Title: Not victims nor zoo exhibits: the film My Long Neck and listening to the 'other'

Authors: Freya Higgins-Desbiolles; Antonia Canosa

Addresses: School of Management, University of South Australia, G.P.O. Box 2471, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia ' Centre for Children and Young People, School of Education, Southern Cross University, G.P.O. Box 157, Lismore NSW 2480, Australia

Abstract: Shalom Almond's film My Long Neck is a gift to tourism scholars and teachers who want to raise social justice, social inclusion and empowerment in our work. Filmed in 2013 and resulting from the filmmaker's tourist visit to the Mae Hong Son area of Northern Thailand, this film turns the tables on understanding an area that has been subject to recent scrutiny as a site of 'human zoos'. The result is a documentary where the potential 'object' of the film, Maja, becomes a co-filmmaker and agent of interpretation of human circumstances. In this paper, we explore how the film provides both a 'voice' for a marginalised people as well as a more nuanced exploration of the lived experiences of a young woman trying to negotiate circumstances that impinge on her freedom and self-determination.

Keywords: tourism and film; human zoo; participatory praxis; tourism anthropology; participatory filmmaking; power; voice; indigenous tourism; empowerment; tourism impacts; the 'other'.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTA.2018.093305

International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, 2018 Vol.6 No.3, pp.237 - 254

Received: 03 Feb 2018
Accepted: 27 Feb 2018

Published online: 24 Jul 2018 *

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