Mimicking the Strangers

 One of the souvenirs center in Amman

In different touristic sites that we visited, it was common for us to see the view of small children wandering around in touristic sites. They were selling bottles of water, sunglasses, or chewing gums. Omar, our tour guide repeatedly warned us not to buy anything from these children. "If you want to help us educating the children, please don't buy anything from them as they will prefer to earn money in these places instead of going to school" as Omar said. It made me realize that tourism, to a certain extent, can directly affect the lives of the local people. It makes me think, how far can touristic activities influence their lives? One of the ways in which local communities can be affected by tourism activities is through ‘demonstration effect’. Demonstration effect is the instance in which locals try to imitate the wealth and lifestyles of tourists through acculturation (Smith, 2012). As a result, traditional values often become threatened by the wave of foreign culture brought by the tourists. In Jordan, the most visible cue of demonstration effect that I found was the language use. For example, I met a child who spoke to me using a British slang in addition the British accent that he had. Nevertheless, as Jordan is categorized as a moderate Muslim country, although there were many noticeable differences between Jordan and western countries, those differences seemed to be accepted. In contrast with the usual example of demonstration effect - in which social gap between the tourists and the locals could lead to offensive behavior (Smith, 2012) - our encounters with the locals are mostly positive. It seemed that the locals tried to simulate the western culture in order to adapt with the inflow of tourists in the country, instead of using it as a means to ‘compete’ culturally with the foreigners.

A form of acculturation performed by the visitors

References:

Smith, V. L. (Ed.). (2012). Hosts and guests: The anthropology of tourism. University of Pennsylvania Press.