Barbarians in India. Tourism as moral contamination

Natalia Bloch

Annals of Tourism Research, 2017, vol. 62, issue C, 64-77

Abstract: This anthropological study demonstrates how the interplay between international tourism and religious nationalism may be used by postcolonial elites against host communities. An anti-colonial, Occidentalist discourse of tourism as moral contamination has been employed by Hindu religious leaders to encourage and legitimise “spatial cleansing” of the Indian village of Hampi, which is both a UNESCO site and a Hindu holy land. Discursive condemnation of tourism as an invasion of barbarians destroying local culture has not actually targeted the tourists – as outsiders who are beyond the local Hindu frame of reference – but rather tourism service providers. A sedentarist perspective, associating displacement with cultural loss and commercial activity with capitalist immorality, has been employed in this process of Othering.

Keywords: Hampi; UNESCO World Heritage Site; Tourism in India; Religious nationalism; Postcolonial theory; Occidentalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:anture:v:62:y:2017:i:c:p:64-77

DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2016.12.001

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