Edward Bruner on tourism

I like this one:

"In postmodern writings, contemporary American tourist attractions tend to be described in ways that replicate elements of the theory of postmodernism, emphasizing the inauthentic constructed nature of the sites, their appeal to the masses, their imitation of the past, and their efforts to present a perfected version of themselves. This is a narrow and distorted view that fails to account for the popularity and frequency of such sites on the American landscape, that begs the question of the meaning of the sites to the participants, and that by its denigration of popular American culture and mass tourist sites imposes an elitist politics blind to its own assumptions."

-Bruner, 1994. Found here.

Travel & Leisure on the "Resort Phenomenon"

I just read through a 2006 Travel & Leisure article by Michael Gross about the development of the "Riviera Maya," and how some compare it to the earlier development of mega resorts at Cancun. Cancun is depicted, at least in this article, as everything that is wrong with tourism development (despite the fact that John McCarthy, head of FONATUR, has deemed it a "symbol of success"), while the Riviera Maya is presented as a low-impact, newer, better version of tourism development. It's an interesting comparison, and well worth reading. Here are a couple of excerpts:

A mere twenty years ago, when I first visited Akumal, a diving village a half-hour's drive south from Mayakoba, this coastline was comatose. I ate an $8 grilled lobster in a dirt-floored restaurant and stayed in a cinder-block hotel, where I left the shower feeling dirty. Nearby Cancún, which had been created from nothing in the 1970's, was a generic mass-market resort town—a row of concrete boxes on the beach. Far worse, the reef just offshore (part of the second-largest reef system in the world) was deteriorating, thanks to poor planning and mistreatment by developers and overuse by tourists.

Though the stretch below Cancún remained pristine, paradisiacal, and virtually untouched by tourism, there really wasn't a Riviera Maya then—only the odd strip of thatched beach cabanas, a handful of dive shops, the Mayan ruins at Tulum, and the national park at Xel-Há, a natural aquarium for snorkelers. A 1983 guidebook noted that the area did not have "much to offer to visitors" and described some of the more desirable accommodations as hip slums.

***

How did this thin strip of the country reinvent itself as one of the world's great luxury destinations? The tale begins with Fonatur, Mexico's 31-year-old national trust for the development of tourism, which has been responsible for creating the resort areas of Cancún, Los Cabos, Loreto, the Bay of Huatulco, and Ixtapa. In 1995, when Maroma—the first high-end resort on this shore—opened, the area was still known as the Costa Maya, or Mayan Coast. But that year, seeking to capitalize on (and to begin to control) a process that had started on its own, Fonatur undertook extensive market research on what to call the corridor. According to one story, a prescient visitor, inspired by the Côte d'Azur, anointed the place the Riviera Maya. The name of that person has been lost in the decade since, but the title's magical allure has stood up to forces even stronger than Wilma's winds.

***

Cancún was overbuilt, sometimes illegally, in part because "one of the products of Mexico was corruption," Moreno explains. Also, hotel owners wanted bigger profits, and the workers who'd built Cancún "created pressure to generate more jobs." Then, in 1988, Hurricane Gilbert devastated the region, causing hotels to lose income. Owners started selling rooms cheap; package-tour operators moved in to help fill them, and Cancún began its relentless slide from a high-end destination to the setting for Girls Gone Wild.

***

Four years ago, the Mexican government admitted the error of its ways and asked tourism officials to create rules and plans that balanced a desire for growth with the need to respect the environment. "The population is priority number one," Fonatur's McCarthy says. "Sustainability is more than birds, bees, and fish. You must create wealth and respect the environment and culture while doing that." Most important for visitors, the new rules placed strict density limits on the Riviera Maya.

Read the rest of the article here.

FONATUR history

Check this page for a quick overview of the history of FONATUR, as well as some details about its basic philosophy. There is also some background on some of the primary projects that FONATUR has been working on over the last thirty years or so, including the development of Cancun, Los Cabos, and Huatulco.

Destroying Baja?

Surfers have been traveling to Baja California since at least the 1960s in search of waves, an escape from urban crowds, and solitude. As someone who grew up surfing in San Diego, that was certainly the case for me. Baja California was a place where my friends and I would travel to in an attempt to find isolated beaches and good waves far away from the freeways and congestion of home. I remember many trips to places like Cuatro Casas, San Quintin, and K-181 back when I was in my late teens and early 20s. I always looked forward to exploring and traveling down here. But I never put too much thought into the effects that I might have had upon the places I was visiting, or the power differentials that existed between myself and many of the people whose pueblos I passed by.

These days I am in Baja for completely different reasons, and it's pretty fascinating to look at many of the same places from an anthropological perspective (a little more maturity doesn't hurt either). Sometimes I look back and wish that I was different when I was younger. I wish I had paid more attention and been more aware of the realities that I could so easily pass right through. I realize that when I was down here 15 years ago as a kid, I usually bypassed many of the local pueblos and just headed right to the beach (except when we needed gas, food, or beer). While I did speak a fair amount of Spanish back then, I was by no means fluent, and I certainly did not interact with many local Mexicans to any great extent. Trips to Mexico were more about finding waves and empty beaches and being "away from everything."

Oceanside, 2009. An illustration of the crowded beaches that surfers and others travel to Baja California to avoid. Photograph by Veronica Miranda.

Surfers have been coming down here for a long time, and were part of an early wave of travelers who seek out places that are more remote and less accessible. This was the case back in the 1970s when Cabo San Lucas was just a little fishing village (I´ve heard about those days but have a hard time imagining them), and it's definitely still the case these days.

Surfers are of course still traveling all over Baja today. Although I think that many have had to travel to more and more "off the grid" parts of Baja (and others parts of the world) to find what they are looking for. Because what usually comes after the surfers, fishermen, divers, off-roaders, and other more rugged travelers are the real estate agents, developers, and tourists. And when more and more people come to a place, when "development" occurs and once isolated destinations become popular, well, that's when the dusty little village can quickly turn into a mega tourist zone jammed with boats, resorts, cars, and traffic. The transformations can be pretty staggering, as places like Cancún illustrate:

Cancún, 2008. Photo by R.A.

One of the last things that most surfers want to see built in front of their favorite out of the way surf spot is a massive tourist resort. Yet, eventually, that's often what happens. Hawaii is just one example. I just came across an article on Surfline that talks about Baja, development, conservation, and the role that surfers can play in the process. Although it was written in 2005, it's still pretty relevant today. Here is the opening paragraph:

Summertime's coming and just about everyone who lives for the long point waves of Baja believes in the Pristine Myth -- the conviction that Baja will be empty, desolate and wild -- forever. This delusion is at erroneous at best and dangerous at worst. The Baja California that drives us to live for that frenzied first round-the-bend glimpse of a pumping swell at a "secret" point we've surfed for the past quarter century is going fast and could disappear in ten years.

This has me thinking about not only what development really means (I have been doing this a lot lately), but also what conservation means as well. Who is development for, and what are the results of development processes? And conversely, who is conservation for? Is conservation something that benefits local communities, travelers, and tourists? Are the benefits of conservation shared equally? When surfers, or fishermen, or even scientists proclaim the desire to "protect" a place, what does that really entail? What is really being conserved? Is it the "natural" environment, privacy, or some mental construct of what a place is supposed to be?

Right now I am in the middle of doing some preliminary research on the histories and development and tourism in Baja California Sur, where new projects and soaring land values are certainly huge social and political topics. Many of the people that I have talked with have mentioned the changes that are bound to happen. Drastic changes sometimes seem inevitable. But is it? This goes back to some of the articles that I have been reading by the anthropologist Arturo Escobar, who urges readers not to stand back and accept development as an assumed reality.

At the same time, development and increased tourism are often seen as highly positive changes that will provide jobs, growth, and security. Tourism is sometimes seen as a kind of magical solution to poverty and lack of opportunities. It is, of course, a lot more complicated. There are certainly success stories in tourism, just as there are plenty of disasters and failures.

Ironically, I have found myself involved in two completely different endeavors that have a history of seeking out distant places: first surfing, and now anthropology. And both are closely related to that category that so many travelers want to be disassociated from: tourists. What does that mean? Not only am I studying the processes of change and development here in Baja, I am also part of the wave of people who have traveled here for so long seeking diverse experiences--and I am a part of the change that is coming to these places. I know this is true. In many ways, even as the anthropology student who studies tourism and development, I am part of the process of change. Now what matters is what I do with that knowledge, and the choices that I make as a scholar and student of anthropology.

Distilling truth from a mass of incoming information

All of the information coming from Iran--via internet news sites, blogs, and sources like twitter makes it difficult, at times, to tell what is actually verified information and what is just more noise or chatter in the vast information network. How can truth be pulled from these kinds of sources? How do we know when the video footage that we are seeing actually applies to the purported events that are being shown? Max Forte has written a couple of interesting posts about this, one focusing on the purported "twitter revolution" and one that gives activists advice on how to produce media that is at least somewhat verifiable.

These different forms of media literally mediate our experiences with the outside world. Being in southern Baja right now, the only way that I can find anything out about what is happening in Iran, for example, is through the internet. There are a great many assumptions and trust issues involved in the process. What do people generally think of as accurate or verifiable, and why? Why do organizations like CNN and BBC and FOX appeal to certain users as purveyors of reliable information? How do we take all that we see and read and determine what is and what is not happening out there in the world?

I think it always makes sense to be skeptical of the information we receive, and this is a point that Max is making as well I believe. There is good reason for doing so, since basically anything can be written and disseminated on the internet. This does not mean that all of it is a waste of time, or that nothing valuable can be done with it. I am asserting nothing of the sort, since I think that online media can be a very powerful tool. What I am saying is that we need to pay more attention to how media is produced, where it comes from, and what underlying intentions might be attached to it. This will require an interaction with media that is a great deal less passive--and a lot more active--in the coming years. Especially as more and more "news" is spread throughout the various networks of communication.

Righteous Dopefiend

Daniel over at Neuroanthropology has a new post with some descriptions and reviews of Phillipe Bourgois' new book Righteous Dopefiend. It combines critical anthropology with excellent photographic documentation, and is the kind of publication that I want to put out someday. It looks really good, and is at the very top of my new book wish list--right when I get back to the States. Can't wait to check it out.

Punta Brava on 10 News

So the 10 News I-Team did a report on the Punta Brava project. Check it out. The good thing is that they are getting the news out there. I am not sure how this will affect the project, but I think the more attention the better. Also, take some time to read through some of the comments that have been left in the forum. Always interesting to see how different people react.

From the East Cape

Well, I have been down here one week now, and am getting things going on the summer project here. First, of course, Veronica and I had to take care of logistical issues like renting a Jeep, getting all the groceries we need, and other mundane and really fun stuff.

The good news is we have internet here, so I can keep posting on this site. The bad news--for today at least--is that the water around here is full of mal aguas--otherwise known as Portuguese man-of-wars (called Physalia physalis by the more scientific folks).


That means swimming is, well, not as fun. But at least it prompted me to read a good Stephen Jay Gould essay about them. The beaches may be littered with stingly little "suspicious bubbles," as one of my friends out here calls them, but at least they instill the desire to educate myself about the local marine biology, right?

In project-related news, I have found out that the project Cabo Cortez is not the only golf course/marina/hotel slated for the East Cape, there is also this one at Cabo Riviera. Development abounds. Now the question is this: how sustainable are these projects, who benefits, and what will the long-term social and environmental effects be?*

I have also spent a lot of time reading about the archaeology of the East Cape region. This site, which was put together by Don Laylander, has been pretty informative. As have the articles of William C. Massey, who worked around these parts in the late 1940s up through the early 1960s. He did his PhD at UC Berkeley, but I can't find much biographical information on him as of yet. Also, check out this short article by Tom Dillehay, and this one by Rolando González-José, Antonio González-Martín, Miquel Hernández, Héctor M. Pucciarelli, Marina Sardi, Alfonso Rosales, and Silvina van der Molen. It's always good to keep thinking outside of the established frame of thought, and folks like Dillehay have been doing a good job of doing so. I hope that I always remember to keep an open mind when it comes to my ideas about "how things really are." History and education are a process, not a contest, after all.

The inhabitants of the East Cape region where I am working are known as the Pericú (or Pericue). Wikipedia does a decent job of introducing the research about these people, who lived in this area for at least 10,000 years. Here is an interview with the archaeologist Harumi Fujita, who advocates for an even older occupation date. I'll read more about that and get back to you on that debate, however.

More news later...

* Ya, I know. That's actually three questions. Let's not get technical, ok?