Great Expectations

This collection of eleven essays on tourism examines the expectations of tourists and host communities through an anthropological lens, exploring the ways in which the preconceived desires of both groups shape the interactions between visitor and visited. Topics discussed include confrontations with the unexpected in a Turkish community, resistance in Native American cultural tourism, experience and expectations on the Cuban dance floor, and holidays to imagine war at the Western Front battlefields. Many chapters are expanded case studies and provide primary source material as well as analysis. Contributors to the volume include academics in anthropological disciplines primarily from US and UK institutions. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Jonathan Skinner is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Queen's University Belfast. His research interests oscillate between tourism, risk and postcolonial performance on the British colony Montserrat in the Caribbean; and dance health and social inclusion in US and UK dance communities. He is the author of Before the Volcano: Reverberations of Identity on Montserrat (Arawak Publications 2004), and co-editor of Managing Island Life (University of Abertay Press 2006).

Dimitrios Theodossopoulos is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Kent. His earlier work examined people–wildlife conflicts and indigenous perceptions of the environment. He is currently working on ethnic stereotypes, indigeneity, authenticity, and the politics of cultural representation in Panama and Southeast Europe. He is the author of Troubles with Turtles: Cultural Understandings of the Environment on a Greek Island (Berghahn 2003), and editor of When Greeks Think about Turks: The View from Anthropology (Routledge 2006) and United in Discontent: Local Responses to Cosmopolitanism and Globalization (Berghahn 2009).