So, How Long Have You Been Native?: Life As An Alaska Native Tour Guide
by Alexis C. Bunten /
2015 / English / PDF
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So, How Long Have You Been Native?
So, How Long Have You Been Native? is Alexis C. Bunten’s
firsthand account of what it is like to work in the Alaska
cultural tourism industry. An Alaska Native and anthropologist,
she spent two seasons working for a tribally owned tourism
business that markets the Tlingit culture in Sitka. Bunten’s
narrative takes readers through the summer tour season as she is
hired and trained and eventually becomes a guide.
is Alexis C. Bunten’s
firsthand account of what it is like to work in the Alaska
cultural tourism industry. An Alaska Native and anthropologist,
she spent two seasons working for a tribally owned tourism
business that markets the Tlingit culture in Sitka. Bunten’s
narrative takes readers through the summer tour season as she is
hired and trained and eventually becomes a guide.
A multibillion-dollar worldwide industry, cultural tourism
provides one of the most ubiquitous face-to-face interactions
between peoples of different cultures and is arguably one of the
primary means by which knowledge about other cultures is
disseminated. Bunten goes beyond debates about who owns Native
culture and has the right to “sell” it to tourists. Through a
series of anecdotes, she examines issues such as how and why
Natives choose to sell their culture, the cutthroat politics of
business in a small town, how the cruise industry maintains its
bottom line, the impact of colonization on contemporary Native
peoples, the ways that traditional cultural values play a role in
everyday life for contemporary Alaska Natives, and how Indigenous
peoples are engaging in global enterprises on their own terms.
Bunten’s bottom-up approach provides a fascinating and
informative look at the cultural tourism industry in
Alaska.
A multibillion-dollar worldwide industry, cultural tourism
provides one of the most ubiquitous face-to-face interactions
between peoples of different cultures and is arguably one of the
primary means by which knowledge about other cultures is
disseminated. Bunten goes beyond debates about who owns Native
culture and has the right to “sell” it to tourists. Through a
series of anecdotes, she examines issues such as how and why
Natives choose to sell their culture, the cutthroat politics of
business in a small town, how the cruise industry maintains its
bottom line, the impact of colonization on contemporary Native
peoples, the ways that traditional cultural values play a role in
everyday life for contemporary Alaska Natives, and how Indigenous
peoples are engaging in global enterprises on their own terms.
Bunten’s bottom-up approach provides a fascinating and
informative look at the cultural tourism industry in
Alaska.