Courtney Mason, a PhD student who studies tourism and the cultural history of Banff National Park, is heading off to New Zealand in November of this year to investigate tourism in Indigenous communities, thanks to a Research Abroad Grant from the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research.
It's the first time a student in the Faculty has received this grant and Mason hopes that more will take advantage of it. "This is an exceptional international opportunity and I want other graduate students to know this is available," he says. "I'd certainly encourage them to apply."
The grant, which covers travel costs and provides $1500 per month for four months, is designed to facilitate international teaching and research opportunities for doctoral students. It?s a leg up that will enable Mason to investigate how tourism is impacting Maori communities in New Zealand. While there, he?ll be studying with Dr. Steven Jackson at the University of Otago, a sport sociologist who specializes in the production and consumption of identities as well as the commercialisation of Indigenous symbols.
According to Mason, there are many parallels that can be drawn between Canadian and New Zealand culture: ?Both nations share a British colonial past and both had formal government policies regarding Aboriginal peoples quite early in their histories.
The grant relates to the second part of my dissertation which examines how Aboriginal peoples were represented and represented themselves in Banff throughout the first half of the twentieth century.?
He says, ?Looking at New Zealand helps put Canada and Indigenous tourism into a broader historical and cultural context.? Over the past few decades, tourism sites internationally have become important spaces for Aboriginal peoples in many ways according to Mason: ?to creatively and successfully participate in capitalist forms of exchange; to navigate local and global hegemonies; and to pursue opportunities for self-determination and empowerment.?
With the 1885 creation of the Banff Hot Springs Reserve, the precursor to Banff National Park, notes Mason, there was no space for Aboriginal peoples who had lived in the region for hundreds of years. As a result, local Indigenous communities were actively excluded from the park, they had no control over the development of the area, and they lost their rights to hunt, fish, and trap in the vicinity as their subsistence land use practices were redefined as illegal.
However, in the twentieth century promotion of the park, images of pre-colonial Aboriginal peoples were prevalent in tourism materials. Similar to the beloved and recognisable symbol of the steel-jawed Mountie (who always got his man), pre-colonial representations of Aboriginal peoples were what tourists wanted to see when they arrived in Banff and it is what tourism producers strove to deliver.
Working mostly in tourism theory, sport sociology, and sport history, Mason says the research he?s doing satisfies his personal and academic interests in a number of ways. ?I?ve always been interested in parks, outdoor recreation, and travel. Banff is a mass tourism destination and I?m interested in why people go to Banff, how the region has been marketed, and how histories of Banff have socially constructed particular representations that celebrate some individuals while other voices are excluded.? Finally, says Mason, ?Beneath that I?m looking at marginalised peoples, specifically Aboriginal peoples. I?m interested in how power is manipulated at the top in a cyclical environment that benefits some and often exploits many.?
Mason, who had considered doing his doctoral degree in New Zealand, says his research trip to the University of Otago is an exciting opportunity. ?When I decided to stay in Canada and study Canadian topics, I realized that I?d want to pursue other travel and cultural opportunities. This is a great program at U of A that recognizes the importance of engaging graduate students in international research experiences. These grants help get Canadian scholars out there and relate their research to the broader contexts of what?s happening around the world. These experiences are valued professionally, but more importantly they produce more diverse researchers and individuals.?