Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- Foreword
- 1 African dynamics of cultural tourism
- PART I CULTURE, IDENTITY & TOURISM
- PART II AT THE FRINGE OF THE PARKS
- 6 Hosts & guests: Stereotypes & myths of international tourism in the Okavango Delta, Botswana.
- 7 Kom'n bietjie kuier: Kalahari dreaming with the ≠Khomani San
- 8 Treesleeper Camp: A case study of community tourism in Tsintsabis, Namibia
- 9 ‘The lion has become a cow’: The Maasai hunting paradox
- 10 The organization of hypocrisy? Juxtaposing tourists & farm dwellers in game farming in South Africa
- PART III INTENSIVE CONTACT
- AFTERWORD: Trouble in the bubble: Comparing African tourism with the Andes trail
- NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
- INDEX
7 - Kom'n bietjie kuier: Kalahari dreaming with the ≠Khomani San
from PART II - AT THE FRINGE OF THE PARKS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- Foreword
- 1 African dynamics of cultural tourism
- PART I CULTURE, IDENTITY & TOURISM
- PART II AT THE FRINGE OF THE PARKS
- 6 Hosts & guests: Stereotypes & myths of international tourism in the Okavango Delta, Botswana.
- 7 Kom'n bietjie kuier: Kalahari dreaming with the ≠Khomani San
- 8 Treesleeper Camp: A case study of community tourism in Tsintsabis, Namibia
- 9 ‘The lion has become a cow’: The Maasai hunting paradox
- 10 The organization of hypocrisy? Juxtaposing tourists & farm dwellers in game farming in South Africa
- PART III INTENSIVE CONTACT
- AFTERWORD: Trouble in the bubble: Comparing African tourism with the Andes trail
- NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
- INDEX
Summary
We had been dreaming about seeing the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park for many years. Names like the Nossob and Auob rivers have for a long time been only points on a map, and documentaries about wildlife along the two rivers and on the dunes have always attracted our attention… [but !Xaus Lodge] offered a lot more: contact with the ultimate Bushmen.
Introduction
This chapter seeks to discuss issues of representation, relationships between the hosts and tourists, and development involving cultural tourism at !Xaus Lodge; a venture partly owned by the ≠Khomani San. The historical representation of the San has proved influential in the way in which the current ≠Khomani community represent and articulate themselves when engaging with ‘outsiders’. We explore the reasoning behind the romantic representation of the ≠Khomani and describe the ‘realities’ at !Xaus Lodge through our own (as researcher-tourists) and through tourists’ experiences. As with tourists to any destination, expectations and resulting experiences vary widely, so too do people's expectations and experiences of meeting with the ≠Khomani. Therefore we do not claim to have a complete understanding of the tourist experience at !Xaus.
Our research falls under the Rethinking Indigeneity project founded and headed by Professor Keyan Tomaselli at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Research areas in this project include ‘development communication, media production and reception, livelihoods and micro-enterprises, community radio as a development medium (particularly among the !Xun and Khwe), and a specific development project: the genesis, establishment and performance of !Xaus Lodge’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- African Hosts and their GuestsCultural Dynamics of Tourism, pp. 137 - 152Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012