Ethnic tourism in mainland southeast Asia: The state of the art

This paper will examine the state of the study of ethnic tourism in mainland Southeast Asia in light of Wimmer’s and Brubaker’s paradigmatic approaches to ethnicity. The prevailing ‘ethnic regimes’ and their impact on ethnic tourism policies and development in four of the region’s states, China (whose Southwest area is customarily considered part of the Southeast Asian culture area), Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, are discussed as a background to a survey of the principal findings of recent sociological and anthropological studies of ethnic tourism in those countries. The various processes of change engendered by ethnic tourism, revealed in those studies, such as the commercialisation, spectacularization or exoticization of ethnic cultures, the exploitation of the ethnic peoples by outsiders, and the gradual dissociation between ethnic cultures and their bearers in touristic performances are highlighted. While Wimmer’s and Brubaker’s theoretical approaches are not expressly deployed by the researchers, some of their tenets are reflected in the findings. However, it is conclude that the studies fell short of examining the role of mainland Southeast Asian ethnic tourism in the processes of formation and dissolution of ethnic boundaries, thereby missing the opportunity to contribute, or at least integrate into, the contemporary mainstream theorising on ethnicity.