Editor's Statement

The topic of tourism has recently emerged as significant in a number of ways and within a number of academic disciplines. Among the latter are geography, history, anthropology, and literary studies—all of which make strong contributions to ethnohistorical scholarship. Part of the importance and relevance of ethnohistory itself is therefore reflected in just this sort of interdisciplinary perspective.

Recent scholarship in each of these fields has shown that tourism is neither a very recent phenomenon nor the marginal activity that its playful and recreational features seem to imply. Rather, tourism emerges as an extension of colonial exploration and travel and is itself part of the cultural processes of domination and occupation. Tourism as a cultural activity is also deeply resonant with the production of ethnological categories and stereotypes, since much early anthropology made use of the travelogues and writings of travelers—the en masse nature of such travels in the twentieth century giving rise to our current notions of the tourist as opposed to the traveler.

As a result, the touristic cultural productions of earlier times, in the form of photographs, travelogues, guidebooks, and souvenirs, have sometimes become the basis for cultural revival among minority or indigenous peoples. In this way, the history of tourism is important not only for gaining a better understanding of the contemporary cultural politics of ethnological representation, but also for improving interpretations of indigenous movements seeking cultural reclamation. The articles collected here certainly take on these and related questions and as such make an original and much-needed contribution to these debates in the context of North America.