Ambivalent Encounters: Childhood, Tourism, and Social Change in Banaras, India (Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies)

Jenny Huberman provides an ethnographic study of encounters between western tourists and the children who work as unlicensed peddlers and guides along the riverfront city of Banaras, India. She examines how and why these children elicit such powerful reactions from western tourists and locals in their community as well as how the children themselves experience their work and render it meaningful. __Ambivalent Encounters__ brings together scholarship on the anthropology of childhood, tourism, consumption, and exchange to ask why children emerge as objects of the international tourist gaze; what role they play in representing socio-economic change; how children are valued and devalued; why they elicit anxieties, fantasies, and debates; and what these tourist encounters teach us more generally about the nature of human interaction. It examines the role of gender in mediating experiences of social change—girls are praised by locals for participating constructively in the informal tourist economy while boys are accused of deviant behavior. Huberman is interested equally in the children’s and adults’ perspectives; her own experiences as a western visitor and researcher provide an intriguing entry into her interpretations. This ethnographic study brings together scholarship on the anthropology of childhood, tourism, consumption, and exchange to examine how and why children working as unlicensed peddlers and tourist guides along the waterfront of Banaras, India, a popular and iconic tourist destination, elicit such powerful reactions from western visitors and locals in their community and explores how the children themselves experience their work and render it meaningful. Ambivalent Encounters brings together scholarship on the anthropology of childhood, tourism, consumption, and exchange to ask why children emerge as objects of the international tourist gaze; what role they play in representing socio-economic change; how children are valued and devalued; why they elicit anxieties, fantasies, and debates; and what these tourist encounters teach us more generally about the nature of human interaction This Ethnographic Study Brings Together Scholarship On The Anthropology Of Childhood, Tourism, Consumption, And Exchange To Examine How And Why Children Working As Unlicensed Peddlers And Tourist Guides Along The Waterfront Of Banaras, India, A Popular And Iconic Tourist Destination, Elicit Such Powerful Reactions From Western Visitors And Locals In Their Community And Explores How The Children Themselves Experience Their Work And Render It Meaningful. Children, Tourists, And Locals -- A Tourist Town -- Conceptions Of Children -- Girls And Boys On The Ghats -- Innocent Children Or Little Adults? -- The Minds And Hearts Of Children -- Conceptions Of Value -- Earning, Spending, Saving -- Something Extra -- Money, Gender, And The (im)morality Of Exchange -- Conclusion. Jenny Huberman. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [205]-219) And Index.