Doctoral Dissertation Research: Resident Perspectives on Cultural Tourism in Tanzania

马里兰大学博士候选人梅丽莎·史蒂文斯（Melissa Stevens）将在Erve Chambers博士的指导下，通过观察居民与游客互动中身份形成和协商种族的过程，对居民对文化旅游的看法进行研究。直到最近，关于居民与游客互动影响的社会科学研究都假设了单向的权力动态，这是由游客的动机和对居民的影响造成的。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村是坦桑尼亚北部狩猎旅游线路中心的一个主要马赛人社区。研究人员将采用多种社会科学研究方法，包括观察居民与游客的互动，对游客的调查和对居民的访谈。将对这些数据进行分析，以确定影响的性质和方向，特别关注文化旅游环境中马赛人对马赛身份的代表、马赛人的动机及其对旅游关系的影响。这项研究的发现将有助于将种族作为一种可塑而非固有的人类特征理论化。旅游业对发展中经济体的重要性越来越大。因此，了解旅游过程和关系至关重要。以社区为基础的文化旅游倡议，如Longido企业，具有减少贫困和鼓励地方一级保护活动的潜力，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质，本研究试图有助于更好地理解旅游目的地的居民如何塑造以及被全球旅游现象所塑造。支持这项研究也支持了研究生的教育。

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.