Ethnic tourism, identity, and community empowerment: perspective of “Chaoxianzu” in Yanbian, China

To understand the community perspective in the context of tourism development, this dissertation focused on exploring ways that ethnic agents are empowered through tourism development. Also, this dissertation investigated how ethnic communities react to tourism structure and practices focusing on ethnic identity formation and negotiation process. Lastly, based on the two previous inquiries, this study examined factors that influence community members’ attitudes toward ethnic tourism development. The dissertation undertook an ethnographic reading of an ethnic community, "Chaoxianzu," and its autonomous prefecture "Yanbian" in North-eastern China. Adopting a critical ethnography approach, three extensive field visits were conducted. The collected and analyzed data from the fieldworks included semi-structured in-depth interviews, participant and non-participant observations, and a thick description of the site using field notes. Findings suggested that Chaoxianzu community members were economically, socially, culturally, and psychologically both empowered and disempowered, but environmentally and politically disempowered through tourism development. Also, Chaoxianzu community members had constantly negotiated the meanings of their identity by embracing the narratives offered by red tourism or by questioning the representation of Yanbian as a Seoul-like city. Moreover, community members negotiated the meaning assigned to their group membership by internalizing tourist perspectives and perceiving the benefits of traveling to their community. Lastly, community members had formed their attitude towards tourism development based on their perceived empowerment, social identity and perceived authenticity. Further explanation of the findings as well as theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and recommendations for further research are discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Recreation, Sport, and Tourism

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Park, Jeongeun

Contributors dc:contributor

• Santos, Carla
• Stodolska, Monika
• Soulard, Joelle
• Ostler, Teresa

• Ethnic tourism
• Ethnic identity
• Empowerment
• Community attitude

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Jeongeun Park

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115742

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F115742