Professor Dr Alfred Schäfer is a professor of education at
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. His book
Selbst-Spiegelungen am Anderen Zur Ambivalenz kultureller Begegnungen in Ladakh
(Self-reflections on the others: the ambivalence of cultural encounters in
Ladakh) is currently on sale and may be of interest to German language speakers.
The book is based on recent research in Ladakh, which was conducted with the
assistance of Kati Illmann since 2010.
In this book, Schäfer examines the impacts upon Ladakhi identities as a result of mutual self-reflection of tourists and Ladakhi, and the negotiation of identity in the context of a changing social landscape. The analysis details the ways in which both tourists and Ladakhi come to reflect upon themselves and the others.
Tourist discourses show an ambivalence towards the otherness of others. On the one hand the otherness is emphasized as important opportunity for their own experiences and on the other hand this otherness is simultaneously to be understood only as result of the visitors’ own creation.
The Ladakhi discourses show that people of Ladakh are offset by tourism in a challenging relationship to their own identity due to the changes. They are not only urged to conduct themselves according to their own identity in the tense field between tradition and change, but they are confronted with the impossibility of being able to do so from a shared position. The resulting ambivalence and ambiguity of the references of a Ladakhi identity are based on the constitutive problem of a self-reflecting relationship.
The book can be purchased at this site for Eur 29: http://www.schoeningh.de/katalog/titel/978-3-506-77958-8.html
In this book, Schäfer examines the impacts upon Ladakhi identities as a result of mutual self-reflection of tourists and Ladakhi, and the negotiation of identity in the context of a changing social landscape. The analysis details the ways in which both tourists and Ladakhi come to reflect upon themselves and the others.
Tourist discourses show an ambivalence towards the otherness of others. On the one hand the otherness is emphasized as important opportunity for their own experiences and on the other hand this otherness is simultaneously to be understood only as result of the visitors’ own creation.
The Ladakhi discourses show that people of Ladakh are offset by tourism in a challenging relationship to their own identity due to the changes. They are not only urged to conduct themselves according to their own identity in the tense field between tradition and change, but they are confronted with the impossibility of being able to do so from a shared position. The resulting ambivalence and ambiguity of the references of a Ladakhi identity are based on the constitutive problem of a self-reflecting relationship.
The book can be purchased at this site for Eur 29: http://www.schoeningh.de/katalog/titel/978-3-506-77958-8.html
