Stones Standing by Anna Källén

Author:Anna Källén [Källén, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Archaeology
ISBN: 9781315419596
Google: hF2TDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-07-01T03:23:31+00:00

According to Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, “If contingency and articulation are possible, this is because no discursive formation is a sutured totality and the transformation of the elements into moments is never complete”.105 No matter the apparent strength and internal coherence of a discourse such as that of ecotourism, it is always on the move. Nodal points are created by attempts to arrest a flow of differences to establish a centre, a partial fixation.106 As such they are expressions of authority and claims of power and position, just like the formation of a discourse. A discourse is thus not a closed total system, but is created by will and desire and is always in motion. Laclau and Mouffe’s definition of discourse, which I find useful, is related to Gramsci’s concept of hegemony. Hegemony is a definition of power as something structural that makes domination and subjugation dependent on some form of consensus from the subjugated as well as from the dominant.

If we apply this definition of discourse to an analysis of ecotourism at Hintang, we must understand it as something of a mutual agreement between the tourist industry and local people. It is a game on a fundamentally uneven playing field where only one team is properly informed about the rules, which for them takes the form of a meta-spectacle, while the other team does not know the greater structural consequences of the game and agrees voluntarily and rationally to take part in it for small, short-term profits. But we should also regard the privileged signs involved in ecotourism at Hintang as partial fixations in a flow of differences, whose recreation through repetition is always potentially challenged by different wills and desires.

Near the Hintang Archaeological Park is a red road sign with an image of the standing stones (Figure 7.2). It is part of a system of signs to help tourists find their way from the main road to the important stone sites. This particular sign has been repeatedly attacked (by slingshots?), leaving it with a marred surface. Saykham, who used to be a village chief and thus a government representative in his community, looked upset when we stopped to look at it, expressing embarrassment for the damage. But the damaged road sign carries an important message worth hearing if it is considered in a context where people do not dare to criticise the government or government decisions openly. Only a few hundred metres away is the deserted site of the schoolhouse, which had to move several kilometres away because the authorities decided that the children and the other activities around the school would disturb the tourists at the park. The red road sign was put up as the school was taken down. The children now have to walk several extra kilometres to school, every day. And every day, they pass by that red sign.

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