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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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The return of exoticism: visualization and appropriation of the Suri people of Ethiopia
| Panel |
33. Visualizing Africa, from there to here, between now and then.
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| Paper ID | 734 |
| Author(s) |
Abbink, Jon
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | In the past decade, the Suri people of southwest Ethiopia have been the continued target of affluent tourist visitors, television documentary producers, and other travellers. In this ongoing stream of visitors to the ca. 24,000 Suri, one theme dominates: the 'discovery of a remote, pristine tribe' with a 'natural, unspoilt physical beauty'. The Suri are engaged with a specific image of the exotic and are expected to conform to it. In most of these encounters, the agency of the Suri as a people with their own problems and interests is negated and the effect of foreign presence on them is denied or ignored.
In this paper, following up on an earlier study published in 2000, I look at the latest, quite far-reaching, permutations of the making of the Suri into a cultural spectacle up for sale, and at some of the changes this process may engender. I also consider the ongoing efforts to turn a large part of their habitat in to a national wildlife park.
The Suri case illustrates that exoticism has in fact never been away; it is not a past, colonial phenomenon but still in full force today. It defines a visualized imaginary of marginal Africans, with photographic and touristic harassment defining social contact with 'the natives'. |
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