Special Issue: Beyond the Margins (Critical Tourism and Hospitality)

De-Marginalising Tourism Research: Indigenous Australians As Tourists

Andrew Peters^a1 c1 and Freya Higgins-Desbiolles^a1a2

^a1 Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

^a2 University of South Australia

Abstract

Indigenous tourism is an increasingly significant sector that can empower, encourage and promote Indigenous peoples and cultures. Defining Indigenous tourism remains open, as some definitions focus on Indigenous cultural products and experiences while other definitions emphasise Indigenous involvement and control. What is absent, however, is any definition that includes Indigenous peoples as tourists. This article employs an inductive approach to fill this gap in knowledge and uses the techniques of an evolving Indigenist paradigm that fits within the recognised ‘critical turn’ in tourism, and reflects the broader postmodernist shifts in research methodologies. It is based on a research collaboration between an Indigenous researcher and a non-Indigenous researcher who offer a preliminary exposition of topics that are made visible by examining Indigenous tourism through the lens of Indigenous peoples as active touring and travelling agents, through both historical and contemporary examples.

Keywords:

• Indigenous/Indigenous Australian tourism;
• Indigenous Australian tourists;
• whiteness;
• postcolonialism;
• critical Indigenist studies

Correspondence:

^c1 Address for correspondence Andrew Peters, Communication, Tourism and Marketing Group, Swinburne University of Technology, Locked Bag 218 Lilydale, VIC, 3140 Australia. E-mail: apeters@swin.edu.au