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LNichols_SitePerspectives

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Saved by Leah Nichols
on February 1, 2011 at 8:22:12 pm
 

Editor: Leah Nichols

leahhnichols@gmail.com

 

SITE

 

Guinea-Bissau, West Africa

 

 

PERSPECTIVES

 

• Native

(Recorded and complied by Lorenzo Bordonaro’s “Living At the Margins”- an Anthropology dissertation)

 

• Tourist

(Represented by Adam Nossiter’s articles- NY Times writer and West African bureau chief)

 

• Native v. Tourist

 

 

LOCAL / NATIVE

 

• Negative, marginalized perspective

• Sense of isolation, disconnectedness

• Lacks physical link to mainland- safe, rapid, inexpensive means of transportation

• Lacks communication to rest of islands and the world- telephone,mail, radio, television?

• Desires for mobility, modernity- especially among youth

 

 

GLOBAL / TOURIST

 

• Positive, exoticized perspective

• Sense of discovery of virgin paradise, slightly colonial (ex. “The magical wilds of West Africa”)

• Live observation of real village culture (ex. women carrying things on their heads)

• “If you have a tasts for decay, ruins, moldering colonial architecture, a first-hand glimpse of West Africa’s social and political troubles, and excellent Portuguese restaurants, you won’t regret spending a night or two in Bissau.” -Bordornaro

• Desires for both voyeuristic travel with “tranqiul” isolation

 

? ? ?

 

• Village culture (native)= stigmatization of rural backwards villages, contrasted with development

Village culture (tourist) = special, foreign traditions or practices preserved over hundreds of years

 

• Isolation (native) = excluded from international discourse and means for development

Isolation (tourist) = “The laid-back scene on the Bijagos islands is unlikely to change anytime soon because of their hard-to-get-to location.”

 

• Sea (native) = barrier to progress, a curse

Sea (tourist) = “In the morning, there are sparkling waters that separate the Bijagos from the mainland.”

 

 

 

SOURCES: 

Bordonaro, Lorenzo Ibrahim.  "Living at the Margins: Youth and Modernity in the Bijago Islands (Guinea-Bissau)."  University Institute for Social Sciences, Business Studies and Technologies.  Department of Anthropology.  September 2006.

 

Nossiter, Adam (West African bureau chief). "Bijagos, a Tranquil Haven in a Troubled Land."  New York Times.  November 8, 2009.

 

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