Tourism, Representation and Compensation among the Dukha Reindeer Herders of Mongolia

Abstract

Increasingly, tourists come to northern Mongolia to visit the camps of the Dukha reindeer herders, a small group often characterized as primitive and disappearing. The year-round entry of tourists to Dukha camps is unregulated; the timing and context of these encounters, including compensation and accommodation, unpredictable. Some herders leverage dominant cultural and social capital, gaining more visitors and more opportunities to earn cash. However, while visits bolster the local economy, these cross-cultural contacts may disrupt traditional socio-cultural identities, migration patterns and egalitarian norms. This qualitative, interpretive study used guided, open-ended interviews (N=30), a modified pile sort and participant observation to examine reindeer herders’ perceptions of tourist visits and gift giving. Results show Dukha most involved with tourists have a positive attitude toward their visits. As tourists generally stay only two to four days, negative outcomes vis-a-vis gifts, cultural misrepresentations and economic compensation currently appear minimized. However, as visits increase, taiga tourism would further benefit from Dukha owned and controlled economic and ethnographic initiatives.

Keywords

• mongolia
• reindeer herding
• nomads
• indigenous capitalism
• indigenous tourism