Authenticity, Gordon and Garland

In their article concerning authenticity, Gordon and Garland draw on post structuralism to explain meta-tourism, and how the bushmen's reliance on tourists for economic development places him in a perpetual state of otherness. The government instituted policies which give locals more control over tourism are in many ways beneficial. They allow indigenous people to claim land and wildlife, while also giving them an opportunity to profit off of the tourist fueled economy. However, in return, the bushmen must remain subjects and spectacles, and their history is reduced to a narrative of progress, from primitive to modern man, completely devoid of any accounts of the substantial bloodshed and ethnocide that occurred throughout this transition into modernity.

Foreign investors have been encouraged to collaborate with locals on joint ventures in the tourism industry. In addition to the scenic deserts and wildlife that comprise Namibia, agencies also market the bushmen as a major component to the experience. This form of cultural tourism, regardless of the monetary return that  bushmen directly profit from, explicitly commoditizes them as subjects to be observed and consumed. Going beyond exploitation, it creates new forms of authenticity, and allows Westerners to reaffirm their sense of self as ecological and conscious travelers reinstating their connectivity to the rest of the world, and most especially the "lost tribes". The bushman offer a "last chance glance" into a sacred way of life that is quickly disappearing.

The activities that tourists engage in include semiotic displays of authenticity by the bushmen, such as dances and rituals, hunting expeditions, purchasing bushmen crafts, and immersing themselves in "authentic villages". However, authenticity, as argued by the two authors, is a ideological construct, which allows those in a position of power (the tourists) to decide what is authentic and what is not, based on their own needs for self reaffirmation. It allows foreigners to see themselves as part of "community empowerment" rather than ignorant and exploitative Westerners. In analyzing this creation of authenticity, Gordon and Garland recognize the underlying motivations of tourists: not for authenticity itself, but rather a quest for authenticity. This idea of quest, or adventure, compensates for the bushmen's own lack of authenticity, and allows tourists to feel good about their travels, even if they did not have the opportunity to become part of a romantic, lost tribe for a few weeks.

The tourists do all the justifying, and create and assign meaning to their experience, mostly because they are the ones paying for it and being confronted with a different culture, voluntarily. By allowing themselves to believe they are part of the development process, they begin to see themselves more as genuine individuals with good intentions than wealthy tourists in search of adventure. However, this translates into a never ending power struggle, for the bushmen are not making any independent choices. Instead, they must become part of the global economy in any way possible to sustain themselves, with no other options but to "hunt and gather", which actually means begging tourists. They do not live an "authentic" primitive lifestyle because their environment has been forever altered by foreigners to the point where they can no longer live off the land and survive. Therefore, despite the illusion of empowerment, the ideology of meta-tourism is actually disempowering, and for the bushmen, its either "join or die".