Trumping the Ethnic Card: How Tourism Entrepreneurs on Rodrigues tackled the 2008 Financial Crisis

The 2008 global financial crisis had significant repercussions on small island states and territories. This article discusses the efforts of tourism entrepreneurs from Rodrigues, a subnational island jurisdiction and a de¬pendency of the Republic of Mauritius, to combat those effects by organizing themselves as the group Associations du Tourisme Réunies (ATR). Their aim was to secure subsidies from the Mauritian government to reduce the price of airfares to Rodrigues so as to at¬tract more tourists to the island. The article offers an ethnographic account of how the economic crisis was tackled in a creative way by ATR and how its members put the negative image of a Creole minority suppressed by a Hindu majority to strategic use to achieve a stronger recognition of Rodriguan interests within the Republic of Mauritius

Policy in the Anthropocene

This article discusses recent works on the notions of postpolitics and sustainability in conjunction with illustrative examples from empirical data collected during long-term fieldwork in and around the tourist town of Broome in the West Kimberley region in Australia. I argue that for policy research and practice to remain a significant contributor to contemporary research on sustainability in the Anthropocene, it needs to develop more collaborative approaches that cater to the involvement of numerous and diverse actors in decision-making processes. The article outlines some of the methodological challenges this poses, and how to address them

Projects of scale-making: new perspectives for the anthropology of tourism Projectos de configuração de escala: novas perspectivas para a antropologia do turismo

Scale has recently entered social anthropology as both a unit of analysis and a heuristic tool. This paper highlights the applicability to the anthropology of tourism of what has been identified as “projects of scale-making” by Tsing (2000) and respective “modes of incorporation” by Glick Schiller, Caglar and Guldbrandsen (2006). Because tourism is one of the central industries shaping present-day understandings of what is global and what is local, scale as a theoretical and methodological tool is ideally suited to study this field. Central concerns of anthropological research on tourism, such as the industry’s political economy, its influence on the perception of landscapes and culture as well as the problematic notion of authenticity, are reconsidered. We argue that central shortcomings of the globalisation debate, such as a teleologically-minded futurism, euphemistic notions of economic circulation and conflations of mundane and scientific debates, shape both the tourism industry and too many anthropological studies on tourism. In light of the contributions collected in this dossier this paper instead develops an analytical framework that highlights the hidden relations of production in tourism economies and the impacts of projects of scale-making on the construction of landscapes and culture.<br>A escala foi recentemente incorporada na antropologia social como unidade de análise e ferramenta heurística. Este artigo centra-se naquilo que Tsing (2000) definiu como “projectos de configuração de escala” e nos respectivos “modos de incorporação” tal como explorados por Glick Schiller, Caglar e Guldbrandsen (2006), destacando a sua aplicabilidade à antropologia do turismo. Na medida em que o turismo é uma das indústrias centrais para a configuração das ideias actuais acerca do que é global e do que é local, a escala, enquanto instrumento teórico e metodológico, adequa-se de forma ideal ao estudo deste campo. Aspectos nucleares da pesquisa antropológica sobre o turismo, como a economia política desta indústria, a sua influência na percepção de paisagens e culturas, ou ainda a controversa noção de autenticidade, são aqui reconsiderados. Defendemos que as principais falhas do debate sobre a globalização, como o futurismo de fundo teleológico, as noções eufemísticas sobre a circulação económica e a mistura entre debates científicos e comuns, informam, simultaneamente, a indústria turística e demasiados estudos antropológicos sobre o turismo. Em alternativa, e à luz das contribuições reunidas neste dossiê, este artigo desenvolve um quadro analítico que destaca as relações de produção ocultas nas economias turísticas e o impacte de projectos de configuração de escala na construção de paisagens e culturas

Projects of scale-making: new perspectives for the anthropology of tourism

Scale has recently entered social anthropology as both a unit of analysis and a heuristic tool. This paper highlights the applicability to the anthropology of tourism of what has been identified as “projects of scale-making” by Tsing (2000) and respective “modes of incorporation” by Glick Schiller, Caglar and Guldbrandsen (2006). Because tourism is one of the central industries ­shaping present-day understandings of what is global and what is local, scale as a theoretical and methodological tool is ideally suited to study this field. Central concerns of anthropological research on tourism, such as the industry’s political economy, its influence on the perception of landscapes and culture as well as the problematic notion of authenticity, are reconsidered. We argue that central shortcomings of the globalisation debate, such as a teleologically-minded futurism, euphemistic notions of economic circulation and conflations of mundane and scientific debates, shape both the tourism industry and too many anthropological studies on tourism. In light of the contributions collected in this dossier this paper instead develops an analytical framework that highlights the hidden relations of production in tourism economies and the impacts of projects of scale-making on the construction of landscapes and culture.A escala foi recentemente incorporada na antropologia social como unidade de análise e ferramenta heurística. Este artigo centra-se naquilo que Tsing (2000) definiu como “projectos de configuração de escala” e nos respectivos “modos de incorporação” tal como explorados por Glick Schiller, Caglar e Guldbrandsen (2006), destacando a sua aplicabilidade à antropologia do turismo. Na medida em que o turismo é uma das indústrias centrais para a configuração das ideias actuais acerca do que é global e do que é local, a escala, enquanto instrumento teórico e metodológico, adequa-se de forma ideal ao estudo deste campo. Aspectos nucleares da pesquisa antropológica sobre o turismo, como a economia política desta indústria, a sua influência na percepção de paisagens e culturas, ou ainda a controversa noção de autenticidade, são aqui reconsiderados. Defendemos que as principais falhas do debate sobre a globalização, como o futurismo de fundo teleológico, as noções eufemísticas sobre a circulação económica e a mistura entre debates científicos e comuns, informam, simultaneamente, a indústria turística e demasiados estudos antropológicos sobre o turismo. Em alternativa, e à luz das contribuições reunidas neste dossiê, este artigo desenvolve um quadro analítico que destaca as relações de produção ocultas nas economias turísticas e o impacte de projectos de configuração de escala na construção de paisagens e culturas