Heterophotographies

Play, power, privilege and spaces of otherness in Chinese tourist photography

Bibliographic Data

ID7537673
AuthorsMelissa Shani Brown (0000-0002-2322-597X, Fakultät für Ostasienwissenschaften, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume62
Issue3
Pages307-337
Publication date2021-07-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueRenaissance and Modern Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0486-3720 • E-ISSN: 1473-5784
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14735784.2021.1943698
OpenAlexW3190111311
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited24

This article explores Han Chinese tourists' practice of self-photography in ‘ethnic' ‘costume' at tourist sites in China and Japan. Drawing on ethnography and interviews with young Han women, it aims to problematise the innocence of such play. Contextualising this analysis with the visualisation of identity within China, this article explores how the playful mode itself allows for Han individuals to position themselves as ‘sophisticated' in their consumption of traditional cultures, while tacitly separating them from the supposed ‘traditionality' of other groups. Drawing on Huizinga's ‘magic circle’ and Foucault's concept of ‘heterotopias’, it is argued that the imaginative space that is created is not at the tourist location, but rather within the confines of the images themselves. Analysing the ways in which tourists play out their ideas of ‘ethnic others', it explores the tropes within the photographs, and how these link to wider practices of ‘othering'. The article explores the ways in which ‘play' renders cultural difference ‘safe'-because-‘not serious’ – but also positions those in a privileged position to safely play with different cultures supposedly superior in their ability to do so

Aesthetics · Art · China · Ethnic group · Ethnography · Identity (music · Innocence · Political science · Power (physics · Privilege (computing · Sociology · Tourism · Anthropology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law

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