing significance developing economies. Understanding tourism processes and relationships is thus critically important. Community-based cultural tourism initiatives, such as the Longido enterprise, have the potential for reducing poverty and encouraging local-level conservation activities but this potential depends on host community autonomy. By exploring the bi-directional nature of the resident-tourist power dynamic, this research seeks to contribute to a better understanding of how residents of tourist destinations shape as well as are shaped by the global phenomenon of tourism. Supporting this research also supports the education of a graduate student.