Tourism-induced mobilities and transformation of indigenous cultures: where is the Vedda community in Sri Lanka heading to?^*

* Names of places and ranks of individuals are disclosed with the informed consent of relevant personnel.

ABSTRACT

Mobilities that encapsulate global- and local-level movement of people, capital, information, material and intangible heritage across boundaries influence distant socio-cultural structures and processes linking them to evolving global networks. Indigenous cultural tourism is a catalyst of mobilities that expose the habitats of distant spaces. This paper examines the Vedda community’s concurrent context and indigenous tourism-informed mobilities’ contributions to transforming their cultural character through anthropological approaches. Data were collected through a series of interviews, overt observation and review of documents. Findings indicate that the Vedda are susceptible to the influence of mobilities within and without the indigenous tourism practices. Enforced restructuring and governance push Vedda towards novel livelihoods, while automobilities, image, communication and geopolitical mobilities challenge Vedda heritage and temporalities. Vedda lead a hybrid life; real one being modern and the other being pseudo attributed for tourist attraction. Indigenous cultural tourism causes losing the inherited meaning of their cultural values. The Vedda, with their anatomically proven Mesolithic inheritance, have drawn world’s attention to preserving and recognizing them before their unique culture is subsumed by the modern world. Findings indicate that tourism planners should realize the significance of distinctive Vedda heritage parallel to commercial gains of tourism.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous culture
• mobilities
• cultural commodification
• Sri Lanka
• tourism
• Vedda community

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

* Names of places and ranks of individuals are disclosed with the informed consent of relevant personnel.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Outstanding Youth Foundation of Sichuan University (No. SKJC-201001), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40971297), the Major Research Plan of Social Science Foundation of Sichuan Province (No. SC16ZD08), and also funded by Sichuan University (skqy201754).