Tag: Travel

Climate Emergency and Spiritual Ecology

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“On this side, where our world stands now, we each live our separate lives, isolated within our individual, anxious self. On the other side, we feel the patterns of interrelationship that support and nourish us, and can commune together as a single living community; we feel the mystery and magic of a world full of sacred meaning and purpose. It is only when we stand on this other shore that we can hope to heal our world, to help it to become free of this nightmare of materialism that is destroying its fragile and magical beauty. Only then can we return to our ancient heritage as guardians of the Earth” (Vaughn-Lee 2013: iii).

Sorry for the long hiatus, my passion for anthropology dwindled a bit during these long COVID months. I think we’ve all lost parts of ourselves during this time, no? I am now in the period of remembering who I am and re-imagining my future.

Of course, COVID isn’t far from the mind when thinking about the future, nor is climate change – now officially recognized as a climate emergency. I have just begun the essay anthology Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, written in 2013 but more poignant now than ever. I read it with a sadness and a fear in my heart; what will our future look like? How will generations to come view the earth, both literally, with their eyes, and figuratively, with their hearts? 

Where do you stand with your relationship to the earth? What steps are you taking to mend the fissures between you and nature? This past year–despite COVID–has been great for me in regaining a relationship with my childhood landscapes. I moved back in with my parents and have been exploring the woods, field, and lake on their land. I have learned the names of many plants, found which ones are edible, and I have found another passion that has taken up much of my time this past year: natural dye. In many ways, I feel like coming back to Minnesota and being forced to stay in place was good for me.

My thirst for travel and experience didn’t go away, however, and I recently traveled to the island of Tahiti to meet with some friends from my fieldwork days. I spent a month and a half there not as an anthropologist but merely another tourist (albeit a tourist that stayed with a local family and not in hotels). I brought some yarn and t-shirts along with me and asked Tatie Tahia, the matriarch of the household, which plants could be used for dye. It was refreshing to connect once again to another culture’s traditions and remember how much I love hearing stories about the past and how we can bring these stories into the future. Listening to and working with the past will be vital in the process of imagining a sustainable nature-oriented future.

References:

Vaughn-Lee, Llewellyn. 2013. Introduction. In Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth (pp. i-iv). Point Reyes, CA: The Golden Sufi Center.

The Prostitution of Hawai’i and Regenerative Tourism

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“Just five hours away by plane from California, Hawai’i is a thousand light years away in fantasy. Mostly a state of mind, Hawai’i is the image of escape from the rawness and violence of daily American life” (Trask 1999: 136)

Haunani-Kay Trask’s essay, “‘Lovely Hula Hands:’ Corporate Tourism and the Prostitution of Hawaiian Culture” gives me, as a traveler, a lot to think about. Hawai’i and Hawaiian culture, Trask writes, has become a prostitute ruled by it’s pimp, the United States.

“Prostitution in this context refers to the entire institution that defines a woman (and by extension the female) as an object of degraded and victimized sexual value for use and exchange through the medium of money. The prostitute is a woman who sells her sexual capacities and is seen, thereby, to possess and reproduce them at will, that is, by her very ‘nature.’ The prostitute and the institution that creates and maintains her are, of course, of patriarchal origin. The pimp is the conduit of exchange, managing the commodity that is the prostitute while acting as the guard at the entry and exit gates, making sure the prostitute behaves as a prostitute by fulfilling her sexual-economic functions. The victims participate in their victimization with enormous ranges of feeling, from resistance to complicity, but the force and continuity of the institution are shaped by men” (Trask 1999: 140).

I too have been a tourist in Hawai’i. I like to think of my traveling a type tourism informed by cultural exchange. I lived with a couple during my time on the island, a Hawaiian woman and Filipino woman, working on their farm as part of a work exchange. However, despite my own concepts of responsible tourism and trying to mitigate any unintentional harm, the power dynamics of haole and Native Hawaiian persist. The fact is, that tourism is inundating Hawai’i, and while I was not staying at an expensive resort, I too had fallen into the mindset of Hawai’i as paradise, place to relax, gentle crashing waves and happy music.

The question I ask now is will tourism in Hawai’i ever be morally acceptable, and what steps need to be taken to get to that point? A new tourism concept has surfaced recently, called regenerative tourism. Going one step further than sustainable tourism – which basically just aims to not cause harm to the host country and people – regenerative tourism aims to give back to the countries and communities that foreigners visit. Read about regenerative tourism in this New York Times Article by Elaine Glusac, or visit Regenerative Travel’s website. Tourist companies that practice regenerative tourism pledge to be integral parts of local communities, and tourists are able to use the power of money to help bolster communities while getting authentic tourist experiences.

Of course, there is more to be done than simply fixing the method of tourism. Trask calls for sovereignty and the right to self-determination for Native Hawaiians. Until Western culture, ideals, and money stop appropriating Hawaiian land, culture, language, and values for use in Western fantasies, tourism in these islands has a shadow of immorality, no matter how you do it. Trask writes, “The point, of course, is that everything in Hawai’i can be yours, that is, you the tourists’, the non-Natives’, the visitors’. The place, the people, the culture, even our identity as a ‘Native’ people is for sale” (Trask 1999: 144). The message Trask sends out in her essay is that the US, Japan, and all other non-Native settlers must give back what they have taken, prostituted, and distorted before tourism can continue in an ethical manner.

“If you are thinking of visiting my homeland, please do not. We do not want or need any more tourists, and we certainly do not like them. If you want to help our cause, pass this message on to your friends” (Trask 1999: 146).

References:
Glusac, E. 2020, Aug 27. “Move Over, Sustainable Travel. Regenerative Travel Has Arrived.” New York Times. https://nyti.ms/2D2nuSG
Trask, H. 1993 [1999]. “Lovely Hula Hands:” Corporate Tourism and the Prostitution of Hawaiian Culture. In From a Native Daughter: Colonialsim and Sovereignty in Hawai’i pp. 136-147. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press.

Reflections on Gaelic Culture in the Hebrides

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“The Hebrides had won a central place in European culture, but one tightly circumscribed by the defining characteristic of loss. The vitality of its Gaelic culture was subject to ignorance, indifference and prejudice. Its understanding of the relationship with land and place, and its culture of community, represented a profoundly different world view, and was pushed aside – or was actively suppressed – in a painful process of loss and conflict” (Bunting 2016: 128)

Madeline Bunting’s travel narrative set in the Hebrides (islands off of Scotland’s west coast, pronounced heb-rid-ees) explores not only the natural beauty of these seemingly remote islands, but also the intense romanticization, imperialism and cultural appropriation that has shaped the perception of them over the years. Bunting mixes history with her own feelings to understand her place and the place of her country within these Scottish isles in her book Love of Country.

This book is not an anthropological text, but rather more historical, philosophical and reflective. This does not mean that it is not useful to anthropologists. Travel narratives have been used by many anthropologists to contemplate perception. A good example of this is Julie Cruikshank’s Do Glaciers Listen, where she contrasts colonial explorers’ narratives to indigenous ones, emphasizing the different ways in which nature is perceived.

The quote above is placed among a larger discussion of 18th century Scotland and its relationship to Britain as a whole. What happened to the Gaels in Scotland mirrors what happened to many groups of people worldwide. At worst, Gaels were suppressed, seen as barbaric, evicted from their land, and at times killed because of the culture they followed. At best they were ignored. However, while the rest of Britain looked down on their northern compatriots, they deeply admired the landscapes in which they lived. Today, Bunting explains, Scotland continues to be romantically marketed to tourists as a sublime travel destination, wild and uninhabited. This perception of Scotland is reminiscent of the 18th century ignorance of the people who live in these places: “The Romanitc tourist’s gaze represented a cultural disruption; it ignored or averted its eyes form the impoverished inhabitants to celebrate the beauty of the natural forms” (Bunting 2016: 125).

In fact, today many of these islands are largely uninhabited, or at least hold very scarce populations, but only seeing the beauty of the landscape and ignoring the harsh history that has rendered them uninhabited is a sure mark of an ignorant tourist. In her chapter on the island Rum, Bunting explains what has become known as ‘the Clearances,’ or the forceful evictions of the Hebridean inhabitants in the early 1800’s.

Bunting does a great job at portraying both the beautiful and the ugly dimensions of travel in the Hebrides. She contemplates her own role in visiting these islands: “I recognize Romanticism’s erasure of the Gaelic past, but find myself caught still within its tradition. I appreciate how it has inspired me to begin the search for place, but increasingly acknowledge that it is a deceptive guide” (Bunting 2016: 129). Although not a text inspired by anthropological theory and thought, it definitely reminisces on important anthropological ideas.

A bleary yet lovely morning in Kinloch Rannoch, a small town in the Highlands of Scotland.

References:

Bunting, M. 2016. Love of Country: A Hebridean Journey. London, UK: Granta.

Cruikshank, J. 2005. Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press

Syndassko, Russia

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“Snowmobile trips to the tundra are a usual practice for most Syndassko residents. Such trips are required for basic household needs, such as getting coal and water, as well as hunting, fishing, and gathering. Almost every adult male in the village hunts wild reindeer, ptarmigan, ducks, geese and other game; in addition to that, they usually fish in tundra lakes and in the gulf. Such trips can last one day or a longer time when people go ‘to the spot’ (na tochku)–that is, to their own hunting huts in the tundra, where they can spend up to several weeks. Similarly, reindeer herders do not spend their entire time in the tundra but travel constantly between the camp and the village, while the village residents often visit these camps or just stop by on their way.

Furthermore, many people, espcailly youth, often go to the tundra for entertainment. They call it ‘going hiking,’ or ‘having a picnic,’ meaning a one-day barbecue trip, sometimes including drinks…. Walking outside the village on foot when the weather is mild is also a common practice, usually with no economic reason at all. For instance, picking mushrooms and berries is often not a household need but rather a motivation to get ‘outside.'” (Bolotova, Karaseva, & Vasilyeva 2017: 109)

What originally drew me to anthropology were images of distant cultures where people much like myself had a different way of living their lives. Here is a snippet of life from the Russian village of Syndassko, located in the far north of Russia in Krasnoyarsk Krai.

The article this quote is taken from looks at motility (the capacity for mobility) among three different ‘remote’ Russian cities. The authors explore what it means for a place to be remote and how this is affected by transportation infrastructure which in turn affects peoples’ mobility. They also explore sense of place, and note that in Syndassko, although life is hard living on the tundra, people have a strong emotional attachment to the place in which they live.

I love this quote because it brings the everyday lives of these seemingly remote people closer to me, and therefore further challenges the concept of remoteness. Is anything truly ‘remote’ in our global world? Although I haven’t been there, this article allows me to imagine taking a snowmobile for a picnic on the tundra, something I have never imagined before. It makes me ponder what these people’s lives are like, and how they are different from my own. A lovely portrayal of another world, and one of the many reasons I love anthropology.

References:

Bolotova, A., Karaseva, A. & Vasilyeva, V. 2017. Mobility and Sense of Place among Youth in the Russian Arctic. Sibirica 16(3), pp. 77-123.