Hell is other people? An existential-phenomenological analysis of the local gaze in tourism

Abstract

The "Gaze" is a complex and overarching phenomenon comprised of diverse "Gazers" and "Gazees". This paper adopts an existential-phenomenological perspective to understand tourists' lived experiences of being gazed upon by local people. Based on thirty experiences collected from interviews with ten participants, we show that experiencing the "Local Gaze" exposes the tourist as Sartrean "Tourist-esque": an inauthentic experiencer of positivity, discrimination, alienation and self-consciousness. Moments of true human connections are at best ephemeral. Through an existentialist lens, the study questions the possibility of authentic host-guest relationship in tourism and argues that to maintain hopes for an authentic relationship, the concepts of "Gaze" and-perhaps even of "Tourism"-need to be transcended.

‘The smell of death and the smell of life’: authenticity, anxiety and perceptions of death at Varanasi’s cremation grounds

“…Thus, the findings of this research suggest that anxiety serves as a reminder when a perceived sense of self is challenged prompting one to reclaim her/his personal value system (Heidegger, 1982). These findings thereby lend support to the growing body of literature in tourism that recognizes the dialectical of authenticity, alienation (Rickly-Boyd, 2013a) and the anxiety that accompanies the process of realizing 'self' (Brown, 2013;Kirillova et al, 2017;Shepherd, 2015;Vidon & Rickly, 2018;Wassler & Kirillova, 2019).…”

“…Research on the experiential aspects of authenticity has garnered considerable attention in the last decade. While Bruner (1991) describes tourists' desire for self-transformation through an encounter with 'authentic' cultures, more recently scholars examine the ways tourists understand authentic experiences and their own Being while on holiday (Belhassen, Caton, & Stewart, 2008;Brown, 2013;Buchmann, Moore, & Fisher, 2010;Kim & Jamal, 2007;Kirillova et al, 2016Kirillova et al, , 2017Rickly-Boyd, 2012b, 2013bVidon & Rickly, 2018;Wang, 1999;Wassler & Kirillova, 2019). Existential authenticity refers to an experience that involves a sense of self identity activated by the liminality of tourism and informed by both interpersonal (family ties, communitas) and intrapersonal dimensions (bodily feelings, self-making) (Wang, 1999).…”

Gaze and tourist-host relationship – state of the art

“…The tourist-initiated gaze is defined as how tourists perceive other stakeholders' perceptions and behaviors as well as the presentation and consumption of symbols at destinations (Edensor, 2000;Everett, 2008). It has also been interpreted as a performance of the genuine curiosity of tourists (Wassler and Kirillova, 2019), representing a visual and immersive experience (Haldrup and Larsen, 2003;Ong and Du Cros, 2012;Yang et al, 2017). Social encounters between tourists, locals and other tourists endow a sense of competence and pleasure with tourists' experiences (Chhabra, 2010;Everett, 2008;Moufakkir, 2011;Perkins and Thorns, 2001).…”

“…The local gaze shifts the subject from the tourists to the hosts, mainly reviewing the extreme images hosts have of tourists and how these affect their attitudes and behaviors toward tourists (Maoz, 2006;Wassler and Kirillova, 2019). This gaze impacts the tourist/host encounter in a subtler manner since most tourists are hardly aware of it (Stone and Nyaupane, 2019).…”

“…Hosts respond to tourists' gaze in three ways. First, locals observe tourists' appearance and behaviors (Canziani and Francioni, 2013), then tag them as outsiders with tell-tale features, such as carrying a camera or asking for directions (Wassler and Kirillova, 2019). Second, they critically evaluate the effects of tourism development and tourists on their community (Canziani and Francioni, 2013;Mowforth and Ian, 1998).…”