The Genesis of Touristic Imagery

Although the construction & amplification of touristically celebrated peoples' Otherness on global mediascapes has been well documented, the genesis of touristic imagery in out of the way locales, where tourism is embryonic at best, has yet to be examined. This article explores the emergent construction of touristic imagery on the small, sporadically visited Eastern Indonesian island of Alor during the 1990s. In examining the ways in which competing images of Alorese people are sculpted by both insiders & outsiders, this article illustrates the politics & power dynamics embedded in the genesis of touristic imagery. Ultimately, I argue that even in remote locales where tourism is barely incipient, ideas & fantasies about tourism can color local politics, flavor discussions of identity & channel local actions. 1 Figure, 69 References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright 2004.]