Endless Summer

By way of explanation:

I have chosen a surf camp at G-Land, in E. Java, Indonesia as an example of the way Western tourism impacts on the 3^rd world for a number of reasons:

· It is a single purpose destination (ie no reasons for being there except surfing)

· It is set in a national park (implications of nature preservation etc)

· It is difficult to reach

· Is geared solely towards Western surfers who have a 20+year association with G-land

· It is comparatively expensive (in Indonesian terms)

· I have a personal connection with the camps (on 2^nd level)

· I am a surfer and recognise the mythical aspects of the place, specifically in terms of quantity and quality of surf

I am using 3 themes to investigate the issues surrounding G-land as a representative of specialised 3^rd World tourism.

· Mobilities

· Imaginative Pleasure Seeking

· Construction of the Reality

(I could equally have chosen hiking in the Himalayas, caving in Borneo, white water rafting in India, mountaineering, skiing….)

Mobilities

Movement of surfing around the world:

· Originally exclusively ancient Hawaiian sport (sport of kings)

· Noted by Cook

· Introduced to world by Duke Kahanamoku, a renowned Olympic swimmer and leading member of original Hawaiian “beach boy” culture in early 20^th century (pre & post WW1)

· Travelled to Australia & California on way to Olympics giving both swimming & surfing demonstrations, and making traditional surfboards.

· Soon picked up and popularised in both countries

Movement of Surfers around world:

· Hawaii immediately surfing “Mecca” attracting Californian surfers in particular – expansion of ‘beach boy” culture to include non – Hawaiians.

· Surfers visit other “beach culture countries (eg NZ and S Africa) where surfing catches on

· Californian surfers visit Mexico – start of idea of surfing safari

· Growth of travel & communications enables surfers to travel to “exotic” parts of globe in quest for perfect surf break (inc C America, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and eventually S Pacific)

· Boat/yacht trips to remote surf breaks commercialised (eg Mentawi Is)

· Latest phase spread to wild, inhospitable reefs and inaccessible coastline, usually cold and very dangerous, by boats and jet skis to tow in to huge waves. (eg Caitlans/Foveaux Strait, S Tasmania, and reefs and banks up to 100km from shore – Cortez Bank)

Spread of Mediated Representations of Surfing

· 1960s TV shows loosely based round surf culture (eg Gidget) glamourised surfing, often in a roguish way

· Ride the Wild Surf TV show highlighted surfing as a sport, particularly in Hawaii

· “Endless Summer” 1966 introduced notion of surf safari to surfing mainstream

· Start of surfing magazines exposed surfing to wider audience and introduced stylised fashions and behaviours to subculture

· 1971 “Morning of the Earth” introduced Indonesia as surfing destination

· Huge growth in numbers of magazines, movies, and start of world-wide surf competitions

· www – shrinking of world and spread of surf based information – locations, conditions, personalities, fashion

Imaginative Pleasure Seeking

Term comes from MacCannell “The Tourist” 1979. Used to describe the internalisation of what is known through different sources (esp anecdotal & hearsay) about a destination, and the creation of an idealised vision of what it will be like. Often this expectation is not met.

Creation of the Myth

Stories brought back by visiting surfers from Indonesia

· warm water

· perfect waves

· never flat

· no crowds or localism

· exotic setting (palm trees and jungle)

· foreign but non threatening

· cheap

· good drugs

· cheap women

created the social myth among surfers that Indonesia, & G-Land in particular was surf nirvana. Matched idealised “hippy” or wandering nomad lifestyle popular in 70’s

Role of Exotic

Again stories from visitors, as well as images in media, especially surf movies, highlighted the “exotic” nature of Indonesia.

Images of

· bustling SE Asian life

· fishing villages

· strange boats

· smiling Asian faces

· unusual fruits and foods

all contributed to the appeal of Indonesia as a destination.

Add the remoteness and surrounding jungle of G-Land to the mix, and when combined with the stories of the most perfect surf break in the world, the attraction becomes irresistible.

Perpetuation of the Myth

In the myth the surf is never flat and always uncrowded, there are beautiful bikini clad women sunbathing on the pristine white sandy beaches, and the whole camp is just one big party.

This vision is perpetuated through:

· “Traditional” methods (word of mouth, mediated images)

· The internet (inc. surfing web sites, surf camp advertising, surfers blogs)

· WWW has enabled many wannabe visitors to check out G-Land camps (in it’s mediated version/vision) before booking on-line (even to the microscopic detail of swell forecasts and tide charts for the region)

· Advertising images (particularly surf-wear companies)

· “The Quicksilver Search” competition, which highlight both the exotic nature of the location, and the high quality of the waves

· Souvenirs, particularly photographs and videos, bought from the surf camp photographer, of the surfers in action. Of course the only evidence they return with are the bits that reinforce their own self identity as skilled surfers (and by association, reinforce the myth of surf perfection)

Construction of the Reality

Western Culture transferred to the 3^rd World

The surf camps at G-Land are an island of Western culture surrounded by an exotic, but ‘hostile’ environment.

They are a good example of what Urry describes as liminality, where the tourist is removed from the familiar, and “trapped” in a limited time and space.

This “island” is in reality however, only a simulation of Western culture, where only “relevant” parts have been transferred to the jungle of E Java.

The “complete infrastructure” that the advertisements on the web proclaim, are really no more than attempts by the camp owners to insure that their patrons will return for repeat visits. They have associated the liminal space with the desires of the surfer. This in a n odd way is counter to the appeal of the exotic that was used as part of the strategy to attract the surfers there.

Typically Western comforts include:

· Satellite TV

· Internet

· Air conditioning

· Modes of transport

· Food

· Furniture…

And recreational activities (primarily surfing) but also beer drinking, pool playing, even sunbathing.

Western Cultural influences on 3^rd World

Hierarchical relationships between tourists and workers and other “standard” issues around this topic inc deferral of workers to tourists, seasonal nature of work, foreign ownership and non-local management of the camps…

Other more issues specific to the camps include:

· Western dress as norm for Javanese workers

· Western food and alcohol use by workers

· TV and movies – predominance of western programmes for workers viewing

· Disruption to family life – workers absent from families for months at a time

· Rubbish and its disposal

· Impact of camp on wildlife

Other Issues

There are several other issues that sit side-by-side with my 3 themes.

Among these are:

· Neo-tribalism – surfing subculture – establishment of norms of behaviour

· Gender – role of women within sub-culture – attitudes toward women

· Pro-poor and eco tourism issues inc.

o Exploration/development of other possible tourist activities

o Monopoly of G-Land tourism by outsiders

o 3^rd World power structures

· Cultural Imperialism/21^st Century colonisation

The Nervous Gaze - Imaginative Pleasure Seeking in Africa

I am current reading McCannell (The Tourist) and Urry (The Tourist Gaze) so they’re influencing my opinion in an unfinished way…
The Dark Continent
Africa, home of the mighty lion and all the other amazing animals of the safari parks and jungles, wild and exotic Africa…but there is another, more wild, more unpredictable and more fearsome creature lurking in the shadows, waiting for his moment to pounce…the black African!
The Western mediascapes that portray Africa as the exotic and dangerous continent reinforce the 1st Worlds structural racial bias (racism) towards the 3rd World.
A continent full of black Africans, all looking the same – where a poor tourist is unable to tell the good from the bad by looking them in the eye!
All we ever (want to) hear are the stories of civil wars, famine, AIDS - and very attractively, of animals to gaze upon, to consume, like valuable pieces of art, their value heightened by threats of extinction…
Africa, where the tourists’ imaginative pleasure seeking, the anticipatory dream of exotic adventures, comes crashing to the ground, and the terrified tourist finds themselves holed up, gazing nervously out of the (secured) windows at the real Africa that surrounds them.
Into liminal places of safety they are herded by their tourist guides, trapped by their own fears, and by the fearful/thrilling anecdotes of the revolving participants who reinforce and perpetuate the Africa myth.
Where if they escape, it is via the safety of the Safari tour, the next imaginative pleasure, the one that will surely meet all of its promises, the one that will make up for the failings of the last…
Escape on a bus where notions of self superiority and privilege reign. A bus where the tourist gaze drifts vacantly, through hang-over and boredom, out of the windows, where the plains of the Serengeti become merely transition points as they move from one campfire sing-along to the next.
A bus that when it does stop, disgorges scantily clad young things, who race around the village snapping photos of everything they deem necessary, and buying coca cola and cigarettes, and reinforcing notions of servitude, and exposing ethnically reconstructed villagers to the vagaries of western capitalism.
Tourists, who when they (finally) do get home and are re-established in the mundainity of their lives, entertain their families with their tales of their adventures in Africa, of their encounters with the dark and fearful continent, adventures recalled and reconstructed to ensure that their authenticity is beyond doubt, and to prove just how intrepid they really are.

Pro-Poor Tourism

Tourism in the 3rd World is often fraught with difficulties.
Corrupt power structures reinforce the inequalities within many regions, with the poor having little or no possibility to improve their life situation.
The notion of tourism as a vehicle for raising the living standards of the poor, is well meaning, if a little naive and misguided.
I find it hard to imagine that those in power will relinquish their grip, especially if they are ceding power to those they currently oppress.
The pictures tell a thousand words....

Mobility, Immobility and Moorings

Mobility theory seems to be the new flavour of Sociological thinking as a way to (attempt to) explain the way the world operates.

What follows is my response to the opening article in what appears to be a Sociological journal.

Some of what I say may make little sense without the article that I am responding to, but I'm sure my Sociology colleagues will know what I'm getting at.... Whether they agree or not is a matter of (their) opinion, which I'd love to hear.

As there seems to be no on-line component to our course, and as I work in on-line education, I figured that maybe we could be subversive and start our own little community where we can discuss things and clarify any issues/problems we might be experiencing.

I think we can learn a great deal off each other - we just need to swallow our pride and put what we're thinking out there for others to bounce off. Fell free to post your thoughts and responses on this blog. Feel equally free to either post what you've submitted here, or to set up your own blog (its so easy - Blogger.com) and post them there.

I'm happy to co-ordinate the links so we can all get to each others site if necessary.

So I guess I'm first!

Mobilities, Immobilities and Moorings

First thoughts first…

I was a little disappointed when I first realised what the term ‘Mobilities’ has come to represent - Sociology’s attempt to label (compartmentalise?) the paradimic changes that are occurring around our increasingly digitised world seemed a tad anti-climactic.

Having come from a past infatuation with Baudrillard and notions of ‘Hyper-reality’, I guess I was expecting something far more (melo)dramatic, a term that encompassed 21^st Century attempts to address the rapidly evolving social change that is spiralling us towards who knows where…. Post-hyper-super real-virtualised phenomenology or such….

But really a name is purely a symbol, (Barthes?) and as such in some ways (im)mobilities kind of suits.

Sociology’s analysis (visions) of a world that moves in the physical and linear, or at least in a comprehensible way, frantically getting faster and wider, seems to avoid issues of the hyper-super real and virtualised.

Is this where sociology is heading I wondered? Is it really stuck in an immobility of its own making?

As I read on I became a little more at ease, assuming that this piece was a simple overview, and that my decade long lack of engagement with sociological theory and my natural cynicism were taking my thoughts down a creepy path that I could not really follow. I am only too willing to admit to my lack of knowledge, and that I am currently uninformed and un(der)prepared to really make these assertions. For now these thoughts stay on the back burner.

Anyway…(briefly)

Until reading this article, I had never thought of what Urry et al term illicit mobilities. Well not the physical types at least. Being a digital worker, I am constantly aware of computer viruses and the like, but notions of diseases and terrorism, drugs and arms smuggling and human slavery as involving concepts of mobility, while completely obvious, had escaped my consideration. I guess that in some ways I’m climbing back over the digital fence and re-examining the analogue world with a new set of eyes (thanks I think!)

The concept of increased mobility being dependent on ever increasing levels of infrastructure is an interesting dialectic. More concrete forms of place to increase more elastic forms of space. The real to foster the hyper-real!

I really enjoyed how this applies to concepts of the nation state and the example used of the airport as a trial or experiment for technologies that may (will) be deployed into the 21^st Century social cosmos.

I was fascinated about discussion around 9-11. (Interesting for a start how 3 numbers have come to signify such a huge change in how the world does business.)

As well as the obvious(?) issues around ease of movement, security and terrorism that were raised, what I particularly enjoyed was the thinking that this article generated in me around the movement of physical place into the realms of hyper-reality. For 24 hours the networked world (read that as you will) became New York. While we all watched in (mediated) horror as the events unfolded from the comforts of our homes, it was as if every one of us lived there, in the midst of this tragedy, as if we could all look out the window and see the planes and smell the smoke and that it was our city, our reality. The hyper-real completely invaded our physical space!

Incidentally, the concept of time also evaporated into the ether.

There is also something about the role of memory and nostalgia involved too, I’m thinking, but quite how it all fits together I’m not too sure (yet).

The acknowledgement by the authors of the fluid nature of research around the notion of mobility, I find heartening, to say the least.

There really are a number of issues, particularly centred on the digital world, (teleconferencing, file sharing, facebook, second life to name but a few) that need to be addressed in more depth. (maybe they are?) The issue of virtual space and movement within it was barely touched on in the article apart from the moorings concept. I’m guessing that a lot more has been written around this issue, and it is an area that personally appeals to me.

I struggle to find relevance in the notion that disasters, both natural and man-made are catalysts to the evolution of mobility systems and found the piece on the hurricanes particularly challenging. To me the (scandalous) governmental response to this disaster reeked particularly badly of class and race issues rather than of issues around access to mobility and immobility (ice trucks driving around America like headless chickens – really?)

Also in the forefront of my attention were the hyper-real fictions (mediated stories?) of the murders, of the raped children in the toilets, of the dead and dying being left where they lay in the football stadium, which re-emphasised the preconceptions that have been generated about poor black humans (not just American, but throughout the entire world) and spun by a complicit media industry to their voracious consumers.

I feel to talk about mobility in this situation cheapens the whole argument and in some ways reinforces the constructed fiction.

However the effects of 9-11 on the field of surveillance, intelligence gathering other security issues is undisputed, and fully impacts on the mobility and its gatekeepers and as such in some ways makes a meal of my previous argument!

Anyway…

I have (re)caught the sociological bug.

The article was enjoyable and I’m pleased that I can see and start to understand the issues around this concept. As I said previously, I’m disappointed at the name choice, and am hopeful that issues around the cyber are being more fully investigated.

I find the notion of mobility interesting – so much of the world can be explained in part at least by the concept, but like all things post-modern, there are no meta-narratives, and most explanations as to how and why things are as they are, come in varying shades of grey.

Welcome to The Deep End

Well I could resist no longer.....
Three good reasons to blog - kinda like the 3 strikes policy
1. Te Kete Papaho - what I expect of you I do myself...
2. DIL Project - if it's good enough for you then it's good enough for me - and I'm bound to learn something....
3. Sociology 732 - might be interesting to get some other opinions to contribute to the discourse...

A little background for those not in the loop
There are 3 strands to life as a learner for me
My role as a tutor of Technology within Te Kete Papaho (Maori Media)
As an advisor on the Digital Information Literacy Project
and finally as a student of Sociology in the Tourism and Heritage BAHons programme.

Welcome to you all
I hope this blog is used as some weird hybrid meeting ground between these 3 disparate groups. My goal is to find some form of common ground that will generate a sharing of knowledge, understandings and beliefs.
Tena koutou
Tena koutou
Tena koutou katoa