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Becoming ‘local tourists’

Travel, landscapes and identity in Papua New Guinea

University of Canterbury, New Zealand

This article questions the distinctiveness of hosts and guests, and blurs the boundaries between a commitment to established relationships and an emergent modern tourist identity among Biangai travelers in Papua New Guinea. As a result of colonial pacification, the Biangai increasingly experience the nation as travelers, while at the same time welcoming gold miners, researchers and eco-tourists to their mid-montane forests and wildlife management areas. When they travel, young men often stylize themselves as ‘local tourist’. Here, I examine what appear to be two ‘traditional’ trips -one for a redistributive feast, and another for a marriage ceremony -where expectations of commensurability, exchange, friendships, and some sort of shared space are not met. As travelers and tourists, the Biangai reveal a different gaze from those commonly associated with international tourists.

Key Words: authenticity • identity • indigenous tourism • landscape feasts • Papua New Guinea

Tourist Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, 99-117 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1468797606071471


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