Is there any “wild” left? If so, how can it be preserved? Scholars across a variety of disciplines have been asking such questions with greater urgency, especially as we now seem to yearn for the wildness and animalism that our Enlightenment forebears rejected. Thus across the globe, the question is no longer whether or not to allow tourism into the wild but what form it should take. In many developing nations, ecotourism holds a significant place in that conversation. While ecotourism always entails a compromise between environmental sustainability and economic development, one of the fastest growing forms of alternative tourism is a specific form of ecotourism: voluntourism. In voluntourism programs, participants pay to “work” on development or conservation-oriented projects. As with ecotourism in general, voluntourism runs the risk of promoting a form of enthnocentricism in which local interests are neglected in order to maximize economic revenue. In this presentation I explore the Surin Project, a voluntourism program designed to increase captive elephants’ quality of life in rural northeastern Thailand. The project is located within a larger government-supported village that houses approximately 300 elephants and their mahouts (keepers), all of whom are Gwi, a hill tribe traditionally recognized for their skill in capturing wild elephants. An experimental partnership between the local government and the non-profit Save Elephant Foundation, the project offers a supplemental salary to a small group of mahouts who have agreed to adopt non-traditional and more humane methods of elephant care. Volunteers work alongside the mahouts in planting and harvesting elephant food, cleaning elephant shelters, and walking elephants through the forest. Through a combination of research, interview, and participant observation, I examine the Surin Project’s negotiation of national, local, tourist, and elephant interests.
About the presenterJacqui Sadashige
Jacqui Sadashige received her PhD in Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania where she has taught for the Department of Classical Studies and the Critical Writing Program. She currently teaches Women’s and Gender Studies at Drexel University. She is a staff member of the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival and The Women’s Film Festival and an animal advocate. Her current research focuses the intersection of race, ethnicity, and gender in animal/eco tourism and activism.