matter.

Muscat. International Relations student. UEA. UK. Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. A dull and witless boy initCostOfAf(); updateCostOfAf(100);

[themaninthegreenshirt]

“I fancy myself more of a storyteller. I talk too much sometimes on stage. When I got to a nightclub and I pay six bucks, I don’t want to watch some guy get up there in a suit and tell you about his old lady, and his dog, and his earth shoes. I want somebody to take me somewhere.” Tom Waits, Chinatown, NYC, 1985

[acautionaryblog]

Voluntourism and Colonial Narratives

Been reading over some old papers from Uni. Really did enjoy this module.

Has tourism changed perceptions of Africa, or established neo-colonial narratives? In 2013 the World Bank reported that the UK, in its top African tourist source markets, Bostwana, Zambia, Uganda and Kenya, contributed to over 8% of the states GDP in both Zambia and Kenya, and between 4-8% in Bostwana and Uganda, symbolising an undeniably significant tourist capital flow from the European West to sub-Saharan Africa 1. However, the closer we examine the types of tourist experiences offered in the above mentioned nation states, we begin to encounter a range of political and ethical issues, but within a succinct and narrow market of ‘experiences’. A brief internet search using the terms “Uganda holiday” through the google search engine, immediately returns hits such as ‘responsibletravel.com’, a company that offers ‘experiences rather than packages, authenticity rather than superficial exoticism, and holidays that put a little back into the local community’2, to ‘adventure holidays in Uganda’. In order to further expand upon this search, a subsequent google search of the terms ‘volunteer in Uganda’ returns 8,490,000 results3. At once, it is possible to see the popularity of volunteer vacations, or ‘voluntourism’ on the African continent, raising questions as to its contribution to the GDP figure initially highlighted, but also the domestic social effect this tourism has, and the perceptions of Africa that ‘voluntourists’, as well as other tourists, return to their respective communities to share. This essay will argue that ‘tourism is not a neutral action’4, and through the industrialisation of tourism in Africa, the commodification of culture, the spectacle of poverty combined with moral exploitation, and the establishment of top down power structures over the direction of tourist experiences, in order to develop dependency, ‘tourism [in Africa] gives colonialism a second lease of life’5. It may however be beneficial for the purpose of this essay to first establish the concept that Africa, while no longer under the traditional and ‘direct’ form of occupational colonial domination, it is yet to pass through the age of imperialism6, and is not free from the global system of hegemonic power7, despite the globalist border-transcending intentions, or indeed rhetoric, of NGO volunteers and ‘voluntourists’ [seen in the United Nations phrase “A volunteer without borders”8]. As will be discussed, power relations and structures between the ‘destination’ and tourist source has ‘moulded the reflection of the Other [Africa] to fit their [tourists] own expectations’9, throwing back representations and expectations of Africa and Africans to colonial narratives and discourse. Questions then must be raised as to how these representations are formed, continue to be made dominant through tourism, and the effect both this representation and the process which creates these reflections, has upon Africa. What is most concerning about the success of ‘voluntourist’ experiences is how they have consistently played to the ‘dominant narrative’ of Africa, and developed an industry from the spectacle of poverty, downplaying the successes of African states and people, such as record Ghanaian growth in 2014 (5.3%+ in Q210) for example, creating concerns for the ‘locking in’ of said narrative as tourists return home. Desforges highlights how during the colonial period ‘Western powers relied on constructed images and representations of the Third World in order to justify their domination abroad’11. Therefore, this created a generational issue, as representations formed become one of ‘the Other’, a different people altogether alien to that of the tourist, which arguably begun with the colonial representation of a ‘savage’, ‘undeveloped’, and ‘backwards’ people, which returns to the tourist source and perpetuates a false representation based on a further false and ‘industrialised’ market tourist experience today. When we consider how the tourist interacts in the destination state, we begin to understand how through their power to both include and exclude people and places from their experience, in the pursuit of a more ‘authentic’ experience, locks in the ‘travel imaginations of backpackers is the image of, and therefore the representation of, the authentic Third World Other as ‘poor’ or ‘underdeveloped’12. For example, we may examine the reviews of travellers who summarise their touristic experience as an ‘authentic African experience’. An example may be seen in Janice McClarys widely-quoted New York Times article describing her experience of Zaire as a ‘glimpse into Eden’, and authentically African13; when in fact McClary had joined a multi-thousand dollar pre-designed Ape tour, only to subsequently attach her own Western intellectual baggage and insecurities to return representations of the Other to primitiveness and animalism [“John, as if sniffing the wind, like the leader of a herd scenting water ... said we would soon come upon a group"14, perhaps suggesting the exhaustion of the ‘primitive African’ narrative, and the move towards an even more simplified comparison to ‘the irreducible ape’15]. Therefore it becomes evident that the representations held by the traveller of the Other, and the lands of the Other, are similar to representations held during the Colonial period16, and though different in intentions, the traveller continues to view the Other as a different entity altogether separate and distant to themselves. How then, despite the traveller’s desperate hunt for authenticity, does the dominant African narrative, that we know not to be true, remain the centre of touristic experiences in Africa? Why, because for the tourist, this narrative feels good. Baudrillard argues that ‘other peoples destitution becomes our adventure playground’17, the experience thus acts as a an escapism into an ‘ideal world’, as perhaps earlier confirmed in McClary’s statement, where poverty and hardship are seen as an authenticity unavailable to the tourist at home. Arguably, the development of voluntourist itineraries demonstrates the tourists in question to be ‘consumers of the ever delightful spectacle of poverty and catastrophe, and of the moving spectacle of our own efforts to alleviate it’18. Abbinnett argues that Westerners are dependent on these images of poverty and catastrophe, and through the constant transmission of this ‘dominant narrative’ through the media, as widely criticised by Binyavanga Wainaina19, school systems, and a new culture of reciprocal altruism, voluntourism, which ‘cashes in’ on the ‘single narrative’ and both morally and sentimentally exploits Africa and Africans, is furthered20. Western culture allots a degree of prestige to those who take on these experiences. At once the tales of the ‘pity African’ are used as a bargaining token,as if their volunteer experience was undertaken in order for another person to act towards them positively, or to fulfil them a positive act (i.e. A job) in the future, an example of the reciprocal altruism that ensures the maintenance of the dominant narrative, so as to prolong the usage of Africa for Western purposes. This in itself is an overtly colonial concept. The very idea of using Africa to elevate oneself is colonial. To use Africa’s resources, whether physical or in the abstract sense, as we have seen in the Western culture of reciprocal altruism, in order to further the minority interest, draws similarities to the furthering of the state’s interest and those of its delegated masters within the colonial period. As discussed, exploitation of Africa remains ripe. Therefore, as established, the Western tourist source has morally and sentimentally exploited Africa through the sustained spectacle of poverty and therefore represents the ‘last phase of colonialism’21. Maoz suggests this system of tourism which ‘cashes in on’ a false narrative continues to operate through the ‘tourist gaze’- a system by which Western representations of the Other are projected on to host populations, and affect the behaviours and actions of the local peoples22. The local, in order to capitalise and develop both physically and economically, must adopt the image the tourist has projected upon them in their hunt for authenticity, acting out stereotypes and narrow representations held in the imaginations of the traveller, in order to prevent themselves from further marginalisation and reduced interaction with the tourist source23. Lavie gives an example of a North African Bedouin group who have, out of necessity for long term economic survival, sacrificed their ‘deeply religious Islamic beliefs and morals in order to cater to the needs of tourists’, providing alcohol to naked tourists, selling simulated traditional food and clothing, while offering mud huts for accommodation so as to provide a simulated ‘authentic desert life’24. It may be possible now to see a degree of cultural commodification, which Meethan suggests reduces culture to ‘inauthentic shadows for sale to the gullible masses’25, as a means of local survival, reflecting canonical themes in dependency theory. Hughes argues that because developed nations have so effectively dictated the direction of tourism and touristic experiences on the ground, a degree of dependency has been generated upon the tourist26, and the economic benefits received from the provision of staged versions of their culture for the pleasure of tourists. Simultaneously, a new form of travel has been made popular, through ‘ethical tourism’, as linked to voluntourism, as a means to escape the obvious inequalities developed through traditional touristic development. Lozanski however believes that these inequalities are often inescapable, and colonial-esque top-down power relations will be implemented no matter the experience in question, through forming new lines of tourist activity which inadvertently contribute to choices on the development of certain areas and on behalf of particular local social groupings27. Therefore we see the first world tourist determining the agenda of the developing world, institutionalising inequalities, and granting more powers to the tourist in the destination state, than the local has over his own home. Bennett argues that the local has no option to enter a circle of repetition which commits ‘their culture to become and remain in a specific form, which mirrors the pre-conceived images that tourists have of the Third World Other28, to please tourists’ through staged attractions, until the staged culture is the only remaining version familiar to the local. The extensive ‘market’ of tourist experiences across Africa is undeniable, with packages offered from diving to safari; fundamentally Africa attracts tourists. However, a new culture of tourism has been formed, one which has based itself around reciprocal altruism and relies upon the image of an impoverished and underdeveloped African ‘Other’ for its survival. Therefore, we must consider both this form of tourism (voluntourism) and the wider tourist market as exactly that; a market, an industry meant to make market leaders at the top of the industry very wealthy, while the locals opportunity to take part in tourism, to visit and exchange with the tourist source, or indeed within their own nation, remains slim. This market may then ultimately fail with the alteration of the dominant narrative which defines the tourist experience. For example, in playground building or English teaching in Uganda, while perhaps offering a few moments of interest, appeals directly to the Westerner through promising exposure to an authentic African village, exposing them to destitute African children, or orphans, all at once confirming the dominant narrative, and reverting to colonial representations by which the White Westerner must act out of their own goodness to bring apparent change, therefore morally and sentimentally exploiting Africa, without any real local developmental effect. Yet this remains a product, an experience sold to tourists in exchange for future goods, appealing to a degree of egoism. Naturally, this is lucrative and does offer economic gain at low levels locally, thus culture is commodified in order to reduce local marginalisation and encourage sustained tourism. As a result, generations to come will learn of Africa and Africans from those who have cashed into the circle of misrepresentation, a product of Western created dependency through the neo-colonial imposition of imperial top-down power directives, while Western companies continue to profit from the moral exploitation of Africa via the spectacle of poverty and catastrophe, appealing to the tourists sense of adventure and superiority, as Africa becomes to them nothing more than a ‘playground of their imagination and a target to conquer and consume”29. To consume, use and misrepresent thus throws representations back to a colonial Africa, a period in which the West physical and metaphorically robbed Africa of its culture and its people, and all at once foreign profiteers push a dominant narrative of a ‘pity African’, an undeveloped world, deeper into the expectations of Africa once again. Therefore, tourism, while perhaps subconsciously passive, is not a neutral action, and has not changed perceptions of Africa positively, instead returning Western representations of Africa to colonial narratives. Word Count: 2532 Bibliography Abbas, A., Erni, J.,Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005. Abbinnett., R., Culture and Identity: Critical Theories., SAGE Publications., 2003. Abrahamsen., R., African Studies and the Postcolonial challenge., African Affairs (102)., 2003. and other alternatives”, Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 30., 2001. Backpackers in India”, The Global Nomad: Backpacker Travel in Theory and Practice. Baudrillard.,J., The Illusion of the End., Cambridge Polity Press., 1994. Bennett, D., “Global tourism and Caribbean culture”., Caribbean Quarterly Vol.51., 2005. 29 Maoz.,D., “The Conquerors and the Settlers: Two Groups of Young Israeli Backpackers in India”, The Global Nomad: Backpacker Travel in Theory and Practice., ed. Richards, G., Wilson, S., Channel View Publications., 2004., p.233. 9 Bruner.,E., Kirshenblatt-Gimblett.,B., “Maasai on the Lawn: Tourist realism in East Africa”., Cultural Anthropology., Vol 9,. Nov 1994., American Anthropological Association. Christie., I., Fernandes.,E., Messerli.,H., Twining-Ward., L., “Tourism in Africa: Harnessing Tourism for Growth and Improved livelihoods”., The World Bank., [Accessed online 17/11/2014 at: http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/Africa/Report/africa-tourism-report-2013-extracted-figures.pdf] Desforges, L., “Checking Out the Planet: Global Representations/Local Identities and Youth Travel”, Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures., ed. Richards, G., Wilson, S., Channel View Publications., 2004. Lavie.,S., “The Fool”., Internationalizing Cultural Studies: An Anthology, ed. Lew, A., Hall, M., Williams, A., A companion to Tourism., Blackwell publishing., 2004. Lozanski, K., “Temporary foreign workers and Canada’s contradictions: Globalization, liberalism, and multiculturalism”., International journal of contemporary sociology, 45. Maoz.,D., “The Conquerors and the Settlers: Two Groups of Young Israeli Maritns.,R., Ghana GDP Growth Rates., Ghana Statistical Service., 23/10/2014., [Accessed online 18/11/2014 at: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ghana/gdp-growth] McClary.,J., New York Times., October 27 1985. Meethan, K., Tourism in global society: place, culture, consumption., Palgrave., 2001. Namakkal., J., “Study Abroad as neo-colonialism”., ‘Counterpunch’., August 29, 2013., [Accessed online 17/11/2014 at: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/29/study-aboard-as-neo-colonial-tourism] O’Reilly., C., “From Drifter to Gap Year Tourist: Mainstreaming Backpacker Travel”, Annals of Tourism Research.,2006.,Vol.33, no.4. Skelton, T., Valentine, G. New York: Routledge., 1998. Stronza, A., “Anthropology of tourism: Forging new ground for ecotourism Wainaina.,B., How to write about Africa., Kwani Trust., 2008. Williams, P., Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader., Cambridge University Press., 1994.

[acautionaryblog]

[acautionaryblog]

Alienation is the precise and correctly applied word for describing the major social problem in Britain today. People feel alienated by society. In some intellectual circles it is treated almost as a new phenomenon. It has, however, been with us for years. What I believe is true is that today it is more widespread, more pervasive than ever before. Let me right at the outset define what I mean by alienation. It is the cry of men who feel themselves the victims of blind economic forces beyond their control. It's the frustration of ordinary people excluded from the processes of decision making. The feeling of despair and hopelessness that pervades people who feel with justification that they have no real say in shaping or determining their own destinies. Many may not have rationalised it. May not even understand, may not be able to articulate it. But they feel it. It therefore conditions and colours their social attitudes. Alienation expresses itself in different ways by different people. It is to be found in what our courts often describe as the criminal anti-social behaviour of a section of the community. It is expressed by those young people who want to opt out of society, by drop outs, the so-called maladjusted, those-who seek to escape permanently from the reality of society through intoxicants and narcotics. Of course it would be wrong to say it was the sole reason for these things. But it is a much greater factor in all of them than is generally recognised. Society and its prevailing sense of values leads to another form of alienation. It alienates some from humanity. It partially dehumanises some people, makes them insensitive, ruthless in their handling of fellow human beings, self-centred and grasping. The irony is, they are often considered normal and well adjusted. It is my sincere contention that anyone who can be totally adjusted to our society is in greater need of psychiatric analysis and treatment than anyone else. They remind me of the character in the novel, Catch 22, the father of Major Major. He was a farmer in the American Mid West. He hated suggestions for things like Medicare, social services, unemployment benefits or civil rights. He was, however, an enthusiast for the agricultural policies that paid farmers for not bringing their fields under cultivation. From the money he got for not growing alfalfa he bought more land in order not to grow alfalfa. He became rich. Pilgrims came from all over the state to sit at his feet and learn how to be a successful non-grower of alfalfa. His philosophy was simple. The poor didn't work hard enough and so they were poor. He believed that the good Lord gave him two strong hands to grab as much as he could for himself. He is a comic figure. But think, have you not met his like here in Britain? Here in Scotland? I have. It is easy and tempting to hate such people. However it is wrong. They are as much products of society and a consequence of that society, human alienation, as the poor drop out. They are losers. They have lost essential elements of our common humanity. Man is a social being. Real fulfilment for any person lies in service to his fellow men and women. The big challenge to our civilisation is not OZ, a magazine I haven't even seen let alone read. Nor is it permissiveness, although I agree our society is too permissive. Any society which, for example, permits over one million people to be unemployed is far too permissive for my liking. Nor is it moral laxity in the narrow sense that this word is generally employed ~ although in a sense here we come nearer to the problem. It does involve morality, ethics, and our concept of human values. The challenge we face is that of rooting out anything and everything that distorts and devalues human relations. Let me give two examples from contemporary experience to illustrate the point. Recently on television I saw an advert. The scene is a banquet. A gentleman is on his feet proposing a toast. His speech is full of phrases like "this full-bodied specimen". Sitting beside him is a young, buxom woman. The image she projects is not pompous but foolish. She is visibly preening herself, believing that she is the object of this bloke's eulogy. Then he concludes - "and now I give ... " then a brand name of what used to be described as Empire sherry. The woman is shattered, hurt and embarrassed. Then the laughter. Derisive and cruel laughter. The real point, of course, is this. In this charade, the viewers were obviously expected to identify not with the victim but with her tormentors. The other illustration is the widespread, implicit acceptance of the concept and term, the rat race. The picture it conjures up is one where we are scurrying around scrambling for position, trampling on others, back-stabbing, all in pursuit of personal success. Even genuinely intended friendly advice can sometimes take the form of someone saying to you, "Listen, you look after number one". Or as they say in London, "Bang the bell, Jack, I'm on the bus". To the students I address this appeal. Reject these attitudes. Reject the values and false morality that underlie these attitudes. A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement. This is how it starts and before you know where you are, you're a fully paid-up member of the rat-pack. The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit. Or as Christ put it, "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?" Profit is the sole criterion used by the establishment to evaluate economic activity. From the rat race to lame ducks. The vocabulary in vogue is a giveaway. It's more reminiscent of a human menagerie than human society. The power structures that have inevitably emerged from this approach threaten and undermine our hard-won democratic rights. The whole process is towards the centralisation and concentration of power in fewer and fewer hands. The facts are there for all who want to see. Giant monopoly companies and consortia dominate almost every branch of our economy. The men who wield effective control within these giants exercise a power over their fellow men which is frightening and is a negation of democracy. 　 Government by the people for the people becomes meaningless unless it includes major economic decision making by the people for the people. This is not simply an economic matter. In essence it is an ethical and moral question for whoever takes the important economic decisions in society ipso facto determines the social priorities of that society. From the Olympian heights of an executive suite, in an atmosphere where your success is judged by the extent to which you can maximise profits, the overwhelming tendency must be to see people as units of production, as indices in your accountants' books. To appreciate fully the inhumanity of this situation, you have to see the hurt and despair in the eyes of a man suddenly told he is redundant without provision made for suitable alternative employment, with the prospect in the west of Scotland, if he is in his late forties or fifties, of spending the rest of his life in the Labour Exchange. Someone, somewhere has decided he is unwanted, unneeded, and is to be thrown on the industrial scrap heap. From the very depth of my being, I challenge the right of any man or any group of men, in business or in government, to tell a fellow human being that he or she is expendable. The concentration of power in the economic field is matched by the centralisation of decision making in the political institutions of society. The power of Parliament has undoubtedly been eroded over past decades with more and more authority being invested in the Executive. The power of local authorities has been and is being systematically undermined. The only justification I can see for local government is as a counterbalance to the centralised character of national government. Local government is to be restructured. What an opportunity, one would think, for decentralizing as much power as possible back to local communities. Instead the proposals are for centralising local government. It's once again a blueprint for bureaucracy, not democracy. If these proposals are implemented, in a few years when asked "Where do you come from ?", I can reply: "The Western Region". It even sounds like a hospital board. It stretches from Oban to Girvan and eastwards to include most of Glasgow conurbation. As in other matters, I must ask the politicians who favour these proposals - where and how in your calculations did you quantify the value of a community? Or a community life? Of a sense of belonging? Of the feeling of identification? These are rhetorical questions. I know the answer. Such human considerations do not feature in their thought processes. Everything that is proposed from the establishment seems almost calculated to minimise the role of the people, to miniaturise man. I can understand how attractive this prospect must be to those at the top. Those of us who refuse to be pawns in their power game can be picked up by their bureaucratic tweezers and dropped in a filing cabinet under "M" for malcontent or maladjusted. When you think of some of the high flats around us, it can hardly be an accident that they are as near as one could get to an architectural representation of a filing cabinet. If modern technology requires greater and larger productive units, let's make our wealth producing resources and potential subject to p1ublic control and to social accountability. Let's gear our society to social ~-need, not personal greed. Given such creative re-orientation of society, there is no doubt in my mind that in " few years we could eradicate in our country the scourge of poverty, the underprivileged, slums, and insecurity. Even this is not enough. To measure social progress purely by material advance is not enough. Our aim must be the enrichment of the whole quality of life. It requires a social and cultural, or if you wish, a spiritual transformation of our country. A necessary part of this must be the restructuring of the institutions of government and where necessary, the evolution of additional structures so as to involve the people in the decision making processes of our society. The so called experts will tell you that this would be cumbersome or marginally inefficient. I am prepared to sacrifice a margin of efficiency for the value of the people's participation anyway, in the longer term, I reject this argument. To unleash the latent potential of our people requires that we give them responsibility. The untapped resources of the North Sea are as nothing compared to the untapped resources of our people, I am convinced that the great mass of our people go through life without even a glimmer of what they could have contributed to their fellow human beings. This is a personal tragedy. It's a social crime. The flowering of each individual’s personality and talents is the pre-condition for everyone's development. In this context education has a vital role to play. If automation and technology is accompanied as it must be with full employment, then the leisure time available to man will be enormously increased. If that is so, then our whole concept of education must change. The whole object must be to equip and educate people for life, ne solely for work or a profession. The creative use of leisure, in communion with, and in service to our fellow human beings can and must become an important element in self-fulfilment. Universities must be in the forefront of development, must meet social needs and not lag behind them. It is my earnest desire that this great University of Glasgow should be in the vanguard initiating changes and setting the example for others to follow. Part of our educational process must be the involvement of all sections of the university on the governing bodies. The case for student representation is unanswerable. It is inevitable. My conclusion is to reaffirm what I hope and certainly intend to be the spirit permeating this address. It's an affirmation of faith in humanity. All that is good in man's heritage involves recognition of our common humanity, an unashamed acknowledgement that man is good by nature. Burns expressed it in a poem that technically was not his best, yet captured the spirit. In "Why should we idly waste our prime," he writes: "The golden age, we'll then revive, each man shall be a brother, In harmony we all shall live and till the earth together, In virtue trained, enlightened youth shall move each fellow creature, And time shall surely prove the truth that man is good by nature". It's my belief that all the factors to make a practical reality of such a world are maturing now. I would like to think that our generation took mankind some way along the road towards this goal. It's a goal worth fighting for.

Jimmy Reid, Alienation, University of Glasgow, 1972.

[sridevi]

[acautionaryblog]

‘In the soil of the whore’s doorstep is molded the image of the goddess’

[algodwin-deactivated20180609]

Home: Savannah, GA

[beatastic]

[historicaltimes]

An anti-Nazi demonstration in Berlin, 1932.

via reddit

[thedemsocialist-deactivated2018]

Beautiful 

[look-at-them-shine-deactivated2]

[sonjackcarl]

[1000drawings]

[mymorningcantata-blog]

The Tain - The Decemberists

Directed by: Andy Smetanka (2004)

[harukimurakami]

Kino - The New Yorker

[acautionaryblog]

New fiction: “There was something about him that stirred up the dark side in other people.”

It's so cinematic. Well worth a read.

[zozeebo]

[acautionaryblog]

I am super duper crazily infatuated with Zo. Send help.

[wewanthappinessback-deactivated]

[a380flightdeck]

[a380flightdeck]

…at John F. Kennedy International Airport - New York - USA.

[justice4mikebrown]

February 9

Twitter user and live streamer, MissJupiter1957, was pulled from her wheelchair and assaulted by police, arrested and charged with “failure to obey police orders and 3rd degree assault” on a police officer. Her wheelchair was also confiscated by police. 

She was released a few hours later.