Julie and I both noticed the change in treatment in Ethiopia than when we studied abroad in Kenya and South Africa respectively. In Ethiopia, we were considered tourists, that is someone who is visiting the country for a short period with the intention of spending money to learn about the country's history, culture, food, landscape, and people. When touring South Africa as a student, I was treated as an extended visitor with the assumption that I was more interested and engaged with their country than a mere tourist. My ostensible interest in the country and the duration of the visit influences the conduct I received as a student. However, expatriate's protracted stay frequently impedes the same effect from occurring. The tendency is to congregate with people from your country or who speak your language. More time in the country means more time to separate himself from the surrounding culture. A minority of expats actually bridge the cultural crevices and canyons that separate peoples from different backgrounds. The rest live abroad on their own terms, either to make some money, see the world, or "improve" the country. Unlike students who are welcomed into the country by the educational institute, expats are rarely received with such openness. When we arrived in Sharjah we were picked up from the airport, dropped off at our flat, and that was the end of our formal support.
As for short-term travelers, tourists visit a country for a short period with the intrinsic intention of spending money in the country. Their presence is intertwined with this reality and anything that is seen, experienced, or eaten cannot be separated from it. When traveling in a multiracial context, the dynamic of ethnicity compounds the issues of class. Julie describes this dynamic as both parties being put on display. The primary relation is one of impersonal anonymity when walking down the street. Given the frequent language-divide, the only areas of cross-cultural contact occur over tourist activities. With long-term travel or volunteerism, this gap can be narrowed. With long-term volunteering or tourism, the opportunity for an increased depth in interaction is made available. But that is another topic altogether.
The last issue to talk about is the discourse that surrounds Western travelers. This perception that it is Westerners who travel will change in the upcoming decades as more and more people travel abroad but for now a very normative language shapes our notions of who travelers and for what purpose. If an unskilled laborer works abroad they are not considered an expatriate, they are a laborer. Expatriate then implies that they are from a developed country. A similar distinction could be made for people visiting families in other countries. They are not tourists but traveling with the intention of seeing family. Since they would not be thought of tourists this implies that tourism involves leisure. (The one area that blurs these distinctions is faith tourism which I'll be writing about in the upcoming months).
These slight distinctions reveal the places in the global world in which travel has carved out for itself. In doing so, travelers have carved out different codes of behavior when abroad as have rules been carved out for them. In general, these rules shape how the traveler is to relate to the Other, that is, the country, its land, and most importantly, its people. More specifically, they dictate everything from when and where it is acceptable to take pictures to where one should and shouldn't go in a city or village. To realize how powerful these rules are just think of how travel would change if all of the world's travel books were burned. Lastly, the rules of travel have shaped and will continue to shape how citizens relate to travelers occupying their country. These issues will only be heightened as more people travel throughout our world searching for adventure, relaxation, and wealth.
A Postscript on my Expat Life in Sharjah/Dubai
Residing in Sharjah/Dubai has been easy. I don't really expect that my life will be this easy later in life. A fantasy world has really been created around me where I don't have to have any real worries. It is a capitalist dream city. Unemployment is less than three percent. Crime is nonexistent. There are no taxes. Heat is the most serious environmental threat. The borders of the country have established a hub of international trade. A walk along the Dubai Creek reveals dhows shipping any cargo from fish to refrigerators, fruit juice to tape players. However, the shadow side of this development is revealed in the autocratic rulership of the country. The majority of the population has no voting rights or civil liberties, if you lose your job you have 30 days to leave the country, and a large portion of the population is locked into a modern form indentured servitude as they build the city. Sharjah's "Decency and Public Conduct Rules and Objectives" dictate acceptable clothing, social interactions, and living arrangements--all in line with conservative interpretation of Islam. Any form of dissension or disagreement is simply not tolerated. During the few protests for the war in Gaza, protesters were nervous to demonstrate against a war that the government rhetorically opposes. Even with these larger social realities, people respect the visionary leadership of Dubai's honorific leader Sheikh Mohammed and his economic prowess in developing this strange place in the desert. In day to day life, I've been placed in this world where I don't have to worry about the politics of the country or the civil liberties that I don't possess. For myself, as well as the large expatriate community, as long as the UAE continues to thrive economically, sacrificing political rights seems insignificant, no matter how tragic that sounds. Maybe its a vision for the globalized world to come: everything in its place in the local division of labor and supply chain.
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