playing into and maniuplating the gaze of the tourist

is it possible?

The anticipated climax of our Peru excursion is fittingly the top of a stupidly beautiful mountain that stretches into the clouds as if we ourselves are worthy enough to touch the heavens, and witness the ruins that are built between it, Macchu Picchu.

Macchu Picchu, iconic tourist destination, one of the seven wonders of the world, does match its hype in many ways, but our class is not naive. Where our senses of fascinations come from is woven in different value systems, whether it be a romanticism of pre-colonial times, whether or a longing for spirituality, or even just a current sickness of urban life. For me, personally, I anticipated our guide Roy to play into these narratives, pleasing the tourist gaze, and I was pleasantly surprised that I was fed with new information I had hardly considered, and instead challeneged my current views.

The purpose of Macchu Picchu is but a hypothesis, an area for pilgramage, a solstice space, an educational structure, a sacred site—abandoned around colonial contact—was it as important as we make it out to be? Most of it was overgrown wiht the flora of the jungle until Hiram Bingham stumbled upon it, and it was ‘restored’ for touristic consumption afterwards. Macchu Picchu, as Roy tells us, dervies its fame fully from narratives, not from its gradiosity or its spiritual capacities, another site not far seems to be much larger but it does not have the privilige of being stripped from overgrowth. Yet is it a privilige?

Rice’s book on tourism captures the specific narrativies and techniques that Cusquenos utilized to promote Macchu Picchu upon its “discovery”. Photography, especially in the 90s, was crucial for spreading the site and a fantasy to the international context, tour guides and books however, allowed a controlled consumption of the site as well as allowed Cusquenos to prioritize their vision of Indigeneity. It makes me wonder, what is the view of Indieneity that our guides were pushing? Their narratives are nothing like I’ve witnessed before.

“We want you to draw your own conclusions on what Macchu Picchu was”, they say, almost knowingly, as they tell us about all of its potential uses, outlining several areas of uncertainty. I may not be the most representative of international tourists, I’m over critical and aware of my positionality, hold skepticism over a lot of things, yet I’m unsure that after such a tour anyone would with confidence declare Macchu Picchu as any one thing. If the intention of our gudies was to make us confused, I think they are doing a great job. Is confusion though, a tactic of creating mystique surrounding the site, of gathering research interest, or is it a tactic of slowing Western assumptions so the Indigenous peoples can take time to decide on their own narrative, as Rice suggests?

Indigeneity, I assume like any other group identity, should be deeply personsal to the group, it doesn’t have to be articulated, just shared and mutually agreed upon, of who is in and who is out. A self-affirmation that is, not dependant on the approval of the other. But if playing colonizer’s game is a prerequisite to liberation, if articulating the characteristics of an identity and presenting it under colonial terms is inevitable, would something vital be lost?

The colonial western tourist gaze loves—I dare say depends on dichotomies, a neat line between the past and the future. The pre-contact strong Indigenous person who no longer exists vs. the educated urban Indigenous person who has blood ties. In the same vein is a binary between the communal soceity and the individual one, the agraian and the capitalist economy, the poor and the rich. Is it possible that through this gaze, the Cusquenos can represent their identity in a way that does not fall between this binary?

My gut instinct arises that it may not be possible for three distinct reasons.

First, those are are allowed to represent Indigeneity are likely the type of people only taken seriously by the western tourist: the educated, the bilingual, the one priviliged enough to be able to wear a suit for their Macchu Picchu identification card and buy brand name hiking shoes. Are the vendors on the street choosing how to present the narrative of Indigeniety, is it the capitalist who mass-produces ponchos and weaved bracelets? Is it the direct descendants of those who once inhabited Macchu Picchu and migrated or is it the Cusqueno academics and researchers?

Second, though I pride myself on trying to understand abtractions and complexities, it’s even difficult for me to rewire my binary thinking. When Roy says even Incans peoples took apart Macchu Picchu to build new foundations, my instict is anger that he would imply that Indigenous peoples are just as “bad” as colonizers—though this must not be true. When he says that “Incan” is actually the term for royalty, not for all Indigenous people, I think: “damn, sucks that the Indigenous peoples here also had a hierarchy”, because I immediately associate hierarchy with dehumanizing behaviours. When structure might have been temples or might have been univerisites or might have been celebration sites, I think, wow it must be either sacred or not, it can’t be sort-of-sacred. I’ve been struggling to sit with the information and not categorize it to my own familiarity, it’s gruelling, and I really don’t think that most tourists are willing to sit in a cafe and intellecutalize then challenge their preconceptions.

Third, the tourist economy itself functions is reliant on dichotomies, it requires cheap labour to mass produce souvenirs and displaces poorer individuals and makes them dependent on international consumption. Not that inter-reliance is bad, but the say that the exchange is mutual between Peruvian tourists and Canadians is simply not true. It requires the intense surveillance of sites, disrupts mutual trust between individuals, to assume the worst of the consumers, that we cannot take care of the environment—and they are not wrong. It furthers this binary of Indigenous peoples are protectors of the land and non-Indigenous peoples as destroyers. Is there reciprocity in any of these exchanges?

Several times over the course of this trip I’ve told people about the Yukon and told them to reach out if they ever wanted to go. Was I promoting tourism? Perhaps in a way. But it was more of extending an invitation to see a part of me, knowing the respect that these individuals hold, less than a suggestion to contribute to our local economy. Who invited us to Peru other than our own volition? Who trusted us to take care of its land, or told us how to take care of it?

The more I engage in tourism, the more I’m skeptical that I should be engaging. Shouldn’t I only go to places I’m invited to? My friend’s homes? My motherland? But then, what are the boundaries of which lands are mine and what lands are theirs?

Some feasts for thoughts, later loves,

Annie