Among the piranhas: the troubling lifespan of ethnic tropes in “tribal” tourism to Vietnam

ABSTRACTThis article presents findings from mixed-method research into ethnic tourism in Vietnam. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and ethnographic research carried out in Sapa, northern Vietnam, the article examines how minority Indigenous groups are represented in ways that reproduce certain racial and gendered tropes that are drawn upon by tourists before, during and after actual tours. Findings from the study suggest that ethnic tourism is having a marginalising effect on minority ethnic women, who are becoming excluded from social, symbolic and economic space for behaviour that is deemed inauthentic. Tourists are drawing on a narrow range of Orientalist tropes throughout different stages of their participation in ethnic tourism and are carrying forward their pre-conceptions into tourism environments. Therefore, the ways in which indigeneity is packaged for tourists and the ways that tourists “authenticate” ethnicity inform their desires, which then shape their behaviour and interactions with lo...