The Ideal Village: interactions through tourism in Central Anatolia.

Hazel Tucker

Analyses of tourism and tourist culture have tended to work through a purely visual framework, responding to the perpetual visualisation in tourism related discourses. Indeed, Urry (1990) argues that tourism is all about gazing upon particular scenes which are different from those encountered in everyday life. Furthermore, this view of tourism has led Urry to the conclusion that, since post-modernity is marked by "the proliferation of images and symbols" (Lash and Urry, 1994:256), tourism is coming home, since it is now possible to "see many of the typical objects of the tourist gaze...in one's own living room, at the flick of a switch" (1990:100).

Whilst it cannot be denied that visual images and experiences do play a major role in post-modern tourism, I would argue that there has become something of an over-visualisation in tourism industry and tourism discourse[1]. Tourism theories which only emphasise the gaze can themselves set the tourist experience in frames, and thereby gloss over what actually takes place in touristic processes and tourists' interactions with the visited environments. Beyond gazing, 'traveller-type' tourists in particular, whose discourse revolts against the 'tour-ists' who bus around glimpsing at sights, seek prolonged and close encounters with the landscapes and cultures they visit. The 'tourist site' then becomes participatory in touristic interactions, rather than being merely an object of the tourist gaze. This chapter focuses on the nature of tourist expectations and encounters in Goreme, a Cappadokyan village in Central Turkey, and considers the extent to which the physical and social environment meets the imagined ideals of tourists who go there[2]. In analysing tourist motivation and discourse through the representation and construction of Goreme as a 'tourist site', I look at how the local environment responds and adapts to the expectations of tourists who go there for a combination of both 'fun' and 'authenticity'.

The site and the tourists.

The area of Goreme comprises soft volcanic rock which has gradually eroded to form natural cones and columns which are locally termed 'fairy chimneys'. For centuries the chimneys have been carved and hollowed to form dwellings, stables and places of worship which pattern the troglodyte village of today. Through most of the village, the streets are steep, often narrow, and have a haphazard appearance with most houses built half into rock faces and ‘fairy chimneys’. There are many empty and crumbling ‘chimneys’ and cave houses giving certain areas a ghost-town appearance. Today many of the older houses have been restored as pansiyons, or small hotels, which are dotted throughout the village. Besides these, all of the tourism businesses are down in the centre. These newer buildings which house restaurants, bars and travel agencies line the central roads acting rather like walls which seem to separate this central tourist area from the older residential areas behind. For this reason, it is possible to refer to the 'front' and 'back' regions of touristic Goreme, presenting an architectural and social duality in Goreme, which, as I will show, suits the duality in tourists' quests.

In the Cappadokya area, tourism has developed fairly rapidly since the mid 1980's, and the villagers of Goreme are continuously trying to find a suitable niche for themselves in the touristic processes. Since the area became a national park in the late 1960's, the Ministries of Culture and Tourism have imposed strict regulations concerning the preservation of the rock cones and caves, especially those containing Byzantine period churches. As a consequence, the building of large hotels is not permitted in the Goreme valley, so unlike other Cappadokyan towns, Goreme's tourism has remained relatively low-key and low on capital investment. The majority of tourists staying in the village are thus young, lower income tourists, travelling independently of package tours.

The type of tourism most prominent in Goreme thus pertains to the new petit bourgeois tourists, whose "exploratory extended self-testing adventurous style" is described well by Graburn:

Prototypical tourists in search of new experience - in the extreme form in their wandering youth - who to varying degrees wish to "consume" (like television) the rest of the world, its sights, its history, its peoples and their cultures- their clothes, artefacts, bathing styles, cuisines, etc.- and who compete back at home in prestige rankings based on distance, exoticism, crises overcome, variety of tourist experiences etc. [1983:20]

This description can be linked with the ideas of MacCannell (1976), who emphasises the post-modern tourist's quest for authenticity in other times and other places. Tourists, for MacCannell, are alienated by the conditions of contemporary life, and engage in a 'modern ritual' in order to "overcome the discontinuity of modernity" by "incorporating its fragments into unified experience" (ibid.:13). For tourists in Goreme, I would argue, this process is sought through their particular interactions with the local environment. Following an ideology which insistently values the 'unique', 'natural' and 'traditional', these tourists seek authentic experiences within the village. At the same time though, it is important for these tourists to experience 'adventure' and 'fun', and to confirm through the presence of other tourists and tourism services, the sanctity of Goreme as a 'tourist site'.

Adventure in the landscape

Tourists are enticed to Goreme by images of the moon-like landscape and troglodyte dwellings. Tourists seek to "go into a cave to experience it for [themselves]. It's like being a child, exploring, finding something which no one else has found" (Dutch tourist). Alluding to a discourse of uniqueness, romanticism, and adventure, the landscape around Goreme is perfect for discovery and the feeling that you might find a cave, church or even a valley which has been forgotten for hundreds of years. The landscape is ideal to suit both the serendipity of these tourists, and the quest for "a personal semi-spiritual relationship" (Urry, 1990:45) which these 'romantic' tourists have with the tourist site.

Describing the area as "beautiful", "bizarre", and "out of this world", tourists are attracted to the landscape because of its otherness and the idea that it is "like a huge adventure playground for adults". An imaginary moon-world of fairy-chimneys and troglodytes, Goreme is an ideal of the tourist imagination. Indeed, Bruner has argued that, "In tourism, the Third World becomes a playground of the Western imaginary, in which the affluent are given the discursive space to enact their fantasies" (1989:440).

However, although Bruner follows Baudrillard (1983) in the idea that the "preference for the simulacrum is the essence of post-modern tourism" (Bruner, 1989:438), it is important that Goreme is only "like" a playground because it is actually 'real'. The fairy-chimneys are naturally eroded, and the doors, windows and churches are carved out in the real lives of other people. Referring again to MacCannell's idea that tourists seek authenticity and an experience of the real, Goreme is a perfect destination for these young tourists because the landscape is "like a playground" and yet at the same time is 'natural', and is importantly perceived to be so by the tourists. The tourists here do not have a preference for simulacrum, quite the contrary, they consider Goreme to be "heaven on earth" because it is both a playground and real at the same time.

Moreover, the idea of an "adventure playground" implies some sort of bodily involvement rather than mere gazing. With grazed hands and bruised knees, tourists coming back after a day of hiking and clambering through caves and fairy chimneys, look vibrant in comparison to those climbing out of a mini-bus after a day's tour of the sights. Whilst the Goreme landscape is on the one hand a spectacle which is framed for and by tourists in their touristic activities, it is also a place to get involved with, where tourists can indulge in an almost carnivalesque celebration of the physical senses. In addition to gazing upon the landscape, eating, smelling, listening, and especially crawling and clambering amongst the caves, are all ways in which Goreme's environment is experienced. What is more, as one Australian tourist said, "The mosque calling to prayer and children asking you for bonbons are all part of the landscape", so that adventure is sought by "getting into the culture" as well as through interaction with the physical landscape.  

The tourist village.

Just as the moon-like valley is a 'natural adventure park', tourists seek from the village both 'authenticity' and some element of 'fun' and relaxation. From these quests arise certain representations of the village and the village community. These, in turn, involve the representations which the local people have of both the tourists and themselves.

Even though the tourists are in a Central Anatolian village, they expect to be serviced in a way generally prescribed by Western tourism. At the same time though, services must be consistent with tourist representations of Turkish villages and Turkish people, so that whilst providing tourists with what they need, the tourist 'front' must somehow be appropriately 'other'. Their expectations include a rather tumultuous but friendly production of services which play well to the liminal nature of their experiences[3]. The expectancy that things will not go smoothly is all part of the 'adventure' in Turkey, and the amicable terms in which services are conducted provide the close encounters which these tourists are seeking.

Time spent in the village is in many ways characterised by the experience of disorder and the awareness that anything untoward, either good or bad, could happen at any moment. As Turks are constantly saying to tourists, "everything is possible in Turkey". Many tourists comment on how their experiences in the village are enriched by such happenings as the mosque calling to prayer and the loudspeaker announcing village news and events from the municipality office. Every few days a municipal truck goes around the streets bellowing out insecticide spray, inciting comments, coughs and clicks of the camera from the tourists. Every weekend the streets are alive with wedding parties or circumcision processions. There's always someone to talk to, if it is not some other tourists you have met, then it is a waiter inviting you into a restaurant or a carpet salesman engaging you into friendship in order to seduce you into eventually buying a carpet.

Catering to a low level of tourism with small guest houses and other services, local entrepreneurs are to some extent able to condition the tourism in Goreme in their own way. Besides the economic gains to be had from their businesses, the local community wishes to offer hospitality and friendship to tourists in relationships of mutual respect. Some confusion occurs in these interactions, however. Tourists are often sceptical about the behaviour and motives of the men they meet in this environment. They are suspicious of the perceived over-friendliness of the salesmen and waiters, so that some tourists reach the point of complete mistrust, and ignore virtually anyone who speaks to them. This puts the local men on something of a knife-edge, caught between being 'too friendly' and not 'charming' enough. Their images of themselves are constantly contested through their experiences with tourists.

Many of the men working in these services complain that backpackers expect the local people to adapt to them and to always help them when they have no money; "they just bargain, bargain, bargain, and then they complain about the service". As tourism is becoming more important in the economy, the local entrepreneurs are becoming less patient with 'hard-up travellers', as well as disillusioned by their attitudes. As an example, I heard a woman from the USA telling some other tourists how she likes Turkey because it is cheap. She went on to explain that whenever she arrives in a new place, she begins to flirt with some guy so that she will get free meals and accommodation for the rest of her stay. Although this woman is by no means typical, there is something in her quest for 'free' services which rings true for many of the tourists who come to Goreme. The mistrust guiding interactions in this arena therefore becomes mutual.

However sceptical the local people are, they are still reliant on the tourists and must continue to try to attract their custom. Aware that they are untrustworthy in the eyes of the tourists, many of the businesses are now employing the casual help of tourists. Indeed it was evident from my observations that tourists more readily buy carpets or take tours which are sold or promoted by fellow Westerners. The cultural self-confidence attributed by Graburn (1983) to seemingly forthright tourists such as those in Goreme is perhaps not as evident as expected. Lacking in the cultural self-confidence necessary to comfortably deal with the Other, they are perhaps not quite so serendipitous after all, preferring to deal with and glean information from their fellow tourists rather than Turkish people.

Whilst Graburn only seems to consider the cultural self-confidence of the tourists, it is also necessary to assess that of the local people, especially those who are dealing with tourists in the tourist realm. I would argue that in Goreme there is a narrative of pride if not actual confidence, and the quest for mutual respect in relations with tourists is paramount. The Goreme people carry a fierce pride in their culture and social virtues and are continually negotiating a worthy image within and through tourism. This pride was displayed clearly one evening in the disco when a group of about ten Australian men were overheard criticising and cursing Turks. Word quickly got around and within a few minutes a crowd of local men arrived and sat near to the Australians. Nothing was said, but their intimidation was enough that the Australians soon left the disco. Unprepared to put up with such criticism, the local men had displayed a strong sense of cultural pride, without doing damage to the tourism industry.

Whilst tourism relations bring an inevitable renegotiation of identity with reference to the Other, at present, since much of the tourism business in Goreme is locally owned and managed, identity is negotiated through relationships of reasonable equality. As the tourists are their guests, the local people are largely able to condition the level of their hospitality and of the interaction they have with tourists. However, entrepreneurs from outside Goreme are slowly moving in, and this may bring a gradual loss of control over relations and identity in the service arena. When locals change from being entrepreneurs to employees, their tasks become more menial, and their position in relation to tourists more subservient (a point observed in Greek tourism by Williams and Papamichael, 1995).

Without intending to conduct an 'impact' analysis of tourism in Goreme, it is right to point out that where processes of social change bring loss of local control, the renegotiation of culture and identity is increasingly in the hands of 'others'. There are now significant grumblings within the community that the "local culture, especially that of the young men, is being 'ruined' by tourism". What is meant by this is that the men are losing their grip on the moral codes of life, by turning their backs on the village and only looking to the 'tourist front'. Whilst it is generally accepted as positive that tourism brings economic gains, the increasing amount of sexual encounters between female tourists and local entrepreneurs and service employees has stirred up some disillusionment and discontent.

According to one local man training to be a tour guide, for many of Goreme's men working in tourism-related businesses, tourists mean "dollar, dollar, dollar, sex, sex, sex"! Whilst equal numbers of men and women may arrive in the village, more women tend to stay around for longer periods of time. Almost all of the foreigners working in Goreme are women, and many are having relationships with Turkish men in the village. Indeed, it has been recently pointed out that we should be paying more attention to the issue of gender in tourism studies since, "women and men are involved differently in the construction and consumption of tourism" (Swain, 1995:249). A further assertion suggests that "Gendered 'realities' shape tourism marketing, guests' motivations, and hosts' actions" (ibid.). Women's' motivation and self-transformation through 'independent' travel, for example, could be viewed differently from that of men undertaking long arduous trips. Women might be asserting stronger statements about the self concerning freedom, independence and capability.

Certainly the production of tourist experiences is dictated by gender relations in the 'host' environment. There is in Goreme a strict segregation of the sexes, and it is so obviously men who work with tourism there that many tourists comment on the fact that they never have contact with Turkish women. Indeed, they are not likely to in Goreme since, for the people indigenous to Goreme at least, the tourist front is strictly the domain of men.

The large number of sexual encounters between female tourists and their Goreme 'hosts' are premised on a set of both understandings and misunderstandings about Turkish male and foreign female sexuality. For Goreme's men, female tourists represent "sex". Whilst local women are under lock and key, female tourists are perceived "not to care about virginity", and so represent limitless opportunities for local men to prove their own sexual prowess. Many of the men are convinced that women actually come to Goreme for sex, so that through tourism, local male sexual identity is constantly strengthened.

For the foreign woman, not only do the liminal experiences of tourism allow for certain moral constraints present in normal life to be put aside, but she has found a place where she is charmed by numerous attractive young men. As one North American woman explained, "I don't get looked at at home, then I come here and I've got ten guys all looking up admiringly at me". Sex tourism clearly influences power in sexual identity and presents opportunities which may be perceived as lacking in the tourist's home environment. However, whilst some women enjoy the admiration, many of the female tourists perceive the attention they receive as annoying 'hassle'. In particular, many women find themselves 'attached to' for the duration of their stay in Goreme. After they are claimed by a certain man, wanted or unwanted, their interaction with other people in the village becomes limited.  The local men become fiercely possessive and tourists find themselves embroiled with one particular man and one particular web of relations and unable to break free. For the local men, the tourist season is experienced as a series of 'friendships', whilst for the tourists, this practice is restricting on the 'play' and 'freedom' which their liminal state requires.

The fact that female tourists do have sexual relationships with local men confirms representations about their own and the men's sexuality. A good time is undoubtedly had by many, but various disputes arise between these partners as well as within the local community. Numerous married men pretend to be single whilst dealing with tourists, and there are competitions and games regarding 'conquests' in this realm[4]. In other respects, these relationships are taken very seriously, often with a view to a kind of 'personal salvation'. Despite their 'back packer' image and constant bargaining in Goreme, tourists are perceived to be "rich", and even some local women who are evidently marginalised by these practices, appear to be tolerant for the sake of potential economic gain[5].

The young men in Goreme are developing what Picard (1993) has called 'touristic culture', or are becoming 'touristified' through the process of tourism production (Picard, 1995). That is, tourism has become an integral part of their culture with the development of new styles of living and working as well as relating to women. They are negotiating a new identity for themselves which includes relating with foreign tourists. Although villagers (including these men themselves) fear that the young men are "losing their culture", they are generally open to change; this change being an ongoing process of cultural invention. Of course, this process is not always smooth-running, being conditioned by a set of often conflicting interests, but as long as it remains largely in the community's control, then Goreme village and the people who live there will become 'touristified' in their own way.

A problem lies however, in the tourists' perceptions of a touristified Goreme. Whilst they expect to be serviced comfortably and enjoy the 'fun' to be had in the tourist realm, the tourists here are generally seeking to "be transported to somewhere completely different - a sixth century village - to experience a different time and place" (Canadian tourist). They therefore consider the tourist arena to be something of a necessary evil as it provides the services which they need and enjoy, and yet clashes with their ideal imagined village.

There is a belief amongst Goreme's tourists that "tourism destroys the culture" since, through tourism, "the people have contact with the Western way of life". In other words, the Other culture has then become too much like us, and since, tourism is all about going to extraordinary and Other places, there is a danger that the social and physical environment will no longer constitute a suitable tourist site. Some tourists feel in Goreme that they are "not in a real Turkish village", perceiving Goreme to be a 'tourist village' instead. The judgement of authenticity is based largely on perceptions of the level of touristic involvement in the social and physical environment, and the tourists in Goreme are constantly wary and sceptical of anything which might be staged for them. If something has been altered or packaged for tourism, or sometimes if it has been 'polluted' merely by the presence of other tourists, then it is perceived not to be real.

It is doubtful however, that all of the tourists in Goreme are in an equal quest for authentic experiences. Furthermore, the tourist's scepticism of anything perceived to be packaged for tourists goes against the necessity to be in a place where the tourism services and the presence of other tourists confirm the sanctity of Goreme as a tourist site. For the tourists in Goreme, there is a very fine line between that which is considered worthy of tourist attention, and that which is perceived to be too touristy for 'real' experience. Since they spend much of their time in Goreme in conversation with, and competing with other tourists reliving their 'authentic' interactions in the village, authentication of experience becomes a way of obtaining 'symbolic capital' in Bourdieu's (1984) sense, being more a marker of taste than of alienation in modern society. In this case, it is the signs of experience collected by tourists while they are in Goreme that must find the balance between being tourist objects worthy of collection, and yet not blatantly packaged for tourists.

In any case, the concept of authenticity is relative and socially constructed (Cohen, 1988ab), and must be viewed as such when considering tourist experience and touristic relations. All tourists bring with them an image and certain expectations about what they will find in Goreme. First impressions range from the perception that Goreme is too quiet and lacking in tourist fun, to it being ruined by tourism and no longer a 'real Turkish village'. Tourists differ both in the extent of their quest for authenticity and in the extent to which they are prepared to put up with perceived inauthenticity. In general, the Goreme environment does seem to strike the right balance and stays worthy of tourist attention. Of interest here though is the production and maintenance of this balance, which makes Goreme the ideal place that it is for these tourists.

The preservation of Goreme as a 'tourist site'.

Sites become 'tourist sites' through a system of symbolic and structural processes which are guided by the power of tourist discourse. Urry (1992) argues that tourist discourse conditions the way that environments are 'read', appropriated, and exploited. For landscapes to be suitable for aesthetic appropriation, tourist discourse narrates that they must be unique, unpolluted and authentic (authenticity here implying a consistency between the natural and built environment, ibid.: 21). The dominant narrative asserts authority over landscapes which become tourist objects, even though certain participants in the environment may bring conflicting representations to the tourist setting.

In the Goreme valley, various laws operate to protect the 'authentic' buildings and rock formations, as well as to keep a check on the aesthetic quality of new building developments. These laws are not always observed and there is much building work which is incongruous with tourists' representations of how the village should be. New buildings and tourism businesses appear inconsistent with the 'original' cave-dwellings, and consequently, many tourists find that Goreme is not the 'real' "sixth century village" which they had hoped it to be. They constantly look at the physical environment and wonder if it has been altered or constructed for tourists. Here again, is MacCannell's idea that people become tourists in order to find authenticity in 'the real lives of others'; others who appear to be more attuned to the authenticity of human life (Sack, 1992)

This sort of touristic attitude is said to be essentially conservative, orientalist and reflective of imperialist ideals (see Errington and Gewertz, 1989; MacCannell, 1992; Munt, 1994b). The consumption of certain touristic experiences described by such adjectives as alternative, adventurous, unique and authentic, serves an ideology which separates so-called 'travellers' from the perceived crassness of package holidaying. However, as Munt points out, "While mass tourism has attracted trenchant criticism as a shallow and degrading experience for the Third World host nations and peoples, new tourism practices have been viewed benevolently and few critiques have emerged" (1994b:50). Munt, himself, is critical of the new petit bourgeois tourism arguing that behind their disguise as socially and environmentally sensitive travellers, the middle classes are in fact strong proponents of ethnocentric imperialist values.

Indeed, the 'travellers' in Goreme do show a marked desire for the village to somehow remain static in a primitive and untouched state. An Australian woman told me that she "would hate the Goreme people to all be driving cars in twenty years. Donkeys and horses and carts are much nicer. It's nice for time to stand still in some places". Another tourist pointed out that the telegraph poles in the village provided a rather quaint link with our time since they marked 'modernity' and yet were suitably rusty and decrepit to be consistent with (his ideas of) the village. Such tourists look in Goreme for "part of the past still being used today, because it is comforting to see a place which is living in an era earlier than ours". These tourists are then troubled to find a place 'polluted' and rendered 'inauthentic' by modernity, and even worse, tourism.

This presents interesting issues concerning preservation and restoration of the cave dwellings. There is no doubt that parts of the village are crumbling and, since the 1960's, the Disaster Relief Director (AFET) has declared parts of the village dangerous. If erosion continues, more residents will be moved out to new housing and Goreme village will become a 'ghost town' like the nearby villages of Uchisar and Cavusun. The preservation issue would clearly have arisen with or without tourism, but it has become particularly important now that tourist discourse is at work. As Urry (1992) and Munt (1994b) point out, the emergence of the new middle class 'real' and 'romantic' tourism has led to a rise in environmental consciousness whereby conservation of the natural and unique is considered of major importance. Of interest in Goreme, is the contestation of what is natural or authentic and worthy of conserving.

Tourism brings the preservation issue in Goreme village to the forefront on two counts. First, tourist discourse asserts certain representations of the village according to aesthetic value. Second, tourism itself is perceived to spoil the environment since it renders that environment no longer authentic. Both of these assertions are currently embedded in the actions of a 'Save Goreme Committee' started by a non-Turk who has managed a pansiyon in the village for a number of years. According to him, profits from current tourism should be used to restore the old village, rather than the AFET and tourism organisations continuing to construct new buildings "which are spoiling the natural beauty of the environment".

Instead of being moved out into safer new houses, it is considered for the sake of tourism, that the people should be kept in their chimney houses so that the houses and the culture contained therein will be retained. If the houses are neglected, the houses will ruin, and "then, this natural and architecturally historical unique monument - a natural open-air museum - will no longer be around for future generations to see" (Turkish Daily News, 1993:13). Besides having political and economic motivations, in advocating a 'Save Goreme Committee', the writer shows clear ideological representation of the village and its cave dwellings as "monuments" worthy of preservation.

The meaning of the troglodyte houses for the villagers on the other hand, concerns the practicalities of life rather than anything else. Many people view their cave dwellings as dark, impractical, and often downright dangerous, expressing a wish to move out into safer and more 'prestigious' accommodation. Aesthetics and authenticity are not high on the priorities of local building practices, and many people cannot afford to restore their house in the prescribed way.

The difference in tourist and local representations of Goreme were shown to me when looking at photographs taken to represent Goreme in a book to be published by the Goreme Tourism Co-operative. The tourist photographer largely chose images of village scenes showing decrepit cave houses, old doorways, carts and people in 'traditional' dress. They depicted the 'traditional' and 'authentic'. The official from the Co-operative whose task it was to select photographs from this photographer chose only the more holistic pictures of the physical landscape. He chose to represent Goreme through the rock formations in the valleys rather than through the everyday lives of the community. Tourists on the other hand, view the living people as a necessary part of the landscape, their 'real' lives being crucial to the authenticity of the environment.

Tourism presents Goreme as a living museum, and renders the local people museum objects along with the fairy chimneys, churches and houses, to be gazed upon, photographed and encountered. However, the villagers now realise the value of their old houses as tourism assets (to be turned into 'cave' hotels), and their own valuing of the chimney houses is slowly changing to be more consistent with tourist representations. One day in the village, when a woman was complaining to me about the impracticality of her family's cave house, her six year old son contested, "but the tourists like it - that's why they come here". Without this idea, the erosion would eventually drive the villagers away, and the village would be left to collapse in on itself. There would be no more living museum.

Interactions in the living museum.

Tourists staying in Goreme enjoy "hanging around to get into the culture". Their time in Goreme is therefore fairly unorganised and their interactions with the local people unmanaged by guides. As I said earlier, they seek from the village both authenticity and some element of fun and relaxation, and from these quests arise certain representations of the village and the village community. These, in turn, involve the representations which the local people have of both the tourists and themselves. Although tourism in Goreme is not blatantly 'culture tourism' as is the case in Bali or Papua New Guinea for example, an accidental by-product of promoting the surrounding physical landscape is the emergence of images of 'primitive' troglodyte dwellings. Without fully realising it, Goreme village is asserting an identity of the past to tourists, thereby creating an image of itself which most tourists will come here and find. Tourists regularly explore the back regions of the village seeking authentic encounters with the "real lives of other people", in order to "experience the simpler, pure life that we've lost". For tourists then, Goreme is a living museum.

Again, it is clear that such post-modern social movements as environmentalism and cultural preservation (Munt, 1994b), guide tourists' encounters within the 'tourist site' of Goreme. In interactions the tourist narrative, based on the 'traditional' troglodyte culture of the tourists' imagination, is dominant. Goreme's people are imagined to be "living in the past"; living a life other than our own; a purer life free from the burdens of modern civilisation. Making contact with this pure other life is experienced by these tourists as enhancing their own humanity, their own selves. For 'travellers', Errington and Gewertz write, "the encounter with what was seen as the 'primitive' - the exotic, the whole, the fundamentally human - contributed to their own individuality, integration and authenticity" (1989:42). Moreover, these tourists are endeavouring to affirm their distinction, thus engaging in a competition for symbolic capital, this capital gleaned from experiencing the most 'authentic' encounters with these 'real' people of the village. In this, taking photographs as proof of their encounters is important.

In Goreme, tourists seek to photograph the 'authentic', and preferably no signs of modernity should be present. That is unless the photographer can compose an interesting juxtaposition between the traditional and the modern. They prefer for their human subjects not to pose, since it would show that the villagers were temporarily pulled out from their 'real' life, rendering the picture immediately inauthentic. Photography has become such an important part of tourism, that it actually "gives shape to travel" (Urry, 1990:139) and influences much of the interaction taking place between tourists and local people. Many tourists in Goreme wander around the village with the specific purpose of accumulating photographs. This activity causes some distress in the village, mainly because of the negative meaning attached to images in Islam, and numerous disputes arise when tourists take pictures of people without asking.

The power in the photographic gaze is evident both through the symbolic representations 'captured' within the pictures, and in the actual process of taking photographs. Here we return to the idea of Goreme being a 'living museum', through which the people of the village are gazed upon, appropriated and collected. When photographed, the villagers of Goreme are rendered 'objects' both in the Foucauldian sense, and in an existential sense, in which there is a constant battle to be subject or object in relation to the other. This battle occurs in tourists' photographs and in touristic encounters in general. However, whilst much has been written about the powerful gaze of tourists upon 'others', the return gaze is not so often considered. It is generally assumed that tourists have the upper hand, being the lookers and that 'host' communities are the looked at. However, during my stay in Goreme, I observed a number of occasions which showed that the gaze, and indeed the power in interactions between tourists and local people is not all one-sided.

The 'back' part of the village is generally women's domain. In the afternoons groups of women sit chatting and sewing in shaded parts of the narrow streets. Sometimes, tourists walk by and gazes are exchanged. I observed that the women, who are on home territory and in larger groups, have an equally if not more powerful gaze onto the tourists as tourists have onto them. One afternoon I was inside a house drinking tea with a group of young village women. Some were gazing out on to the street below, and whenever tourists walked by they called "tourist, tourist", and mocked their clothing or their apparently ridiculous behaviour. We were behind a window and the tourists had no idea they were being gazed upon, let alone mocked. Another time, some women sitting in a courtyard eating fruit joked that we should throw our apple cores over the wall with the aim of hitting passing tourists. Just as the Turkish men in the touristic area return the tourist gaze, these women in the 'back' regions are by no means passive.

The battle of the gaze is also a battle of cultural self-confidence. As long as tourists behave in a "respectful" manner, they can enjoy some interaction with the local people. All of the villagers are extremely sensitive to the issue of respect, and if they perceive that tourists are in any way disrespectful, then they will not interact with them. Local people are critical of the backpackers who seek only fun with their fellow travellers and do not consider the fact that they are in a Muslim village where, for example, it is ill-mannered to walk around scantily-clad. Male tourists in particular are marginalised and not permitted much interaction with local women.

Generally then, it is only the "respectful" tourists who interact with the people in the back of the village. Consequently, when asked what they think about the presence of tourists, local people typically answer "We're all people. Tourists come and they go. They are our guests and we like them. If they respect us, we respect them". With a tradition of hosting traders passing along the silk road, this points to a local self-representation as a people most 'hospitable' to guests. Villagers generally see their role in tourism as providing hospitality, considering this to be a 'traditional' Turkish virtue.

'Traditional hospitality'.

Turkish people take pride in their 'hospitable culture' and have come to promote and perhaps sell it for tourism. It is interesting to consider the authentication processes surrounding this 'traditional' custom. Authentication and commodification are often discussed in reference to aspects of culture such as festivals and dances. 'Hospitality', however, takes us more to the core of Turkish culture - for it is an aspect of daily life which is considered by the local people to be 'traditional'. Tourists usually receive that hospitality graciously and often discuss the great friendliness, helpfulness, and hospitality in their experiences with Turkish people. However, as I have already said, services in the tourist realm of Goreme are considered by tourists to be inauthentic, although necessary. This is because they are created for tourists. This point is clarified by considering the different cultural meanings attached to the idea of hospitality by Goreme's 'hosts' and 'guests'.

For the tourists, friendliness and economic relations are two opposing phenomena, whereas for Turkish people, the two can comfortably co-exist since economic transactions are negotiated very much on a personal level. Carpet salesmen may tell a whopping lie in order to sell an expensive piece, but at the same time they may sincerely like their customer and wish to genuinely befriend them for the duration of their stay in the village. One local entrepreneur told me, "Turkish people really take pleasure from giving hospitality. Whether it's for money or not, it's in our culture".

There is however, much confusion concerning tourists' interactions with local entrepreneurs. Since tourists construe a dichotomy between friendship and money, they constantly ask themselves whether an offer of assistance, for example, is "genuine hospitality". While this dilemma is made easier for package tourists who pay everything up front and do not witness the exchange of money, for Goreme's 'independent' tourists, the direct economic relations are more blatant, and so hospitality is a confusing issue.

I observed situations in the back of the village in which 'authentic hospitality' was clearly 'staged' for tourists. Both MacCannell (1976) and Cohen (1988) discuss at length the staging of certain desired aspects of culture for tourists, describing the way in which tourists are cheated by the deliberate dressing up of back region events to look authentic. One clear example of this occurring in Goreme involves a family who live in a cave house set into the cliff of a valley just below the top ledge which has now become one of Goreme's main panoramic viewpoints. Bus groups of tourists often stop on this ledge to gaze over the valley and there are now numerous souvenir stands at the site. Whilst gazing at the view, some lucky tourists may catch the eye of a 'traditionally-dressed' woman on the ledge below. She might wave to invite them down the steps dug into the rock and into her cave-house to drink some tea. The group's guide will translate any information the tourists desire to know about the troglodyte family, and on their way out they may browse over and hopefully buy a souvenir hand-crafted by the mother and daughter of the family.

These tourists experience 'real hospitality' in a 'real' Cappadokyan cave house. It is unknown to them that the family has a connection with their guide and that the whole thing was a set-up. The guide secretly phones a little earlier to warn the mother to be waiting out in her garden so the hospitality could be made to look like an unexpected and authentic encounter. The family obviously benefit economically from the selling of the handicrafts, although I was unable to determine whether the guides give them any fee for the visit.

It is interesting to consider here whether or not the staging for tourism of this aspect of Turkish culture in any way changes the meaning of hospitality for the family concerned. Greenwood (1989) has argued that the packaging and commoditising of culture for tourism renders that culture meaningless. Other tourism anthropologists, for example Picard (1993), take the view that local people can adequately distinguish the real in which they are still able to find meaning, from the performances done for tourists. Through regular observations, I concluded that this family is able to distinguish between the staged and the real hospitality given to guests. They certainly behaved rather despondently with the arrival of yet another group of tourists, compared with the arrival of friends from the village. The only people duped in the interactions described above, it seems, are the tourists.

Other quite similar occurrences take place within the village for the backpackers who go wandering through the back streets seeking authenticity. Some village women invite tourists in to look at their cave house and to give them tea. The tourists experience an encounter with 'real' village life until the host presents a pile of head scarves for her visitor to buy at rather inflated prices. Suddenly the situation is no longer perceived to be real. The hospitality has turned into an economic event, and the two are irreconcilable. One tourist disillusioned by such an encounter said "This place slides between being authentically real and what's done for tourists". Indeed, we are told of the duality between friendship and economic exchange by The Good Tourist Guide to Turkey, which warns us that "invitations to view the insides of houses should be seen as what they are: low-key commerce rather than simple friendliness" (House and Wood, 1993: 253).

Tourists experience staged hospitality as a double let-down. It is bad enough that the encounter turns out not to be authentic, but even worse that what they thought was real friendliness turned out to be a con (at least that is how it is perceived). Women and families in the village on the other hand, seem to be making good use of tourist representations of them being 'traditional' and 'authentic' by letting them have their desired experiences for just a small fee; the price of a scarf must be nothing, after all, compared to that of the camera draped around the tourist's neck.

The meaning of meetings.

There are of course some encounters in the village which do not result in economic exchange. Tourists are often invited to events such as weddings where no payment is expected. However, even then, tourists may still become suspicious that the event is somehow contrived or packaged for them, especially if there are other tourists there. Conversely, if someone finds that he or she is the only tourist present at an event, there may be doubt that the event is worthy of tourist interest. Here again is the matter of finding a balance between that which is a sanctified tourist experience, and that which is perceived to be too touristy for rea' experience.

During my time in Goreme, I took a young Japanese woman named Kiko to a women's wedding party that I had been invited to in the village. When I first told Kiko about the possibility of her joining me, she was very eager to go and join in a real village experience. However, at the wedding Kiko spent an hour or so taking photographs of the dancing, and then told me that she wanted to leave. It seemed that the experience had not met with Kiko's anticipation of the event. She hadn't actually enjoyed her 'authentic experience'. Instead she had used the event in order to "stoke up on cultural capital" (Munt, 1994a:109), by taking photographs and simply being there in order that she could say she had been there once she returned to the tourist sphere of Goreme where she felt more comfortable.

This incident takes us closer to the idea forwarded by Lash and Urry (1994) that post-modern tourism is about consuming signs and images rather than the real. In this view, Kiko's experiences and especially her photographs were collected as signs for use in later exchange. She was seeking some sort of real experience for its sign value, but she seemed to be avoiding interaction with the women in the village by hiding behind her camera.

However, whilst these tourists are clearly engaging in some sort of competition in cultural capital, and so authentic experiences are collected for their sign value, many tourists do seem to find some intrinsic value in their interactions with the local people of the village. Whilst wandering around the village, tourists might be invited to sit for a while with some local people, or to help them in their activities such as picking fruit off the trees. Although language is viewed as an annoying barrier in such interactions, the tourists still manage to enjoy simply being with the local people and "exchanging cultures" through more practical and sensual modes of communication. As Kohn states, even though our experiences of other cultures are always mediated through ourselves, and are thus "second-hand experiences", there is the ability to meet with other cultures through media "beyond the scenario set with words" (1994:25). The meeting of cultures in Goreme takes place through many such interactions, beyond the boundaries set by words as well as beyond the framework of the tourist gaze.

In such interactions, however, it is still true that the culture of the Other is imagined more than it is actually shared. The tourist's imagined ideal of finding "the pure life that we've lost" is what provokes many writers to be critical of tourist discourse which asserts an ideal identity onto the Other. The people in Goreme are undoubtedly aware of - and further idealise - discrepancies in wealth between tourists and themselves. Bruner argues that with this realisation "comes the shameful realisation for the first time that they are now classified as 'native', and 'backward' peoples" (1991:245). One villager's idea about what tourists think of the Goreme people was, "they think we're interesting because we don't have anything". I was also told by an elderly local couple that "tourism is good for Goreme because tourists bring civilisation".  Similarly, the self-representations of young women in the village must be affected by the perceived relative freedom of female tourists of a similar age.

It would be erroneous and arrogant however, to assume that tourism plays more than a minor part in the identities of people who are not directly involved with tourists in Goreme. A few tourists walk past their houses every day of the summer, but there is of course more to these people's lives than just this. Moreover, there is a television in almost all of the troglodyte dwellings, and images of a richer Istanbul-centred Other seen in advertisements and soap operas may have a stronger influence on their self-representations than tourism. So whilst representation in tourist discourse does play a part in identity and social change, it must not be over-estimated.

What are becoming influential though are the laws concerning the physical environment in Goreme. If a 'Save Goreme Committee' gets off the ground creating further decrees pertaining to the conservation of troglodyte dwellings and troglodyte life, then we will see the shaping of a culture in Goreme for the satisfaction of tourists' desires. Although touristic encounters in the village are not usually managed by guides, they are low-key, sporadic and set in a relation of equality and respect. However, with the possibility of increasing outside control and interest in the area, Goreme might become an official 'living museum', living the aesthetic ideals of the tourist imagination.

There is an obvious paradox in tourism concerning the perceived modernisation which tourism brings about together with the tourists' quest for tradition and authenticity. Furthermore, 'travellers' believe that it is insensitive 'tourists' who spoil Other cultures, and thus claim no responsibility themselves for any misgivings. There is no doubt that the tourists who stay in Goreme fit with Munt's idea of post-modern 'real' tourists who engage in this particular style of tourism in order to distinguish as well as spatially separate themselves from the perceived masses (1994). Their taste in travel necessitates 'getting into' the culture and physical environment of their destination, rather than merely glimpsing at it through a frame.

The particular expectations and ideology of these tourists clearly bear heavily on the way that they interact with the Goreme environment, and the ways in which Goreme village is constructed and maintained as a 'tourist site'. Tourism anywhere leads to an aesthetic reflexivity whereby people on both sides of the equation come to reflect on and evaluate their social conditions and their society's place within the world (Lash and Urry, 1994). Indeed, in Goreme the aesthetic valuing of the troglodyte dwellings and way of life, shows how tourism has the power to shape landscapes and cultures to its own needs. The tourists' need here is for Goreme to be romantic and suitably Other, whilst at the same time providing the tourism services in which to 'play' and be comfortable, and the presence of other tourists who confirm the sanctity of Goreme as a tourist site. Similarly, their bodily enjoyment of the 'real adventure playground' of the Goreme valley combines the post-modern carnivalesque experience sought in fun fairs and theme parks (Featherstone, 1991), with the experience of authenticity. Importantly though, whether the Goreme environment is real or not, the tourists there encounter an idealised environment, experiencing what they want to experience. 

It might be concluded at this point that if the Goreme people do not mould themselves and their environment to meet the tourists' image, then tourism will decline. Perhaps a simulated Goreme constructed somewhere in the West, complete with rock cones and troglodyte dwellings, would do better than the spoilt real one. Again, this might be the view of theorists such as Urry who argue that since post-modern tourism is the visual consumption of signs and images, today people are tourists most of the time whether they are mobile or not (1995). In other words, there is no need to actually go there and the simulacrum is just as good, or perhaps even better, than the real thing.

However, I have shown how these 'real' tourists in Goreme do require to experience the 'real', even though it is an idealised real. Besides the symbolic capital to be collected through encountering the exotic and authentic Other, these tourists are serendipitous. They seek adventure in unexpected encounters with both the physical and social environments in Goreme. Yes, the tourists' ideal influences local self-representations and shapes Goreme to its own image, but at the same time, the people of Goreme are not passive in the tourism process. As long as they can, to some extent, shape the environment in their own way to provide adventures in a way perceived to be authentic by the tourists, Goreme will be maintained as a tourist site.