Every Interaction Leaves a Trace

When people of different cultures meet, the interaction will inevitable change both parties. Every interaction makes you more knowledgeable and brings you closer to become a world citizen. In this post I will focus on the interaction between locals and tourists, their socio-cultural relations. Though we were travelling in a quite closed environment, which definitely lowered to interaction with locals to a minimum (but was necessary to successfully manage the trip), we did still have conversations and non-conversational interactions with locals. This is in accordance with Smith’s (1977) conception of ‘hosts and guests’, which assumes that tourists leave an impact on the host’s societies and cultures and vice versa. I already elaborated on some of these issues when writing about the Dead Sea, where locals in resorts don’t demand us to oblige to their tradition of covering shoulders etc. But tourists predominantly visit resorts and therefore the interaction that is taking place in such a location is not representative as the environment is not typical for the hosts. The only region that we visited in which we could feel the changes that interaction made possible was in my opinion Aqaba. In Aqaba we noticed many differences to rest-Jordan; the tax on alcohol did not exist, many people wearing shorts (including women) and more souvenir shops. Smith did not focus merely on the social impact but also the economic impact. That the interaction between guests and hosts leave a mark is easily observable thus, those very touristy regions we’ve visited such as Petra and Aqaba had a different atmosphere than off-the-beaten-path cities such as Karak. The interaction leaves a somehow interesting effect, called acculturation. Just as big (American) multinational are often accused of accelerating globalisation, so is the interaction of tourists and hosts. Values, emotions and opinions are exchanged and everyone involved gains knowledge and changes.

LLM

Smith, V.L. (1977) Hosts and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.


Locals asked me to take a picture after talking to them

Another lovely form of interaction between guests and hosts