It's Nice to be Nice: Tourism Discourse and Post Colonial Identities in the Gambia

Sammanfattning: From a post colonial point of view there is reason to question the increasing streams of tourists from North to South, i.e. from former colonialist countries to former colonies. The purpose of this study is to investigate the Gambian tourism industry and its meetings, the dialogue taking place, its discourse and the production of post colonial stereotypes. A qualitative interview study with beach attendants (working at local beach bars), was carried out during November 2011. The transcribed interviews and observations made at the Kotu beach constitute the material for the study. These texts have been analysed within Norman Fairclough's theoretical framework and method for a critical discourse analysis, which means that the analysis looks into three dimensions of the texts: 1) discursive practice, 2) the characteristics of the text and the connection to 3) a broader social practice. I will argue and show that the tourism discourse produced at the Gambian beach relies on colonial discourse. I will also argue that the stereotype identities produced during the colonial era are reproduced within the discourse of the beach. The main findings are that the tourist is represented as a good-hearted sort of person who travels to The Gambia in order to meet and help the locals. The locals are on their part represented as poor and struggling – but still happy, smiling and welcoming. From a post colonial point of view these stereotypes are problematic since they are reproducing global inequalities and dependency relations.