Abstract

Can tourism help a poor remote community to develop? How much does tourism change a village? How can a village have the benefits tourism offers without the problems it can cause? These are the questions that lie at the core of this text. Using an anthropologist’s eye and a high degree of trust, this book uncovers the story of tourism development in two small villages on a remote island of Eastern Indonesia.The ethnography provides a rich description of life in a non-western marginal community in a contemporary global context and how they face the challenge of balancing socio-economic integration and cultural distinction. It uncovers the conflicts of tourism development between a poor community, tourists, governments and brokers. This micro study has ramifications beyond the locality. Many other villages in Indonesia are experiencing similar issues. Many of the challenges are relevant to peripheral communities across the globe. Themes in this book will resonate with studies of tourism, tourists, development, globalisation and cultural change from around the world.

Stroma Cole’s book is path-breaking in its approach, readability and ethnographic neutrality.

After studying social anthropology and extensive travel in Indonesia, Stroma Cole started her own tour operating business. For six years she led small groups all over the Indonesian archipelago. Following a period of consultancy with UNESCO and ADB she returned to the UK and took up her post at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College. Stroma continued to visit the remote Ngadha villages on the island of Flores to study the effects of tourism. She completed her PhD in 2003 and has published extensively. She continues to research tourism in Indonesia and other less economically developed countries. She is chair of Tourism Concern.

Although the book is a monograph, it relates clearly and closely to the key ideas about anthropology and globalisation, and therefore is a worthwhile read for the non anthropologist as well as the subject specialist.

This is an empirically rich text with a lot of insights generally relevant for tourism in developing nations.

An insightful, balanced ethnography of tourism as a particular type of meeting ground where hopes and expectations are only partially satisfied. A valuable book. Recommended.

I can attest that this book offers a valuable corrective to the macro-analyses that so dominate the tourism literature. Dr. Cole’s micro-level longitudinal study is not only sensitively-written, but extremely astute. It resonates with so many themes I observed during my own fieldwork on tourism and cultural transformations in Toraja, Indonesia. I can envision it will become a much used ethnography of tourism in courses on the anthropology of tourism, as well as in tourism management training sessions. Southeast Asianists will also find it of value as a course text for their classes. The beauty of the book is not only its intelligence, but its wonderful accessibility to general readers.