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

威斯康辛大学的研究生Erika Robb将在Neil Whitehead博士的指导下，对贫穷国家的另类体验式旅游的社会和文化影响进行研究。在世界范围内，从较富裕国家到较贫穷国家的旅游越来越强调个人接触，因为旅游经营者在旅游行程中推广贫民窟和与穷人的其他互动。罗布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。罗布将在巴西里约热内卢选定的贫民窟和社区开展她的研究。她将结合民族志方法，包括参与式观察，以及对当地居民、外国游客和导游的采访。她还将使用文本分析技术来分析巴西在印刷和在线讨论以及旅行文学中的代表性。每年有近10亿人作为游客旅行。他们越来越多地直接接触第三世界的人民和文化。除了直接的经济影响之外，还需要进行研究以了解这些趋势的相互影响。这项研究将有助于建立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.