Social Contact and the Changing Roles of Translocal Ethnic Entertainers in China:A Case Study of Wa Entertainers
In the context of tourism,the performing arts can help promote cultural exchanges and cross-cultural interactions between hosts and guests.In China,entertainers from ethnic minority backgrounds have gradually migrated from their homeplaces to tourism destinations to engage in performances for tourists.These translocal tourism entertainers play a variety of social roles,as their identities as entertainers are intertwined with their statuses as migrant laborers and members of ethnic minority groups.By examining the various types of social contact in which these tourism entertainers engage,this study investigates the complexity of relationships in the tourism context and thus attempts to go beyond the traditional scope of research on the performing arts in the context of local ethnic tourism.We selected tourism entertainers from the Wa ethnic minority group as the subject for a case study and investigated them using qualitative research methods.The study offers an in-depth discussion of the characteristics of cross-cultural social contact and the changing role of translocal performing arts groups in tourism.One of the findings of the study is that when translocal ethnic entertainers engage with the tourism context,the type of social contact in which they engage changes over time from purely culture-oriented contact to more career-oriented contact.This process helps tourism entertainers integrate into modern society,as they move from mainly playing the role of ethnic entertainer toward playing a greater variety of roles in society.At the same time,the tourism context gives rise to a multi-social contact zone that provides a buffer for these individuals'role management,allowing them to adapt to changes in the overall social structure.Meanwhile,the study highlights the characteristics of the social structure of the tourism context from the perspective of the entertainers'subjectivity.This study provides insights that will be useful to tourism practitioners regarding how China's rich cultural diversity promotes the high-quality development of tourism in the New Era.
social contactrole changethe hosts-guests interactiontranslocal ethnic entertainersWa entertainers
NETL
NSTL
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