Tourismentality: Power and Politics of Battlefield Tourism in Kinmen, Taiwan.

Abstract

The political dimensions of tourism have been traditionally studied through binary understandings of 'top-down vs bottom-up' approaches, 'hegemony vs resistance', 'winners vs losers' etc. This thesis aims to go beyond binary understandings and re-conceptualise the notion of 'power' in the discussion of tourism politics. By synergising analytical tools from Foucault's 'governmentality' and the concept of 'landscape' in cultural geography, this exploratory research introduces the analytics of 'tourism-mentality' in explicating the power and politics inherent in the government of Kinmen's battlefield tourism landscape. More specifically, three main locales of power practices are discussed. First, 'technologies of government' utilised by the tourism planners (i.e. Kinmen National Park and the county government) in their attempt to convey both nationalist ideologies and post-war reconciliation mentality through the promotion of battlefield tourism are unravelled. Second, the ways in which such technologies are in turn incorporated or negotiated by the local entrepreneurs in their day to day operations are analysed. Third, ordinary Kinmen people's conduct of citizenship in terms of their attitude and behaviour towards Kinmen's battlefield heritage are explicated. Discussion highlights the importance of seeing power as horizontally distributed in the government of Kinmen's battlefield landscape in order to fully appreciate its tourism politics. Kinmen remains a symbolic if not critical element in the delicate balance between fostering warmer ties with China and Taiwan's long-standing claim to sovereignty in this post-conflict era of peace and co-prosperity.