Naturalizing people, ethnicizing landscape: promoting tourism in China’s rural periphery

Tourism is often used in conjunction with the creation and consumption of knowledge to mold the ways in which people perceive, imagine and understand “other” places. This article examines how the imagery and framing of tourism promotion both utilizes and reciprocates constructions of China’s ethnic minority, rural places and peoples. Through an analysis of the promotional imagery of a rural and ethnic tourism resort, the discussion highlights how tourism representations mirror state discourses and ideologies in a manner that reflects the highly state-managed nature of the nation’s tourism economy. Utilizing a Foucauldian framework that conceptualizes the dissemination of power through the creation of knowledge and normalizing discourses, tourism is presented as a conduit through which the Chinese state is able to position and delimit spatial and ethnic groups. Thus, not only are tourism promotional materials understood as a key means through which to entice tourists, they become a nexus through which to understand China’s ethnic power imbalances. The examined promotional materials highlight the ways in which promotional imagery disseminates idealized narratives and imagery that locate minority groups spatially, and tie them socially and culturally.