This week's travel essay is a controversial one, painting travellers as modern-day imperialists. Below tourism expert David Jobanputra explores the relationship between tourists and their host nations. Are tourists just "capitalist parasites"? Now there is subject ripe for discussion. Please do leave your thoughts. If you enjoyed this article, you can subscribe to the rest of the series via our RSS feed. 

"I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in other people’s houses as an interloper, a beggar or a slave."- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

In last week’s piece, I looked at the idea that travel is simply a symptom of the chronic consumerism that defines the current era. This gluttonous urge to splurge has made culture a commodity, as surplus demand from the West makes markets of the Rest. With this in mind, we have no choice but to wonder: is travel a new form of imperialism?

The Age of Imperialism (1850-1914) saw the leading Western nations – Britain, France, Germany, Japan and the US – engaged in a tireless quest for virgin lands to sow with their surplus capital.

Now consider the Age of Tourism (1950-), which has also seen the major Western nations engaged in a tireless quest for virgin lands to sow with their surplus capital. Put simply, late capitalism has generated more wealth than anyone knows what to do with while at the same time expending most of the West’s natural resources (picturesque landscapes, pristine nature, etc.), so the hunt is on for new, resource-rich territories in which to invest some cash.

These wealthy tourists are like capitalist parasites, draining their hosts of their land and labour and blighting their cultures to boot. From political organisation to the economy, social structures to morality, tourism has affected (or perhaps infected) every aspect of society, relieving its victims of all autonomy and breeding an abject dependence. The tourists, for their part, see such sorry subordination as evidence of backwardness, and thus justify their presence as promoting both material and moral development. Surprisingly, people buy this.

Travel is imperialism. It is born of inequality, of gaps of power and wealth. Like imperialism, travel involves territorial expansion and the occupation of foreign lands. In both cases, the colonised regions are subject to control from beyond their borders, as economic and political structures are increasingly shaped by those in far-flung metropoles.

As a consequence, local livelihoods are transformed; it’s out with farming, fishing and forestry, in with service, subservience. At the heart of this arrangement is dependence. It is a guest-host relationship in which the host is wholly at the mercy of its parasitic guest. As such, the latter must be kept happy; anything that the guest desires is promptly provided, regardless of its fit with local tradition. Swimming pools, beach bars, English breakfasts and banana pancakes – these are the wants of imperial travellers. If the good sahib wishes to eat a hamburger in Hyderabad, or if ma’am sahib is wont to wear her miniskirt in Marrakesh, so be it!

As ever, the West knows best.

All this poses a paradox: does travel destroy the very cultures it purports to encounter? If the tourist is indeed a parasite that contaminates all it consumes, if it is replete with infectious moralities, then what becomes of its host? These questions form the backbone of next week’s article.

About David Jobanputra

David Jobanputra is a writer and anthropologist specialising in development, cultural change and environmental ethics. He recently completed a PhD in Social Anthropology at University College London, which looked at grassroots advocacy and eco-development in the Aravalli mountains of Rajasthan, India. In addition to living and working in the subcontinent, David has travelled extensively throughout Europe, Asia and Africa, including overland trips from Tibet to Scotland and Beijing to Java. David recently returned from 18 months living with a tribe in the Rajasthani desert.

Photo courtesy of Flickr User leafar