Paige Raibmon, Authentic Indians: Episodes of Encounter from the Late-Nineteenth Century Northwest Coast, Intro and Chapters 1, 2, 3.
Laura Briggs, "Mother, Child, Race, Nation: The Visual Iconography of Rescure and the Politics of Transnational and Transracial Adoption," Gender and History Vol. 15, August 2003.
Walter Little, Mayas in the Marketplace: Tourism, Globalization, and Cultural Identity, Chapter 1 "Guatemala as a Living History Museum"
1. Both Little and Raibmon emphasize the role of performance/spectacle/entertainment in the building of a (false) sense of authenticity. Can something be considered authentic by an outsider or audience without some level of performance? How important is the link between capitalism, consumerism, performance and this so-called "authenticity"?
ReplyDelete2. On page 38, Raibmon observes that "the impossibility of reproducing normal or ordinary conditions did not deter Putnam and other organizers, however, because what they were really attempting to create was not something normal in the sense of the everyday, as much as something they considered authentic." How does this quotation relate to what we discussed about public history and heritage? Is there always a danger in the creation of living history museums, pioneer villages, history/tourism sites that the "organizers" will project their conception of what is authentic on to the exhibits? What does Raibmon intend by "normal in the sense of the everyday"; and how does it fit into our conception of living history museums?
3. Briggs emphasizes the importance of images in constructing racialized and rescue-oriented notions of adoption, and we've read lots of other examples of photographs serving to foster a certain imagining of colonial spaces and peoples. Could the same emotional links be created with another medium? Are images inherently open to appropriation by particular groups/causes, and subsequent (mis)interpretation?
1. In her discussion on Save the Children, Briggs argues that the organization "privatized" their mission to avoid association with Bolshevism, while still talking, in a sanitized way, about poverty and/or inequality. Is the notion of "charity" essential to Cold War American anti-Communism? How far could the discourse of charity go? How much could one talk about policy, for example, before venturing too far into the realm of politics? How structural could a charity's analysis get?
ReplyDelete2. Little explains how, for some tourists, preconceived notions of Maya cultural purity are ruptured by exposure to present-day economic, social and cultural realities. What encourages those tourists who 'know better' to continue to travel? Escapism? Irony? Self-education?
(b) For those who do not experience this "rupture", what is it that enables people to "look at but not see"? (Wexler, 56)
3. Why do tourism, empire and/or 'capitalist society' (Wexler, 8) seem to privilege the visual? Are "spectacle" and "surveillance" (Wexler, 9) restricted to images? What about other sensory records? (A sound recording, for example). Does a written record have the same impact as an image?
1. Raibmon looks at the Canada exhibitions at the Chicago World's Fair. On one hand, she looks at how the focus on residential schooling in Canadian exhibits "was typical of Canada's self-conscious impulse to compare itself to the United States," the effect of which was that American visitors saw British methods as gentler than American ones. (43) On the other hand, the agricultural exhibitions sparked debate about the American annexation of the Canadian west. Agriculture and residential schools were largely taking place in the same geographical area, but sparked vastly different results. What about agriculture (rather than the intimacies of residential schools, for example,) would create this sweeping desire for imperialist movements?
ReplyDelete2. Little quickly looks at the structural characteristics of living history museums- entrances, sites within the space, safe havens, etc. I can't help but think of Raibmon's description of one of Putnam's anthropological exhibits. Native Canadians and Americans from vastly disparate tribes were lined up in succession, beginning with Inuit peoples and ending with Yucatan ruins. Can this highly structured exhibit be considered living history?
1. From these readings it appears that tourists understand the 'authentic' to be anything separate and contrasting with the modern. What are the contemporary (and historical) implications for understanding cultures as static and in the past? How does this understanding of authenticity on the part of the tourist influence how another culture is 'consumed'?
ReplyDelete2. Raibmon examines the Chicago World's Fair as a Theatre of Contact. How does this understanding of contact relate with the "contact zone" definitions from last week's readings? What changes when these contact zones simultaneously become spaces of performance?
1. In her introduction, Raibmon speaks of the grey whale hunt that infuriated Western onlookers, and later of the potlatch and hamat'sa (Raibmon, 23-24). However, what are we to make of our own cultural rituals? For instance, what of the contemporary tradition of young Western intellectuals venturing away from their family and community, accumulating tens of thousands - if not hundreds, in some cases - dollars in debt and then viciously competing against the newly established friends and academic communities for a scant few positions of prestige and survival? Symbolically, we could argue that this represents a ritual that combines sacrifice, thrift, diligence, dedication and independence - all cultural virtues that the West traditionally prides itself on. Would it not be difficult to imagine that non-Western outsiders, once informed of such practices, may be aghast at how our system dehumanizes, divides community, alienates and seems statistically prone to failure?
ReplyDelete2. Drawing upon Casey's first point, is there a consensus upon the manufacture of the "aura of authentic" within the audience or the observer? In essence, is not much of the debate surrounding "authenticity" not also a debate over what is largely commodified memory?
3. Reflecting upon this weeks readings - in particular Little's - does international tourism necessarily facilitate the "Othering" of visited locations and spaces? Why or why not?
4. Little relates an anecdote about a tourist asking for information about a lake, only to be informed through what was essentially Americanized short-hand that neglected the actual geographical reality (Little, 44). Was this practice a useful tool to bridge to the unknown, and make it less alien? Or could this merely be a dangerously flattening tool that draws upon hegemonic customs that ignore local traditions and cultural?
When talking about state fairs, Raibon suggested that the organizers presented information with the hope that people would know the truth when they saw it. Visual input is one of the most powerful ways with which we take in information as human beings, so it is not hard to understand why state fairs would present a powerful opportunity to display state propaganda. Wexler, when talking about domestic pictures, says they are visual tableaus. They are set up on purpose to display a certain message. With the changing ways in which we attain information (ex. seeing online photos vs actually going to a museum), is it possible that pictures serve the function today that state fairs served in the past?
ReplyDeleteIf we keep building on this notion of images doing what state fairs did in the past, what role does reality tv play in this process? How would shows like Jersey Shore, or the Hills, create an 'authentic' recreation of American life, for veiwers in other countries?
When looking at images of children and mothers to gain a sympathetic eye, can it be constructed as 'nice capitalism'? If in capitalism, some consumers can come to terms with exploiting children for labour, how different is it to exploit their images for charity? Do we not do the same thing as students when we try and make ourselves look poor so we can receive more university funding? Is using the image of the poor child a capitalist scheme of misrepresentation that benefits the child?
Wexler writes, “I have written this book in the belief that close, attentive readings of historical photographs can restore a certain degree of voice and context to bearers of historical knowledge who may have been hidden or repressed. But what I offer throughout are solely my own readings…..Perspectives on photographs, as on history, differ from individual to individual (57)”. Understanding that the book is solely Wexler’s own readings of photographs and that perspectives of photos differ from individual to individual, can we ascertain that the ‘voice and context of historical knowledge’ is solely that of the photographers? If so how can this medium be an accurately restore the voice and context of the hidden or repressed?
ReplyDeleteDid photography actually provide an opportunity for transculturation, as Vizenor argues in Wexlers work, or does the act of posing and becoming “an object in order to be a subject”(201) make this medium strictly a way one exchange ultimately orchestrated by the photographer?
1. Something notably absent from Raibmon's writing was any reference to the work of Eric Hobsbawm i.e. 'invention' of tradition for the purposes of national legitimization. If we combine Raibmon's analysis with Hobsbawm, what do we make of the inclusion of aboriginal 'tradition' in the opening ceremonies of last years' Olympics in Vancouver? How much of that was 'authentic'? How much was overtly staged? How much agency, if any, do we think aboriginal communities had in that process?
ReplyDelete2. Working from Wexler's notion of the 'innocent eye,' and building on one of Lorne's questions, can contemporary tourists' photographs be placed in the same category as those of 19th century female photographers? Tourists are often seen to be apolitical and take pictures solely for the purposes of personal memory rather than public distribution. Do we think Wexler would find them more or less offensive for these reasons?
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ReplyDeleteIs there a model of tourism that satisfies Little’s concerns? Are there practical problems that limit the ability for agencies to satisfactorily engage with contemporary issues while maintaining necessary ties to the ruling government?
ReplyDeleteRaibmon captures our attention with a vivid description of the spectacle of the aboriginal performance at the World’s Fair, but leaves us without context and deeper understanding until chapter three. Is this a deliberate decision to delay our understanding? I was left uncertain about what I had just read after that paragraph. Like many in the audience I questioned if what was described was real or deception. Does a claim that such an act was subversive require us to consider its ability to interpreted as such by the audience?
Briggs situates her 'rescue' critique of Madonna/waif photos in relation to Cold War foreign policy initiatives of the US in the 1950s. But has anything really changed? Doesn't the US still consider itself to be a rescuer of less developed countries?
ReplyDeleteRabimon and Briggs emphasize the colonialist aspects reflected in their subjects - the Indians being 'civilized' by the Canadian government and the US 'rescuing' foreign orphans. Does this colonizing attitude reflect at all in Little's work on tourism in Guatemala? Can these tourists (primarily American, it seems) be seen as colonizers?
1.In the Little article, he tells the story of a tourist woman taking pictures of his daughter and how she viewed it as her right to take those pictures. This leads me to wonder, would Little argue that every time we photograph people of a different culture, nation, region, we are necessarily framing them within a specific historical/cultural/temporal space? Are we performing the same kind of creation of the 'real' world as those who design living history museums?
ReplyDelete2.Little argues that "The primary vendors tended to be females dressed in colourful huipiles. They were considered the practitioners of Indian or Maya culture..." (62). Why are women so often seen as the harbingers and/or representatives of 'traditional' culture?How can we connect this assumption with the desire to control intimate spaces within the Imperial project? How does this connect to the assumption raised in Raibmon's work that the mobility of kwakwaka'wakw women must be associated with prostitution and immorality (25)? How does this help to reveal the dangers of the "language of protection" (Raibmon, 26)?
3. A central theme to this week's readings is the importance of 'authenticity' in upholding the utopic vision of native people and/or foreign spaces. Raibmon's discussion of the Chicago World's Fair provides an interesting example of this exposition of 'authentic' native lifestyle in a form that Little would call the living history museum. What does it say about the colonial mission that while some Natives seem to be open to incorporating new technologies and skills in order to adapt to their changing environment (ie. the use of wool since the intro. of sheep by the Spanish, the desire for formal education and literacy in english)tourists and colonists alike vehemently reject any notion of cultural amalgamation? Does a culture or people need to be static in order for it to be authentic?
1. In the introduction to Authentic Indians, Raibman argues that colonizers had a shared understanding of authenticity and that Indian authenticity was defined as the antithesis to inauthenticity. Is this binary too stark? Does Raibmon lose some nuance in her description of the colonizers understanding of indianess when she sets it up this way?
ReplyDelete2. Briggs' article makes some very solid points regarding the ideology of US foreign policy and how it was and is understood domestically. Her point that photos "madonna and child" in nature position whites a "rescuers" and therefore protect western governments against taking any responsibility for the condition that led to the hunger and poverty that they depict, are vaild to be sure. I just wonder though, how fair is it to criticize groups like UNICEF for using these photos when she explains that they work to further the organizations causes. I guess what i'm asking is- did and do international aid groups bear some of the responsibility that Briggs argues is obstructed by the photos? If not, is the criticism fair?