A postcolonial analysis of backpacking

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Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 109–131, 2006 Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0160-7383/$32.00

doi:10.1016/j.annals.2005.05.001

A POSTCOLONIAL ANALYSIS OF BACKPACKING Peggy Teo National University of Singapore, Singapore Sandra Leong Singapore Tourism Board, Singapore Abstract: Backpacking research has mainly focused on Western backpackers even if their destinations are in less developed Asian countries. This paper engages a postcolonial approach to decenter the Western orientation and to reclaim epistemological space for the Asian backpacker who has been largely ignored. Khao San, the backpacker mecca of Southeast Asia is the case study to convey the racialized and gendered nature of backpacking. For tourism providers, these tourists as well as locals, Khao San is a farang landscape that marginalizes Asian backpackers and Asian women backpackers in particular because they are represented as exotic and erotic. Nevertheless, these stereotypes are being contested as the number of Asian backpackers increase in this location. Keywords: backpackers, cultural politics, power relations, race, gender. Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Re´sume´: Une analyse postcoloniale des voyages sac a` dos. La recherche sur les voyages sac a` dos a e´te´ concentre´e principalement sur les routards occidentaux, meˆme si leurs destinations sont dans des pays asiatiques moins de´veloppe´s. Cet article utilise une approche postcoloniale pour de´centrer l’orientation occidentale et re´cupe´rer l’espace e´piste´mologique pour le routard asiatique, qui a e´te´ peu e´tudie´. Khao San, la Mecque des routards dans le Sud-Est asiatique, est l’e´tude de cas pour communiquer la nature racialise´e et sexue´e des voyages sac a` dos. Pour les fournisseurs du tourisme, les touristes et les habitants, Khao San est un paysage farang qui marginalise les routards asiatiques, surtout les femmes, repre´sente´es comme exotiques et e´rotiques. Ne´anmoins, ces ste´re´otypes sont conteste´s a` mesure que le nombre de routards asiatiques augmente dans cette re´gion. Mots-cle´s: routards, politique culturelle, relations de pouvoir, race, sexe. Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION Backpacking in the past has always been associated with long periods away from home, low-budget travel, and the lack of a fixed itinerary. While early labels such as Cohen’s (1972) ‘‘non-institutionalized traveler’’, Plog’s (1974) ‘‘allocentric’’ tourist, Vogt’s (1976) ‘‘wanderer’’ and Riley’s (1988) criterion of one-year away provide useful characteristics for identifying a backpacker, so much has happened in backpacking tourism that there is a need to rethink the whole phenomenon. As Peggy Teo is Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore (Email ). Her research interests are in social theory, cultural and heritage tourism, theme parks, and globalization issues. She also works on gender and leisure, focusing on older women. Sandra Leong is Manager, Sightseeing and Cruise, Singapore Tourism Board. She works on backpackers and tourism development and planning. 109

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Ateljevic and Doorne point out, this has ‘‘in the contemporary context become representative of a travel lifestyle, an expression of identity, as well as a coherent industrial complex in its own right’’ (2004:60). This statement offers two propositions. One, this practice has assumed a symbolic status for those who engage in it (Cohen 2004; Desforges 2000; Elsrud 2001; Noy 2004) and there is a multiplicity of expressions for it depending on who the backpacker is. Second, backpacking has not been able to avoid progressive institutionalization, which is evident in destinations selected for this purpose (Ateljevic and Doorne 2004; Uriely, Yonay and Simchai 2002). Unpacking the reasons behind this state of affairs will reveal much about who can influence backpacker landscapes and will help further illuminate the dynamics behind these changes. Re-examination also comes on the back of new developments in the social sciences, notably the cultural turn which has opened up further critical analyses of tourism. By acknowledging that in most social science topics, each phenomenon involves a ‘‘range of cultures and with [it], the cultural politics that this implies’’ (Jackson 1989:8), the cultural turn has effectively demonstrated that leisure and tourism spaces, places, and landscapes act as sites of social inclusion/exclusion whose status is always in constant transition (Davis 2001; Urry 1995). As soon as tourism landscapes are constructed, they become contested, disrupted, and transformed (Aitchison, MacLeod and Shaw 2000:19). Continuous, dialectical struggles of power and resistance among and between landscape providers, users, and mediators transform these spaces, which in turn affect their creators and users. Using Foucault’s (1979) concepts of power and power relations as well as the problematization of space and place in relation to sociocultural constructs such as race, class, and gender, postcolonial research as a constituent part of the cultural turn shows an appreciation of the complex nature of spatiality. By deconstructing and querying representations of and by groups, this paper’s employment of postcolonial theory helps researchers to critically reflect not only changes in backpacking, but re-reading these changes as outcomes of social constructions that view it as a predominantly Western tourism process treating selected locations as foreign and exotic. This analysis responds to Aitchison et al’s (2000) claim that the legacy of colonialism is manifest in many of the structures and practices of contemporary tourism. While in the past, Asians who backpacked were a rarity and the practice was regarded as an activity directly associated with Europeans and Americans (Noy 2004; Westerhausen 2002), this image is fast eroding with more Asians taking to this form of budget tourism. As such, there is a need to interrogate whether research on backpacking is too Western-oriented/-centred, emanating from their academic realm and written by their academics, even though the location being studied may be foreign to them. Works focused on Western backpackers include Cohen (1972; 1973), Elsrud (2001), Hampton (1998), Hillman (1999), Moran (2000), Murphy (2001), Scheyvens (2002), Sørensen (2003), Spreitzhofer (1998), Suvantola (2002), Westerhausen (2002) and Westerhausen and Macbeth (2003). Although

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unlikely to be intentional expressions of Western-centrism, these papers do, however, suggest that there are gaps in the literature that do not acknowledge the presence and experiences of Asian backpackers, very often blanketing such communities as Western wholes. Western-centrism in backpacking literature has been elsewhere argued. Hutnyk (1996,1999), for instance, in his critical analysis of tourism in India, revealed precisely how pervasive Western-centric views are in tourism lore and in guidebooks used by backpackers and other tourists. Even literary works and popular music are not spared from these popular prefigured hegemonic imaginations of a country represented as poverty-stricken yet containing attractive ‘‘life essences’’ highly sought after by Western backpacking tourists seeking ‘‘spiritual truths’’ (Hutnyk 1999:99–101). Elsrud (2001) and Noy (2004) argue along the same lines, saying that acts of risk and adventure as well as experiences of authenticity in far-away exotic places work to create a sense of selfidentity which, while fluid and changeable, is crucial to selffulfillment. Sørensen unpacks the importance of sharing tourism experiences and ‘‘road status’’ (such as sharing of hardships, information on diseases, paying local prices, and getting the best deals) among Western backpackers in Asian (and admittedly other) spaces which he argues will further the understanding of a phenomenon that, on the one hand, is so vast and diverse as to be beyond subsumption under a distinct description, yet, on the other hand, does display widespread affinities, behavioral similarities, social interaction that produces systems of meaning, and a connection to a fluid shared frame of reference (2003:857– 862).

While these works sensitize researchers to the inherent importance of a geographical imagination in identity formation in backpacking, what seems lacking, nonetheless, is a non-Western perspective on the backpacking experience. Sørensen’s work (2003), for example, based on a large sample of 156 interviews, is still limited to an analysis of backpackers from North America, Australia, New Zealand and Western Europe. Besides the empirical emphasis, it is the dominant Western worldview that this paper wants to move away from in postcolonial research. Postcolonialism problematizes the very ways in which the world is known, challenging unexamined assumptions at the heart of AngloAmerican research that are ‘‘profoundly insensitive to the meanings, values, and practices of other cultures’’ (Gregory 1994, cited in Blunt and McEwan 2002:9). Postcolonialism argues that discourses are far from innocent. They are, as Edward Said (1978) claims, a form of power which gives authority to the possessor of knowledge. Among critical analyses that look at power, exoticism, and primitivism, authors such as Desforges (1998) and Hutnyk (1999) argue that the Third World (where many backpacking havens can be found) is imagined as Other wherein the colonial discourse fixes difference to its own benefit. This way of thinking also has ‘‘material consequences for the place represented because representations are lived as reality,

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informing the practices of Westerners in the Third World’’ (Desforges 1998:176). This paper has two objectives. First, it examines backpacking tourism landscapes, both material and metaphoric forms, in Khao San (Bangkok, Thailand). Studying their complex contours will add both rhetoric and substance to postcoloniality, etching both the concrete and imagined dimensions of the condition. Second, it attempts to understand the processes that affect the (re)creation and (re)presentation of Khao San. There is a need to explicate the sociospatial politics that make spaces the sites of inclusion/exclusion for different groups of backpackers, in particular the racialized and gendered nature of this practice in postcolonial times. Through this examination, the overarching aim of this paper is to (re)constitute the world in more discursive terms and thus reclaim epistemological space from the West. The paper does not assume that Western discourse on backpacking immobilizes; rather, by critical analysis, it aims to ‘‘articulate the silences of the native by liberating the suppressed in discourse’’ (Yahya cited in Alatas 1995:131). As Yeoh argues, postcolonialism is not a ‘‘totalizing or monolithic discourse representing one-half of any simple West/ non-West bifurcation of the world, but in fact a highly mobile, contestatory and still developing arena where opportunities for insight may be gained at multiple sites’’ (2003:369), so that scholars and practitioners of tourism do not presumptuously continue to conflate the interests of Asian, Western, or any other groups of backpackers. In this analysis of Khao San, the paper also draws on Sidaway’s (2002) proposition that there is no one postcolonial condition. He talks about imperialism, once-colonized societies, neocolonialism, and internal colonialism as some possibilities. Postcolonialism is relevant even in societies that were not once formal colonies such as Thailand in the 20th century, because its aim is to ‘‘locate a specifically antior post-colonial discursive purchase in culture, one which begins in the moment that the colonizing power inscribes itself onto the body and space of its Others and which continues as an often occluded tradition in the modern theater of neocolonialist international relations’’ (Sleman 1991, cited in Sidaway 2002:13). Even without this inscription mentioned, Sidaway argues that it is the ‘‘experience and exercise [of] continued neocolonial or imperial power’’ which must hold sway in critical theory (2002:12). Therefore, postcoloniality is not deemed to be territorial reclamation alone. Rather, it aims to refocus the ‘‘wide corpus of colonial knowledge, policies and frameworks’’ (Yeoh 2003:370) that have permeated through the open borders of Thailand. The colonial project is about the conquest of territorial and indigenous epistemological spaces so that it carries Western-centered loci in its imaginings, which have specific materialistic outcomes as well, a point which King (2003) emphasizes. He talks about the need to pay attention to the material properties of space as these convey the makings of both colonialism and postcolonialism. Thailand may not be a previous colony but the ‘‘real spaces, built forms and the material substances of everyday biospheres’’ (Yeoh 2003:370) may communicate a social distribution of power that reflects past and present Western

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influences. Widely recognized as Asia’s backpacking mecca, encountering a high traffic of backpackers from all over the world, Khao San is one such space where this is evident. It is in such physical and material environments where everyday life actually occurs that the power and control which affect the life chances of those who live within them become apparent (King 2003). Postcolonialism and Power The Anglo-American hegemony in backpacking has been discussed in, among others, Desforges’ (1998) work. He likens the backpacking experience of Westerners to collecting places based on a representation of the world as a series of differences from home. The project of building up systematic knowledge about the world is referred to by Pratt as the ‘‘European colonial encounter with its Third World Other’’ (1992:29–30). Even as backpackers seek an authentic experience by cutting down on commodification, the very power they wield in determining which places are brought into the tourism economy, shows their ability to commodify and set the terms of their relationship with the Other. To them, ‘‘collecting places is a way of framing the Third World as a place where individual knowledge and personal experience can be gained through travel’’ (Desforges 1998:183–4). Even as tourism fixes the Other for consumption of culture according to its own image, Othering is contested and subverted by the host and other guests affected by their own genius loci. This paper acknowledges the multiple worldviews of postcolonial research. In order to conduct a postcolonial anatomy of backpacking, it examines the congregational spaces and experiences of Western tourists and of Asian backpackers. It draws upon Foucault (1979) and LeFebvre (1991) to show how tourism spaces in Asia become dominated by White backpackers at the expense of their Asian counterparts who experience varying degrees of inclusivity/exclusivity. By doing so, this piece of postcolonial research hopes to remedy the unnoticed and unmentioned presence of Asian backpackers who are in their own backyard. Michel Foucault’s (1979) concept of power is the first useful analytic for this study. Like the madman in the asylum or the incarcerated criminal in the prison, tourists in destinations are also exposed to the power imposed upon/by them within the site. Transposing Foucault’s thoughts into the realm of tourism studies, Cheong and Miller (2000) argue for greater attention toward power relationships in tourism networks. Foucault views power as a relationship rather than an entity and emphasizes that one’s place/position within a network of relations is fluid, forming a ‘‘complex strategical situation’’ consisting of ‘‘multiple and mobile fields of force relations’’ that are never completely stable (1978:93–102). Concerning power relations between hosts and guests, further investigators (Mowforth and Munt 1997; Nash 1992) have propounded the idea that Third World tourism is a form of neocolonialism that bears symptoms of ‘‘domination and subjugation’’ (Chung 1994:21). However, power struggle is not to be deemed a binary between hosts

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and guests alone; any series of brokers such as hotel owners, tour guides, vendors, and travel agency consultants add to the ‘‘multiple productions of relations of power. . .in different localized settings with their own rationalities, histories, and mechanisms’’ (Cheong and Miller 2000:376). In keeping with the compound nature of tourism networks and the sensitivities raised by postcolonial critique, the tripartite relationship among hosts, brokers, and guests has been broadened to include power relations between Asian and Whites within the guest grouping. Their experiences of place would be affected by the power dynamics among the backpackers themselves and with the other actors.

Social Construction and Production of Space While Foucault may acknowledge there is a space in which power relations occur, his critics understand his view of space as ‘‘dead’’, fixed, and frozen and nothing more than a physical setting (Johnston, Gregory, Pratt and Watts 2000:772). However, far from dead, space is continually constructed and produced by the social actors acting upon it (Massey 1998; Pred 1985). The relationship between space and power is not unidirectional but bidirectional. Therefore, in studying the sociospatial politics of backpacker spaces, it is insufficient to talk about Foucauldian power while ignoring concepts of spatial production and consumption that may have constituted such power in the spaces themselves. LeFebvre’s (1991) ideas on production of space—defined as the social production of spaces within which social life takes place—prove useful (Johnston et al. 2000:644). This concept explains that there are three types of spaces that occur and contribute to the production of an abstract space (social) within an absolute space (physical). Those representations refer to spaces that are constructed consciously and without emotion such as those conceived by planners. These are usually based on the logic of functionality. Spatial practices refer to the processes by which people perceive, use, and generate space. These processes are responsible for creating physical, social, and symbolic spaces. Representational types are produced through the common usage and practices of space. They include the lived-in spaces of users and are representational in so far as they are carved out and inhabited by the groups they represent, making them significant spaces. LeFebvre’s production of spaces allows for the ‘‘study of nuances that are inherent in the manipulation of landscapes’’ (Muzaini 1998:25). Constellations of power are typically elaborated through a spatial system of inclusions and exclusions, according to how it is perceived, conceived, and lived by various actors on a site. The framework also draws attention to the mutual constitution of space and power relations, showing how Asian and White backpackers as well as operators and facilitators have the ability to physically and socially alter spaces such that existing power relations played out on it persist or are inverted.

TEO AND LEONG Host Operators • Hostel owners • Restaurant owners • Stall vendors • Man-in-the-street

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Facilitators/Brokers Tour agents Transport consultants Khao San Business Association TAT Lonely Planet and others

• • • • •

Spatial Practice

Asian Backpackers

Representations of Space

Caucasian Backpackers

Representational Space

Figure 1. The Interaction between Backpackers, Hosts and Brokers

Figure 1 combines the dynamics of power relations with the spaces in which these take place. At the core of this framework are the Asian backpackers. An understanding of how they may be included/excluded needs to take into account their relative position vis-a`-vis the operators, facilitators, and White backpackers who ultimately have a bearing on Asian congregational spaces in Khao San. Research Methodology The study combines several methods: site surveys, qualitative indepth interviews, and participant observation. A site survey was carried out in the entire street of Bangkok’s Thanon Khao San (Figure 2), paying attention to visible details. The site survey verified secondary information from Lonely Planet Thailand; Lonely Planet Southeast Asia on a Shoestring ; Bangkok and the Beaches Handbook; and brochures acquired from Tourist Authority of Thailand (TAT). The constituent components of the physical space are necessary for discussion of the negotiation of spaces by the different groups. The interviews were conducted either one-to-one or in focus groups of three to five Asian backpackers. They were mostly done in English and sometimes, in the case of operators/vendors, with the help of a Thai translator. The interviews lasted from 45 to 90 min. An aide

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Figure 2. Khao San Road, Bangkok

memoire was used in all cases. Altogether, information from 30 Asian backpackers and 10 operators/facilitators who are hostel/restaurant owners or vendors were collected (Table 1). Their White counterparts were given a miss, as the focus of inquiry was not on them but rather how they as a group can influence Asian backpacker landscape production and consumption. The indepth interviews/focus group discussions provided a textured and varied understanding of their experiences, something which quantitative surveys would not have been able to achieve in unraveling the complexities intertwined in issues of race and gender. Although the ideal should have been continuous and prolonged social interaction with the same individuals, time did not permit proper ethnographic documentation. Fieldwork was instead based on impromptu but spontaneous interactions with backpackers in various guesthouses, eateries, and internet cafes at Khao San. Those who were willing to provide email addresses were followed up through further email interviews. In all cases, the respondents were informed about

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Table 1. Profile of Respondents Profile

Number

Asian Backpackers Japanese Singaporean Korean Taiwanese Malaysian

16 7 4 2 1

Gender Male Female

21 9

Age 17–20 21–24 25–28 29–32 Above 32

5 13 9 1 2

Operators and Facilitators Thai Others

8 2

Length of operations Less than 5 years 6–10 years More than 10 years

2 2 6

the purpose of the research, which proved to be useful as it triggered emphatic and quick responses, as well as reflective replies regarding their present and past experiences as backpackers. Sometimes, debates ensued when the interviews were held as focus group discussions. The interviews were then transcribed and analyzed. While the transcripts provided substantial fieldwork material, equally important were observations made of the behavior of Asian backpackers at Khao San. To observe, the researchers became ‘‘participant(s) in the social process being studied’’ (Veal 1992:101) by assuming the identity of Asian backpackers and by sleeping, eating, and sightseeing in backpacker restaurants/hostels/attractions within Khao San. This was carried out in three trips: a preliminary survey in January 2002, the actual study in December 2003 to January 2004, and in March 2004. A longer time spent would have been ideal but academic commitments prevailed. Nonetheless, the first-hand experiences were invaluable in providing insights into how the host operators and facilitators worked, as well as the dynamics in the interplay of guests of different national backgrounds. The spatial movements of the Asian backpackers, where they congregated, what they ate, which internet cafes they preferred, the types of souvenirs they bought, and how they interacted with

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White backpackers were of specific interest to the study. In addition, the operators were also observed, in particular whether they favored Whites over Asians or vice-versa. In research, what is sought out, perceived as important, the site chosen, and what ‘‘knowledge’’ is decided to be valid are determined by the researcher’s identity position (Women and Geography Study Group 1997:10). In many ways, the kernels of this paper’s postcolonial research into backpacking did not germinate out of nowhere, but from personal experiences which hinted that the contours of backpacker tourism are broader than the almost exclusively Western-centric works on them. Thus, this work is strongly influenced by what the authors see as a nascent shift towards ‘‘cosmopolitan theorizing’’ (Robinson 2003:276) and by feminist interventions that aim to highlight (if not reconfigure) power relations in many societies. The two put together enabled the researchers to discursively merge the politics inherent in knowledge acquisition and the behavior of the subjects in Khao San. Thus, the researchers’ complex identity positions as female Asian backpacker-academics have their bearings on this research and it is acknowledged that their roles in this study are not value-free. However, attention to research practice should not jeopardize the dissident stories conveyed by the backpackers because, as Skeggs argued, accountable research asks ‘‘Can we [the researchers] hear?’’ as much as ‘‘Can the subaltern speak?’’ (2002:369).

POSTCOLONIAL ANALYSIS OF BACKPACKING Khao San’s popularity is corroborated by the ever increasing number of budget hostels. The Tourist Authority of Thailand estimated that at the beginning of the 90s, there were 83 guesthouses in the area catering to some 238,000 backpackers (Footprint Handbooks 2000:126). A Bangkok Post (2000a) article estimated the number to be around 100 guesthouses with 4,000 rooms, 126 eateries and restaurants, 144 shops of various business types, 2 bank branches, 8 currency exchange booths, 12 Internet cafes, 20 travel agencies, and hundreds of roadside vendors. The street has evolved to become a backpacker’s paradise and those who work there have formed the Khao San Road Business Association to publicize this haven on an official website. A closer examination of this landscape will reveal more than just the numbers. The Bangkok and the Beaches Handbook also refers to the street as a farang (‘‘foreigner/white’’, used interchangeably) enclave. The street, also known as Thanon Khao San no longer has a Thai character. According to Marc Askew, who has worked on the evolution of inner Bangkok, ‘‘There is nothing Thai about the character of Khao San Road. Everything is for the farang, from the clothing, to the jewelry, to the food. Most residents in surrounding neighborhoods tend to keep the road at arm’s length and do not claim familiarity with it’’ (Footprint Handbooks 2000:126). Formerly a middle-class neighborhood with a commercial specialization in dressmaking and tailor-

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ing, the location is now a world of its own. Albeit not entirely dedicated to traveling in Thailand (other backpacker spaces such as Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam are included), complimentary issues of Englishlanguage Farang magazine in the various hostels further testify to the dominant presence of the Western backpacker. Other evidences include the ubiquitous MacDonald’s in a building which is distinctively European in architectural style, complimented by Burger King at the other end of the road. Besides these examples of farang representational space, those created by the imperialism of global capital have also made an imprint. A smaller road perpendicular to Khao San has appeared on this backpacker landscape with the name Sunset Street. It is filled with modernlooking bars and clubs and has a distinctive alfresco ambience. The walls are painted white as opposed to the more colorful buildings on Khao San Road. Inquiries revealed that the whole road was built by a private developer who wanted to capture the Western backpackers with the sanitized alfresco cafes, pubs, and bars which are markedly different from the more haphazard Khao San landscape. In constructing this representation of space that aims to cater to the Western backpacker community, the developer will benefit economically and also reinforce the farang representation. There are other examples of Khao San’s colonial landscape. Backpackers can easily find and purchase T-shirts with the backpacker’s creed—‘‘Khao Sarn [sic] Road Syndrome’’—printed on it I shall wear as big a backpack as possible to bear proud witness of my creed. . .I shall wear the traditional international backpacker’s uniform and don at least one piece of local clothing (for example, conical hat in Vietnam ...) to show my oneness with Asian people. I shall eat banana pancakes and phat thai on a regular basis. . . I shall stay in the cheapest guesthouse. . . I shall drink local beer. . . because it is cheapest. I shall make a pilgrimage to a Full Moon Party on Hat Rin. . . I shall bargain without mercy and hone my skill to a sharp edge so that I can proudly proclaim our sacred motto ‘‘I get it for less than the local’’. I shall not leave Khao Sarn [sic] Road without having my hair colored, dreadlocked, corn-rolled, or shaved off.

A number of points in this creed are worth highlighting. The backpackers are all assumed to be non-Asian, as evidenced by their desire to have oneness with Asian people and their separation from the locals. The creed also conveys a desire to have an authentic experience of the Other, never mind that Vietnam is not Thailand and that the conical hat is donned by Southeast Asian farmers as well as the same in the Peoples’ Republic of China. The metaphoric divisions convey a tendency to stereotype according to Said’s (1978) analytical template of racism that enframes difference, thus justifying the deployment of imperial power. As suggested by Desforges (1998), Othering is the way Western tourists build their knowledge of the world and help themselves gain cultural capital among their own people. From the creed, there are also spatial practices which are common to all Western (and shared by some Asian) backpackers—drinking local beer, going to a Full Moon Party, eating phat thai, and braiding hair.

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As iconic acts that backpackers perform (Noy 2004; Uriely et al 2002), these spatial practices are not only important to their identity but have helped to reaffirm Khao San as a White representational quarter. Overall, Khao San is highly tourism driven and is packaged and presented for the tourist gaze (Urry 1990). All groups, the operators, facilitators, and backpackers, have the ability to author the landscape through their spatial practices (the ways they perceive, use, and generate space). This means the spaces backpackers use, prefer and flock to, or choose to avoid, as well as those in Khao San, which the operators and facilitators promote/set up appropriate services, have the ability to create representational spaces. Some operators and facilitators also had the extra edge to construct representations of space (spaces constructed consciously by planners based on the logic of functionality) for the backpackers to consume. Thus the material landscape in Khao San is in the hands of many. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on whose point of view), Cohen’s prognosis that ‘‘as drifter itineraries coagulate, a separate infrastructure serving drifter tourism gradually comes into existence’’ (1973:96) is true for Khao San. From the hostels to the roadside stalls, the alfresco and internet cafes, the stalls selling ethnic Thai clothes, and the tour and travel agencies, all are infrastructure serving the White backpackers, notably those from the United States, Europe and Australia. The exotic Asian element of the landscape is increasingly being erased, transitioning into a Western enclave and possibly making foreigners in this space feel as if they are at home, displacing Others not like them, namely the locals and Other Asian backpackers. If the target of what is happening in Khao San is obviously the Western backpackers, how do Asian backpackers fit in? The next section examines the power relationships between these two groups.

Racial Segregation on Khao San Duncan and Duncan write that ‘‘landscapes can be seen as texts which are transformations of ideologies into concrete form’’ (1988:117). In Khao San, the racial ideology has taken material form but this does not mean it is not contested. The contact zones (Pratt 1992) between the Asian and White backpackers are where the sociospatial politics of race are played out. The operators and the facilitators through their spatial practices favor some races over others. Many, for example, preferred farangs because they ‘‘could quote a higher price’’ (Khao San vendor selling crafts) and foreigners ‘‘do not know how to bargain very well’’ (another Khao San vendor). Their stronger dollar and their willingness to pay were some of the reasons cited by the operators and facilitators for this preference. They found Singaporeans and Malaysians tended to bargain too much and they felt obligated to charge them lower prices because of ‘‘similar skin and hair color’’ (Thai hostel operator). He added that his experiences with Asians wanting to check into his hostel had showed that ‘‘they were shrewder

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and would check out the prices of a dozen other hostels before deciding on one. So there is no way you can take them on a ride because they can find out’’. The discrimination and Othering is commented on by a White reader of Bangkok Post (2000b) who contributed this to the newspaper’s postbag: On the subject of crime, he [President of the Khao San Road Business Association] is quoted as saying that many guesthouses in the area make it a policy of ‘‘rejecting tourists from countries with high records of crime, no matter how much they offer to pay’’. This sounds suspiciously like ‘‘if your skin is dark, we won’t rent you a room’’. Welcome to Thailand, folks.

The spaces of representation the operators create favor White backpackers and the spatial practices of these tourists make this more pronounced. Several pub and restaurant operators chose to give their businesses English/European names (for example, ‘‘La Casa’’, ‘‘Gulliver’s Traveller’s Tavern’’, ‘‘Sunset Restaurant’’ and ‘‘Wally’s House’’) and serve food that caters to Western taste (namely, offerings of continental breakfast, club sandwiches, pasta, and burgers): My restaurant looks like a Western cowboy’s salon because when the farangs see something familiar, they want to come inside. It is something they can identify with and that’s what we try to give: Discovery channel on TV, international newspapers, English thrillers, French novels. They say so much about wanting to taste the true Asia, the authentic Asia, but when they come to Khao San, they still go to their MacDonald’s or Burger King. We also have to provide French fries and burgers to suit their tastes (Thai restaurant operator).

As the number of Japanese, Korean, Singaporean, and Malaysian tourists increase in Khao San, there are now two restaurants that cater to their needs. One is conspicuously hidden away in a corner of a hostel and the other (which is Japanese-oriented in food and de´cor as well as signboard language) is in an ancillary lane off Khao San. Excluded as they are, Asian tourists gravitate to these ancillary spaces. It seems in Khao San, some operators make an effort to draw Asian customers, speaking a combination of Chinese dialect and Thai especially to them. Their menus are not restricted to Western dishes but include Chinese food more palatable to the Asian backpacker. Notably missing are posters that flaunt things American, such as American baseball, Budweiser beer advertisements, nostalgic American movie posters, and English language novels and magazines for browsing. These tourism providers in creating a representation of space that would ‘‘make the Japanese and Asian backpackers feel at home’’ (Thai hostel operator) have opened up space, albeit in ancillary locations, so as to capture the increasing waves of Asian backpackers in a predominantly Western space: ‘‘I did not want something too elaborate. Too many of the other restaurants take too much effort in dolling themselves up for the farang eye. I did not want something too Western [as] that would chase away the Asians whom I prefer to have because they are my kind’’ (Thai restaurant operator).

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While most internet cafes programmed their browsers in English, Swedish, or German, those who preferred to include Asians used Japanese and Mandarin. As a result, Asians are drawn to these spaces such that they become symbolic of Asian representational spaces. As these examples suggest, it is due to the combined spatial practices of the tourism providers and the Asian backpackers that a niche of inclusion has been carved in the farang core. The contestation of Western domination emanates from a variety of Asian voices. Of the 30 backpackers interviewed, 20 felt that Khao San was racialized: ‘‘This place is not meant for Asians. It is for the Americans and the Europeans only’’ (Singaporean male, aged 24); ‘‘Khao San is not really Thai and no longer authentic. It has become too Westernized, commercialized, globalized and colonialized [sic] for my liking’’ (Japanese female, 21); ‘‘I may be Asian traveling in Southeast Asia but I feel so strangely out of place here. Like a foreigner. . . the Caucasians here, I bet they feel very much at home because, look at this place, this place is totally made for them’’ (Korean male, 30); and ‘‘Each time I come to Bangkok, I would stay in Khao San; but over the years, this place has changed so much! It is as though the Westerners have conquered it and made it their own’’ (Japanese male, 27). Further, ‘‘From the 7-Eleven’s to the MacDonald’s, this place is wearing thin on its Thai color and adopting the American colors. Look at all the flags hanging around Khao San’’ (Singaporean male, 23, referring to the hostels that hang American, British, and Canadian flags near their entrances or on their signboards as indication of the type of clientele they serve). Khao San has ‘‘disintegrated into a foreigner’s playground’’ (Japanese male, 28). The consequence is that Asians begin to avoid the main Khao San Road. Participant observation verified this and their absence was notable even on casting a cursory glance. A longer time spent at Khao San and a keener observation of the backpackers revealed them hidden in the interstices, in the little alleys or the adjacent Thanon Rambuttri. In fact, most of the interviews with the Japanese happened at a cafe on Thanon Rambuttri where many of them gathered. When asked why they congregated there, they replied: ‘‘Khao San has way too many tourists. I feel out of place there’’ (Japanese male, 25); and ‘‘Thanon Rambuttri is a good place of respite for me. Away from the bustle of Khao San. It is more peaceful’’ (Japanese female, 24). For some, hanging out at the periphery was necessary as they did not want to be identified with the Western core of the backpacker’s haven, which they generally felt was ‘‘too commercialized and lacking in character. . . there is really nothing Thai about Khao San at all these daysÆ except for the little carts selling Thai food and vendors selling Thai tatamis and [straw] bags; but then again even these have blaring [sic] English signs or signboards’’ (Japanese female, 24). Postcolonialism in Khao San has created two distinct material and metaphoric landscapes; one catering to the more welcomed Western and another to the foreign Asian backpackers. The distinction is partially selfimposed by

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the latter as they become more aware of the colonial character that imbues Khao San. Although a postcolonial analysis documents transformations in the social distribution of power, it does not intend to create false dichotomies by depictions of the world as the ‘‘West’s relationship with the Rest’’ (Moore-Gilbert 1997:67). Of equal importance are Asian perceptions of postcoloniality. As new shifts in the global economy move the center of economic action to the Asia-Pacific, the newly industrialized South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore join the ranks of Japan as economic powerhouses, while China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand are said to follow suit. The new economic configuration has created new colonial frames of reference. As suggested by Aguilar (1996), Singaporeans’ rejection of Filipino contract workers as polluters of the social and physical landscape of the island is the result of deep-seated colonial hierarchies and mentalities inherited from British rule. If Singaporeans only hark back to the ‘‘mirror of their [own colonial] past [where] their forefathers made their way to the south seas from China and India to seek salvation’’ (The Sunday Times, cited in Yeoh 2003:376), they will see immediately their own prejudices. In the same way, Asian imaginations of Asian backpackers display a pecking order. It was mentioned that Singaporeans and Malaysians tended to bargain but this was not only in comparison to White backpackers but to Japanese and Koreans as well. Many of the Thai tourism providers stated that the latter two groups were bigger spenders on food and drinks, souvenirs, and tours. They also stayed longer. However, economic power is not the only factor to color the conduct of neocolonial relations. Diasporas associated with the region’s colonial (especially Western) past may have resulted in population displacements that were disparate and far apart (for example, the large-scale movement of Chinese into Southeast Asia). Transnational movements linked with backpacking (and other) tourisms have, however, resurfaced shared historical identities, fleeting as these may be. The researchers, for example, conversed at length with hostel operators who were ethnic Chinese speaking the Teochew or Cantonese dialects. These operators said they were more willing to share with the researchers because they felt warm towards them. It was also observed that conversations fell into dialect once the commonality was established with Singaporeans, Malaysians, Taiwanese, or other ethnic Chinese backpackers from elsewhere in the world. ‘‘After seeing so many Americans and Europeans, it is nice to see someone who has black hair and can speak the same language as me for a change’’ (Thai restaurant operator). It is easier to converse with people like our own, sometimes I do not understand what the English want, or they cannot understand what I am saying. I print out all my prices on a chart and that’s the way we converse; without conversation, just point at my chart, nod head, shake head, point here, point there, with people like you, it is easier, we can actually converse (Thai hostel owner, speaking in Cantonese to one researcher).

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A sense of familiarity, even if only momentary, shows how complex postcolonial cultural analysis is and how valuable the noted differences and similarities are to understanding inclusivity/exclusivity in backpacking landscapes. Female Backpackers Rose (1997) wrote that ways of seeing are often conflated with not just race and class but also gender. Pritchard and Morgan (2000), for example, argue that the gendering of tourism experiences is grounded in complex multidimensional cultural, social, and historical systems where specific configurations of power inflect women’s experiences. Citing other sources, they point out, ‘‘[g]endered tourists, gendered hosts, gendered tourism marketing, and gendered tourism objects each reveal power differences between men and women which privilege male views and which have significant impacts on tourism image and promotion’’ (2000:887). Enloe’s (1989) work comes to mind when sexualized images of women are raised, as she discusses the importance of these in countries like Thailand and Philippines, which were once rest and recreation sites for the American military. Likewise, Swain argues that ‘‘host societies differentiated by race/ethnicity, colonial past, or social position from the consumer societies are sold with feminized images’’ (1995:249). It is not only the exotic Other that comes across; it is also the ‘‘erotic’’ Other that is central in tourism landscapes. The latter is reified within postcards, tourist brochures and sex tourism (Aitchison et al 2000). Postcolonial feminist researchers add that women are viewed as ‘‘accessories to the masculinist project of empire building, often drawing on vectors of racial difference in order to assume a position of superiority’’ (Jacobs 2003:348). If white women traveled at all, they were represented as explorers, scientists, writers, and agents of the empire sent out to savage lands with the support of male benefactors (McEwan 2000). In relation to contemporary tourism, Aitchison et al. (2000) demonstrate that women use a number of strategies to enhance their safety during their travels. Mental maps of unsafe places they need to avoid attest to the idea that tourism is still gendered and that unequal social relations still prevail. Whether the discussion is about jobs in the industry for women in the Third World, or about sex tourism in places like Cebu (Philippines) and Bangkok, the portrayal of Asian women is far from flattering. In the case of Khao San backpacking, remnants of this ideology remain true. By and large, the Thai tourism providers perceived the Western women backpackers as independent and brave. They remarked that these women moved about freely, sometimes forgetting to exercise care, which worried the Thai tourism providers who wanted to avoid the bad publicity associated with the rape of backpackers in their turf (BBC News 2002). In contrast, Asian women were viewed as dependent and vulnerable by the Thai tourism providers and backpackers. According to a Singaporean male (aged 27), it would be ‘‘too risky and dangerous for an Asian woman to be out backpacking’’ be-

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cause she would be mistaken as ‘‘one of them’’ qua the exotic native woman. ‘‘One man’s paradise is another woman’s hell’’ (Singaporean female, 22) aptly describes the dilemmas before the Asian woman backpacker. ‘‘Short of wearing a blond wig’’, this female averred that the only way she would be accepted as a backpacker would be for her to constantly carry a camera around her neck. Asian women who were dressed in shorts and sleeveless T-shirts (favored in Thailand because of the heat) were automatically perceived as Thai prostitutes. This tallies with Urry’s (1990) finding that women of color are seen as more willing and available. Being in male company was ‘‘more than necessary. . . [there must be] someone to watch over and make sure that nothing bad happens’’ (Singaporean male, 27). A female respondent (Singaporean, 23) felt that Asian backpackers suffered a ‘‘double beating’’ because their race and gender do not ‘‘synchronize’’ with the common ones who are ‘‘White and male’’. Similarly a 24 year old Japanese woman commented, ‘‘Khao San is not the place I would dare to explore on my own without the company of male friends. It feels safer walking around in one big group’’. Othering is indeed based on surface deep impressions. A White female with her arms locked around an Asian male’s would likely be cast in the following terms: They actually thought that my boyfriend was some Thai guy that I paid for—a gigolo! He felt so insulted when a few hostel owners spoke to him in Thai and to me in English. I could not believe it. Here I was, a backpacker, being viewed differently by the backpacker community and hostel owners as an American slut who is sleeping with a Thai male prostitute. You can bet after that, my boyfriend refused to go with me on my other backpacking trips (Singaporean female of mixed heritage, 22).

In writing about the colonized, Memmi used the term ‘‘the mark of the plural’’ to depict the uniform nature implied in the term the Other (1967:85). Homogenization of the category of Asian women has been criticized by Spivak (1987) as detrimental because it helps to sustain existing power relations. As reflective of the ire of the female respondent above, it is damaging to project one particular symbolism onto Asian women, whether they are backpackers, workers, or farmers. As pointed out at the beginning of this section, this discussion does not intend to brush aside the subjective constructions of White women. They are similarly sexualized and objectified in the backpacker track. Elsrud’s (1998) work, for instance, elucidates the importance of backpacking in assisting women to overcome domestic assignations of themselves. Landscapes remain masculinized landscapes which men conquer (Pritchard and Morgan 2000). What this postcolonial discussion of Asian women backpackers does is to merely highlight that as much as diversity and complexity are acknowledged in White women’s lives, their Asian counterparts are similarly attempting to carve an identity of their own, within the particular prejudices they find themselves subjected to. As much as and perhaps more than White women backpackers, Asian women counterparts are excluded from Khao San’s landscape.

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Their spatial practices are limited because of the pervasiveness of the exotic and erotic Other representation. In fact, come nightfall, Asian women backpackers are seldom unaccompanied because it would be too ‘‘risky and dangerous for the women to be out’’ (Japanese female, 23). CONCLUSION This paper, through a postcolonial anatomy and feminist critique, has shown how knowledge about backpackers needs to be widened. Their spaces are often racialized and gendered with the inescapable result of Othering Asians, even as this market is growing. Using Foucault’s concept of power and LeFebvre’s ideas on production of spaces, the paper shows how pervasive Western influence is in Khao San. For instance, Thai developers wanting the Western backpacker dollar have allocated space and money at Sunset Street to woo this market. This is a consciously constructed space (a representation of space, in LeFebvre’s term) based on the logic of economic viability. While this reflects the unequal power relations favoring Western backpackers, through spatial practices of avoidance, their Asian counterparts have created symbolic spaces to contest Western domination. The adjoining Thanon Rambuttri is the most obvious as a space of representation of Asian backpacking identity, as it is the place where the spatial practice of hanging out is conducted. The latter group has also negotiated a more favorable position for themselves vis-a`-vis their Western counterparts by increasing their numeric presence to such an extent that they are felt by the Khao San tourism brokers who are now responding by converting some spaces to cater to them (such as Japanese and Mandarin browsers at the Internet cafes or the setup of Asian eateries). While Khao San is still a core Western representational space (a lived-in space carved out by the group it represents), many ancillary streets within Khao San are transforming since they are contested by Asian backpackers. The dialectical struggle among Asian and Western users and the brokers has resulted in a transformation of Khao San which reflects the cultural politics of the two main groups. Postcolonial analysis should not stop at highlighting these unequal power relations. Social relations of power also inflect Asian perceptions of Asian backpackers. Hierarchical mentalities that served to dichotomize the colonial masters from the colonized resonate even in contemporary societies. Japanese and Korean backpackers wielded stronger influence over Khao San’s landscape because they were perceived to have higher buying power. Nevertheless, imagined shared histories, tenuous as these were, worked their way into Thai tourism providers’ interactions with Asians, evidenced by the complicity shared between those of the same ethnic origins in China. Besides the sociocultural construct of race in conveying difference/similarity, gender also created specific spatialities in Khao San. For instance, Asian women backpackers avoided Khao San if they were on their own because they were

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viewed as loose women who could be solicited. This construction of them as the exotic and erotic Other was held by the Thai tourism operators as well as embodied by the Asian backpackers themselves. The double-Othering reflects both a racial and a gender bias in Khao San’s backpacking landscape. This paper has shown that employing the postcolonial lens is useful for understanding the backpacking experience in Khao San. It reveals that any homogenizing categorization of either the hosts or the guests should be avoided. The production and consumption of tourism landscapes is a study that must start with a desire to do some soul-searching and deconstruction. Only then can tourism (and backpacking) spaces be understood for how they are ‘‘constructed, contested, disrupted, and transformed as a result of competing and changing patterns of consumption and identity formation’’ (Aitchison et al 2000:19). Being anti-foundationist, postcolonialism embraces the complexity of spatiality and reveals that Asian backpackers are caught in between and betwixt. They were not the colonizers of the 20th century and they are too affluent a group to be treated as the colonized. They form a valuable market in their own right. Even if they desire the same expression of identity many researchers allude to for backpackers, they have differential experiences, as shown in this study. This has implications for the backpacker market. There is indeed a need to remake backpacking. The spaces where this experience is consumed can be as varied as Australia, New Zealand, China, Tibet, Thailand, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, or South America. For each site, there will be a need to examine how backpacking is played out. Research on the subject needs to be reoriented away from a dominant Western worldview because increasingly backpacking is not just Westerners’ play. To make it a level playing field, and to chart a new paradigmatic shift that would realign scholarship to the contemporary reality of things, unpacking backpacking the postcolonial way is certainly useful. REFERENCES Aguilar, F. 1996 Filipinos as Transnational Migrants: Guest Editor’s Preface. Philippine Sociological Review 44:4–11. Aitchison, C., N. MacLeod, and S. Shaw 2000 Leisure and Tourism Landscapes: Social and Cultural Geographies. London: Routledge. Alatas, S. 1995 The Theme of ‘‘Relevance’’ in Third World Human Sciences. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 16:123–140. Ateljevic, I., and S. Doorne 2004 Theoretical Encounters: A Review of Backpacker Literature. In The Global Nomad: Backpacker Travel in Theory and Practice, G. Richards and J. Wilson, eds., pp. 60–76. Clevedon: Channel View. Bangkok Post 2000a Khao San Horoscope: Leo Rising (18 November 2004).

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Submitted 1 August 2004. Resubmitted 20 December 2004. Resubmitted 23 February 2005. Resubmitted 28 April 2005. Accepted 10 May 2005. Refereed anonymously. Coordinating Editor: Christina A. Joseph