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MIRA Project 2005 Courses

Ethn 576 Visual Research of Tourism Cultures
This seminar introduces the student to the tourism cultures of Yucatán and, more broadly, to the ethnography of the region. Readings include articles that address specific issues of tourism development in the peninsula and focus on the cultures and tourism of Mérida, Chichén Itzá, Pisté, Playa del Carmen, Cancun and the Maya Riviera. The course provides the substantive ethnographic and historical knowledge of the region that enables students to conduct their research in the MIRA program.

This course has three distinct units that correspond to the three tourism destinations in which we will be working-Mérida, Playa del Carmen and Pisté/Chichén Itzá. The Mérida unit is primarily based on the reading of one essay that works toward mapping the cultural destinations of the region within an analytical framing of the construction of rhetorical and practical places. This becomes a fundamental springboard from which our ethnographic research in the urban tourism of Mérida is conducted within the context of the visual fieldwork methodologies course.

In Playa del Carmen we continue our work we establish in Mérida by applying the visual methodologies in the investigation and analysis of the representational apparatus of Playa tourism destination culture. Beginning in Mérida we collect and read various texts provided by the tourism industry regarding the region and specific destinations. This reading is based on the free tourism "guides" or promotional brochures such as Cancun Tips, Yucatán Today, Explore Magazine, maps, flyers, and related materials that can be collected by students and brought into discussion during seminar. Our focus here is on the problem of pleasure - specifically visual and corporeal through the structuring, strategies and tactics of consumption.

In Pisté, our focus shifts considerably and the seminar becomes structured along two focal points. In this unit we will spend significant time viewing and studying a selection of filmic materials - that is, educational films, visual ethnographies, documentaries. Accompanying this material are a set of reviews or commentaries that directly address one or more these texts. The second focal point is a selection of readings that deal with the specific visual cultures of the Maya and their intersection with various scientific, political, and governmental discourses as they relate to the Maya or specifically to Chichén Itzá. This section of the course relies heavily on the written texts of Castañeda since this work forms the primary published analysis of tourism in the Yucatán in terms of these issues of representation, visual cultures, and discursive formations.

Readings
Castañeda, "An Archaeology of the Tourist Landscape"
Castañeda, "Approaching Ruins." VAR 16:1-2
Castañeda, "Maya Modernity, Hybridity, and Aesthetics in Pisté Maya Art"
Castañeda "Tourism Wars in Yucatán"
Brooke Thomas and Oriol Pi-Sunyor, (copies will be made available in Playa)
Locally Available Free Tourism Guides to be collected by students: Cancun Tips, Yucatán Today, Explore Magazine, airplane magazines, flyers, tourism maps, etc.

Visual Ethnographies, Documentaries, Educational Film and Tourism Videos
Chichén Itzá: La Palabra de Chilam Balam, from INAH tourist video México Antiguo Series
In Search of the Mayas, from INAH tourist video México Antiguo Series
Incidents of Travel in Chichén Itzá, by Jeff Himpele and Quetzil Castañeda (DER Distributor)
Father Sun Speaks: Cosmic Maya Message for the 21st Century, Baird Bryant Productions
National Geographic, Lost Kingdoms of the Maya.
Time-Life Magazine video on Maya Civilization-- ¿Blood of Kings?
Discovery Channel on the Maya of Chichén and the Equinox
Eisenstein, Que Viva México (the initial five minutes) & Collage of Clips
Ruins: A Fake Documentary
Univ. Autónoma de Yucatán and Gobierno del Estado tourism films (Pavarotti concert, dancing in Chichén, etc.) we will see part of these to get the flavor of the videos.

Reviews and Commentaries on Video Materials (all in electronic format)
Hilary Kahn, "Review of Ruins"
Luis Vivanco, "Performing …." Review of Incidents of Travel
Castañeda, "Equinox or Eclipse? Adventurous Travel with Simmel Among Maya Ruins"
Peter Hervik, "The National Geographic Maya" in Journal of Latin American Anthropology.

Assignments and Evaluation
Course evaluation is based on preparation and participation in seminars. During the component of the course in Pisté that involves the reading and analysis of videos, students are asked to take a leading role in the commentary and to prepare based on their discussion one brief analysis/review/commentary on one or more of the films. In addition, students are asked to prepare one analytical-conceptual paper that integrates these films, visual media, the ethnographic fieldwork, tourism literatures, and cultural performances into an analytics of the double articulation of tourism cultures and destinations. This last paper is based on the films as well as the entire program of activities and learning. You are to address the crucial issues of visual anthropology, the anthropology of tourism, anthropology of media, Maya studies, that you have come to understand through this program.