Anthropology 2272F/G Chapter Notes - Chapter Introduction: Ethnography

• School: Western University
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: Anthropology 2272F/G
• Professor: Ian Puppe

Document Summary

Native tours: the anthropology of travel and tourism. Travel and tourism represent rapidly growing areas for inquiry in many fields. Tourism is a complex nature to study, as it has so many aspects to it that all intertwine to create the industry. There are many cultural processes associated with tourism as a whole. Looking at travel and tourism through a cultural perspective allows us to understand how our local prejudices often influence and distort our view on this field of study. Scholarly disciplines, including anthropology, are subject to the influences of culture, and to their customary practices. Ethnography in anthropological studies has largely contributed to our understanding of travel and tourism: although, of course, ethnography does have its limitations, the ethnographic approach makes it difficult to generalize beyond specific cases. However, by doing so, anthropologists are othering these groups on the basis of their cultural distinctiveness and this distorts the way anthropologists frame tourism as a field of study.