Anthropology in Action

Academic social and cultural anthropology concerned with tourism has provided thick descriptions of the tourist exchange in a number of contexts, with exegeses devoted to illustrate the sexualized Other, the appropriation of landscape, the uses of the past in the present, and the detrimental effects of tourism structures on the ‘host’ communities. It has shown us how pilgrimages, beaches and museums become iconic and fetishized in the tourist’s gaze, how the landscape is appropriated and a geographical space is turned into a cultural place. Yet, for applied anthropologists concerned with the impacts of the world’s largest industry on local ‘toured’ populations and how the (unequal) tourism exchange is (unequally) constituted through material and symbolic historical processes, do the theories generated in the academic tradition provide a use-value? Do those anthropologists engaged in community-centred methods such as participatory action research, and working in theoretical traditions through praxis, approach their subject in the same ways as their nonapplied anthropological counterparts? Indeed, what can applied anthropologists, as such, and the consideration of applied projects, contribute to theory in anthropological research on tourism more generally?

On 1 May 2004, the Republic of Cyprus entered the European Union, unaccompanied by the Turkish-Cypriot population in the northern third of the island. The Green Line - the militarized border marking the cessation of hostilities in 1974 - now defines the outer edge of the European Union, creating a fluid and uncertain borderland which has become the focus for ongoing attempts to construct both the new Cyprus and the new Europe. Tourism has a central and contradictory role to play in these processes. It offers an avenue for stimulating economic activity and raising income levels in the Turkish-Cypriot north, and presents an opportunity to develop complementary tourism products north and south which could widen the appeal of the island as a whole and promote collaborative ventures between Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots. On the other hand, such developments face strong resistance from sections of the population north and south, who fear they will lead either to the legitimation and tacit recognition of the Turkish-Cypriot state in the north, or to a return to relations characterized by Greek-Cypriot dominance and Turkish-Cypriot dependence. The paper reflects on the author's involvement in a village tourism development project in Cyprus in 2005-2006 in order to explore what an anthropological approach to the use of tourism for political ends can tell us about conflict, and when, and under what conditions, tourism might be a force for peace and reconciliation.

Recently, small numbers of independent tourists and small groups have begun to visit the remote and poor region of Viengxay in northern Laos. This article is based on focus-group interviews and on-site observation in thirteen villages in Viengxay, intended to explore the perceptions and expectations of locals regarding their roles as hosts in this emerging tourism context. It discusses the ways in which locals are developing attitudes and practices of hospitality towards tourists. These practices are emerging under the influence of factors such as native cultural traditions, individual and communal expectations and attitudes towards tourism, as well as historical factors arising from the area's history of war and political isolation. Although locals intuitively treat tourists according to their society's 'traditional' treatment of guests, this treatment is also modified to reflect an appreciation that tourists are a specific type of guest for which the rules of hospitality may need to be reinterpreted. Locals' perceptions of tourists and behaviour in their relations with tourists are evolving as a result of growing contact between locals and tourists and the concomitantly changing expectations from and understanding of the tourism industry. This article articulates common themes for conceptualising the ways in which hospitality practices in the Viengxay villages are emerging from interaction and conflict of these various aspects.

Surf tourism is a largely ignored mode of touristic behaviour in the academy. This investigation adds to a very limited body of work by providing explorations of the significance of surf tourism for surfers and by bringing forward data and observations of the impacts surf tourism has had on Playas Jacó and Hermosa, Costa Rica. Interview, statistical and observation data are used here to argue that: a surfer habitus creates dispositions for many surfers to travel to exotic coastal destinations on the periphery; surf trips to Costa Rica in many ways are experientially similar to pilgrimages; and that surf tourism can be seen to be directly and indirectly associated with many economic, environmental and socio-cultural costs and benefits to the local communities under study. Considering the applied dimension of surf tourism it is argued that surfers may indirectly set in motion a process of development and foreign investment into areas that are ill prepared for large numbers of visitors.

Wine tourism is a growing phenomenon, with tourists enjoying not only wine but a rural lifestyle that is associated with winegrowing areas and the elusive essence of terroir. The Temecula Valley in southern California, a small wine-producing region and wine tourism destination, is experiencing state-led plans for a vast expansion of production and tourism capacity. This article traces the challenges inherent in this development process, and questions the sustainability of such plans regarding the very environment the wine tourists seek out, especially regarding the availability of natural resources, mainly water, needed to fulfil these plans. The article concludes with a call for an applied anthropology of policy that is centred on the articulations of the state and neoliberal capitalism.

The Japanese House: Material Culture in the Modern Home. Inge Daniels, 2010, Oxford and New York: Berg, ISBN: 9781845205171, 243pp. Pb. £19.99.

Weathering the World: Recovery in the Wake of the Tsunami in a Tamil Fishing Village. Frida Hastrup, 2011, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, Studies in Environmental Anthropology and Ethnobiology series, ISBN: 9780857451996, 150pp. $70.00/£42.00

Still Life: Hopes, Desires and Satisfactions. Henrietta L. Moore, 2011, Cambridge: Polity Press, ISBN: 9780745636467, 208pp., Hb. £47.50, Pb. £15.19.

The current list of books for review includes some of the most exciting new books in applied anthropology to be published this year. Please take a close look and if there is anything that you particularly want to review, let us know!