Since the early 2000s, ethnic tourism has attracted public attention in Cambodia where the Angkor-based tourism has largely occupied its center of tourism industry. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how ethnic minorities have been represe... Since the early 2000s, ethnic tourism has attracted public attention in Cambodia where the Angkor-based tourism has largely occupied its center of tourism industry. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how ethnic minorities have been represented in the contemporary tourism site within the historic, socio-political context of Cambodia. This study aims to reveal the myths of minority representations in contemporary tourist sites in Cambodia, and shed light on the way that different actors appropriate these dominant images. Through this process, this dissertation argues that the minority representation in ethnic tourism sites is not simply a tool to display or to preserve minority culture, but is rather a discursive apparatus to articulate the mainstream view of ethnic demarcation created by the dominant power agency – the state. In so doing, two cases have been chosen: the Cambodian Cultural Village located in the city of Siem Reap, managed by the majority Khmers, and the Yeak Laom indigenous tourism park in Ratanakiri province, managed by the Yeak Laom community. The minority representations in the Cambodian Cultural Village, the first case of this study, show that the majority Khmer’s stereotypes toward non-Khmer minorities are creating an appealing tourist attraction for both domestic and international tourists, depicting ethnic minorities as exotic and sexual ‘others’. This images do not only end up with commercialization of minority culture, but also reproduce and reinforce the myth of the superior Khmer which had been around for many decades in the Cambodian society. Under the myth of the ‘Khmer modernity’, the Cultural Village reproduces the homogenization of the majority at the expense of the colorful, exotic and romanticized minority. In this regard, minority representations in the Cultural Village take a role of managing national imagination in tourism sector in contemporary Cambodia. This dominant ethnic discourse, which lies in the representations of the ‘others’ in the Cultural Village, affects and exerts strong influence over the minority representation created by minority themselves as well. The second case of this study, the Yeak Laom indigenous tourism park, is a good example showing far-reaching power of exotic and sexualized images of the ethnic minority created by the mainstream society. The ethnic representations in the Yeak Laom indigenous tourism park, run by Yeak Laom community where the majority of the population are the ethnic Tampuon, tend to imitate those romanticized and marginalized images of minorities in Khmer narratives, and ‘self-exoticizing’ themselves as a result of it. However, the Yeak Laom case also implies that this dominant images can be challenged and negotiated by the various stakeholders who began to appear on the Cambodian political sphere, such as international donor agencies, NGOs, and local activists. Images of ‘others’ imagined by the state is being appropriated by the community as a tool for negotiation and resistance with the increasing supports from Western-backed agencies. As an ‘indigenous people’ of the nation, simplified and romanticized ethnic markers are turning into symbolic weapons which enable the community to deal with the practical issues they are facing. In Yeak Laom case, it is closely related to the land rights of the Yeak Laom region. The dissertation finds that the representation of minority culture in the two tourist sites shows a strong tendency of the Orientalist ‘White cultural fames’ emerged from a century-old imperialist worldview. Therefore, ethnic tourism guidelines used in the two sites not only renders the Khmer-centered understanding of ethnic minorities in Cambodia technically but also essentialize such views; it inevitably reflects the power of gaze from the mainstream society, justifying the control and intervention of the powerful Khmer against the ‘others’. However, the study also suggests that when marginalized images of ‘others' are appropriated by the ‘others' themselves, the representations become a dynamic space for further negotiation and resistance. ，韩语论文网站，韩语论文 |
