The Anthropological Study Tour in China: A Call for Cultural Guides

Abstract

Anthropological involvement in the tourist industry has been growing; anthropologists are increasingly leading to the locales of their expertise. The anthropologist's new role as tour guide deserves anthropological study and to facilitate this, five anthropologist-led academic study tours to China are analyzed for the effects the tours had on the tourists. Questionnaires and participant-observation techniques reveal that most tourists are similar to introductory anthropology students whose interpretations of the foreign can be influenced significantly by an anthropological guide. With such anthropological aid, tourists lessen their negative prejudices and develop more positive images of China and the Chinese. The difficulties and pitfalls encountered by the tour guides, the locals and the natives in this type of endeavor are numerous and readily lend themselves to ethnocentric misunderstandings. The key anthropological contribution to such tourist jaunts thus lies not so much in conveying th...