Encounters across Difference

Natalia Bloch is associate professor in the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan

• Introduction: Anthropology and Tourism: Dangerous Liaisons?Chapter 1. In a Circle of Mobility: Field Sites, Research Partners, MethodsChapter 2. The World Map as Seen from the Peripheries: Tourist as an Object of GazeChapter 3. Not-So-Empty Meeting Grounds: Self-Representations and Relationships Chapter 4. Recovering the Subaltern Voices: Tourism and EngagementChapter 5. Tourism as a Source of Individual Empowerment: Stories of Encounter

An exemplary book in every way, Encounters across Difference makes a major contribution to our understanding of tourism’s possibilities for creating spaces where subalterns can exercise agency and regain their voices. Through lucidly written ethnographic accounts, Bloch problematizes simplistic yet enduring representations of tourism as a new genre of colonial relations wherein ‘tourists’ and ‘locals’ are locked in unequal relations of political struggle. Likewise, Bloch offers nuanced and ethnographically grounded reassessments of recent critiques of volunteer tourism and contributes to current discussions of the ways in which friendships, romances, and employment relationships unfolding in the context of tourism offer informal opportunities for individual empowerment. Her case studies of encounters between tourists (both domestic and international), displaced residents, migrant workers, refugees, and foreign NGO volunteers in two Indian destinations artfully demonstrate the value of a bottom-up approach to understanding tourism’s possibilities for shifting political perceptions and presenting new opportunities for historically marginalized individuals and communities. Theoretically sophisticated and engagingly written, Bloch’s book is certain to earn a respected place on the bookshelves of scholars of tourism, migration, and refugee studies. Moreover, it also promises to become a classic teaching text for courses on the anthropology of tourism.