Sharing Culture or Selling Out?

Developing the Commodified Persona in the Heritage

Industry
Author(s): Alexis Celeste Bunten
Source: American Ethnologist, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Aug., 2008), pp. 380-395
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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 ALEXIS CELESTE BUNTEN
University of California, Berkeley

Sharing culture or selling out?

Developing the commodified persona in the heritage industry

ABSTRACT "I am going to tell you one of the most important

tory of Sitka, Alaska." The Native storyteller make
Native American professionals in the heritage
toward the small patch of grass in front of him. P
industry often describe their work as "sharing
and bushy
culture" when they are involved in processes of spruce trees threaten to engulf the well-
which
transforming features of their cultures is flanked
into alienable on one side by the Pacific Ocea
side by steep, rugged mountains. Pointing to the Or
products for consumption. Participation in the
in one corner of the grass, he continues, "It is the
heritage industry can be a powerful catalyst for local
that took place right here between the Tlingits a
cultural reproduction, but it also poses a danger to
by the great Tlingit warrior, Shk'awuly?il, many g
those aspects of culture that Natives consciously
Shk'awuly?il who I am named after." The storytelle
protect from com modification. Drawinganfrom a caseof the events leading up to what is now
account
study of a Native American-owned cultural-tourism
Battle of 1802. He begins with the ancestors of toda
business in Alaska, I explore the ways those
that tourism
people who founded Sheet'ka, drawn to Shee I
workers respond to this threat through canoes
the by the flashing lights of Lu'x, a now-dorman
last active
construction of what I call a "commodified some 10,000 years ago. Finding Shee Islan
persona."
round,
[cultural com modification, representation, abundant
Northwest in fish and deer, and geographic
Coast, tourism] marauding tribes, the ancestors stayed and devel
complex society. When Russian ships arrived in sou
ters in 1741, they encountered Sheet'ka, a thriving T
ited by several clans, among them the powerful Kiks
Shk'awuly?il the warrior and of the storyteller. Duri
mission, the Russians saw that Sheet'ka was reple
sources on land and in its surrounding waters an
lar, its large population of sea otters. Propelled by
that could be made through the trade of sea-otter fu
the Russian American Company set up a fort a few m
git settlement at a place known as G?jaa H?en. Th
Aleuts from the east, having enslaved them for the
sea otters. The local Tlingits tolerated the Russia
assisted the foreigners with subsistence at times un
gan to disrespect Tlingit laws. Without asking perm
began to hunt and fish on lands and in waterways w
longed to the local clans. Even more barbaric, the R
selves on Tlingit women, stealing them from their

AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 380-395, ISSN 0094-049

ISSN 1548-1425. ? 2008 by the American Anthropological Association.
DOI: 10.HH/j.1548-1425.2008.00041.x

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Tlingits had had enough. They organized an attack on
the Russian fort, led by Shk'awuly?il. Despite Russian
munitions, the Tlingits massacred every man who was
unlucky enough to be at the fort that day. As a grisly
warning to any Russians who dared return to the fort
site, Shk'awuly?il and his men placed the heads of their
slain enemies on staffs that they planted on the bloody
battlefield. At that moment, a bald eagle flies over
head emitting a piercing shriek, and a couple of audi
ence members listening to the story jump up startled,
brought back to the present moment.
lthough this story has been passed down for gen
Aerations among Sitka's Native people, the audi
ence that day was not Tlingit. It was composed
of tourists from the lower 48 states who were on
a cruise of Alaska's famed "inside passage" and
who had stopped in Sitka for a day. For Tlingit listeners, this
story is empowering. It reminds them that, at one time, their
people successfully defeated and drove away their coloniz
ers in battle. The storyteller was a Native tour guide named
Jackson who worked for Sitka Tribe of Alaska's subsidiary
business, Tribal Tours.1 Tribal Tours markets Tlingit cultural
and historical tours of the city of Sitka from a Native point
of view. With over ten years of experience as a tour guide
within the local tourism industry, Jackson carefully crafted
his presentation of self. From his hospitable manners to his
sense of humor, his well-groomed appearance, and the sto
ries he told on tour, Jackson's efforts at tailoring his tour
to please his customers paid off. He was among the most
highly tipped and sought-after tour guides in Sitka.
When I trained to become a tour guide for Tribal Tours
in 2003 as part of my research looking into the ways that
Native people package and present their heritage for con
sumption,2 Jackson gave me this good advice: "It doesn't re
ally matter if you forget your tour script, or forget to take
your group somewhere promised on the tour brochure. The
tourists pay to see you! If they like you, you are doing your
job well." Over the years, Jackson had learned to gauge feed
back from tourists to shape his presentation of self, a prod
uct I term a commodified persona.
In this article, I develop a general theory of "self
commodification" in the cultural-tourism setting that takes
into account the pressures cultural-tourism workers ex
perience in representing themselves according to cross
cultural models. In addition to outside market pressures,
forces operating within workers, both psychological factors
and culturally mediated values, drive processes of self
commodification. Self-commodification can be broadly
defined as a set of beliefs and practices in which an in
dividual chooses to construct a marketable identity prod
uct while striving to avoid alienating him- or herself. Other
forms of self-commodification may include self-branding
of the sort Oprah Winfrey engages in; exploiting one's social
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Sharing culture or selling out? American Ethnologist
background to create a commercial image, as "gangsta" rap
pers do; and putting one's best face forward, as in a job
interview. Self-commodification, thus, involves any type of
product performance that requires the individual to ad
just his or her values, emotions, or both, to achieve an
economic goal, as Arlie Hochschild (1983) describes in
her seminal publication on the emotional labor of airline
attendants.
In addition to Hochschild's case study, analyses of self
commodifying activities include Sasha David's (2007) dis
cussion of talent managers who manipulate their personas
to market themselves and the actors they represent in Hol
lywood, Brent Luvaas's (2006) analysis of independent-label
musicians' use of pop aesthetics to fashion an ironic anti
commercial image; and Ann Julienne Russ's (2005) take on
the increasing commodification of hospice workers' emo
tional labor that crosses the boundaries between char
ity and profit making, life and death. These studies em
phasize the complicated and often-contradictory nature
of self-commodifying activities, they go beyond analyzing
self-presentation in terms of impression management, and
they confront simplistic critiques of self-commodification
as "selling out" or "being exploited," arguing, instead, for a
more agentive perspective on the processes involved. The
concept of "self-commodification" as I have defined it here
unleashes a new means to analyze the domains in which
emotional labor, identity construction, and the politics of
representation converge within the constantly changing
field of late capitalism.
In the context of the heritage industry, self
commodification is a dual process; it is both an economic
response to the global expansion of the service sector and a
politically motivated expression of identity. The emotional
labor, combined with the cross-cultural skills necessary
to entertain groups of tourists, contributes to the Native
tour guide's construction of a commodified persona. The
practices of constructing a commodified persona involve
representation of cultural uniformity as a simplifying trope,
self-exoticizing as the Other, polyvocal alternations of iden
tity culled from a repertoire of possibilities, and rejection of
stereotyping through covert acts of resistance. The factors
that produce a "commodified persona" may shift in con
texts outside the cultural-tourism setting, but the tension
between structure and agency implicit in these processes is
present in examples that are increasingly visible in various
sectors of contemporary life. The self-commodification
taking place at the tourist site is conducted within a well
ordered political-economic framework. However, there is
room at the individual level to respond to both micro- and
macrostructural domains and even to confront them.
Ultimately, the tourism worker expresses free choice
over the way he constructs a commodified persona, but
these choices affect the market value of the self as a com
modity3 If the commodified persona that is created is
381
American Ethnologist Volume 35 Number 3 August 2008
(drawn from imagery found in mainstream media) and
an expression of likeable individuality, the tour guide will
not earn enough profit to make his job worthwhile. There
fore, performance is an intrinsic aspect of the commodified
persona. The mandatory performance of the Other in the
cultural-tourism setting is a critical activity, which reflects
the double consciousness implicit in the representation of
ethnic identity within the typically hegemonic encounter.
In this setting, Native American tour guides both enact and
refute their non-Native clients' demands to experience Na
tive culture based on popular notions attached to Native
American identity. Simultaneously, these workers must ne
gotiate local cultural guidelines concerning what is appro
priate to share with outsiders. In other words, although in
dustry standards seek to regulate and homogenize Native
tour guides' personas and tours, guides turn to local cul
tural models to shape their presentations of self. Thus, cul
tural commodification is a coproduction between hosts and
guests, mediated by multiple culturally based concepts of
what it means to be a member of a Native American tribe.
(Although I focus in this article on a specific, Native Alaskan,
example, the process can apply to any group of subaltern
people who choose to display themselves for pay to mem
bers of a dominant society.)
Finally, processes of self-commodification are flexible.
After all, the commodified persona is a heuristic formed
through human interaction. The worker who creates a com
modified persona, I argue, is better equipped to manage the
emotion work that is part and parcel of touristic interac
tion than the unprepared worker, who shares himself with
strangers openly and unselfconsciously. The commodified
persona is not, as so many aspects of tourism are accused
of being, a simulacrum, but it may be compartmentalized
to the workplace. Within the context of the cultural tour,
Native guides have the power to choose how to respond
to the tourist gaze.4 Whereas the commodified persona is
constructed to meet tourist desires for an encounter with
the Other, the person behind it usually does not openly ac
cept himself as an object, the ultimate human commodity,
and therefore openly resists being objectified according to
stereotypes. Outside of the context of work, the commodi
fied persona is usually put to rest.
Too often, the Natives in the cultural-tourism enter
prise are described as having been coerced into partici
pating in the creation and performance of an inauthentic
product, a view that strips both them and the tourists who
pay to encounter them of any honorable intentions. In fact,
the cross-cultural experience mediated through tourism
is much more complex. My data suggest that Native tour
guides are sophisticated culture brokers who often very
thoughtfully put together cohesive commodified personas
drawn from multiple cultural frameworks. Analyzing these
processes helps to explain why an individual would choose
to display himself as the Other and sheds light on the nature
382
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of this type of cross-cultural encounter in which a specific
type of human interaction is marketed.
I organize this discussion around the characteristics
of the commodified persona. First, I describe the setting
of this case study and situate the concept of "cultural
commodification" within scholarly works, paying partic
ular attention to those that treat tourism. The body of
the article subsequently contextualizes processes of self
commodification. I unpack each element of the commod
ified persona, culling from observations I gathered while
working for Tribal Tours.
Setting
The ethnographic data presented in this article are based on
research that took place over a two-year period from 2003
to 2005. During this time, I worked as "all around staff" for
Tribal Tours, a cultural-tourism business based in Sitka and
owned and operated by Sitka Tribal Enterprises.5 I also at
tended the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Asso
ciation's annual conventions to situate my research within
the broader political economy of Native American tourism.
By choosing to work as a member of Tribal Tours' staff, I
was able to explore the day-to-day processes of cultural rep
resentation, commodification, and perpetuation that oc
curred while I interacted with coworkers both during and
outside of work hours. Ironically, few anthropologists who
look at issues surrounding cultural tourism have been able
to successfully work inside the industry (other than in the
role of "the hired anthropologist"). Most anthropologists
looking at tourism base their findings on brief trips to exotic
destinations, much like those of tourists themselves. And
their research is more often focused on the experience of
the tourist than on that of the cultural producer.
Sitka is a popular tourist destination sustained primar
ily by the cruise industry. Surrounded by mountains on one
side and the Pacific Ocean on the other side, Sitka is located
on Baranov Island along the fjords of the southeast Alaskan
panhandle. Wildlife is abundant; spotting a bald eagle, a sea
lion, and a humpback whale in the same day is not unusual.
Sitka's history is as fascinating as the city is beautiful. Walk
ing down the main street, visitors see the Russian Ortho
dox cathedral, whose original building dates to the 1840s,
among other buildings that survive from the U.S. colonial
period that followed the transfer of Alaska from Russia to
the United States in 1867. The Tlingit "village" part of town
lies along a waterfront street perpendicular to the end of the
main street. Originally a Tlingit settlement, Sitka was once
the capital of Russian America, called by Russian enthusi
asts the "Paris of the Pacific" during its heyday in the early
19th century as the busiest seaport on the West Coast. Be
cause of its natural beauty, unique history, and Native peo
ples, Sitka has a rich history of tourism dating back to the

advent of regular steamship passage between West Coast
ports and Alaska in the 1870s.
Shortly after the transfer of Alaska to U.S. ownership,
news of the territory's natural wonders began to trickle
down to the lower 48 states, as military men, outdoors
men, adventurers, prospectors, and surveyors wrote home
to tell about their experiences in the far north. South
east Alaska Natives have participated in the tourist econ
omy from its inception, eagerly selling their handicrafts
to tourists seeking mementos. Carefully crafting their pre
sentations of self as part of these transactions came easily
to early Tlingit tourism entrepreneurs. Nineteenth-century
Tlingits were savvy profiteers who avoided the middleman,
greeting tourists as they walked off the gangplanks of their
steamships and onto the dock, where Native women sold a
"great many wares of their own manufacture, such as bas
kets, hats, and stockings, also canes and miniature totem
poles, manufactured by their husbands or brothers" (Hinck
ley 1996:255). In addition to purchasing artifacts, tourists
could pay to be photographed with a Native or, some
times, to see a dance performance.6 Sitka even boasted
a faux "Indian Princess," who became wealthy by acting
as an intermediary between Native artisans and prospec
tive buyers (Hinckley 1965, 1996; Kan 2004). From their
earliest participation in the tourist economy, Tlingit en
trepreneurs supplied tourist demands for artifacts, pictures,
and dances, but they met these demands somewhat on
their own terms.7 The heyday of Victorian tourism was over
in a few short decades, and by WWII, tourism in Sitka had
ground to a halt, not to return again until the late 1960s.
During the hiatus, Sitka's Native people maintained the
skills to represent themselves to outsiders in a manner that
continues to suit their needs.
Over the past ten years, Sitka's cruise passenger totals
have fluctuated between 150,000 and 275,000 passen
gers annually.8 Tourism is a major source of revenue
and employment for the small city, whose other major
economic engines are commercial fishing, education,
health care, recreational fishing, and marine fabrication
and repair.9 In contrast to other popular tourism practices
that appeal to consumer desires for sun, sea, sex, and
so on, Alaska promotes a specific image that appeals to
mainstream U.S. nostalgia for (using phrases found in one
cruise line's marketing brochures) "the great land," "the last
vast wilderness," or the "land of adventure," as an antidote
to the modern quotidian lives of most Americans. Visitors
to the state often describe their reasons for visiting in
terms of "seeing for themselves" Alaska's pristine, untamed
wilderness. Market research confirms that tourists' primary
interests include wilderness, wildlife, and scenic beauty,
followed by experiencing (traditional) Native Alaskan
cultures (McDowell Group 2001). As a major destination,
Sitka offers several sightseeing options that fit mainstream
consumer demands, from motor-coach city tours to marine
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Sharing culture or selling out? American Ethnologist
wildlife tours by boat; outdoor activities ranging from sport
fishing to kayaking, biking, and hiking; and flightseeing by
plane or helicopter.
Although meeting "authentic Alaskans" is high on the
priority lists of most people visiting the state, the aver
age tourist is unlikely to encounter Native culture unmedi
ated by tourism. The best places for tourists to learn about
Sitka's Native cultures are the Southeast Alaskan Cultural
Center at the Sitka National Historic Park and the Sheldon
Jackson Museum, both of which offer exhibits of Tlingit
material culture and Native art demonstrations. By far the
most comprehensive way to learn about historical and con
temporary local Tlingit culture is to take a tour with Sitka
Tribe of Alaska's Tribal Tours. In fact, several of Tribal Tours'
products include interpreted visits to the Sheldon Jack
son Museum and Sitka National Historical Park in addition
to a guided cultural tour of the city and a Native dance
performance.
I found Tribal Tours to be an excellent site for looking
at self-commodification within the Native-owned cultural
tourism industry. Over the past ten years, a proliferation
of Native American-owned and operated cultural-tourism
sites have opened their doors to the visiting public. Op
erating since 1994, Tribal Tours is one of the longer
established Native-owned cultural-tourism enterprises in
the state of Alaska. In terms of scale and accessibility, Tribal
Tours proved an ideal case study. Tribal Tours employs
approximately 10 year-round staff and about 35 seasonal
workers. Sitka's population is just under 9,000 year-round
residents, of which approximately 20 percent identify them
selves as Alaska Native or American Indian (U.S. Census
Bureau 2000). Many members of Sitka's Native population,
who are predominantly Tlingit, actively participate in ac
tivities that can be described as "traditional culture," such
as maintaining the clan-based social system, following the
subsistence lifestyle, and participating in ceremonial life.10
Not surprisingly, most of Tribal Tours employees fit into the
Tlingit social structure.11 This setting was ideal for me, as a
researcher interested in connections between the construc
tion of cultural representation intended for outside con
sumption and cultural production within the local Tlingit
community.
Perhaps more importantly, Tribal Tours fits many of
the criteria I have identified as shared by Native-owned
cultural-tourism venues in Alaska and beyond. The grow
ing Alaska Native cultural-tourism industry is part of a
larger sphere of indigenous practices around the world
in which economic independence, self-determination, cul
tural sovereignty, and the maintenance of indigenous tra
ditions are linked. In the context of Native-owned and op
erated tourism, tying together the project of perpetuating
traditional culture while providing economic opportunities
for tribal citizens is not an option; it is a necessity. Unlike
tourism enterprises operated by non-Natives, indigenous
383
American Ethnologist Volume 35 Number 3 August 2008
tourism is almost always married to cultural sovereignty as
part of a strategy to employ identity politics in larger arenas
of concern for the indigenous population, such as retaining
or reclaiming history, control over representation, surface
and subsurface land rights, and political sovereignty.
Sovereignty is typically substantiated through claims
of authenticity based on a historical time line of contin
ued tradition. Authenticity is used to justify identity and,
consequently, gives value to the cultural-tourism experi
ence. After all, tourism banks on the commercialization of
authentic places, people, and experiences legitimized by
claims of tradition. The relationship between authenticity
and cultural tourism, however, is paradoxical. On the one
hand, the global spread of consumerist culture is often at
tacked for destroying cultural authenticity. On the other
hand, I would argue, tourism acts as a catalyst for com
munities who take part in this industry to generate height
ened awareness of (and, consequently, efforts to preserve
maintain) authenticity and tradition.12 Thus, developing an
analysis of self-commodification allows for a more nuanced
understanding of the links between the expanding cultural
tourism industry and practices of identity politics.13
Cultural commodification and tourism
When pared down to its simplest form, tourism is "commer
cialized hospitality," both a result of and resulting in depen
dency relationships. Erik Cohen writes, "Social exchange
between hosts and guests, based on principles of the hos
pitality characteristic of the gift, now becomes largely re
placed by economic exchange and the profit motive, often
masquerading behind a phony front of friendliness or even
servility" (1988:308). The commercialization of hospitality
requires that hosts employ emotional labor (Hochschild
1983) to subdue the forced nature of the intimacy forged
between themselves and their "guests." As part and parcel
of this form of intimacy, hosts must submit to the "tourist
gaze" (Urry 1990), compounding the objectification (and, in
a sense, the dehumanization) of the host in relation to the
tourist. The problem with this set of viewpoints is that, al
though some tourism-based relationships, especially in cul
tural tourism, are undoubtedly forced through structures of
inequality, many are not.
Despite the real emotional strains often felt by hosts,
subaltern peoples willingly work in tourism, even when
other forms of work are available. Their choice can be ex
plained quite simply: Participants at the host level either
experience greater benefits (material, political, and social)
from participating in tourism than costs they would in
cur from not participating or they are duped (presumably
through hegemonic influence) into not seeing the destruc
tive potential of commodifying themselves. I believe that
another force is at work to influence the interactions be
tween hosts and guests; examining it requires incorpor?t
384
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ing the cross-cultural component into the analysis of these
social encounters.
The mere ability to travel to places inaccessible prior
to advances in transportation and communications has de
segregated traditional trade systems, gift systems, and mar
kets, as Arjun Appadurai points out, "bringing about the
commoditization of an ever wider range of things and ac
tivities" (1986:380). He elaborates, "Dealings with strangers
... provide contexts for the commoditization of things that
are otherwise protected from commoditization" (Appadu
rai 1986:15). Through commodification, tourism forces the
objectification of human relations. The tourist encounter
epitomizes what Georg Simmel describes in "The Stranger"
(1950): When brought together, individuals unknown to
each other are likely to objectify the other and, thereby, de
viate from social norms of conduct. According to this logic,
interactions across cultures made possible through tourism
can easily break down the boundaries of what can be con
sidered "a commodity."
Commodifying the cross-cultural experience in the
tourism setting problematizes the divide between what is
thought possible to buy and sell. In this setting, a quanti
tative, monetary value is placed on culture, something be
lieved to have qualitative value. Davydd Greenwood asks,
"Can culture be considered a commodity?" (1989:172).
Greenwood's commentary on this subject is worth quoting
at length here,
Logically, anything that is for sale must have been pro
duced by combining the factors of production (land,
labor, or capital). This offers no problem when the
subject is razor blades, transistor radios, or hotel ac
commodations. It is not so clear when buyers are at
tracted to a place by some feature of the local culture,
such as the running of the bulls in Pamplona, an ap
pearance of the Virgin Mary, or an exotic festival. ...
Economists tend to view local culture as a "natural re
source" (that is, part of the land factor) ... but this ap
proach is not very useful because in ethnic tourism,
local culture is treated as a commodity sui generis.
[1989:173]
Greenwood does not view cultural commodification as
a positive outcome of tourism. He argues that local culture
is made inauthentic: "Altered, often destroyed by the treat
ment of it as a tourist attraction... it is made meaningless to
the people who once believed in it" (Greenwood 1989:173).
Although things and behaviors become commodities as
they are performed for touristic consumption, Greenwood's
view does not take into account the basic premise that cul
tural productions are not static entities, only "pure" when
untouched by outside influence, be it through social or cap
italist penetration or both. In accord with Greenwood, Dean
MacCannel (1973, 1976) claims that the tourist's desire for
authenticity is disrupted through the commercialization

and commodification of culture through touristic display.
Nick Stanley refers to this perspective as "the tradition of
melancholia" (1998:150), in which ethnographic display is
situated within a hegemonic global system that does not
allow for plural meanings to emerge for participants in
the cross-cultural encounter. Proponents of the tradition
of melancholia assert that cultural demonstrations in the
tourism setting are inherently exploitative and inauthentic.
Alternatively, Stanley proposes viewing ethnographic dis
play positively, "preferring instead to enquire whether and
under what conditions individuals and groups may sustain
their sense of identity through performance in a postmod
ern world" (1998:151). Cohen shares this perspective:
One has to bear in mind that commoditization often
hits a culture not when it is flourishing, but when it
is actually already in decline, owing to the impinge
ment of outside forces preceding tourism. Under such
circumstances, the emergence of a tourist market fre
quently facilitates the preservation of a cultural tradi
tion, which would otherwise perish. It enables bearers
to maintain a meaningful local or ethnic identity which
they might have otherwise lost. [1988:382]
I believe that this premise aligns more accurately with
"what really happens" in the cross-cultural tourism setting.
Self-commodification is not a continuous, steady state of
being, and feelings of being commodified differ from per
son to person. I doubt that most people involved in activi
ties of self-commodification would label themselves "inau
thentic" or "invaluable" exemplars of their cultural identity,
as proponents of the tradition of melancholia purport. Nei
ther do they enjoy thinking of themselves as objects or com
modities.14 According to Igor Kopytoff, an object's value (or,
in the case of this argument, an individual's ethnic iden
tity) is dependent on the contextualized cultural meaning
ascribed to it. Through the processes of commodifying Na
tive culture, Tribal Tours employees are involved in a "moral
economy" play (Cheal 1996; Kopytoff 1986); they must put
a price on presenting tourists with a taste of Tlingit cul
ture for an hour or two, according to both Western con
sumers' and local Native assessments of the value of this ex
perience. What is missing from the dialogue concerning the
commodification of people within the tourism context is a
discussion of how the Native hosts come to exercise, expe
rience, and reflect on their activities of making themselves
into commodities.
The processes of transforming identity into a commod
ity, in which "ethnicity or authenticity cease simply to 'be'?
to have use-value?but come to have exchange value in
a cultural system which peddles numerous formulae for
translating between, or exchanging, things and categories
which would be though incommensurable in other 'modal
ities' " (Stronza 2001:265), tend to alienate the worker from
himself. The Marxist framework describes alienation as a
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Sharing culture or selling out? American Ethnologist
by-product of commodification, "founded upon this dispar
ity between the productive power of labor, which becomes
increasingly great with the expansion of capitalism, and the
lack of control which the worker is able to exert over the ob
jects which he produces" (Giddens 1979:11). By construct
ing a commodified persona, the cultural-tourism worker
can gain control over the product of his labor, namely, him
self. To the extent that the worker wants to earn a living
and the tourism venue wants repeat customers, the worker
has little control over the parameters within which he must
present himself; these constraints are manifested as culture
as a unifying trope and self-exotification as the Other. How
ever, by presenting himself from a repertoire of possibili
ties and covertly resisting stereotypes implicit in the tourist
gaze, the Native tour guide exerts agency to shift the ways
that outsiders view him and shapes his commodified per
sona to best suit his reality and life experience.
Cultural uniformity as a simplifying trope
Perhaps the most glaring feature of cultural commodifi
cation in the tourism setting is the routinization of cul
tural representation. Most cultural-tourism sites follow pre
dictable formats, presenting aspects of local culture that are
fixed in a precolonial past, in which men and women on dis
play follow gender roles, wear traditional garb, and perform
traditional songs and dances. Remarking on this, Barbara
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett writes, "Sameness is a problem the
[tourism] industry faces. Standardization is part and par
cel of the economies of scale that high-volume tourism re
quires ... the industry requires a reliable product that meets
universal standards, despite the dispersal of that product
across many widely separated locations" (1998:152).
Standardization of services is crucial in places like
Sitka, whose tourism base relies on the cruise-ship indus
try. The cruise industry has enjoyed vast increases in rev
enue and popularity over the past decade, which can be
attributed to two main factors. First, cruises are now more
affordable to middle-income households than ever before,
and they simplify vacationing by relieving passengers of the
grueling work of itinerary making. Second, on a cruise, ev
erything is predictable in terms of cleanliness, service, and
price. Because Sitka is one of southeast Alaska's ports of call
for many cruise lines, over the years Tribal Tours has grown
in part by catering to the cruise market.
Cultural-tourism sites typically share the same tech
niques for staging and presenting culture to outside au
diences. They follow what I describe as "the cultural
tourism formula." The cultural-tourism formula requires
the tourism site to have most, if not all, of these ele
ments: the greeting, the guide, demonstrated use of the her
itage language, traditional architecture, a performance, a
gift shop or souvenirs for sale, and, often, demonstrations
of traditional Native crafts.15 Native tour guides are given
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American Ethnologist Volume 35 Number 3 August 2008
extensive training in "commodification of hospitality," dur
ing which they learn the structures of host-guest interaction
according to the cultural norms of the guest (assuming that
the guest is Western). The interactions between host and
guest are carefully orchestrated into exchanges in which
the guest feels "safe" around a host with whom he or she
might normally be uncomfortable fraternizing. Throughout
the experience, all communication follows Western perfor
mative, oratorical standards. A guide narrates the tour in a
linear fashion and describes what tourists are seeing at each
moment. Erasure is a major tool used to shape the cultural
tourism site. The contemporary reality of what it is like to
be a member of the culture in reference is not fully dis
closed. Unpleasant facts, both historical and present-day
particularly those that have something to do with negative
effects of colonization, can be omitted from the represen
tation altogether. Moreover, heterogeneity is erased in favor
of a standardized tour script. Following the cultural-tourism
formula, the cultural-tourism site sanitizes culture, neatly
packaging it so as neither to offend nor overload the visitor
with overwhelming amounts of information.
Cultural-tourism workers learn to navigate, work with,
and maintain these aspects of ethnographic display as crit
ical components of their labor. The cultural-tourism for
mula is repeated at destinations worldwide. Scholars have
written about some of these attractions, including the Poly
nesian Cultural Center in Lavie, Hawafi (Stanton 1989);
the Masai attraction at Mayer's Ranch in Kenya (Bruner
and Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1994); the Tjibao Cultural Cen
ter in Noumea, New Caledonia (LeFevre 2004); the North
west Coast Native Tillicum Village near Seattle, Washington
(Johnson and Underiner 2001); and the Yunaan Nationali
ties Village in Kunming, China (Bruner 2005). To gain a feel
ing for the real global presence of the formula, one need
only perform an Internet search: type in the name of a non
Western group of people, and a host of websites will be
found describing cultural attractions that fit the cultural
tourism-formula profile.
Tribal Tours' success can be attributed in part to follow
ing the cultural-tourism formula. The tourist begins his or
her Tribal Tours experience with a greeting by a Native tour
guide. All Tribal Tours guides are recognizable by their uni
forms: black slacks, a white or red polo shirt, a Northwest
Coast-style button vest, and a red and white Tribal Tours
jacket (red and white are the main colors used in Tlingit art
and regalia) adorned with the company's Northwest Coast
style logo depicting the Tlingit eagle and raven moieties.
The guide greets the tour group in both the Tlingit and En
glish languages. The guide drives the group through Sitka,
pointing out historical sites of interest in the manner of any
motor-coach tour guide anywhere in the world. Many of
Tribal Tours' itineraries include a stop at the Sheet'ka Kwaan
Naa Kahidi Community House, an architecturally accurate
replica of a precontact Tlingit clan house. Once inside the
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clan house, tourists are escorted into the main auditorium
of the building and seated in chairs set up in a semicir
cle around a central "traditional" fire pit. At the far end of
the room is a Western-style stage on which the Native Naa
Kahidi Dancers perform Tlingit dances that are narrated
translated by a master of ceremonies. After the dance show,
tourists may take pictures and chat with the dancers. Al
though the Tribal Tours product is unique in cultural, spa
tial, and historical content, it resembles many cultural tours
throughout the world.
It is precisely this predictability, the presentation of the
same culture in the same way over and over to fresh groups
of tourists, that appeals to the middlemen in the tourist in
dustry who broker tours between vendors such as Tribal
Tours and cruise lines. When it comes to cultural tourism,
consumers want to know exactly what is going to take
place during the encounter with their hosts; this places Na
tive tourism professionals in a paradoxical position. Many
wish to present their cultures according to local values, but
they know that to make a profit from the tourism indus
try, they must adapt to industry univers als. Ruth Phillips
and Christopher Steiner observe, "The inscription of West
ern modes of commodity production has been one of the
most important aspects of the global extension of Western
colonial power. Moreover, the role of this process in trans
forming indigenous constructions of the object has inten
sified, rather than diminished in many parts of the world"
(1999:4). So, although attempts have been made in vary
ing locations to develop truly indigenous cultural attrac
tions, nearly all successful venues must reference Western
paradigms of cultural representation.
Self-exoticizing as the Other
For it to be marketed and sold, culture must be packaged
according to consumers' desires, desires that are informed
by specific ideas about what constitutes the value of
non-Western culture, art, literature, medicine, and bodies.
In the same way that Native arts are simplified for non
Native consumption (Graburn 1976), culture itself must
be simplified for tourist consumption, with the culture on
display transformed into iconic visuals such as traditional
dress, digestible sound bites such as a greeting in the
Native tongue, and standardized ethnographic information
presented on tour. Self-exoticizing requires the Native
tour guide to present a simplified version of the self that
conforms to Western concepts of the Other popularized
in television, movies, books, museums, and the marketing
efforts of tour operators.16 Jennifer Craik points out that
"cultural experiences offered by tourism are consumed
in terms of prior knowledge, expectations, fantasies, and
mythologies" (1997:119) generated in the tourist's origin
culture rather than by the cultural offerings of the destina
tion. K. M. Adams agrees that brochures and travel agents

provide tourists with a first glimpse of the locals through
"prepackaged ethnic stereotypes" (1984:470), which are
later either reified or dismantled during the tourists'
journeys.17
From tourists' first impression of them, Tribal Tours
guides' appearances are exotic. Although guides have
very little control over their phenotypes, their uniforms
immediately differentiate them from their customers.
Members of the Naa Kahidi dance group appear even more
exotic than the tour guides; at work, they wear Tlingit re
galia, typically button blankets whose designs represent
the wearers' clan affiliations. Some dancers don additional
items such as headdresses, masks, and moccasins. Beyond
the obligatory uniform, Tribal Tours' male employees may
mark themselves as Native by growing their hair long, and
many women wear Northwest Coast-style silver engraved
bracelets or beaded earrings.
If the first visual impression does not satisfy tourists
that their guides are "authentic" Natives, the tour guides'
introductions in the Tlingit language surely distinguish
them from their audience. According to the tour script that
Tribal Tours management provides its workers, guides are
prompted to identify themselves according to their Tlingit
names, the Tlingit place names of their ancestors' homes,
and the Tlingit clans to which they belong. If a guide does
not have a Tlingit name, he might state where he is from and
what (non-Tlingit) tribe he belongs to, but he does so in the
Tlingit language. Guides also include plenty of Tlingit words
for plants, animals, places, foods, and so forth, throughout
their tours. By speaking Tlingit in addition to the dominant
English language that both guides and tourists share, Na
tive guides index their identity as different, exotic. Paul V.
Kroskrity (2004) suggests that the dominant ideology, which
explicitly indexes language to national identity, may have a
"trickle down" effect on subgroups within the state's bound
aries. In this manner, Tribal Tours' guides strategically em
ploy the Tlingit language to differentiate themselves from
tour groups and simultaneously identify themselves as a
part of the Tlingit Nation.
The content of the tour itself tends to enable self
exoticizing in two ways, first by highlighting the Tlingit
culture as it was before contact with Westerners, and,
second, by contrasting Native culture to that of mainstream
white Americans. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett discusses "virtual
ity" as a key aspect of the heritage-tourism site. She writes,
"Guides routinely refer to what cannot be seen?people,
events, and places of years ago. They animate a phantom
landscape on the back of one towards which attention is
directed" (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998:167). On tour, guides
are active interpreters of a hyperreal past, invoking their
guests' imaginations of an "authentic" and exotic "natural"
culture. They often draw on the stereotype of the "noble
savage," the idea that Native Americans are somehow
"more authentic" than non-Natives because they are "close
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Sharing culture or selling out? American Ethnologist
to nature" and, therefore, exist in a more natural or prim
itive state. According to this premise, Native Americans
are enviable because they have traditions unfettered by
modernity, with its consumptive, urban trappings. In fact,
parts of the tour explicitly call for guides to present their
interconnectedness with the natural world. The tour script
directs guides to discuss subsistence food gathering when
they make a stop at a local beach:
The name Tlingit means "the tides people." The Tlin
git people survived on what the tides had provided as
the waters receded. There is a Tlingit saying, "when the
tides go out, the table is set." The low tides would ex
pose a variety of shellfish, intertidal plants and animals,
and then these were harvested. Today, the Tlingit peo
ple harvest traditional foods and plants as they did in
the past. Smoking, canning, and drying would preserve
the harvest foods. The ocean waters also provide hal
ibut, salmon, seal, clams, crab, shrimp, abalone, and
much more. The forest provides berries, wood, medic
inal plants, deer, bear. There are different times of
harvest depending on the type of food. For example
spring-herring, summer-berries, fall-salmon, winter
deer.
Tour guides often go beyond the script and ad-lib dur
ing their tours, discussing the use of local plants for food
and medicine, observations of animal behavior, and links
between the natural world and the Tlingit kinship system.
One commonly practiced strategy of illustrating the con
nection that Native people have with the natural world in
volves describing things that are Native in opposition to
the form that these same things take in contemporary con
sumer society. Local foods and medicines yield quite well
to this kind of description. For example, one tour guide
stated, "In the old days, we filled cedar bowls with berries
and congealed seal oil. That's how we made what you now
call jars of jam." Walking through the forest, another guide
pointed out that, whereas the tourists might give their chil
dren Children's Tylenol for the flu, she gives her children a
tea made from a hanging moss whose Tlingit name trans
lates as "grandfathers' beard." Comparing what is "Native"
to what is "non-Native" in this manner, Tribal Tours' guides
assert their identities as Native, as Other.
Identifying themselves as the Other, tour guides
demonstrate difference between themselves and their pay
ing guests. Through self-exoticization as the Other, differ
ence itself becomes a commodity that tourists can consume
and potentially embody as part of their personhood. After
all, as Stuart Hall (1989:16) contends, only when one knows
the Other does one know oneself. By exoticizing them
selves as the Other using Western ideologies of what being
Native American looks like, sounds like, and means, tour
guides effectively alienate the commodified persona that
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American Ethnologist Volume 35 Number 3 August 2008
they construct from themselves through the performance
of an allegory of Native identity.
Polyvocal alternations of identity culled from a
repertoire of possibilities
To be competitive within the tourism industry, Tribal Tours
tailors its product to meet industry standards. Thus, the
tour format follows many of the same "guidelines" that
cultural tours around the world do. Native tourism work
ers follow a tour script and interact according to standard
modes of hospitality. Within this general structure, how
ever, Tribal Tours encourages its tour guides to person
alize their tours, to draw from life experience and "talk
about what [they] know." Each guide's tour emphasizes
different aspects of the Tlingit culture mediated through
his own life experience. By individualizing their tours, Na
tive tour guides do not just present culture in a manner
that conforms to established industry practices but they
also draw from oftentimes multiple cultural norms direct
ing self-presentation. Consideration of polyvocal alterna
tions culled from a repertoire of identities acknowledges
that there is not necessarily one unified culture to which all
Native tour guides conform.
Tribal Tours' guides do not share the same experi
ences of their Native culture (s) and heritage (s). Their iden
tities "as Native" are varied according to factors such as
age, gender, cultural-ethnic background, where they grew
up, education, whether their families are involved with the
traditional ceremonial system, and religious and other per
sonal preferences. All guides are at least bicultural, embody
ing some Tlingit and some mainstream "American" cultural
norms, but many have tricultural (or more complex) ances
try incorporating other Alaska Native, European, or South
east Asian ancestry, to name the most common. They draw
from this "repertoire" of cultural and ethnic identities to in
teract with tourist groups.
Examining the relationship between language use and
identity, Kroskrity (1993) suggests that speakers may con
sciously select relevant situational identities that they in
voke through various communication strategies. From this
point of view, identity can be considered something that
may shift according to situational contexts in which in
dividuals must communicate effectively across a range of
social networks. This supposition aligns with Dorinne K.
Kondo's view; she writes, "People are constantly becoming,
crafting their selves in particular, located situations for par
ticular ends" (1990:257). All successful Tribal Tours guides
have the ability to tailor situational identities. Guides know
that large groups of cruise-ship passengers who appear
to be middle-American retirees usually enjoy humorous,
lightweight tours. For these groups, guides present them
selves as jovial friends, telling "corny" jokes throughout
their tours and perhaps making some physical contact with
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tourists through hugs or slaps on the back. With Elderhos
tel groups, guides give informative, historically rich tours,
adapting their personas to that of a formal, slightly de
tached instructor.18 On small, exclusive family-group tours,
guides behave more or less informally, presenting a close
facsimile of their personalities outside of the workplace,
and they share more of their personal experiences than they
would on a larger tour.
Considering a repertoire of identities acknowledges the
agency implicit in the construction of the commodified per
sona. The commodified persona does not blindly accom
modate tourist desires. Rather, it represents a give and take
between different cultural values attached to cultural rep
resentation and transmission. Tourism workers who are too
constrained by local cultural norms are not effective culture
brokers. For instance, traditional Tlingit protocol restricts
talking about oneself to certain contexts, and an autobio
graphical speech genre is unheard of.19 Talking about one
self in the manner that is required of tour guides can be con
sidered quite rude and self-important. Tour guides must in
voke their Tlingit identity but must do so according to the
non-Native speech genre of autobiographical speech.
In addition to dictating the speech genres used in the
tourism interaction, cross-cultural communicative norms
affect tour guides' choices about sharing cultural content.
What might be taboo for one guide to discuss with tourists is
perfectly fine for another. For example, several Tribal Tours
employees informed me on numerous occasions that the
Tlingit name for Mt. Edgecumbe volcano, T'ux, should not
be repeated out loud because the volcano is considered sa
cred. Contradicting these oral instructions, the tour script
describes how the volcano got its name, stating, "It is said
by some stories that the Tlingit were led to this area by a
smoking volcano. This volcano today is known as Mt. Edge
cumbe. Because the volcano was still flashing, the Tlingit
called it L'ux meaning to flash or blinking." In fact, the tra
ditional proscription against saying the name of the volcano
is largely ignored by tour guides because, although they are
aware of this taboo, they no longer believe in it (at least no
one I encountered believes in it, including the elder clan
leader who taught me the correct pronunciation of L'ux).
But for the most part, Tribal Tours guides respect con
temporary Tlingit protocols concerning what is appropri
ate content to share with outsiders. In general, guides do
not discuss stories belonging to other clans unless given
permission to tell these stories. Neither do they respond
to tourists' persistent questions about shamanism, a topic
largely off-limits for discussion with outsiders. In addition
to adhering to these types of prohibitions, tour guides re
spect several other Tlingit communicative protocols. On
tour, most guides introduce themselves through an abbrevi
ated version of the formalized introduction they might nor
mally perform in a ceremonial context. Walking on the trails
in the forest, many tour guides show tourists how to interact

with nature according to Tlingit codes of conduct. While
performing these kinds of activities, tourism workers typ
ically narrate how and why they are following a particular
cultural protocol. In these instances, they exercise a choice
to uphold Tlingit ways of interacting with the world, but
they conform to Western communicative standards of the
tourism site by narrating their "Tlingitness."
On tour, guides highlight selected aspects of their eth
nic identities that illustrate their position as culture bear
ers, but they do not share all aspects of their identities. The
Native experience is compartmentalized into what is and is
not appropriate to share on tour. It is appropriate to express
Tlingit identity as embodying closeness to nature. Con
versely, it is not appropriate for Tlingits to express them
selves to outsiders as suffering from the aftermath of cul
tural genocide. By the same token, the Native guide should
express himself as Western through communicative prac
tices such as using a narrative style and discussing history in
chronological order. The guide should not express himself
as Westernized, for example, by discussing his evangelical
Christianity or possession of a higher educational degree.
In this manner, the commodified persona is constrained by
cross-cultural norms. According to the structure of the tour,
guides are bound to present themselves as exotic according
to Western ideologies of the Other using a Western autobi
ographical narrative structure. At the same time, they draw
from Tlingit standards throughout their tours to introduce
themselves and interact with nature, among other activities.
What is significant about polyvocal alternations of
identity culled from a repertoire of possibilities is the highly
sophisticated manner in which tour guides invoke and
manage more than one set of identities and its associated
cultural norms. Moreover, each tour guide's commodified
persona is subject to individual variation. Tourism work
ers may be more or less self-reflexive in different contexts.
Some guides actively describe the ways that they shape their
persona, describing their tour-guide persona as "funny" or
"traditional." Others do not put much effort into develop
ing their tour persona, choosing to simply follow the script.
Some guides worry out loud about how to avoid "selling
themselves out" to the tourist gaze, whereas others switch
on the commodified persona at work without ever com
menting on the differences between the performed self and
the self outside of work. From what I observed, the self
conscious, critically aware tour guides who constantly tai
lor their presentations are the ones who truly enjoy their
jobs. Not surprisingly, these guides are the most popular
among tourists, earning the most tips, the highest ratings,
and word-of-mouth repeat customers. Those guides who
do not have fun with their jobs by coming up with creative
responses to the tourist gaze are the ones who do not last
an entire season and do not return to work for Tribal Tours
year after year.
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Sharing culture or selling out? American Ethnologist
Rejecting stereotyping through covert acts of
resistance
The cultural-tourism venue encourages a discursive space
in which workers must consciously shape their identities
for outside consumption by members of the dominant so
ciety yet at the same time strive to adhere to their own
cultural norms of representation and concepts of the self.
Accordingly, performing the commodified persona invokes
deep feelings of ambivalence in tourism workers. Workers
gain positive feedback, including a sense of pride in shar
ing their culture, in addition to any monetary compensa
tion. However, facing negative stereotyping tears at positive
feelings of self-worth. Sherry B. Ortner writes, "In a rela
tionship of power, the dominant often has something to of
fer, and sometimes a great deal (though always of course at
the price of continuing in power). The subordinate thus has
many grounds for ambivalence about resisting the relation
ship" (1995:175).
By constructing a commodified persona tailored to
and compartmentalized within the cultural-tourism con
text, the Native tourism worker can protect himself from
the self-destructive aspects of playing to the tourist gaze.
I argue that resistance is an integral aspect of this pro
cess, a self-protective mechanism that balances out acts
of self-exotification. It is almost always hidden behind a
mask of compliance (Scott 1990) utilized as a way to live
through, but not necessarily resolve, problematic power re
lations (see Hall and Jefferson 1989). Assuming many dif
ferent forms, it is usually undetected by those to whom
it is directed. Resistance expressed in the cultural-tourism
setting is covert, varying in gradations of agency and in
tensity "continually negotiated in the discourse and prac
tice of everyday life" (Valaskakis 1993:283). At the most ba
sic and unconscious level, tour guides practice resistance
simply by portraying themselves through a trope of cul
tural persistence in the face of dominant society. At the
most consciously directed level, tour guides actively chal
lenge stereotypes about Native Americans through both re
hearsed and spontaneous commentary.
Perhaps the most pervasive strategy of resistance is the
use of humor. Jokes are effective as subversive tools because
they can be used to violate codes of normal speech behav
ior in a nonthreatening manner. On one occasion, a guide
named Sandy drove her tour through the "Indian Village"
part of Sitka; she stated that everyone in the village was
Tlingit and pointed out homes where she and her relatives
grew up. In the middle of her discussion, Sandy directed the
group's attention to a house decorated with multiple Na
tive art designs and sarcastically exclaimed, "The man who
lives here would lose his Indian blood if he got a nosebleed."
This joke was addressed in part to two white sisters who, on
boarding the motor coach, told Sandy that they were "the
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American Ethnologist Volume 35 Number 3 August 2008
real descendants of a Cherokee princess." Sandy's joke was
meant to indirectly indicate that, in her mind, the sisters
were not "authentic" Native people and could not "share"
a Native identity with her.
Humor is also used self-reflexively. Another guide joked
about the stereotype that Native people are spiritually "in
tune" with the earth. She discussed the methods used to
gather herring eggs, a local subsistence food:
About ten years ago, my uncle Johnnie took me out to
the island with the white house and the red roof. He
was showing me the whole process [of gathering her
ring eggs] because it had been years since I had done
it. As he sunk the tree branch into the water he said
you have to say a special prayer over this or else the
herring won't come in and lay their eggs on your tree.
And I thought about it for a while and I said, "Johnnie,
why don't you tell me [the prayer] and then next time
I'll know." And I thought it would be this special Tlingit
prayer and he turns around and he says "OK herring,
do your stuff!"20
Tourists, expecting a recitation of a "special Tlingit
prayer," howled with laughter at the idea of the uncle's
method to communicate with nature.
Native tour guides resist stereotypes that see them as
part of the timeless past by presenting themselves as firmly
entrenched in modernity (although, paradoxically, they re
inforce these same stereotypes through self-exotifying as
the Other). The strategy of culling from a repertoire of iden
tities provides guides the opportunity to present themselves
as multifaceted individuals, part of the contemporary U.S.
mainstream. One guide talks about being a local business
owner. Another worker emphasizes his side job: creating
and maintaining websites. Discussing local bear sightings
on a tour, one guide stated,
They eat salmon berries, blue berries and huckleber
ries, but a major part of their diet comes from the
salmon. They will rip the heads off and they will eat the
fatty part of the body. They will eat 35 to 40 salmon a
day until they reach what they call their fat content and
then they will go into a waking hibernation and then
into sleeping hibernation. Do you want to know where
I learned all of that from? ... The Discovery Channel!
In telling this joke, this guide positioned herself as
someone who learns about nature by watching television
(just like the tourists) rather than by an innate oneness with
nature or through the lessons of a wizened elder.
By presenting tourists with alternative visions of their
lives outside of the tourism context, guides strive to change
commonly held stereotypes that they are multigenerational
victims of circumstance. As part of this agenda, tour guides
often present history on their own terms. By telling the story
of the 1804 battle between Sitka Tlingits and the Russians
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following the 1802 massacre, several Tribal Tours guides
point out that the retreating Tlingit only granted the Rus
sians rights to a small parcel of land, what is now downtown
Sitka.21 Guides assert that Russians never had the right to
sell the territory of Alaska to the United States in 1867 be
cause they never had a legitimate claim to the land. By re
claiming the past, Native tour guides provide powerful al
ternatives to the "official" (typically hegemonic) account of
history, and in doing so, they assert their identity as steeped
in their own values rather than those of the dominant
culture.22
Other forms of resistance are less frequently used.
These include withholding information, refusing to engage
with tourists by ignoring them, and offering misinforma
tion. Occasionally, tour guides openly confront tourist com
ments they perceive as offensive. Overt forms of resistance
are rarely practiced and are not a part of the commodified
persona. After all, when a tourism worker loses his temper,
he breaks the mold of the commodified persona, letting his
emotions "get the best of him." By the same token, with
holding information is contrary to the tour guide's job de
scription, to share culture. Ultimately, tour guides work in
the service industry; hospitality is part of the basic job de
scription. Thus, only covert acts of resistance are intrinsic to
the commodified persona.
On the surface, Tribal Tours' workers may seem to com
ply with their clients' expectations of the Other, expecta
tions that are created and regulated by the dominant culture
that fabricated the image of the Other in the first place. On a
deeper level, it becomes clear that cultural-tourism workers
actively refute stereotypical notions applied to their ethnic
ities through what Barbara Babcock (1977,1994) calls "sym
bolic inversion," or subtle moments of resistance within an
overall scheme of cultural exchange. Such moments seem
to diffuse the psychological difficulties associated with ac
tivities of self-commodification.
Conclusion: Jackson's story revisited
Developing a commodified persona is a strategy that
cultural-tourism workers use to manage and control their
product: themselves. On the one hand, tour guides must
conform to industry standards and meet tourist expecta
tions. On the other hand, guides seek to present themselves
in a way that resonates with their lived experience as Na
tive persons, an experience that does not always match up
with the tourist gaze. If there is too much forced conformity
in the workplace, the cultural-tourism worker is left feel
ing objectified and alienated. In turn, if the cultural-tourism
worker is too resistant in his interactions with clients, he will
not succeed at his job.
I return to Jackson's account of the Battle of 1802, pre
sented at the beginning of this article. According to Jack
son, when the Russian American Company came to Sitka

in 1799, its workers helped themselves to local resources
without gaining permission from the Tlingit clans who laid
claim to the territory in and around Sitka. The Russians did
not show respect to clan leaders of high rank, and, even
more egregious, they abducted Tlingit women. In 1802, the
Tlingit, led by Shk'awuly?il, the head of the Kiks.?di clan,
successfully attacked the Russian settlement. Jackson re
counts this story with dramatic flair each time he gives a
tour. After the tour, tourists often comment on the Battle of
1802 as they wait for the dance show to begin, shop through
town, or reboard their cruise ships. I argue that the success
of this story relies on Jackson's sophisticated manipulation
of his own commodified persona. Through the telling of this
story, Jackson presents Tlingit culture as part of a unifying
trope, exoticizes himself as the Other, showcases an iden
tity culled from a repertoire of possibilities, and performs a
covert act of resistance.
In terms of presenting culture as part of a unifying
trope, Jackson simplifies the story of the Battle of 1802 and
structures it according to Western principles. He tells the
story chronologically, positioning himself as storyteller and
the tourists as audience. He leaves out many cultural refer
ences so that the story is easy for tourists to understand and
so that it fits within the time constraints of the tour. With no
mention of interclan politics, Jackson presents Tlingits as
unified in their position against the Russians, when, in fact,
early relations between Russians and Tlingits were much
more complicated.23
Jackson leads the audience to exoticize him as a mem
ber of a warlike and fierce tribe. Introducing himself by his
Tlingit name at the beginning of the tour, Jackson situates
himself in relation to his namesake Shk'awuly?il, the pro
tagonist of the battle story. He knows that while he is telling
his story, the audience is imagining him as a descendant of
the great Tlingit warrior who led a bloody massacre of the
Russians.
Jackson culls from a repertoire of identities to tell this
story. He relies on Western storytelling conventions, but the
underlying meaning of Jackson's story in terms of his iden
tity comes from a purely Tlingit ideology of the self. Accord
ing to traditional Tlingit belief, a name is more than just
an identifier that tracks an individual's chronological life on
earth. It can represent the inalienable spirit of an ances
tor believed to be "reincarnated" in the current owner of
the name. A Tlingit name is associated with the owner's lin
eage within the clan system, the exploits and personality of
the ancestor(s) it also belonged to, and responsibilities tied
to its particular social rank.24 Tourists do not understand
that Jackson may believe himself to be an incarnation of
Shk'awuly?il or that, by having this name, Jackson may bear
particular responsibilities to his clan. They only know he is
somehow a part of the great warrior and are impressed by
the authenticity Jackson brings to his storytelling through
his Tlingit identity Shk'awuly?il.
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Sharing culture or selling out? American Ethnologist
Finally, telling the story is itself an act of resistance.
The dominant interpretation of the Battle of 1802 is that it
resulted in the Russians spending two years amassing the
manpower and weapons necessary to subdue the Tlingits in
the subsequent Battle of 1804, paving the way for the estab
lishment of Russian America. By telling an alternative his
tory, one that ends with the Tlingits' triumph over the Rus
sian invaders, Jackson confronts the general stereotype that
Indians are casualties of manifest destiny. Jackson often ar
ticulates this point near the end of his tour, when he con
cludes, "We may have lost the Battle of 1804 against the Rus
sians, but we have not lost the war. We were here before the
Russians and we were still here after they left. We were here
when the Americans came. And we will still be here after
everyone else is long gone." With this statement, Jackson
drives home the point that the Battle of 1804 is not just a
story. Rather, it is part of an ongoing narrative in which the
Tlingit people persist despite outside forces that seek to de
stroy their way of life. Hall writes, "Identities are the names
we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and posi
tion ourselves within, the narratives of the past" (1992:225).
In this manner, Jackson's story makes a powerful political
statement that compels his audience to reassess precon
ceived ideas they may have concerning the victimization of
Native people or about Native culture as frozen in the past.
Thus, Jackson's choice to tell this story as part of his carefully
constructed commodified persona illustrates the extent to
which the commodified persona is also a political expres
sion of identity.
By telling the story of the Battle of 1802, Jackson asserts
that he is not just a tour guide profiting from his identity.
Rather, he is a member of a powerful and persistent tribe.
Within this framework, tourists ought to feel honored to
be privy to learning what it means to be Tlingit from the
point of view of an "authentic" Native. Jackson's account
of the Battle of 1802 is not simply fashioned to entertain
tourists according to the tourist gaze. It helps fulfill a psy
chological purpose, allowing Jackson to take an active role
in preventing feelings of alienation by controlling his prod
uct, the commodified persona. Rather than thinking of cul
tural tourism as a job that forces one to perform identity to
the non-Native audience's expectations, the guide can ap
proach his job as an opportunity to educate and enlighten
his charges.
On deeper examination, Jackson's choice to tell this
particular story also reflects the cross-cultural dimension
embedded within the cultural-tourism setting. Jackson
draws on the Tlingit phenomenology of the "name as iden
tity" to structure part of his tour narrative. Tourists who hear
him tell the story certainly understand that Jackson is some
how linked to his warrior namesake but cannot know its full
cultural implications. Jackson is certainly aware of this, but
it does not matter to him whether tourists understand the
deep cultural meanings attached to his name or the story
381
American Ethnologist Volume 35 Number 3 August 2008
of the Battle of 1802, because the choice to tell this story is,
in part, for his own benefit. Accordingly, I maintain that, al
though cultural tours may appear from the outside, or from
Erving Goffman's (1959) "frontstage," as unduly influenced
by Western representational tropes, they are also regulated
by local cultural norms. Ultimately, tour guides choose on
an individual basis the ways in which they reference cross
cultural systems of self-representation.
The construction of the commodified persona is an in
tegral aspect of what Ann Fienup-Riordan (2000:167) calls
"conscious culture," performed, as James Clifford points
out, "in old and new public contexts and asserted against
historical experiences of loss" (2004:6). Considering the Na
tive tour guide's presentation of self to a paying audience as
a commodified persona can provide a holistic understand
ing of processes of self-commodification. The concept of
the "commodified persona" posits the tourism encounter as
a discursive space. Rather than viewing the Native guide un
der a rubric of melancholia and seeing him as powerless to
act within the dominant, globalized political economy that
governs tourism, one can understand the guide as some
one who exercises control over his self-presentation. The
commodified persona takes into account the psychological
stress associated with selling one's ethnic identity to clients
who have already formed ideas about who they are paying
to encounter. It considers cultural-tourism workers as self
reflexive and politically aware across cultural border zones.
It considers the range of influences that the host culture's
preexisting ideologies of self-expression and identity may
have on the tour guide's presentation of self. Looking at cul
tural representation in terms of self-commoditization takes
the attention away from the impossible question of authen
ticity and, instead, focuses it on hosts' strategies of self
conscious self-representation mediated by cross-cultural
concepts of identity.
Notes
Acknowledgments. This article was made possible through sup
port from the University of California, Los Angeles, Department
of Anthropology, Institute of American Cultures, and Dissertation
Year Fellowship; the National Science Foundation; the Howard
Rock Foundation; and Bristol Bay Native Corporation. Foremost,
I wish to express my gratitude to those individuals who work at
Tribal Tours and have shared their time and thoughts with me as
a coworker and anthropologist over the years. I am most grateful to
Sergei Kan whose advice and suggestions proved invaluable to the
research and analysis for this project, Paul V. Kroskrity who helped
me to work through my ideas in earlier drafts of this article, as well
as to Nelson Graburn, Siamak Naficy, and Jennifer Tucker, who took
the time to carefully read over and comment on later drafts of this
article.
1. I have changed names to protect individuals' identities.
2. Noting my own position in reference to the fieldwork con
ducted for this article is important. My ethnic background is Alaska
Native but not of the Northwest Coast region. Because of this, I
carefully selected a field site in which I could be both an "insider"
382
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and "outsider." I chose to conduct my fieldwork in Sitka in part be
cause I have no ties to the Tlingit clan system or local Native poli
tics. I worked within the Alaska Native heritage industry both before
and during my academic training. To observe the everyday activi
ties of cultural-tourism workers, I opted to train and work alongside
them. Tribal Tours was able to hire me because I fit two major cri
teria for employment: I am Alaska Native, and I am familiar with
Tlingit culture and history, although I was not raised in and have
no ties to Sitka (another important prerequisite for Tribal Tours em
ployment) .
3. I have chosen to use masculine gender-specific pronouns
throughout this article when referring generically to tour guides to
avoid the awkwardness of "he-she" "himself-herself" grammatical
constructions. I use masculine pronouns because the tour guide,
Jackson, to whom I refer most extensively in the article, is male.
4. The concept of the "tourist gaze" suggests that tourists wield
power over locals through the way they look at them, which is cou
pled with expectations of "authentic" behavior and appearance.
"What people gaze upon," John Urry explains, "are ideal repre
sentations of the view in question that they internalize from post
cards and guidebooks (and increasingly from TV programmes)"
(1990:86).
5. Sitka Tribe of Alaska (STA) is the federally recognized govern
ment for more than 4,000 tribal citizens who are primarily of Tlin
git, Haida, Aleut, and Tsimpsian heritage (Sitka Tribe of Alaska n.d.).
To oversee the tribe's economic projects, STA created Sitka Tribal
Enterprises (STE), a nonprofit subsidiary controlled by a board of
directors that includes tribal members and business leaders. Tribal
Tours, an offshoot of STE, was established immediately following
passage of the 1994 Indian Self-Determination Act Amendments,
which allowed the tribe to negotiate for funding directly with the
federal government and to control and administer federal funding
on a local basis.
6. A circa 1881 account by A. L. Lindsley describes a Tlingit per
formance:
Evenings ashore granted some sight seers a faint reminder of
vanished Tlingit glories. Then it was the natives would build a
large blazing fire, don their colorful wolf and bear costumes,
and, while dancing to a slow, pounding beat, chant of de
parted splendors. Occasionally, the chief would address the
white spectators, and few, if any of his listeners were quite able
to forget the poignancy and power of the Indian's unpolished
rhetoric. [Hinckley 1965:72]
7. For more on 19th-century encounters between Northwest
Coast Natives and non-Natives, see Raibmon 2005.
8. In 1983, Sitka received about 50,000 visitors, compared with
150,000 in 1995. Since 1995, the number of tourists visiting Alaska
has increased in every year but one. In 2003, about 275,000 visitors
arrived in Sitka via cruise ship, and an estimated 250,00 tourists ar
rived via the state ferry system and 50,000 via Alaska Airlines (based
on McDowell Group 2001 and 2004 STA figures).
9. Out-of-state visitors to Alaska contributed $862.4 million
to Alaska's economy in 2002 (Global Insight 2004). The num
ber of tourists visiting Sitka has been on the rise for the past
20 years. The McDowell Group (2001) estimates that tourism yields
$6.9 million in annual revenue for Sitka; in 1996, the Holland Amer
ica Line estimated the impact on Sitka's economy to be $11 million
annually. The visitor industry is Sitka's third largest employer, ac
counting for 20 percent of local jobs; 87 percent of those jobs are
staffed by Sitka locals, and 175 local vendors do business directly
with the cruise lines.
10. I note here the stickiness of the word tradition. Tlingit people
have been in contact with non-Natives for over 300 years and are

a part of the mainstream U.S. political economy and culture. Nat
urally, "tradition" shifts over time and varies from place to place.
Moreover, as Richard Dauenhauer and Nora Dauenhauer state,
"The actual operating culture that people live and interact by may
be quite different from what is popularly perceived as 'the culture,'
with its variety of 'badges' of ethnicity such as songs, dances, visual
art, ethnic food, and clan regalia" (1998:73).
11. The broadest organizing principle in Tlingit society is the di
vision of all people into moieties identified by the eagle and raven
crests. The two moieties do not wield political power; their pri
mary function is to divide ceremonial tasks, exchange ritual ser
vices, and maintain exogamy through marriage; so ravens conduct
ceremonial duties for eagles, invite eagles for ceremonial activi
ties, and marry eagles (Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1990:6). Tlin
gits are matrilineal; social affiliation is assigned at birth through
the mother. The two moieties are subdivided into clans, the ma
jor Tlingit political units. Each Tlingit clan possesses a symbol, or
crest. The main clans in Sitka today are the Kiks.?di, Watineid?,
Koosk'eid?, L'uknax?di, T'akdeintaan, and X'at'ka.aay? under the
Raven Moiety, and Kaagwaantaan, Kookhittaan, Chookaneidi,
Wooshkeetaan, and X'ax'ahittaan under the Eagle Moiety (Alaska
Native Knowledge Network 2003). Most Tribal Tours employees are
aware of their clan affiliations and have Tlingit names, passed on to
them through ceremonial protocol. Most live, however, in Western,
bilateral nuclear families, like mainstream Americans.
12. See Bunten 2006, Kramer 2006, LeFevre 2004, and Stanley
1998 for discussion of how tourism can enhance such awareness.
13. This case study considers the politics of representation fol
lowing approaches used in critical tourism research, museum stud
ies, and linguistic analysis. For more discussion of this case study
in relation to theoretical discussions on tradition, authenticity, and
ethnicity, see Bunten 2006.
14. The terms self-commodification and commodified persona
do not denote local concepts and, therefore, are not emic. I use
these concepts as tools to analyze the ways that local peoples create
an ethnic experience for outside consumption.
15. The standardization seen at cultural-tourism sites worldwide
applies to mass-tourism sites. The tourism formula is often avoided
in small-scale tourism operations that promise to take visitors "off
the beaten track" (but it is often replaced with a type of "off the
beaten track" formula, which I do not consider here). In fact, many
indigenous tourism entrepreneurs are currently striving to develop
products that intentionally omit the factors that make up "cultural
uniformity as a simplifying trope" (Bunten in press).
16. An important point to clarify is that self-exoticizing as the
Other is a response to the perceived desires of tourists. Those
tourists who have romantic notions of what it means to be Na
tive certainly feel free to express these expectations to their hosts.
Throughout the tourism season, these individuals frequently ask
their Native tour guides to talk about stereotypical elements of
Native American culture(s). Although most tourists do not verbal
ize what they want to see and learn on tour with a Native guide,
guides fashion their personas on the basis of comments from those
tourists who are verbally responsive on tour.
17. Several studies have commented on the role of media in
tourism, including Adams 1984, Craik 1997, King 1997, Nuttal 1997,
Silver 1993, R?ssel 1988, and Urry 1990.
18. Elderhostel is a nonprofit organization that provides edu
cational tour products around the world for people 55 and over
(Elderhostel n.d.).
19. For more discussion of Tlingit speech genres and oratorical
protocols, see Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1994.
20. Herring are small, grouping fish that yearly spawn in the wa
ters around the Pacific Northwest. Their eggs still are a popular
subsistence food. Herring eggs are typically harvested by placing
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Sharing culture or selling out? American Ethnologist
a branch of a hemlock tree in an area where herring are known to
spawn. The herring then deposit their eggs on the branches of the
trees, which are later harvested and cooked or frozen.
21. In the two years following their devastating defeat at the
hands of Sitka Tlingit in 1802, the Russian American Company con
structed two ships and gathered Aleut manpower in numbers es
timated to be about 300. In September 1804, Alexander Baranov,
chief manager of the Russian American Company, and his men re
turned to Sitka Sound, where the naval ship Neva was waiting to
assist. Meanwhile, the Kiks.?di and their Kaagwaantaan relatives
from the opposite moiety built a fort named Shiksi Noow on the
grounds of what is now the Sitka National Historical Park. By this
time, many of the clan alliances that had formed a massive war
party in 1802 had dissolved, and Tlingit manpower was diminished
compared with what it had been in the earlier battle.
The second major battle between the Tlingits and the Russians
took place over the course of approximately six days, with gunfire
and cannonfire exchanged by both sides. The Kiks.?di were led by
a famous warrior, K'aly?an, who had also been involved in the 1802
battle. K'aly?an's courage and success on the battlefield are still
remembered and honored by the present-day Kiks.?di and Tlin
gits in general. Because of Tlingit strength and firepower, the Rus
sians and their Aleut warriors were not able to come on shore to
penetrate the Tlingit fort. One Tlingit story tells of a Tlingit war
rior who captured Baranov in his whale boat. This warrior could
have killed Baranov, but he chose not to because Tlingit proto
col forbids taking the life of a high-caste leader unless one's clan
has lost an individual of equal rank. Baranov was subsequently re
turned to his ship. Another Tlingit story relayed to me by Tlingit
elder Mark Jacobs tells that, at one point near the end of the bat
tle, the Russians raised a white flag. The Tlingits raised their own
white flag in response. The Tlingits did not know the meaning of
the white flag but raised the flag to state something to the effect of
"back at you." Because of the flag incident, the Russians assumed
that the Tlingits surrendered, but the Tlingits assert they never did.
Although the Tlingits never acknowledged a formal defeat, five days
after Baronov's arrival in Sitka Sound, they retreated to the north
ern end of Baranov Island, where they remained for 20 years, af
ter which the Russians claimed deed to the Tlingit village, particu
larly a Kiks.?di defensive hillfort named Noow Tlein, now known as
Castle Hill. The circumstances of the Tlingit withdrawal are differ
ent according to Russian and Tlingit views. According to the Tlin
git account, several warriors went out to recover gunpowder from a
cache. On the way back to the fort, the powder exploded in an ac
cident caused by a spark, killing the young men and destroying the
remaining ammunition as well as the transport canoes. According
to the Russians, their men blew up the Tlingits returning with the
gunpowder. After they lost their ammunition, the Tlingits realized
it would be nearly impossible to defend their fort against the Rus
sians. Citing Mark Jacobs, Sergei Kan (1989) writes that the Tlingits
retreated because of "symbolic" causes and that they were afraid of
a powerful, unknown weapon belonging to the Russians.
22. Telling history from the Native point of view can have pow
erful political implications in terms of influencing struggles over
cultural representation, language, rights to waterways, and land
claims. The Tlingit account of the unlawful sale of the territory
of Alaska to the United States was used as testimony in lawsuits
against the U.S. government by the Central Council of Tlingit and
Haida Tribes (CCTHT), which influenced land claims settlements
for southeast Alaska Natives in 1968 and, eventually, all Alaska Na
tives following passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
(ANCSA) in 1971 (Mark Jacobs, personal communication 2003).
23. Nineteenth- and early 20th-century Sitka was made up of
three clans under the raven moiety, the Kiks.?di, L'uknax?di,
X'at'ka.aay?, and Koosk'eid?, and four clans under the eagle moiety,
383
American Ethnologist Volume 35 Number 3 August 2008
the Kaagwaantaan, Kookhittaan (which some people regard as part
of Kaagwaantaan), the Aanigiyaahittaan, and Chookaneidi. These
clans were further divided into 34 houses, according to the Tribal
Tours Training Manual. Today many of these houses still exist, al
though some no longer have a physical presence. At the time of
Russian contact and during the Russian American period, power
ful clans in Sitka at times interacted with the Russians on an indi
vidual basis. By 1804, many of the clan alliances that had enabled
formation of a massive war party in 1802 had dissolved, and Tlingit
manpower was diminished compared with what it had been in the
earlier battle.
After the Kiks.?di "Survival March" of 1804, other clans made
camps within miles of the Sitka area. The Russians then occu
pying Sitka, renamed Novo-Arkhangelsk, continued negotiations
with these remaining clans.
24. For more on Tlingit names, see Dauenhauer and Dauen
hauer 1994, Kan 1989, and Langdon 2000.
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accepted February 20, 2008
final version submitted February 28, 2008
Alexis Celeste Bunten
Department of Anthropology and Tourism Studies Working Group
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
abunten@berkeley.edu
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