Providing counter-narratives: the positive role of hostels in the Israeli-Palestinian context

Abstract

Previous research suggests that tourism has a role to play in challenging the destructive dominant narratives of the Israeli-Palestinian context – discourses that traditionally have, and still do, revolve around sectarianism, Othering and violence. Our case study focuses on a hostel in the Palestinian city of Ramallah that boldly attempts to challenge the way tourists view the Israeli-Palestinian context and Palestine as a tourism destination. We examine how the hostel attempts to achieve this and the ways in which being a hostel (as opposed to a hotel) helps its guests with this reframing through in-depth qualitative interviews conducted on-site with members of the hostel management and staff, and through participant observation conducted by the researchers in Ramallah. Findings shed light on the hostel’s ability to enable Israelis and Palestinians to cooperate within tourism, and how Palestine has much more to offer tourists than conflict-related tourism, thus challenging the master narratives of the region which have suggested quite the contrary. A key finding is the hostel's on-going attempt to remove ignorance about the situation in the region and promote fact-based learning. The results also suggest that the very characteristics of a hostel assist in achieving this mission through the intimate interactions that are inherent in a hostel setting. Hostels can, therefore, be part of a wider approach to ensuring tourism is used to promote alternative, positive narratives of contested space, as opposed to promoting division and externalising the conflict, as is so often the case.

摘要

之前的研究表明, 旅游业在挑战以色列-巴勒斯坦背景下的破坏性主导叙事方面可以发挥作用——这些话语传统上想来围绕宗派主义、异己和暴力展开, 现在依然如此。我们的案例研究集中在巴勒斯坦城市拉马拉的一家青年旅社, 它大胆地尝试挑战游客看待巴以关系和巴勒斯坦作为旅游目的地的方式。我们通过在现场深入访谈青年旅社管理人员与员工,以及通过由拉马拉研究人员的参与观察, 研究了该旅社试图实现这一目标的方式, 以及在这一新框架下该旅社是如何帮助客人的。调查结果有助于了解该青年旅社有能力使以色列和巴勒斯坦人在旅游业内进行合作, 以及巴勒斯坦向游客提供的服务如何远远超过与冲突有关的旅游, 从而挑战了该地区的主流叙述, 而这些叙述的观点恰恰与实际相反。一个关键的发现是, 青年旅社正在努力消除对该地区情况的无知, 并促进基于事实的学习。研究结果亦显示, 青年旅舍的特色有助于透过旅舍环境所固有的亲密互动来达成这一使命。因此, 青年旅舍可以成为一种更广泛的方法的一部分, 以确保旅游业被用来促进对有争议的空间的替代的、积极的叙述, 而不是像通常情况那样促进分裂和将冲突外部化。