I came across this really generous and thoughtful review of my book, A Landscape of Travel, written by Zhen Wang, a visiting scholar at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, in Munich, Germany. I really appreciate Zhen's careful reading of the book, and the fact that she sees how the case studies of Upper Jidao and Ping'an villages speak to much wider and bigger changes happening across rural and ethnic minority regions of China. What I describe and analyze in these two villages is so much a part of a larger pattern and shift not only in the lives of village residents (who may or may not be interested in "doing tourism") but also in the way rural and ethnic identities are discussed and imagined throughout the country, by government officials, by tourism developments, and of course by rural and ethnic people themselves. It's really rewarding to see my research reaching scholars in disciplines other than anthropology too, and particularly to scholars in environmental studies because, as I try to show, tourism has everything to do with questions of landscape -- social and natural.

Another review of my book is just out, this time in The China Quarterly! Written by John Donaldson (Singapore Management U), a political scientist who has written extensively on rural development, poverty reduction, and tourism in China, he offers a thorough and informed take on my analysis of how mobility and visuality constitute the "work" of tourism for village residents. Here's an extended excerpt from the review (click here for a preview of it online):

"Tourism is a complicated business, particularly if you are a villager in a poor, rural minority area of China. Jenny Chio's recent work focuses on the nuanced social impact of tourism, refreshingly adopting a 'backstage' point of view from which to examine rural tourism. As leaders of minority villages tussle with officials, tourists and even each other in an attempt to get 'doing tourism' right, Chio focuses on the effects this has on culture, power, identity, and ethnicities. Chio utilizes to good effect the lenses of scene and visuality (the need to look appropriate to a tourist), as well as movement and mobility, to analyse dilemmas confronting rural residents. The result if a satisfyingly insightful and convincing account of the stunningly complex landscape of tourism in rural China.

Of the many strengths of this research, two are particularly pronounced. First, the volume includes exceptionally rich research based on Chio's extensive fieldwork in and beyond two villages. This unusual penetration into the world of tourism allows Chio to compare the impact of developing tourism sites in two unique, yet comparable, rural villages....Chio is a vivid writer who uses her extensive fieldwork and visual eye effectively. Second as an outsider not to rural tourism but to the visual anthropological lens that Chio brings, I found her use of two conceptual tools -- scene/visuality and movement/mobility -- especially effective in understanding these two villages."

Donaldson also notes at the end of his review that my book should speak to the broader literature and be more clear in how I am contributing new perspectives and analytical findings to existing work on ethnicity, tourism, and social change. This is a critique that I take seriously and that I am trying to address in my current writing projects. As I have gained some distance from the book itself, combined with return visits to both Upper Jidao and Ping'an over the last years, I am even more convinced of the importance of studying tourism as a form of work and of critically unpacking the politics of visual appearances in order to understand the forces of power, desire, imagination, and obligation that inform decisions to change (or maintain) the "look" of a place and of people.

Visual Anthropology Review Issue 30 Number 1
Special Issues on new ethnographic film in China

Maris Gillette has edited a special issue of VAR, featuring five research articles and film reviews of recently completed ethnographic films about China directed by anthropologists: Writing in Water, by Angela Zito; Chaiqian/Demolition by J.P. Sniadecki; Broken Pots, Broken Dreams by Maris Gillette; Bored in Heaven, by Kenneth Dean, and my film, 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness. The issue provides a broad look across a range of filmmaking practices and subjects, as well as a sense of how extensively anthropologists have been using film and filmmaking as a means of ethnographic analysis and knowledge production, particularly in the context of contemporary China. My hope for this issue is that it will help spur more conversations about the how anthropological research can think through filmmaking, as a means of research and analysis.

My article, titled "Fieldwork, Film, and the Tourist Gaze: Making 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness" can be downloaded here. A thoughtful review of the film, by Laurie Kain Hart (Haverford College), is available here.

My film, 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness, is reviewed in the September 2013 issue of American Anthropologist 115(3): 507-509 by Emily Chao (author of Lijiang Stories).

Chao writes, "Chio's film...provides us with a rich and vivid account of the challenges of developing and sustaining rural tourism from the vantage point of rural communities.  It provides students with a contemporary view of rural China, which in the southwest is characterized by the commodification of ethnicity and striking economic polarization between China's urban and rural residents."

The full review is available online here or as a PDF.  More information on the film, including screenings and distribution, is available on this page.