Sexy Beasts and Devoted Mums: Narrating Nature through Dolphin Tourism

Abstract

IntroductionFor many pleasure-seeking tourists, New Zealand is synonymous with`nature' (1) tourism. Indeed, the country's tourism board sells the country as``100% pure'', building upon and promoting the nation's reputation as one of the world's premier`natural' destinations, with plenty of activities for ecotourists and adventure tourists alike (http:// www.purenz.com/; Cloke and Perkins, 1998;. Amongst tourists visiting New Zealand, one activity that has become popular is cruises that enable viewing of and swimming with dolphins. In this paper we focus upon this ecotourism/nature tourism activity within New Zealand.Viewing and swimming with dolphins takes place in taken-for-granted natural spaces. In New Zealand, whether the tour occurs in the Bay of Plenty or in Kaikoura, dolphin cruise tourists need little convincing that what they are experiencing is`real' nature. Yet, for a swim with dolphins in the so-called real nature, tourists quite willingly overlook the Auckland skyline, the state-of-art boat they are on, bulky wetsuits and snorkelling gear, or that they are sharing their wilderness experience with forty or fifty other humans. Tourists' immediate landscape is not necessarily a`natural' one, whatever that may be, and it is the encounter or the potential encounter with nonhumans or animals that effectively transforms what is a cultural and commodified landscape into a natural one.

Narrations and practices of mobility and immobility in the maintenance of gender dualisms

“…Following Besio et al (2008) we employed a thematic analysis, interpreting what we saw, heard and felt through key themes in the literature (which for this project included themes of embodiment, mobility, gender, sexuality and heteronormativity). Text-based data ranged from highly-scripted place narratives as found in the (local) history museum to the less-scripted remarks of study participants.…”

Eating Hawai'i: local foods and place-making in Hawai'i Regional Cuisine

“…Eating Hawai'i is a key part of an embodied tourist experience of Hawai'i (in addition to sunburn), and one that tourists, resort and restaurant chefs cannot do without, although for different reasons (Besio, Johnston, and Longhurst 2008;Perkins 1998, 2005;Johnston 2005;Veijola and Jokinen 1994). As people eat HRC, they consume an 'authentic' taste of Hawai'i, through the filter of locally grown foods, which offers a 'locational philosophy of taste,' evidenced in how menus include place names and farm names to refer to food, emphasizing 'place' rather than cooking 'technique' or 'social setting' (Trubek 2008: 8).…”

The anthropocenic imaginary: political ecologies of tourism in a geological epoch

“…The representation of nature as feminine has a long presence in the history of colonial and imperial ambitions. In tourism, this engagement often takes on gendered forms where "Nature" is seen as thoroughly female (Besio, Johnston, & Longhurst, 2008;Enloe, 1989). For instance, the overdetermined category of nature and the female body has been widely used to naturalize the relationship between females and nature and males and culture (Swain, 1995).…”