1It was autumn in Wageningen, circa November 2016, when I and other students were sitting in the class of Sustainable Development and watching a documentary Framing the Other (Kok and Timmers, 2011). The film was made by our seniors, two alumni of MSc Leisure, Tourism and Environment at Wageningen University, as a part of their master’s thesis. It is basically about the encounter between Mursi tribe and Western visitors in a typical tourist setting and showing how Dutch tourists traveled far to Ethiopia to see and photograph the ‘unusually adorned natives’, as Mursi women ‘are known for placing large plates in their lower lips and wearing enormous, richly decorated earrings’ (Synopsis, n.d.). Watching the film somehow reminded me of my late father and the place where he came from, Tana Toraja. In the context of tourism, either in commercial or academic settings, it has been long regarded as a place lived by people with an ‘exotic’ culture, especially its ‘unique’ death ceremony, valuable to be consumed by (inter)national tourists or studied by Western tourism researchers. For sure, I frequently heard the amazement of people when I told them that I have a (half) Torajan origin. “Ah, the one with cave tombs! Will you also be buried inside the cave?” they often said. I hence could almost slightly imagine being the Mursi woman captured in (and off) the documentary.
2The documentary can actually be representative to many other accounts that record (either critically or not) the ways Western tourists come, see, and frame non-Western places, people, and cultures. For instance, an academic article with the same title, Framing the Other (Snee, 2013), recounts how the overseas gap year travels of young Brits often reproduce and reinforce the already established discourse of “exotic Other”. Furthermore, by investigating photographs taken by Western students who visited various non-Western countries, Caton and Santos (2008) conclude that the taken photographs saliently reproduce the colonialist/orientalist representational discourse on ‘the Other’ as traditional, peripheral, and lazy. I slowly began wondering: where are the opposite accounts, those telling about the ways non-Western tourists come, see, and photograph Western places, people, and cultures? Are tourists always Western? If so, who am I when I tour the European cities during my study breaks?
3Seemingly I found the response of my questions through Facebook, where I virtually befriend with many other Indonesians studying in the so-called Western countries (US, UK, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, etc.). I acquainted most of them through scholarship program, university, high school, and informal courses. As such, like me, each of them is a part of a larger group of Indonesians – mostly middle class, but not necessarily – who has a chance to study abroad, either through personal funding or external scholarships. To put it short, I was leisurely scrolling my Facebook timeline when I suddenly noticed the existence of myriad of photographs taken and shared by my friends, those studying in Western universities, showing (off) a glimpse of European, American, or Australian experiences. Then, again, I was awestruck with a question in my head: what if ‘the Others’ are framing back now?
4That question perhaps would not be there if I had not studied sociology during my undergraduate study in Indonesia. It popped up due to, if I may guess, the sociological imagination I learned as a student of sociology. It was also during that time that I became academically exposed to postcolonial theories, orientalism, and the matter of ‘the Other’. Simply put, the question did not appear in vacuum. The documentary Framing the Other and my friends’ photographs on Facebook had only triggered me to sociologically reflect my own being in the West, especially in the land which my country shared colonial past with. Being Indonesian in The Netherlands perhaps had given me revelation. I had to become aware of my country’s colonial past, my here-and-now postcolonial being, and decolonial options I might have. This essay is the result of such complex awareness. Furthermore, as a former non-Western tourism student in a Western institution, I would also like to offer this essay as a material for reflection which naturally derived from my anxiety of being surrounded by Eurocentric theories in tourism studies.
5What often makes me wonder about the contemporary tourism studies is the rarity of analysis on non-Western people as tourist or traveler. Seemingly, there still exists an archaic binary of ‘Western as tourist’ and ‘non-Western as touree’ (Cohen and Cohen, 2015a). Winter (2009, pp. 23-34) points out, “Given that the paradigm of tourism has in large part been constructed around an analysis of west-to-east, north-to-south encounters, rooted in ideas of globalization as a process of westernization, our tourist has been silently conceived as white (and male)”. Thus, I may argue, it should be unproblematic to regard tourism studies as Eurocentric, Western-biased, and colonial (Cohen and Cohen, 2015b; Alneng, 2002; Chambers and Buzinde, 2015).
6Some accounts nevertheless have provided a relieved break from such monotony. For example, Peters and Higgins-Desbiolles (2012) attempt to de-marginalize tourism research by discussing indigenous Australians as tourists, not as object of Western tourist gaze. They identify several modes of travel among indigenous Australians, such as visiting/returning to ancestral homelands and collecting remains of Aboriginal people “exhibited” in colonial museums. Furthermore, Li et al. (2017) explore the photography practices among Chinese tourists visiting various destinations in UK. Their research aims to de-Westernize and reconceptualize John Urry’s concept of tourist gaze by putting Chinese tourists and their photographs as foci. Still, both studies are merely tiny rebellions under the dominant discourse of tourists-are-Western. In sum, non-Western tourists are still very much ignored albeit the obvious rise of non-Western tourism, especially from Asia (Alneng, 2002).
7Winter (2009, pp. 27-28) claims, “The ongoing growth of non-Western forms of travel are the empirical impetus for cultivating new approaches and perspectives”. Indeed, non-Western tourisms and travels are empirically abundant but theoretically poor. Tucker and Hayes (2019) assert that tourism theory remains largely rooted in the Western tourist gaze, which understandably out of relevance to not only non-Western tourists and tourisms, but also non-Western tourism students. Hence, Cohen and Cohen (2015b) call for a paradigm shift to address the problem. They suggest incorporating tourism studies into mobilities paradigm, which they claim will be free of Eurocentric assumptions. Winter (2009, p. 27) argues that pluralism should be the point of departure, and he furthermore calls for an approach which “geographically, politically and epistemologically plural” and “a multi-centered analysis”. In short, he invites us to “seriously question the universalisms at the core of tourism studies”.
8So, empirically, tourists are not always Western. Nonetheless the non-Western ones are very often silenced, ignored, overlooked, and/or forgotten. This realization is precisely where I started aiming to talk back and to showcase the framing of South-to-North tourist encounters, thanks to inspiration I took from my friends’ photographs on Facebook. As a researcher-cum-tourist from the South, I am tempted to write with “a certain degree of rage” (Spivak 1990, p. 62) and “from my very inner being […] from where it burns” (del Arco 2017, p. vi) against the ignorance that has silenced the voices from the South all this time. Therefore, I locate this essay as an experiment to respond to the silence and ignorance within the Eurocentric, Western-biased, and colonial knowledge production of tourism studies.
9One day, as I leisurely scrolled my Facebook timeline, I eventually realized that there were three dominant visual themes of photographs which my friends – Indonesians studying in Western countries – posted on their social media. I named these themes as: European architecture, seasonal changes, and international friendship.
Figure . Illustration of three main visual themes.
Clockwise from upper left photo: Looking at cherry blossom trees; Ljubljana central train station; Snowfall in Breda; My lovely group of friends; “Loveliest part of autumn”.
(Clockwise from upper left photo) of Mohamad Yulianto Kurniawan, Sarani Pitor Pakan, Timoti Tirta, Moniek Zwiers, Kyana Dipananda; collaged by Sarani Pitor Pakan.
10First, European architecture theme is mainly identified and defined by the element of building. As buildings are everywhere in European cities, so are they in Indonesian students’ snapshots. The presence of buildings (along with their architectural design) is salient, either as a background of self-portrait or a central photographic figure. This theme covers other elements, such as pedestrian, street, bridge, train or tram rail, statue, monument, urban park, and else. They all indicate ‘something Western’ and may represent what West is for Indonesian students. There are many kinds of building: church, house, town hall, café, shop, museum, castle, and iconic buildings (such as Eiffel Tower, Colosseum, or Dutch wind mills). What these buildings offer is a taste of Europe, as well as a glance of Western civilization. Atmaja and Budiastuti (2012), studying on the images of West among Indonesian AIESEC members, mention the importance of European building in image construction process, as it signifies Western modernity and civilization. They find that the European buildings have made Europe “worth for visiting” and “worth to be shown (off)” to other Indonesian fellows (2012, p. 24).
- 1 I observed that Indonesian students’ summer photographs doesn’t have any strong symbol. To understa (...)
11Second, seasonal change theme can be identified by its use of visual symbol. In the autumn, the most prominent symbol is dry brownish leaves (either with trees or on the ground). For the winter, white snow is the most obvious symbol, including its derivatives, such as snowfall, snowman, or snow mountain. Some photographs portray the frozen lake or canal as epitome of winter, too. Then, spring is expressed by the presence of flowers. Pinkish cherry blossom and colorful tulips are the strongest symbols.1 All these seasonal symbols make it seems compulsory to take (and to share) photographs of dry leaves during autumn, snow(man) during winter, and tulips or cherry blossoms during spring. One autumn day, I was cycling to campus when I saw a group of Indonesian students taking pictures in ‘autumn setting’ – the ground full of dry leaves along with typical autumn trees. During winter, if snow falls, taking pictures of snow and making a snowman are ‘obligatory’. Then, when spring comes, Indonesian students will go ‘hunting’ the photographs of pink cherry blossoms.
12Third, international friendship theme is defined by the portrayal of Indonesian student with her/his international friends. Studying abroad offers a chance to build friendship with people coming from various places – including Western countries – and eventually this human-to-human relation turns into photographic objects. Photograph of this theme contains more than one person (group picture) and hints that the persons within the frame are multinational (more than one nationality). The latter element is key to point out the international-ness of the photograph. Settings can be varied, based on place and activity. Place setting consists of classroom, campus area, park, bar/pub, city (center), kitchen, apartment room, house, café, restaurant, shop, river, sea, sports center, and else. Activity setting includes lecture/class, groupwork, study excursion, campus event, party, barbecue, drinking, eating, traveling, sightseeing, playing sports, chilling, cooking, cycling, gathering, etc. Lastly, this theme should be critically seen with an understanding that friendship with Westerners can be a valuable cultural capital for Asians (Bui et al., 2013) and, in Indonesian context, befriending Westerners indeed embodies prestige and a very high value (Atmaja and Budiastuti, 2012).
13Up until here, everything seems fine. The mission to respond is arguably (half-)done. I have shown the existences of Indonesian students-cum-tourists. The photographs clearly show that we are there: being tourists in the West. Barthes (1981, p. 5) says, “The photograph is never anything but an antiphon of ‘Look’, ‘See’, ‘Here it is’; it points a finger at certain vis-à-vis and cannot escape this pure deictic language.” If he is correct, the Indonesian students’ photographs then might say something like “Look, we are here! Surrounded by European buildings”, or “See, this is Winter Wonderland”, or “Here it is: the international friends of mine”.
14The trouble came later when I tried to understand beyond the simple photographic frame. Sontag (2005, p. 90) believes that “photography is advanced as a form of knowing without knowing: a way of outwitting the world, instead of making a frontal attack on it.” I was perhaps offended being outwitted by the photographs, so, as a result, I became motivated to uncover the ‘knowing without knowing’ within the frame of photograph. Following Barthes (1972), I wanted to understand the ‘mythologies’ that lie beneath the visual themes of European architecture, seasonal change, and international friendship.
15I found that each theme has its own myths: (1) European architecture perpetuates the amazement toward Western civilizations, (2) seasonal change glorifies the West's climatic condition, and (3) international friendship reveals the desire for Westernized international outlook. Difference is a key here. Hollinshead (1998) regards tourism as a quintessential industry of “difference” and “otherness”. Hence, the photographs that present typical European building, snowfall, autumn leaves, spring season, and a group of multinational friends might represent the experiences of difference, i.e. experiences that one doesn’t have back home. However, postcolonially speaking, this cannot be a matter of simple difference, as there exists a hierarchical difference between the (Indonesian) home and the (Western) foreign lands captured in the photographs. It is this hierarchy which forces me to semiotically see the myths of amazement, glorification, and desire toward the West whenever I encountered the photographs of European architecture, seasonal change, and international friendship.
- 2 The idea of destiny/destination here is inspired by Frantz Fanon (1952, p. 12) who writes the follo (...)
16To go even further, I conceptualized more by putting these myths as a part of higher-level myths, namely Occidental fairytale and West as destination. Indonesian students’ photographs, along with their thematic patterns, could silently represent (‘knowing without knowing’) that: first, being in the West is a sort of fairytale for Indonesian students-cum-tourists; second, West – with all its heroic features within the photographs – is our only destiny2/destination to go. While fairytale involves the almost-unbelievable experience of being (in the West), the notion of destination entails the desire and longing (for the West).
17To be sure with all these visual finding and analysis, I discussed them with some Indonesian friends in Wageningen and they, like me, found it shocking by the fact that our travel photographs in the West could be understood as such. They could not disagree about three dominant visual themes I found, as they also (begin to) realize them. Then, albeit hurtful, they nodded to my conceptualization on Occidental fairytale and West as destination. The idea of fairytale was even actually inspired by a friend’s comment during one particular class, where she narrated her positionality as Indonesian student who has a chance to travel to Europe through education. All in all, this demythologizing process has proven to be difficult for me, as it drained my emotion, re-situated my postcolonial being, and gave me more reflective question marks.
18I had just come back home after two-years academic/postcolonial journey in Wageningen, The Netherlands, when I corresponded with my master’s thesis supervisor through e-mail. She was particularly curious about what I think it will be like to return home after all that time away. I then replied, in part but not all, with the following passage:
“I realized that I have reproduced my postcolonial body, thought, feeling, and/or position by having experiences of living two years in The Netherlands, my country's former colonizer. It was strange to think about it. How could living in the (former) metropole reproduce and complicate my (postcolonial) being as Indonesian, as a man from the South? I feel that now I have a fuller picture of myself and the social/cultural/political histories that lies beneath me.”
(e-mail correspondence with Meghann Ormond, 21 October 2018)
19The excerpt, in retrospect, was very much influenced by my project of demythologizing Indonesian, South-to-North travel photographs.
20Although my initial aim is simply to respond to Eurocentric knowledge production in tourism studies, I eventually found that such epistemological/experimental response is more productive as a way to self-reflection. My voice seemed being reflected back to me and it surprised me that my own analysis has indicated something alike orientalist narrative. For instance, the visual representations I found in the Indonesian students’ photographs mythically/semiotically contain the amazement, glorification, and desire toward the West. Where am I actually heading to? This confusion exemplifies the ambivalence I noticed regarding the question of ‘where do the voices really come from?’. Do they epistemologically come from within or outside the West? Who is really talking/framing? I may claim that I have voiced out Indonesian perspectives, but are they really our inner voices? Or, can it be just an echo of Western voices?
21I pose these questions not to be answered, but as a device to think further about my intention to talk back and to frame back. Now I would like to reflect on that by discussing the issue of Occidentalism and a trap it may contain, namely reverse Orientalism.
22I have to admit that, at first, I imagined Occidentalism as a simple reversal of Orientalism, in which non-Western bodies finally have the possibility to talk back and project the image of West. Then, Coronil (1996) offers me a reminder that a reversal of Orientalism is impossible in the context of asymmetrical relations between Self and Other. He thus understands Occidentalism more of as a condition of Orientalism’s possibility, not as a reverse of it. Even though some scholars indeed perceive Occidentalism as a means of reversing Orientalism, later I slowly developed an understanding that the former might just be another Western project (Carrier, 1992; Venn, 2000; Ahiska, 2003). In short, Occidentalism operates within West’s discursive terms and, thus, endorses the hegemonic West’s project of modernity, through which the West articulates, defines, and represents itself as modern, developed, and greater civilization.
23Thus, to clarify, my project of talking back, framing back, and/or demythologizing here cannot be a project of reversing Orientalism and, likewise, should not be called a project of Occidentalism, because whom I intend to talk back to is not Orientalism per se, but the Eurocentric, Western-biased, and often-orientalist knowledge production in tourism studies. In fact, I might not have any direct problem with Orientalism, so why bother reversing it?
24Yet, now, the questions are: How about reverse framing? Is it possible? Well, I don’t have the answer, but I sense that the question (of possibility) could be wrong. Instead it should be a question of importance. Do we really need to reverse the North-to-South, Eurocentric framing? What for? For sleeping well, for rage (after Spivak), for revenge, or for simply provoking two-ways dialogue? Still, reverse framing is possible only if the relation and dialogue are symmetrical. If not, the best we can do is showing the South-to-North tourist photographic framing, to (re)claim the existence, even though such framing might also be Eurocentric, Western-biased, and unfortunately colonial. The speakers differ, the contents are alike.
25It was a hot day in Jakarta, circa August 2019, when I was sitting in the commuter train and reading a monograph Meanings of Bandung (Phạm and Shilliam, 2016). At some point, I arrived at the following passage, written in the Chapter 16:
“(RI:) We need to remember that when you speak to power sometimes you use the same language and might end up reproducing the same logics […] Unfortunately, power was/is not listening; hence we cannot be naïve when speaking to power.
TS: Because power speaks back.”
(Dialogue between Rosalba Icaza and Tamara Soukotta, in Icaza and Soukotta, 2016)
26Perhaps I was indeed naïve to intend to talk back to the silence and ignorance I encountered in tourism studies. Since the first place, when I started aiming to talk and frame back, I imagined it as a kind of dialogue, where all this time we are silenced and ignored and now urging to respond. However, what I failed to imagine is whom I intend to respond to. It turns out that it is ‘power’; and when we speak to power it is very tricky because (1) the relation/dialogue is asymmetrical and unbalanced, (2) the language of the dialogue must be same, and it is the language of power, so the logics and discursive terms are only in favor to power, (3) the power perhaps never intends to listen, and (4) when the power speaks back, we realize that it is useless to even start to talk, because it is like “a fresh budding flower that was killed immediately” (ibid).
27Still, the point is not to remain silent. As it has occurred to me, experimenting to respond (to power) can be rewarding as a pedagogy of self-reflection. In this context, self-reflection might entail the possibility of re-situating our postcolonial being, thinking, and sensing. This resituated positionality, I argue, can potentially be a seed of decolonial praxis, meaning an initial stepping stone toward epistemic disobedience and delinking from Western categories of thought (after Boukhris, 2017; Mignolo, 2013), as I always believe that the first step of every revolution is to realize. To realize can only be done when we reflect, when we re-situate our position.
28Furthermore, we may need to learn to not talk to power. In my humble opinion, it is way more beneficial to shy away from existential impulse to talk (back) and to respond, especially vis-à-vis power. In the meantime, we could try to re-member, re-collect, re-build, and re-phrase our own logics of being, thinking, and sensing. I am not calling for more silence, though, as I still believe in the importance of two-ways, symmetrical dialogue. Following Grosfoguel (2012), what I would like to propose is an inter-epistemic dialogue where any episteme can conjoin the conversation without it and its voices being dissolved, incorporated, and destabilized (after Coronil, 1996). Only if it happens to be realized, we can sit again in this page and frame back.