Constructionism and culture in research: Understandings of the fourth Buddhist Festival, Wutaishan, China
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Date
2010
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Elservier
Abstract
This paper offers an interpretation of competing legitimacies at the 2007 4th Annual Wutaishan Buddhist
Festival in Taihua, Shanxi Province. It suggests how spectacle, entertainment and performance spaces are
condoned arenas of challenge and usage by mainstream and peripheral groups. The paper also discusses
the methods employed in the framing and nature of interpretation, and possesses its own tension as the
different cultural perspectives and voices are heeded. It concludes that the festival exists as a multilayered event involving economics, politics, faith, entertainment and prestige – each of which creates its
own set of interpretations contextualised in the evolving state of Chinese tourism. The paper is partially
a response to the work of Hollinshead, Phillimore & Goodson and O’Dell that claim a need for a more
reflexive voice in the tourism literature as a means of understanding the tourist experience. Its premises
are based on thinking derived from multiple sources including symbolic interaction and Buddhist
thought.
Description
Tourism Management 31 (2010) 167–178
Keywords
Festivals, China,Buddhism, Constructionism, Culture, Reflexivity