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Tourism and representations: Of social change and power relations in Wadi Ramm, Southern Jordan
Abstract
Taking the approach of social and cultural anthropology, the aim of this article is to look at how various representational systems and modes interact with each other when the logics of international and national tourism development come to meet the vernacular versions of place and identity. This process is studied by describing, analysing and criticising the power struggle between competing representations of place and local culture in Wadi Ramm (Southern Jordan), an area not as desert as Western visitors expect it to be, inhabited by a Bedouin community not as “traditional” as portrayed by the tourist media and whose inhabitants harbour their own ideas about place and group identity.
... The second focuses on the motivations and experiences of visitors to Bedouin tourism sites. These studies have predominantly focused on the demands, perceptions, motivations and experiences of international tourists, mainly from Western countries (Abdel Aziz, 1999;Chatelard, 2005;Homa, 2007;Jacobs, 2010;Reichel, Uriely, & Shani, 2009;Uriely & Belhassen, 2005;Uriely, Maoz & Reichel, 2009). In fact, Westerners' perceptions and experiences have often been the implicit definition of tourists' knowledge, reflection and image of Bedouin culture. ...
... In fact, Westerners' perceptions and experiences have often been the implicit definition of tourists' knowledge, reflection and image of Bedouin culture. Historically, dominant Eurocentric discourses in tourism studies have shown little interest in non-Western tourists (Alneng, 2002;Cohen & Cohen, 2015;Hazbun, 2008;Mkono, 2013aMkono, , 2013b and continue to cast Arabs/Muslims, Africans, and Asians as the hosts or the toured people (Al-Haj Mohammad & Som, 2010;Bruner & Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1994;Buda & McIntosh, 2012;Chatelard, 2005;Conran, 2006;Jacobs, 2010;Kuo, 2007;Lepp, 2009;Walter, 2015). Similarly, since the early 19 th century, travelers' expectations, perceptions and experiences of Bedouin culture have been researched and interpreted mainly by Western scholars (Hazbun, 2008), with these interpretations often conjugated with a historical, political or religious approach. ...
Much emphasis in the literature on Bedouin tourism in the Arab world has been given to the demands, perceptions, motivations and experiences of international tourists while domestic demands are not fully understood. Thus, this study challenges the status quo, being one of a few studies in which Egyptians are represented as tourists consuming Egyptian ethnic culture. A mix of qualitative research methods, including 29 semi-structured interviews with domestic visitors, observational data and document analysis, was employed to explore Egyptian visitors’ perspectives and assessments of Bedouin cultural attractions in Egypt. The findings revealed that the concept of experiencing existential authenticity through interactions with the workers and performers appeared to be outside the visitors’ sphere of thought, as they focused almost exclusively on tangible elements of the site offerings. This study has important implications for Bedouin tourism suppliers as well as tourism researchers. Egyptian visitors can be viewed as a powerful potential market for Bedouin attractions. Thus, site management should reconsider their approach to Egyptian visitors, as well as rethink the mission and goals of their site. Theoretically, the findings of this study strongly contest the notion that objective authenticity is no longer essential in ethnic tourism.
... Wadi rum has been targeted by the Ministry of tourism and Antiquities (MOtA) as a priority destination with a goal of developing the local community and providing alternative income sources. the commercial representation of Wadi rum has been highlighted as the jordanian desert inhabited by Bedouins, although the Bedouins were never formally consulted on this image promotion (Chatelard, 2003a(Chatelard, , 2003b. A local cooperative community exists to provide services for tourists with the help of MOtA, and includes all the families in the Valley (lanquar, 2004). ...
... tensions between the community, on the one hand, and the two implementing agencies (MOtA and royal Society for the Conservation of nature [rSCn]) have grown. the local Bedouins were marginalised in the decisionmaking and implementation processes, and their dynamics of social change, their identity, and even their collective self-esteem were all negatively affected (Chatelard, 2003a(Chatelard, , 2003b. Another example of integrating locals in jordanian tourism development is Dhana nature reserve. ...
Population displacement through desertification has affected the socioeconomic and cultural development of Jordan's Badia desert. To counterbalance this change, it is important to preserve and revitalise cultural heritage as a source of tourism development in the desert. One possible way of revitalising the Badia regions is to highlight their cultural resources for tourism. The goal of the study is to find alternative tourism resources based on understanding the potential tourism resources in the Badia and to attract tourists for cultural heritage experiences. The analysis suggests new opportunities for cultural heritage tourism with elements of Bedouin material and non-material culture. Solutions include establishing community-based Bedouin tourism that involves the local people in partnership with the BRDC,1 expanding the tourism network to include the Badia region using resources such as folkways and archaeology to enrich the experience, building a rest house; and erecting a Bedouin heritage village. This will generate income and give Badia indigenous communities additional revenue, thereby positively impacting the regional and national economy.
... Selain itu, destinasi tertentu bersaing dengan yang lain dalam hal pengalaman dan dunia semantik. Ini adalah komponen yang menonjol dari sebuah komoditas: sebuah destinasi seharusnya bersaing dengan yang lain sebagai daya tarik wisata yang diidealkan (Chatelard, 2008). Karakter khas dari destinasi pariwisata terkadang dapat menjadi aset budaya. ...
ABSTRAKAdanya fenomena miss-interpretasi dan ketidaksesuaian makna yang diinginkan dalam sebuah iklanhotel, memberikan kerugian yang signifikan terhadap pelaku perhotelan di Bali. Tujuan dari studi iniuntuk memahami makna yang terkandung dalam sebuah iklan promosi perhotelan yang diambilkhusus di Kabupaten Badung. Studi ini menganalisis 1) wujud bagian-bagian iklan yang berupa judul,nama perusahaan, teks, dan slogan yang terdapat dalam iklan perhotelan, (2) mendeskripsikanwujud hubungan tanda dan acuannya yang berupa penanda dan pertanda dalam iklan perhotelan,(3) mendeskripsikan dan memberikan gambaran saran mengenai peranan makna yang tepat dalamiklan perhotelan. Rancangan studi ini menggunakan rancangan kualitatif yang dikumpulkan darisubjek studi yang berupa iklan-iklan hotel yang dikumpulkan dari iklan promosi (brosur atau website)hotel di Badung, Bali. Objek dalam studi ini berupa kata, frasa, kalimat, gambar, dan warna yangada dalam iklan-iklan tersebut. Hasil yang dicapai dalam studi ini adalah adanya hubungan antarasimbol dan pemaknaan yang dipakai dalam sebuah iklan promosi perhotelan. Ke depannya dapatdilakukan penambahan variabel ilmu semiotika dalam perancangan sebuah iklan hotel sehinggamemberikan gambaran kesesuaian antara pengaplikasian ilmu semiotika dan praktik pemasaranhotel yang dituangkan dalam iklan. Kesesuaian yang tepat antara keinginan dan makna yang ingindisampaikan bisa terbangun dengan baik untuk menghindari adanya kesalahpahaman antara hoteldan target pasar.Kata kunci: semiotika, iklan, promosi, perhotelan, Badung
... Hay espacio para la disrupción del orden de las cosas. Aún cuando el sistema global de producción de atracciones turísticas resulta una grilla fijada y preestablecida, no siempre ni mecánicamente determina las prioridades o las conductas turísticas.2. 2. Mirada-alteridadLa anticipación de un goce ya preconcebido organiza la alteridad y la regula al identificar qué está visualmente fuera de lo ordinario para establecer diferencias y estipular qué es lo otro.Basándose en ese funcionamiento sígnico del turismo, Urry plantea que la mirada turística presupone: "un sistema social de signos que particulariza las prácticas turísticas, no en términos de algunas características intrínsecas, sino por contraste con prácticas sociales de otro orden, específicamente las correspondientes al hogar y al trabajo remunerado"(Urry, 2003, p. 13).En otras palabras, la alteridad debe ser significada por oposición a la propia cultura del que mira.Esto implica una estrategia hegemónica de domesticación de lo exótico y, en algunos casos, se considera el consumo turístico orientado a experimentar la diferencia casi como si estuviera empaquetada, primordialmente estructurada y evaluada por criterios estéticos(Chatelard, 2005); incluso el ecoturismo constituye, en algunas perspectivas, una experiencia de belleza y hedonismo antes que cognitiva(Ryan, 2000). Resulta, así, una empresa semiótica virada a la búsqueda de lo predecible en un nuevo contexto de significado. ...
... As seen in the last chapter's discussion of moral economies, even those who wish to resist the royal house do so within this discourse of hospitality; as in Hind's speech, they seek to reverse the roles so that they as Bedouin East-Bankers become the hosts, and the 12 The quote from Shryock (2012: S24) hints at this; 'even the poorest Bedouin… will be able to create the hospitable effect' (emphasis added). 13 In my Masters fieldwork, I examined the way shaykhs and their vision of their social environment dominated in efforts to gain UNESCO and UNDP recognition as indigenous people possessing 'masterpieces of oral and intangible heritage' (see also Bille 2012, Chatelard 2005. I also analysed a community development NGO in the West Bank working with the Rashayda Bedouin, which had tried to include women as stakeholders, but fearing losing community support, had ended up only interviewing the hereditary mukhtar of each village, a tendency to prioritise the shaykh's-eye view I had to constantly work hard to avoid repeating. ...
This thesis is a study of discourses of contemporary Bedouin identity and political economy in central Jordan. Drawing on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork, it follows the experiences of young, mostly male, interlocutors living in small villages around the town of Madaba, from two largely settled but still discursively Bedouin ‘ashā’ir (socio-political categories normally glossed in English as ‘tribes’); the Bani Sakhr and the Bani Hamida. I explore the ways in which these interlocutors imagine and anticipate their futures, considering the dilemmas they face in seeking meaningful social reproduction, and their entanglement with various modes of everyday politics, in order to understand how and why political forms and identity categories are adapted and reproduced, especially in the context of new rural protest movements. This provides a new approach to wider processes of nation-building, identity-formation, and state encompassment of marginal areas, in the face of mass forced migration, structural adjustment, the rise of new social forums (on- and off-line), and widespread protests. It considers questions of land settlement, sovereignty and the politics of everyday life in a rural region from which the protest movement dubbed Jordan's 'Arab Spring' emerged among supposedly traditionalist and loyalist Bedouin. I examine the historical context behind the current social, political and economic position of my interlocutors via histories of land settlement, sedenterisation initiatives, and changing political institutions through Ottoman rule and the British Mandate, examining various processes of frontier governmentality that sought to pacify and settle, but also define and repurpose Bedouin as a conceptual category. Making an intervention in the long-standing anthropological debate around the nature and analytical usage of tribalism and the role of colonial effect in its construction in the region, I consider ‘asha’īr as political modalities existing in a relationship of co-(re)production with the nation-state, within a political and moral economy of hospitality, protection and encompassment, which has also come to be used to symbolise the nation of Jordan itself. In the face of postcolonial critiques and challenges over representation and Orientalism, anthropologists have rightly called for greater reflexivity and attention to positionality. Yet, more problematically, they have largely withdrawn from examinations of non-state political forms and non-national identity categories. Concepts of Bedouin and tribe, aside from their contested and critiqued construction, continue to have conceptual and political power in Jordan and elsewhere, and anthropology is at risk of leaving them to development practitioners and policy-makers. Anthropologists might formerly have explained the social setting I study as one generated by agnatic kinship and segmentary lineage. I instead reconsider ‘ashā’ir as historically contingent political responses centred on certain limited projects of representational sovereignty.
... Comer's (2012) review of the state of conservation of the site has highlighted that despite or in part due to having multiple site management plans, management has largely failed to stop widespread damage to the site or spread benefits to the majority of the local community. Relationships with the local communities have been described as exclusionary and a similar pattern has been identified with large-scale development agency-led projects in Umm Qays in northern Jordan (Brand 2000(Brand , 2001aShunnaq, Schwab, and Reid 2008) and at Wadi Rum (Brand 2001b;Chatelard 2003Chatelard , 2005. Al Haija (2011) has characterised the relationship between heritage and tourism in Jordan as one of 'conflict', while Abu-Khafajah (2010; Abu-Khafajah 2011) has used ethnographic research to highlight alienation of local communities from local archaeology where the communities feel their heritage has become the domain of other stakeholder groups (e.g. ...
The Deep Past as a Social Asset in the Levant (DEEPSAL) project, conducted in 2015–16 by the Council for British Research in the Levant, examined two communities in southern Jordan, Beidha and Basta, who live near significant Neolithic archaeological sites. The project collected information on the communities’ current socioeconomic conditions, their relationship with local cultural heritage and how that cultural heritage currently benefits or hinders them. The information was used to inform nascent strategies to utilize the sites sustainably as development assets and suggest alternative strategies as necessary. The results showed that a tourism-based strategy is suitable for Beidha but there was a need to focus on basic business skills. For Basta a tourism-based strategy is currently unsuitable, and efforts should rather focus on supporting educational activities. The results of the project are presented here within the context of archaeology’s increasing interest to use archaeological resource to benefit local communities, and outlines lessons for that effort.
... Additionally, a given destination competes with others in regard to experiences and the semantic world. It is the salient component of a commodity: a destination competes with others as an idealized touristic attraction (Chatelard 2008 ). The distinctive character of tourism destination may sometimes be the cultural assets, per say. ...
This chapter addresses to the symbolic representation of touristic destinations. The main contribution of the chapter is to point to the rivalry in symbolic context via tourism promotion materials. The current literature on tourism representation is elucidated and a semiotic analysis is conducted. The chapter presents the findings of the analysis on tourism promotional videos in Turkey. The findings demonstrate that the tourism promotional videos comprises the " local colours ". In addition, the terms, " timelessness and cultural mosaic " also have a place in tourism promotion.
... The "gaze" is at the center of the tourist's experience as a visual process, as Urry (1990Urry ( , 1992 convincingly argued, and tourist destinations are chosen to be gazed upon because there is an anticipation of intense pleasure, either on a different scale or involving different senses from those customarily encountered (Chatelard, 2005). Through Urry's (1990) "gaze," tourists seek and consume the awe inspiring yet unfamiliar. ...
Visual images, from travel brochures and television commercials to internet advertisements, represent a powerful element of tourist destination marketing. This article seeks to understand how destination marketing represents people and places through visual images while examining the role of tourism discourse in the construction of cultural meanings and identity. Using Jamaica as a case study, the researchers explore the issue of contemporary touristic images. A combination of content and discourse analysis was used to examine images included in printed marketing materials and on the DMO's website drawing upon postcolonial theory as a critical and contextual perspective that provides an interpretation of the meanings that are conveyed by these representations. The main findings indicate that decades after the end of colonialism in Jamaica, marketers perpetuate the presentation of paradisal destination images using visual representations. It is argued that colonial tropes and practices of "Othering" remain fundamental to the meaning and rationale of seeing Jamaica and the travel experience. However, this study also identified strategies that could be further explored in an effort to counteract colonial discourse, as the use of culture and local folkways opens up avenues for the (re)evaluation and (re)representation of Jamaica and the holiday experience.
This paper is a research semio-semantic representation of Iran's tourism destinations and is an attempt to decipher how advertising methods challenge their competitors using semiotic analysis. For this purpose, five Iranian tourism advertising videos were examined based on the principles of semio-semantics. The main purpose of this paper was to answer a single question: How are tourism destinations displayed in Iran? The analysis showed that tourism promotional videos focus on a kind of Orientalism itself. This focus is somewhat indicative of the institutional perspective that has permeated Iranian tourism advertising materials. This view paints a picture of Iran, as an Eastern Muslim country, and is inconsistent with the tourism strategies of the coming decades. This type of advertising creates problems in several areas when trying to promote the country. Based on the analysis provided, suggestions for future advertising trends are provided
Beyond the ecological perspective of this study, the participatory tourism planning project to spread the economic benefits in term of community-based ecotourism development in the northern border periphery of Al-Adaseya, Jordan is discussed. In such a context of peripheral developmental border areas, where wars and immigration shapes new geopolitical situations, developmental ecotourism projects can be a key to establish small scale business, and thus improve the lives of both locals and those across-borders. Such projects also, provide unique ecological systems for tourists, and maximise the cultural value among people. The study examines the potentials and limitations of tourism for domestic and cross border mergers in Al-Adaseya, and develops suggestions for the promoting of small scale tourism in such rural areas, with regard to the various cross cultural aspect of locals. The study was mainly descriptive and adopted a methodology based exclusively on-site visit observations, combined with face-to-face interviews. The research findings indicate that even though the region hosts considerable natural and cultural resources, it is faced with different obstacles that impact the development of ecotourism, related mainly to the particular security situation for its strategically tricky location when it comes to regional instability and a volatile political situation. Strategic factors were explored and priorities set out in this study in order to address the problems of the region. Rehabilitating historical houses, improving infrastructure, and tourism facilities were also included in the recommendations.
After describing the institutional framework both internally and in cooperation with the UNESCO Office of Amman to implement and promote the Organization’s conventions and programs in the country, the chapter offers an overview on the activities carried on since the ratification of the 2003 ICH Convention to illustrate the protection mechanisms of the ICH on the national level through policies, capacity building actions and projects, awareness raising and inventorying initiatives. By remarking the stimulus offered by the Convention to think of a legal process based on a philosophical rationale taking into account the human rights laws for ICH, considered an integral part of cultural human rights, the author further analyses three case studies: Madaba as the first community based inventory, the Mansaf, a Jordanian culinary tradition and a stimulus for social cohesion and identity, and the Cultural Space of the Bedu in Petra and Wadi Rum proclaimed as Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity and lately incorporated into the Representative List in 2008.
Promoting border areas for developmental ecotourism
Ecotourism is a growing industry all over the world and is renowned largely for its
sustainable approach to the interactions between tourists and the local destination. Jordan is
one of the few countries in the Middle Eastern region with sustainable tourism options. In
fact, Jordan has one of the most widely recognized tourism options. One of the most
successful example of eco-lodges in the world is located in Dana Biosphere Reserve in the
Southern part of the country. Jordan is a destination for both outdoor enthusiasts and
culturists interested in the Middle East. Thus, ecotourism has the potential to be the main
economic driving point, especially among the Bedouin community because of their close
interaction with the natural environment of Jordan. Since Jordan is a sustainable tourism
industry, it can exemplify Jordan’s rich heritage to curious travelers. This study aims to
understand whether the tourism activity in Wadi Rum has negative impacts on the
preservation of the Bedouin culture. Examining the economic and environmental impacts
alongside the cultural and social elements, the effects are evident. Is it possible that because
of rising interaction between Bedouin population and foreigners, the Bedouins have
become more accustomed to the Western world? Are the Bedouins straying away from
their traditional roots due to foreign contact? (Haddad, 2013).
Tourism to the Arabian region has long been encouraged by the visitors desire to experience adventure, unveil the mysterious, seek escape, or live the Western fantasy about the East. Images of camels in the tourism industry have played a significant role in propagating the traditional perceptions of the Arabic region in the mind of the Western tourist. Camels, the ancient ships of the desert, play a vital role in keeping such traditional visions alive. This article will discuss camel trekking in Jordan’s desert areas as a unique tourism experience to those who are attracted by the Oriental flair of camel trekking in the deserts of the East.
This exploration is qualitative in nature and is based on the observation of participants and conversations with numerous tourists during the past years. This study will explore the possibility of marketing Jordan’s most attractive tourist destinations successfully by addressing the tourists’ oriental fancies about the region in general and the desert in particular.
In early 2001, the Jordanian Ministry of Awqâf1 and Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities endorsed a new branch of tourism: Islamic tourism. This new policy has economic, cultural and religious dimensions, and targets Muslim as well as Westerner tourists. It focuses on promoting visitation of the newly rebuilt mausoleums of the pre-Islamic prophets and the Companions of Prophet Muhammad all over the territory and specifically along the Jordan Valley. This article argues that Islamic tourism is noteworthy for the way it reveals the politics heritage in Jordan. Patrimony, heritage and religious archaeology are being used politically in the context of the development of Islamic tourism. They are used by the Jordanian government and by the Hashemite regime to give a specific representation of the Jordanian Islamic history. In this case, history is being recast to present Jordan and its Monarchy as central actors in Islamic history and as preferential representatives in terms of diplomacy and international relations especially with the Western countries.
This paper examines the process of incorporating the Bedouin of Petra and Wadi Rum in Jordan on UNESCO’s list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005. The author focuses on the Bedouin tribes around Petra, who were resettled in villages when UNESCO proclaimed the area part of the tangible heritage of humanity in 1985. Heritage is approached as a ‘process of assembling’ that emerges from the interactions of social entities operating on a smaller scale. By focusing on these entities’ various discourses about Bedouin heritage that are included in the reports and applications to UNESCO, it is argued that through the process of proclaiming intangible heritage, cultural categories are formulated so as to fit into contemporary imaginations, longings and settlement policies. Investigating the process of heritage inscription reveals the multiple, and at times contradictory, discourses that undergird the production of particular images of Bedouin culture through heritage institutions that interlock, rather than harmonise, them.
Il y a quelques années encore, la majorité des enquêtes sociologiques ou économiques portant sur les sociétés pastorales nomades des confins sahariens aux steppes du Proche-Orient en passant par le Sinaï égyptien s’appliquaient à décrire la fin du mode de vie nomade et les processus de sédentarisation de ces populations du désert. S’il s’agit encore d’évaluer une dynamique de changement, les travaux les plus récents portant sur les sociétés pastorales tribales tendent à remettre en perspectiv...
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