The African Myth. An Anthropological Approach to Tourist Impacts on the Mursi in South Ethiopia

Essay from the year 2021 in the subject African Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,2, Panteion University, Athen, course: Anthropologie, language: English, abstract: This work will focus on the Host-Guest Relation of this complex situation, symbolically for our society, and it's possible impacts. This will be answered on the example of the ethnic group of the Mursi living in Ethiopia. Twenty years ago, the ethnically heterogeneous area was still relatively unknown. Now Ethno-Tourism plays a central role in the lives of these groups. While the tourists' increasing interest in the local culture of the ethnic groups contrasts with their devaluation by the state. I will collect voices of scholars who have devoted themselves to the Anthropology of Tourism debate and the study of specifically Ethiopian occurrences. Due to my self-location in the western context, this will be an approach to the subject area. Some central questions of this paper will be: What moves the foreigner to travel these long distances and how does the way of confrontation with the culturally foreign affect the Mursi people? Are existential foundations of one's own identity touched and how does this manifest itself? What role does the state play in preserving cultures or promoting tourism? First I'm gonna introduce the two main groups of this discourse, the Tourists and the Mursi, followed by an analysis of their encounter. Based on this, the change of the receiving culture will be discussed. Then I'm gonna focus on the political situation, as this may shed light on the mentioned phenomenons.