Consuming the tourist gaze: imaginative geographies and the reproduction of sexuality in lugu lake

Abstract

Imaginative geographies engage with the understanding and experiencing of place and place-based social and cultural specificities through a process of re-creation and reproduction. In this article, we explore the imaginative geographies of Lugu Lake, a tourist destination in China's Yunnan Province, and of the Mosuo people, the local minority which practices a unique marriage system. We investigate how Mosuo society has been imagined in popular discourses and representations through two cultural labels: matriarchy and free sex. We also discuss how the imaginative geographies of Lugu Lake have restructured the encounters between the local people, especially the young men, and the incoming tourists in the context of tourism development. We interrogate the complex processes of identity formation in which both the tourists and the indigenous people renegotiate and reconstruct their cultural identities within various inside-outside connections and interactions. Our central argument is that the sex encounters between tourists and the local Mosuo are conditioned by popular imaginative geographies of the sexual practices of the Mosuo. But the encounter in tourism between the gazer and the gazed also accommodates complex identity formations and the renegotiation of social relations. The empirical observations are twofold: first, the locality of Lugu Lake has been reproduced with folk and tourist imaginative geographies into an erotic frontier of free sex; second, we also argue that the geographical imagination in this case is a reciprocal process which involves the local Mosuo's renegotiation of place-based identity, in a pursuit of imagined progress and modernity.

Charting the development of social and cultural geography in Mainland China: voices from the inside*

“…In contrast, Tang, Qian, and Chen (2011) show that for Hani people in Yunnan Province, the reconfiguration of the routines and customs in ethnic festivals is not imposed by local elite, but a collective initiative towards economic development. Qian, Wei, and Zhu's (2012) and Wei, Zhu, and Tang's (2011) studies in Lugu Lake, an ethnic community inhabited by Mosuo people and characterized by a huge inflow of Han Chinese tourists, show that young local males reinforce their masculine identity and experience a degree of symbolic empowerment through romantic encounters with female tourists. Similarly, Chen, Ma, and Zhang (2008) point out that the commodification of ethnic dancing in Xishuangbanna does not necessarily lead to the annihilation of a distinct Dai identity.…”

“…Du, Chen, and Zhu 2011;Qian, Wei, and Zhu 2012). Finally, even though many studies in urban social geography focus on economic marginality and social inequality, few express a strong moral conviction or make explicit reference to the unequal structures of social power.…”

Indigenous tourism research, past and present: where to from here?

“…Moreover, since the early 1990s, domestic tourism in Yunnan has increased to 120 million annual domestic visitors (PATA, 2014) who are provided with the opportunity to enjoy Indigenous-themed amusement parks set up by entrepreneurial investors, staffed mostly by Indigenous groups but owned by people from the Han Chinese majority (PATA, 2014, p. 21). Not surprisingly then, in more recent years, the foci of papers from both China and Taiwan have been on Indigenous tourism and entrepreneurship alongside other issues including impacts, management and sustainability (Chang & Huang, 2014;Chang, Wall, & Hung, 2012;Chen, Lee, Chen, & Chen, 2013;Huang, 2013;Hunter, 2011Hunter, , 2013Hunter, , 2014Liao, 2011;Ma & Lew, 2012;Qian, Wei, & Zhu, 2012;Tsung-Chiung, Chyong-Ru, & Wan-Chen 2012;Voeller, 2011;Walle, 2011;Yang, 2011Yang, , 2012Yang, , 2013Yang, Ryan, & Zhang, 2013a, 2013bYi-fong, 2012), issues of authenticity and commodification (Wang & Wall, 2007;Xie, 2010;Xie & Lane, 2006;Yang & Wall, 2009a, 2009b, policy and planning (Li, 2004;Su & Teo, 2008;Xie, 2003;Yang, Wall, & Smith, 2008) and culture and development (Chow, 2005;Morais, Dong, & Yang, 2006;Xiong, Ding, Deng, & Zhang, 2008;Yamamura, 2003;, 2009a.…”

Travelling ethics: Valuing harmony, habitat and heritage while consuming people and places

“…There is a veritable cottage (or bamboo house amongst the Mosuo on Lake Lugu (Shih, 2009) are romanticised into a vision of Arcadian free love that leads to tea houses with sexualised names selling the possibility of a sexual encounter (Qian et al, 2012;Walsh, 2005). Visits to Mosuo houses are now often hosted by Han women in Mosuo clothes (Yang, 2012) and in 'folk villages' the workers are often a mix of minorities and Han performers (Yang, 2011).…”