WAYS OF SEEING, SIGHTSEEING AND MIMESIS. VISUAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY IN TOURISM STUDIES

In ethno-tourism, both hosts and guests are engaged in the process of producing visible, viewable “tourist reality”. Instead of focusing either on the framing that structures the image production, or on the tourist images themselves, I shall propose a methodological approach that puts these two strands together. A touring experience in Yupik-Chukchi hamlet New Chaplino, Russia is analysed on the basis of Michael Yampolski’s concept of mimetic seeing (Yampolski, 2001); it corresponds to the key aspects of ethno-tourism – ethno-topian desire and cultural appropriation. In contrast, non-mimetic seeing parallels post-tourism. The study proposes a third category –doubling that reflects cultural interaction between the hosts and guests, in which Other is fully recognized. It is maintained that photographs do not serve just as traces of perception of other culture but also as ways of representation, which are acceptable in the local culture.