Tourism as interaction of landscapes

Abstract

The Swahili society on Lamu Island has a thousand year history of contacts with other cultures through trade and shipping but today tourism is the gateway to interaction between people from various backgrounds. This paper discusses the residents’ adaption to and conceptualization of the transformations in their envisaged and experienced landscape as a result of tourism. The work focuses on the socio-cultural consequences and is based on observations and interviews during 2009-2010 in Lamu Island. The analysis shows that the interaction gives certain effects such as an accentuation of tensions already existing in the society. Tourism presence also creates the evolvement of a more explicit moral landscape. Tourism participation indicates the importance of functional institutions to achieve sustainable development.