Global Tourism: Cultural Heritage and Economic Encounters by Sarah Lyons and E. Christian Wells.

• Author: Fiedler, Michelle Y.
• Position: Book review

Lyons, Sarah, and E. Christian Wells, eds. Global Tourism: Cultural Heritage and Economic Encounters. Lanham: Altamira Press, 2012. viii +311 pages. Hardcover, $85.00.

In Global Tourism: Cultural Heritage and Economic Encounters, anthropologists Sarah Lyon and E. Christian Wells assemble an impressive group of social scientists to assess both the positive impacts and the negative consequences typically associated with cultural tourism, such as a rise in tourist liminality, the secularly ritualistic behaviors of tourism, and even the idea that tourism can be meaningful to tourist and host alike. Lyon and Wells pull together a practical anthropology of tourism, heritage, and identity politics that is quietly post-modern, drawing heavily on ethnographic methodologies throughout.

The chapters address historical and contemporary ideologies surrounding tourism in multiple regions and cultures in the world in a social scientific and ethnographic manner. Discussions concentrate on authenticity, identity, and commodification, as well as novel issues, such as medical tourism, spiritual tourism, and tourism as transaction. Taken as a whole, readers can view many stages in the tourist trades. In his chapter, for example, anthropologist Brandon Lundy describes the beginnings of a new brand of tourism in Guinea-Bissau in Africa, in which the intended spiritual use of a space has encouraged a small (for now) tourist attraction where the hosting culture feels an obligation to be hospitable. He maintains, however that this obligation will likely begin to take a toll on the host group as resources become increasingly strained.

In contrast, environmental studies specialist Keely Maxwell views the well-oiled commodification of the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu in an intriguing argument that the commodification of the tourist is a natural next stage in the tourism trade that gives agency to the host and constructs a new resource made up of the visiting tourists themselves. Archaeologists Alejandro J. Figueroa and Whitney A. Goodwin join E. Christian Wells in discussing the deeper impacts of long-term tourism in Honduras, while anthropologist Noel B. Salazar shows how heritage policies have created drastic historical changes in the indigenous identities in Java.

The various chapters employ a variety of theoretical approaches. Katrina T. Greene, a specialist in intercultural studies and economic anthropology, brings to light the empowerment of black females in...