Global tourism, could be conceptualised as a continuation of the practices of colonial occupation and conquering of the past. Dominated by Western hegemony, Tourism continues to “benefit from the colonial roots of globalisation” through both the “ownership of tourist infrastructures such as airlines, hotel booking systems and resorts” as well as in tendency to control local tourism narratives that are “echoed in the imaginations of tourists, in the marketing of destinations and in the production of touristed landscapes.” [1]
Despite the amount of time elapsing, “the colonial past is growing in influence” where many societies are busy omitting, exploiting and re-negotiating their relationships to their colonial experience. [2] These erasures and exploits manifest themselves in multiple ways, including the occupation of exotic destinations by large Western resorts that create “places outside of society and civilisation” that become sites of idleness, indulgence and luxury; through tourism that pursues a glimpse of the ‘exotic other’ and fetishises the ‘authentic cultural experience’ and can be found within advertising that evokes fantasies of the great explorers; the expedition modes of adventure and discovery that mimic the imperial travel of colonisation’s “good old days.” [3]
The curated forgetting that occurs on mass through the marketing of global tourism destinations can have negative consequences, with coloniality occupying both space and memory, “creating sanitised collective memories” that silence histories, and that encourage “uncritical aesthetic experiences” that remove the chance for conflict. [4]
Mojica explains the colonial-indigenous tourism relationship in practical terms, stating, “the Indigenous people have been converted into the butlers of the tourists, in human carriers for their luggage, or in their entertainment; they should wear their traditional clothing to create a pleasant environment for the realization of the postcolonial phantasies of the tourists” while their “ancestral customs are slowly deprived of their ritual contents,” and yet, throughout this dramatic commercialisation of culture, it’s somehow the indigenous person’s job to “stay far away from the change; their job is to stay original.” [5]
Upon reading these words, I am reminded of the trip (curated by my mother) to the Sheraton Kona Resort, where tourists (at great expense) lined up for hundreds of metres to participate in the Sheraton traditional ‘luau’. The ceremony was conducted on the neatly manicured lawns of the hotel, where guests consumed this highly contrived cultural experience (amplified on mass through microphones and speakers) along with their white tablecloth three-course buffet-style meal.
To address the negative impact of colonial overtones in travel experiences such as these, there is a growing push through community-built tourism products to use tourism to deconstruct and subvert colonial narratives. [6] Tourism plays an important role in which “tourists can develop new understandings of and connections to people, places and causes.” [7]
Mezirow argues that tourism can create “a process of personal transformation that begins with an initial disorientation or existential crisis that triggers critical reflection to arrive at new understandings, frames of reference or world views” and that “encounters with radical difference, (un)comfortable settings and unfamiliar people through tourism offer numerous possibilities for ‘disorientating dilemmas’ that may catalyse transformation.” [8]
For the Yolŋu people of remote North East Arnhem Land (Australia), the sharing of culture and ceremony has been a key strategy for asserting their “political and economic autonomy and sovereignty” resulting in “both settler turbulence and ease, antagonism and alliance.” [9] The indigenous owned company, Bawaka Cultural Experiences (BCE) runs a range of specialist education and cross-cultural tours for corporations, government agencies and school groups in the remote coastal lands of Bawaka and has played a large part in establishing the Yolŋu Tourism Masterplan. [10] While the economic activity is valued as a revenue stream that supports self-determination, more importantly are the social and cultural aspects of these activities that “direct tourists’ experiences away from a mainstream orientation and towards Yolŋu ontology,” [11] creating a process of radical colonial-settler unlearning and reconciliation.
The tours run by BCE are largely unstructured and bring visitors onto Country, that is, the concept that Country is “not just the territorial, land-based notion of a homeland” but the connections between all human and non-human relationships as part of complex system of kinship, where human beings are both on Country and are Country simultaneously. [12] These experiences are an invitation to visitors, to radically re-imagine western ways of knowing and being, to reflect on their identity and belonging to a contemporary Australia, and draws them into relationships of equality, respect and reciprocity. [13]
This experience, both in accepting indigenous testimony of colonial past atrocities and reevaluating ways of relating to Country, can be deeply challenging for participants – triggering a range of responses where the “weakening of settler identity and sense of belonging, can result in resentment towards Indigenous people: ‘they claim too much’” or, “cause a transformation in which indigenous culture and spirituality is embraced as part of process of post-colonial reconciliation.” [14]
While these reactions are mostly the latter, whether these transformational experiences can be translated into the everyday lives of these tourists is less certain and it is perhaps something that is not easily ontologically translated. [15] It is important to acknowledge the limits of these experiences, recognising that colonial-settlers can shift epistemologically and be accepted into indigenous kinship systems, but will never be able to become Yolŋu, and in this context of the colonial-settler state, what these tourism experiences do create, is a space where futures can be co-created with these differences intact, through a common commitment to and understanding of, caring for Country.
In this way, when I travelled to Mapuru in remote North East Arnhem Land (admittedly motivated by learning indigenous knowledges of living off-grid), what I found was a connection to Country that was deep, powerful and unexpected. It informs my disquiet in mainstream Australia and my own discomfort in my identity as an Australian. This way of being wasn’t mine, but these systems of kinship, land and resource management resonated deeply with the changes we need to make, to bring back balance between human and non-human in the face of climate change and overconsumption. In short, compared to neoliberalism, the Yolŋu way felt like common sense. [16]
But Slater rightly points out that there are a great many more indigenous people living in the Sydney suburb of Redfern than in these remote parts of the country, and yet tourists are setting off to remote Australia to gain the ‘authentic’ Australian experience. [17] The challenge and responsibility given to those who participate in these experiences, is therefore, to transport and begin this process of reconciliation at home, as a never finished commitment to Country (despite the complexity and dominance of the western occupied landscape in these homelands) to create a (post)colonial future that is co-created based on common understandings and where power is shared.
But this type of transformative tourism seems to be a drop in the ocean compared to the mass of mainstream tourism offerings in Australia (and indeed in most colonial-settler states), in which opportunities to experience radical difference (and therefore, opportunities for decolonising transformation) are rarely made, preferencing the easy and comfortable luau, over the difficult and confrontational cultural growth. These experiences or “decolonial interventions” remain marginal enterprises, that only point towards a host of unresolved and silenced concerns, “that float like ghosts inside the great machine of global tourism.” [18]