Category: tourism

An Anthropologist Returns to Papua New Guinea

Posted on by stephchun

A Faraway, Familiar PlaceA Faraway, Familiar Place: An Anthropologist Returns to Papua New Guinea is for readers seeking an excursion deep into little-known terrain but allergic to the wide-eyed superficiality of ordinary travel literature. Author Michael French Smith savors the sometimes gritty romance of his travels to an island village far from roads, electricity, telephone service, and the Internet, but puts to rest the cliché of “Stone Age” Papua New Guinea. He also gives the lie to stereotypes of anthropologists as either machete-wielding swashbucklers or detached observers turning real people into abstractions. Smith uses his anthropological expertise subtly, to illuminate Papua New Guinean lives, to nudge readers to look more closely at ideas they take for granted, and to take a wry look at his own experiences as an anthropologist.

“Michael French Smith has written an engaging and accessible account of returning to the site of his longterm field research, Kragur Island in the Sepik area of Papua New Guinea. As he has done before in two earlier books (of which A Faraway Place is a worthy companion), Mike has spun a great yarn. He possesses the admirable ability to translate personal experiences meaningfully and explains complex social phenomena in ways that the anthropologically uninitiated will understand and appreciate. He relates experiences that most anthropologists have had, but that others—students, social developers, those curious about the region—need to hear about. . . . There is nothing quite like it on the market.” —Richard Scaglion, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh

July 2013 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3686-3 / $52.00 (CLOTH)

Hawaii Book and Music Festival 2009

Posted on by stephchun


University of Hawai‘i Press will be among the local publishers participating in the Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival this weekend, May 16-17, 10 am-5 pm, at Honolulu Hale. Admission and parking are free to the general public.

UH Press authors Jon Van Dyke (Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawai‘i), Heather Diamond (American Aloha: Cultural Tourism and the Negotiation of Tradition), Davianna McGregor (Na Kua‘aina: Living Hawaiian Culture), Carlos Andrade (Ha‘ena: Through the Eyes of the Ancestors), Richard Hamasaki (Westlake: Poems by Wayne Kaumualii Westlake; From the Spider Bone Diaries: Poems and Songs), Witi Ihimaera (The Uncle’s Story; Woman Far Walking, distributed for Huia Publishers, NZ), Gary Pak (Children of a Fireland; A Ricepaper Airplane), Robert Barclay (Melal: A Novel of the Pacific), Jon Thares Davidann (Hawai‘i at the Crossroads of the U.S. and Japan before the Pacific War), and Candace Fujikane and Jon Okamura (Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai‘i) will be leading or participating in numerous panels and discussions at the festival. Click here for a detailed schedule of events.

Cultural Tourism and the Negotiation of Tradition

Posted on by stephchun

At the 1989 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, throngs of visitors gathered on the National Mall to celebrate Hawai‘i’s multicultural heritage through its traditional arts. The “edu-tainment” spectacle revealed a richly complex Hawai‘i few tourists ever see and one never before or since replicated in a national space. The program was restaged a year later in Honolulu for a local audience and subsequently inspired several spin-offs in Hawai‘i. In both Washington, D.C., and Honolulu, the program instigated a new paradigm for cultural representation. Based on archival research and extensive interviews with festival organizers and participants, American Aloha: Cultural Tourism and the Negotiation of Tradition by Heather A. Diamond, is an innovative cross-disciplinary study that uncovers the behind-the-scenes negotiations and processes that inform the national spectacle of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

June 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3171-4 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

Tourism and Tourism Policy Planning in Hawaii

Posted on by stephchun

Developing a Dream Destination: Tourism and Tourism Policy Planning in Hawai‘i, by James Mak, is an interpretive history of tourism and tourism policy development in Hawai‘i from the 1960s to the twenty-first century. Part 1 looks at the many changes in tourism since statehood (1959) and tourism’s imprint on Hawai‘i. Part 2 reviews the development of public policy toward tourism, beginning with a story of the planning process that started around 1970—a full decade before the first comprehensive State Tourism Plan was crafted and implemented.

“I consider this to be ‘hands down’ the best book that I’ve read on the policy process of tourism development. It will become mandatory reading for any serious student of tourism and tourism development. It should be mandatory reading for planners and policy makers in areas developing their tourism industry. My congratulations to Professor Mak both for the level and quality of research and for the insights into the processes of tourism development.” —Richard R. Perdue, editor, Journal of Travel Research, and board chair of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism

March 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3243-8 / $25.00 (PAPER)

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