- Anthropology of Tourism, Intangible Cultural Heritage (Culture), Intangible cultural heritage, Unesco, Anthropology of Madagascar, Anthropology, and 20 moreSocial and Cultural Anthropology, Antropología, Tourism Studies, Heritage Tourism, Cultural Tourism, Sustainable/Responsible Tourism, Tourism Impacts, Travel & Tourism, Madagascar, Cultures and heritage tourism, Social Sciences in Madagascar, Cultural Heritage, Indian Ocean World, Museum and Heritage Studies, Creative Tourism, Nomadism, Turismo Cultural, History of Tourism, Anna L. Tsing, and ANTHROMOBedit
- I am an anthropologist specialising in Tourism and Travel Culture. After a BA in Philosophy at the University of Nap... moreI am an anthropologist specialising in Tourism and Travel Culture.
After a BA in Philosophy at the University of Naples and Paris Sorbonne, I worked for five years in Advertising and Qualitative Trend Research with an ethnographic approach.
In 2003, I planned a carreer change and moved to tour guiding. At the same time, I undertook Anthropological Studies at the University of Milan Bicocca. In 2006, I moved to Barcelona, where I enrolled into a Ph.D program. A specialization in the field of Anthropology of Tourism seemed like the most natural choice.
My PhD analysed the processes of Tourism development and Intangible Heritage making in the Zafimaniry community of Madagascar.
I am a professional Tour Guide working since 2003; I am also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Barcelona, Escola Universitaria del Maresme (Matarò) and Ostelea - School of International Tourism.
As a Researcher, I am interested in New forms of leisure related mobilities; Tourism Imagineries; Tourists' Practices and Discourses; Heritage-making processes related to the commodification of the Intangible; Tourism and Memory.edit
The Special Issue pursues a two-fold objective: (1) fostering a grounded debate on the analytical fruitfulness of the neo-nomad concept to describe historically situated empirical phenomena, and (2) exploring the sociopolitical... more
The Special Issue pursues a two-fold objective: (1) fostering a grounded debate on the analytical fruitfulness of the neo-nomad concept to describe historically situated empirical phenomena, and (2) exploring the sociopolitical consequences of these allegedly alternative, although possibly highly individualistic, forms of living for collective projects, such as communities, welfare, and the state.
Articles in this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Articles in this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
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The mobile lifestyle of digital nomads mingles remote work, international travel, and multi-local living in ways that both submit to and resist state-based mobility regimes. In this article, we examine this apparent paradox by asking how... more
The mobile lifestyle of digital nomads mingles remote work, international travel, and multi-local living in ways that both submit to and resist state-based mobility regimes. In this article, we examine this apparent paradox by asking how digital nomads move both with the state and against it. Employing the metaphor of ‘friction’, the analytical lens of ‘governmobility’ and ethnographic fieldwork with digital nomads, the article illustrates how nomads leverage state-imposed constraints into creative forms of ‘border artistry’ that allow them to achieve their lifestyle goals in the shadow of the state. At the same time, however, the article suggests that states are also border artists, an argument developed through an analysis of governments’ recently established special visa programs. The findings suggest that mobility regimes do not merely determine who can or cannot move, enter, or stay, but rather exercise a kind of governmobility that encourages mobile individuals to discipline themselves according to desirable qualities such as self-sufficiency, consumer citizenship, and depoliticised mobility. In this sense, mobility regimes emerge as the mutual interface between digital nomads’ individual strategies to stay on the move and states’ institutional strategies to codify and commodify their legal status.
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Cet article interroge le domaine de la mobilite comme mode de vie a partir du phenomene des nomades numeriques, personnes qui, grâce a l’usage des technologies sans fil, materialisent leur possibilite de decouvrir le monde tout en... more
Cet article interroge le domaine de la mobilite comme mode de vie a partir du phenomene des nomades numeriques, personnes qui, grâce a l’usage des technologies sans fil, materialisent leur possibilite de decouvrir le monde tout en poursuivant leur activite professionnelle sans etre confinees dans des localites specifiques. Analysant la dynamique entre ethos de la liberte, responsabilisation et marchandisation a partir de la theorie de l’individualisme de Anthony Giddens, le texte examine le role joue par la mobilite transnationale dans un « projet de soi » qui remet en cause un mode de vie sedentaire et met l’accent sur la creation d’une histoire individuelle, assumant les risques que cela entraine. Les materiaux empiriques sont issus d’une combinaison de methodes d’enquete, associant l’ethnographie virtuelle, le travail de terrain conventionnel et l’analyse de contenu en ligne (entretiens, articles, blogues personnels).
Ethnographic accounts of the implementation and impact of safeguarding measures upon the communities of practitioners in postcolonial settings are still relatively small in number. This article reports in-depth ethnographic data on the... more
Ethnographic accounts of the implementation and impact of safeguarding measures upon the communities of practitioners in postcolonial settings are still relatively small in number. This article reports in-depth ethnographic data on the heritagisation process and plan of action for safeguarding the woodcrafting knowledge of the Zafimaniry of Madagascar, aiming to foster an empirically grounded debate on the uses of heritage in such contexts. The study argues that the inventorying and trademarking act as dispositifs of canonisation imposed upon intangible cultural heritage, and produce its social institutionalisation, whereby new bureaucratic structures are put in place to mediate the spontaneous ways ‘local practitioners’ define and practice their knowledge. Outlining the connective capacity of the heritagisation process to establish relationships between different fields – political, economic, cultural- the article highlights the controversial power/knowledge relations arising in the designation and management process, and the links between the UNESCO recognition and economics.
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Dou you know that there are a lot of sexism, gender discrimination and no-equality in Universities system?
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Digital nomads are individuals who, taking advantage of portable computing technologies and widespread Internet access, can work remotely from any location and use this freedom to explore the world. Using ethnographic and netnographic... more
Digital nomads are individuals who, taking advantage of portable computing technologies and widespread Internet access, can work remotely from any location and use this freedom to explore the world. Using ethnographic and netnographic research, this article outlines this recent phenomenon, framing it into the lens of lifestyle mobilities and individualization theories. It adds to existing research by focusing on the new set of responsibilities and commitments entailed by the individualization process. In research participants’ explanations, disengaging from sedentary life enabled them to express an ethos of freedom, in which minimalism, uncertainty and risk replace material accumulation, stability and comfort. It is important however to pay attention to the structural constraints within which their ethos of freedom operates. The aim of the article is twofold: on one hand, it contrasts digital nomads’ sociocultural imaginaries of (in)mobility with the specific economic strategies they use to sustain their continuous mobility, including geoarbitrage and the commodification of network capital. On the other, it provides fresh ethnographic evidence on how digital nomads’ self-realization project meets the ideology of entrepreneurialism, allowing them to take advantage of privileged nationalities to navigate the global inequalities of the capitalist system. The article argues that, rather than a challenge to the system, digital nomadism is an opportunistic adaptation to neoliberal impacts.
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In this paper, I examine how home is imagined and socially constructed in the life of " location-independent families " (LIF). Location-independence is a form of lifestyle mobility based on the possibility of running an online business... more
In this paper, I examine how home is imagined and socially constructed in the life of " location-independent families " (LIF). Location-independence is a form of lifestyle mobility based on the possibility of running an online business from anywhere in the world and the choice to homeschool the children. Through an examination of families' stories based on in-depth interviews and virtual ethnography, the article explores the ways families-on-the-move negotiate their idea of home at the complicated intersections between security and freedom; material dispossession and need for attachment; isolation and sense of community. LIFs' imagination of home is not bound to a static, fixed, geographical place but takes a contextual and processual dimension, as social process and lived experience. Its core is the simultaneous physical presence of the family members and different home-making practices.
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This article studies the origins, the production and the ambivalent uses of a ‘primitivenarrative’ about the Zafimaniry of Madagascar. The analysis focuses on tourismmediators’ discourses and how they are challenged by the actual tourists’... more
This article studies the origins, the production and the ambivalent uses of a ‘primitivenarrative’ about the Zafimaniry of Madagascar. The analysis focuses on tourismmediators’ discourses and how they are challenged by the actual tourists’ experiences;it is based on participant observation, interviews and web analysis. From national touroperators to local tour guides, the mediators’ communicative staging of the Zafimaniryrecalls and broadens the notion of ‘primitiveness’, using it as an element of fascinationand nostalgia. However, the actual tourists’ experience questions this perspective,responding with a ‘philanthropic’ narrative, a desire to engage in action and relievefrom poverty. Both discourses reveal however of a comparative nature and stem fromthe same logic: a way of ‘meeting the Other’ from a Western perspective.
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The present article focuses on the experience of groups of predominan tly American teenagers tourists traveling to Mediterranean Europe on educational tours, and is aimed at analyzing the dynamics, the contradictions and the multiple... more
The present article focuses on the experience
of groups of predominan
tly American teenagers
tourists traveling to Mediterranean Europe on educational tours, and is aimed at analyzing the dynamics,
the contradictions and the multiple narratives taking
place, during an organized tour, between individual
and group, expectations and reality, narratives and
performances. At the level of performances, the re-
search focuses on the dual nature of the environmenta
l bubble, the structure consistent with the organiza-
tion of a package tour. At the level of discourses, th
e analysis focuses on the dialectic and the contrast
between the trip as imagined and the trip as lived.
of groups of predominan
tly American teenagers
tourists traveling to Mediterranean Europe on educational tours, and is aimed at analyzing the dynamics,
the contradictions and the multiple narratives taking
place, during an organized tour, between individual
and group, expectations and reality, narratives and
performances. At the level of performances, the re-
search focuses on the dual nature of the environmenta
l bubble, the structure consistent with the organiza-
tion of a package tour. At the level of discourses, th
e analysis focuses on the dialectic and the contrast
between the trip as imagined and the trip as lived.
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Basé sur une recherche ethnographique détaillée, cet ouvrage explore les représentations qui se produisent autour de l'identité des Zafimaniry, une communauté des Hautes Terres malgaches, à partir de trois domaines différents : l'art... more
Basé sur une recherche ethnographique détaillée, cet ouvrage explore les représentations qui se produisent autour de l'identité des Zafimaniry, une communauté des Hautes Terres malgaches, à partir de trois domaines différents : l'art ethnique, le classement au patrimoine immatériel de l'UNESCO et le tourisme. L'auteur analyse les discours et les pratiques des protagonistes locaux et des acteurs institutionnels (médiateurs touristiques, organismes ministériels promoteurs de la candidature UNESCO et marchands d'art ethnique), dévoilant comment les Zafimaniry sont « inventés » comme tribu, investis du rôle de culture « traditionnelle » et « originelle » de Madagascar. La notion de « régimes de valeur » sert à éclairer ces processus, qui concernent autant des questions de patrimoine, que de politique et de marchandisation.
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The nostalgia for the past and the desire to live authentic experiences, embodied in ‘archaic’ ways of life that resist the assault of modernity and global consumer culture, is arguably a major driving impulse for various forms of... more
The nostalgia for the past and the desire to live authentic experiences, embodied in ‘archaic’
ways of life that resist the assault of modernity and global consumer culture, is arguably a
major driving impulse for various forms of cultural tourism to remote, exotic corners of the
globe. Making the Modern Primitive is an ethnographic account of one such context, bringing
into focus ethnic tourism in the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea.
ways of life that resist the assault of modernity and global consumer culture, is arguably a
major driving impulse for various forms of cultural tourism to remote, exotic corners of the
globe. Making the Modern Primitive is an ethnographic account of one such context, bringing
into focus ethnic tourism in the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea.
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[…] volver como antes no, no quiero... Así estoy bien, solo necesito la babysit-ter y alguien que me limpie el piso… como antes. (Fina; abril, 2020) Fina es una de las mujeres que hemos entrevistado hasta ahora para ex-plorar las... more
[…] volver como antes no, no quiero... Así estoy bien, solo necesito la babysit-ter y alguien que me limpie el piso… como antes. (Fina; abril, 2020) Fina es una de las mujeres que hemos entrevistado hasta ahora para ex-plorar las contradicciones de las maternidades intensivas (Hays, 1998) impuestas por el confinamiento y la consecuente reorganización familiar. Sobre esta situación, Mara observa que «a cada cerdo le llega su san Mar-tín» (mayo, 2020), en referencia a los roles de género que su pareja y ella desempeñan, y con los que claramente está en desacuerdo. Esta restructuración pone en evidencia las desigualdades, ausencias y no presencias (De Martino, 1961) de las parejas y de las estructuras socia-les de apoyo (actividades extraescolares, redes familiares, cuidadores, etc.) en un confrontamiento constante entre su realidad personal antes de la COVID-19 y la actual (imagen 1).
Free download: http://llibres.urv.cat/index.php/purv/catalog/book/448
Free download: http://llibres.urv.cat/index.php/purv/catalog/book/448
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Research Interests: Tourism Studies, Anthropology of Tourism, Cultural Heritage, Unesco, Ethnic Identity, and 8 moreIntangible Cultural Heritage (Culture), Community Based Tourism, Community-based Heritage Tourism, Madagascar, Social Sciences in Madagascar, Meaning-Making of Heritage, Art Zafimaniry, and Malagasy crafts
This international workshop seeks to engage critical reflections intersecting the notions of mobilities, work and the future. Processes of globalisation and neoliberalism have affected contemporary practices and perceptions of mobility... more
This international workshop seeks to engage critical reflections intersecting the notions of mobilities, work and the future. Processes of globalisation and neoliberalism have affected contemporary practices and perceptions of mobility and work. Whether for a global middle class traveller or a precarious labour migrant, geographic mobility is perceived as a strategy that bears the potential to improve one’s life. Although job-related spatial mobility is not a new phenomenon, the rise of digital and communication technologies is transforming the way work is conceived, allocated, and performed, challenging received notions of not just work and home, but also ideas of leisure, productive age, and retirement. Given this framework, our workshop asks how the positive social value of mobility in the contemporary world is affecting changing attitudes toward work and shaping future socialities. What is the contribution of ethnographically derived knowledge to the visioning and making of futures of work and mobility? The workshop represents an attempt to decipher and trace out the shifting meaning and contexts emerging at the intersection between new forms of labour, precarity, and mobility. How is the work-leisure binary reformulated in relation to mobile work practices? How do mobility strategies facilitate or subvert the “do what you love” mantra that has come to dominate creative and knowledge economies, contributing to/challenging the rise of an “entreprecariat”? How does platform capitalism influence the way mobile persons enter the labour market? These are some of the issues that this workshop aims to tackle, hoping to build an empirical comparative framework to understand socio-cultural and political changes.
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I temi della Rivista – Territorio, Turismo, Tecnologia – trovano nell’ “Incontro Fuori Luogo” un’occasione speciale di approfondimento. Uno scienziato sociale di chiara fama risponde a domande su attualità, politica e società, stimolando... more
I temi della Rivista – Territorio, Turismo, Tecnologia – trovano nell’ “Incontro Fuori Luogo” un’occasione speciale di approfondimento. Uno scienziato sociale di chiara fama risponde a domande su attualità, politica e società, stimolando spunti di riflessione per i nostri lettori.