Never-ending Local Beauty: Neo-Exoticism in Tourism Activities and Online Media Narratives

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the construction of cultural-related-locality discourses in tourism activities and media narratives that cannot be separated from market civilization in Indonesia. With the post-colonial exotics framework by Huggan (2001), we will analyze data derived from our field research in Banyuwangi regarding cultural activities undertaken by local actors in welcoming tourist. In addition, we will also analyze the data from online media narratives which bring the issues of local cultures and communities in Banyuwangi. We argue that through various cultural activities and media narratives under market civilization, local people and cultures are having new discursive constructions which emphasize the significance of beautiful, unique, attractive, exotic, traditional and glamorous cultural products with new invested-meanings that relate to the torusim market as well as the transformation the hegemonic stereotyping paradigm of eastern subject.