TOURIST PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE REVERSE GAZE
(To be published in Ethos, 2006)
Alex Gillespie (alex.gillespie@stir.ac.uk)
Department of Psychology
University of Stirling
Stirling, FK9 4LA
Scotland
UK
Tel: + 44 (0) 1786 466841
Fax: + 44 (0) 1786 467641
By-line: Alex Gillespie is a Lecturer in Social Psychology in the Department of
Psychology, University of Stirling, Scotland.
Running head: The reverse gaze
The reverse gaze
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ABSTRACT
The interaction between tourist photographer and local photographee is a dynamic site of
identity construction. To date, this interaction has been theorized mainly in terms of the
power of the tourist photographer, which has been shown to mediate and commodify local
cultures and create new identities amongst those photographed. The present article
contributes a change of emphasis by examining the socio-psychological dynamics of the
reverse gaze and its role in constructing the emerging identity of the photographer. The
reverse gaze refers to the gaze of the photographee upon the photographer as perceived by
the photographer. Data from Ladakh, a popular backpacker tourist destination in northern
India, illustrates how the reverse gaze of Ladakhis can constitute the emerging tourist self,
stimulating uncomfortable social emotions, such as embarrassment. The question raised
by the article is, what socio-psychological processes constitute the power of the reverse
gaze to position the tourist photographer? The article argues that tourists, when they feel
the reverse gaze, are not taking the actual perspective of Ladakhis, but are instead
attributing their own critical attitudes toward other tourist photographers to the Ladakhi
photographee. Thus the discomfort that a tourist in Ladakh feels when caught in the
reverse gaze, it is argued, is a product of that tourist being positioned in the same
disparaging way as that tourist usually positions other tourist photographers.
Key Terms: Tourism, Reverse Gaze, India, George Herbert Mead, Positioning,
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The interaction between tourist photographer and local photographee is a clearly
identifiable genre of interaction that is reproduced, in various ways, across the world.
Concepts in tourism research, such as Urry’s (1990) ‘tourist gaze,’ have tended to endow
the tourist behind the camera with much power (e.g., Crawshaw and Urry 1997). The
tourist gaze, objectified in the camera, is said to have the power to create a cultural revival
(Bruner 2005:119), commodify local culture (Philip and Mercer 1999) and cultivate new
forms of self-consciousness amongst the local citizens (Tilley 1999). However, the
photographer-photographee relation is a complex interaction with at least two sides
(Cohen et al. 1992). It is not only the photographee who is influenced by the interaction,
so too is the photographer. The photographer-photographee interaction is a boundary
(Barth 1969). At this boundary, the dynamic and situated emergence not only of the
photographee self, but also of the tourist photographer self, is evident. The photographee
can gaze upon the tourist photographer, and this “reverse gaze” can play an important role
in constituting the emerging self of the tourist photographer.
CHARACTERIZING THE REVERSE GAZE
The reverse gaze is clearly evident in an unusual interaction that I observed during
fieldwork in Ladakh, northern India. The interaction occurred at a cultural festival that had
been arranged by Women’s Alliance, a local NGO, in order to display Ladakhi culture to
Western tourists. The audience comprised a couple of hundred foreign tourists and
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Ladakhis sitting and standing in a wide circle. At the centre of the circle was an open
space where troupes of traditionally dressed Ladakhi women took turns to sing and dance.
In this type of situation it is expected that tourists will take photographs, and most tourists
were availing of the opportunity. However, not all the tourist cameras were trained upon
the dancing women. Several tourists were openly photographing traditional-looking
Ladakhis in the audience.
Figure 1: My photograph of a tourist photographing a traditionally dressed Ladakhi
woman
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Figure 1 shows a picture I took of a Ladakhi woman being photographed by a French
tourist with a telephoto lens. This particular Ladakhi comes from the remote village of
Drass. She is wearing a homespun woolen dress, with traditional jewelry and traditional
shoes. Adorning her head is an impressive arrangement of flowers. In many ways she
crystallizes tourists’ imagination of Ladakh. Tourists visit Ladakh expecting it to be
broadly equivalent to Tibet (Dodin and Räther 2001). As with Tibet, Ladakh is imagined
to be spiritual and timeless, and Ladakhis are imagined to practice colorful traditions
(Bishop 1989; Lopez 1998). The dress and manner of this Ladakhi woman, more than
many other Ladakhis at the festival, conformed to these expectations. Accordingly, she
was the focus of many tourist cameras. Indeed, during the course of fourteen minutes I
counted twenty-one different tourists photographing her. Some of the tourists requested if
they could take her photograph, and some even posed with her, but the majority did not
ask for permission. Overall she was obliging, though noticeably she did joke with one
tourist by pretending to dodge the tourist’s photographic gaze. The Frenchman in Figure 1
was the most active photographer that I observed. He followed the Ladakhi woman around
the festival taking photographs, and when she sat down, he took up his position in Figure
1. By this time, the Frenchman’s relentless photographing had been noticed by other
tourists.
Shortly after I took the photograph in Figure 1, a female tourist, nearby the photogenic
Ladakhi woman, offered the Ladakhi her camera while pointing toward the Frenchman.
The Ladakhi woman accepted the camera and began pointing it toward the French
photographer, and me, behind him. She was imitating or “ventriloquating” the actions of
tourists she had seen so many times before. Figure 2, another photograph taken by me,