old jockey

       In 2008 I enrolled in a PhD in the Department of Anthropology at Memorial University of Newfoundland.  After a 30-year career in journalism I was looking for an opportunity to pursue research interests in depth and without the demands of short-term deadlines.  An academic environment offered me that opportunity. Following the completion of … More Why?

The title of the first chapter in Sharon Gmelch’s book, Tourists and Tourism, is “Why Tourism Matters” (Gmelch 2010:3).  In the first sentence of her first chapter Gmelch describes how she became interested in tourism while directing an anthropological field school in Barbados, where she noted the “impact of tourism was visible everywhere” (ibid:3).   If … More Chapter 1 – Introduction

   In his 1977 analysis of the commodification of culture Davydd Greenwood relied on Geertz to establish a working definition of culture (Smith 1989:173). I have chosen to do the same. In articulating his position Geertz wrote “Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, … More Chapter 2 – Theory and Method