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UBCO discussion: Sex tourism — the quest for the 'exotic other'

Brazil university prof leads discussion on contemporary tourism's connection to historical systems of inequality and oppression.
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Adriana Piscitelli

What: AlterKnowledge Discussion Series

Who: Adriana Piscitelli, University of Campinas, Brazil

When: Friday, Sept. 23, 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Where: Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotary Centre for the Arts, 421 Cawston Ave., Kelowna

UBC Okanagan’s AlterKnowledge Discussion Series begins its new season of provocative discussions on social issues with a conversation about the social impacts of tourism.

Adriana Piscitelli, an award-winning cultural anthropologist at Brazil's University of Campinas who studies sex tourism, will initiate the discussion. Piscitelli’s work asks us to think about how local populations attribute value to why foreign tourists visit their communities, as well as how tourism continues to be shaped by the quest for the "exotic Other," explains Prof. Susan Frohlick, event co-organizer.

The discussion will focus on how contemporary tourism is connected to historical processes and systems of inequality and oppression. For instance: how does ski-mountain tourism in BC reflect ongoing settler colonialism of Indigenous territories? How are local places transformed due to the power of tourism economies?

The AlterKnowledge Discussion series is organized by UBC Okanagan professors Allison Hargreaves and David Jefferess. The series aims to foster community-based knowledge-making, bringing people together to discuss, share, and (un)learn, as a practice of decolonization. This event is free and open to the public.

—JR