From transit to food and customs, what is it that makes so many travelers question the way things are done in the places they visit?

We're talking about a concept that might explain these moments: the white gaze. What is it? How does it show up in tourism and travel media, and how does it impact the communities we visit?

Emma (@ThatTravel) and Audrey (@BonsVoyagesEtc) join the show to discuss.

Links:

• https://thattravel.co.uk/
• https://www.instagram.com/that_travel/
• https://thattravel.co.uk/the-sustainable-travel-podcast/
• https://bonsvoyagesetc.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/bonsvoyagesetc/
• Toni Morrison On Writing for Black Readers Under the White Gaze
• Writing Past The White Gaze As A Black Author

If you're a fan of the show, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review Curious Tourism: Responsible Travel Podcast.

Follow us on social media @curioustourismpod.

Read Erin's award-winning blog, Pina Travels.

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CREDITS

Written and Hosted by Erin Hynes

Produced by Kattie Laur

Music is "Night Stars" by Wolf Saga/David R. Maracle/Chippewa Travellers. Additional music from Motion Array.

Logo by Nicole Hall

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A few years ago I was traveling around India.

This is a country where public transit works pretty differently than it does here in Canada.

Backpacking there, I had to quickly learn a transit system that felt complicated because it just wasn't what I was used to.

The schedules weren't clear to me and I struggled to figure out how to buy tickets.

At the beginning of my two month trip, I really struggled with this and I sometimes caught myself thinking, why don't they modernize their transport system here?

Honestly, I get a bit of the ick thinking about the fact that I actually thought this to myself.

It shows how little I knew at the time about how public transportation systems develop within specific historical, political, economic and cultural contexts.

I wasn't asking why things worked the way they did.

I was assuming that the way I was accustomed to doing things was the right way.

Today we're talking about a concept that helps explain moments like the white gaze.

This is a framework for understanding how many of us have been taught to see and interpret the world through Western norms and assumptions.

To help me dissect this, I'm joined by travel content creators and bloggers Audrey and Emma.

We're going to unpack what the white gazes, how it shows up in tourism and travel media, the impacts it can have on communities, and how we can all become more aware of when it shows up, shows up in our own thoughts or actions.

This is Curious Tourism, the podcast focused on making travel better for people and the planet.

I'm Erin Hines, travel writer and content creator, and I'm joined by my producer Katie Lohr.

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All our contact info is in the show Notes Audrey and Elma, welcome.

Do you want to introduce yourselves and where you're joining us from?

Me, I'm Audre, I'm 40, I'm French and I was born in Sri Lanka.

And if you're going to listen some birds, I know it's because I'm in Sri Lanka right now and I'm all into like decolonial and conscious tourism.

I'm Emma.

My handle is thattravel.

I'm a blogger and content creator as Erin said, and I focus More on imperfect ethical travel.

So trying to do your best in an imperfect world.

Audrey, the whole idea for this episode actually came from a post that you published about the white gaze, which I really enjoyed.

It was super educational.

Do you want to explain to us what we mean when we say the white gaze, especially in the context of travel?

I mean the white gaze.

It's a Western perspective we have when we see and interpret the world in tourism.

It's going to be like the destination, the people, the way the city organizes, the way we eat, the way local people are behaving.

We're going to judge it, comparing, interpret it from our own Western norms.

It's human to be judging and comparing.

So we do it, but the problem is we're doing it through a Western lens.

I called it white gaze, and I did it on purpose because many people, they prefer to use the word Western gaze.

But I stick to the white gaze because I think at the end of the day, it was shaped by colonialism and we can't forget about it.

That's a really, really important point.

I wanted to share where I actually first heard this term.

It was many years ago when I was studying postcolonial literature in university and I was reading the work of Toni Morrison.

There's an essay she wrote called Playing in the Dark, which is her analysis of whiteness in American literature.

And she asks readers to consider what happens to the writerly imagination of a black author who is at some level always conscious of representing one's race to or in spite of a race of readers that understands itself to be universal or race free.

I thought this was interesting because she talks about the white gaze in the context of how it is internalized by black writers and how it impacts their writing.

And although the concept of the white gaze that Morrison describes is slightly different than what we're talking about today, I do think there is a connection, because tourism obviously is very much about storytelling and representation.

And I think both versions of the white gaze ask similar questions.

Who is being centered?

Whose perspective is treated as universal?

And what internalized perspectives do we have and carry with us?

So something I wonder about is if people might mistake the white gaze with just being an opinion, quote unquote.

Well, it was really interesting because I did some research on who travels the most coming into this.

Because to me, it isn't simply an opinion.

It's definitely a perspective.

But it's not just something that we're pulling out of thin air, right.

And thinking like, this happens.

I would kind of equate it to.

If you write a post on social media, you just share into the void.

And then suddenly people come back and they're like, well, this isn't the case for me.

And it's like, right, but you're not me.

You don't have my lived experience.

And I think that's what people are kind of going through who may not be white or who may not be from the west, like Audrey said, when they see these posts, these people traveling and looking at the countries that travel, most often the top 10 are all in Europe or Australia, Australasia or in North America.

So it's Finland, usa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, then Hong Kong.

That's the only one that's in Asia, New Zealand, Canada, Australia and France.

So if we think about that and who is traveling, it's kind of no wonder that a lot of the perspectives that we're seeing are Eurocentric are kind of written by people who look a certain way, right?

Absolutely.

No, I think it's definitely not a personal opinion because it has been shaped by centuries of colonialism, but also by media representation and what Emma said.

It's always the same kind of traveler who is traveling.

And we see it on social media.

You mainly have white people telling their vision of tourism.

And also in education, I think the white gaze is me.

I remember I studied tourism when I was in my 20s.

And also the education about all the tourism industry is coming from white professionals.

So definitely it's not only a personal opinion.

We've learned ways to act, to behave, to eat, to travel the right way.

And it's always in opposition to the other ones.

They're doing it in the wrong way.

Their cities are chaotic, they're eating with their hands, they are wild, they're savage, they're underdeveloped, they are poor.

And that's why it's not only one opinion that suddenly you share with your friends because you're traveling.

It's coming from a very wide range of media education system, from many things.

There's also so many studies about this now looking at different films like the Best Exotic, Marigold Hotel, which is like a British film set in India, and like how they exaggerate and how they share, like it's become a thing that's definitely being studied more and more that it's not.

It's not just a case of, you know, the four of us sitting here and saying, well, we, we've seen this and therefore it's true.

Like, there are literal essays being written about this of people kind of looking at examples in media, in social media, that kind of thing.

It's.

It's very real.

And there are stereotypes often that are perpetuated through things like language and writing and the way that we communicate, even like visually, that just gets passed down and normalized as more people consume it.

I like your point, Audrey, about representation in media, because I work in the travel space in Canada.

I work a lot around traditional media.

And you really do notice everyone in traditional media is white, and it's a problem.

So anything you read in those more traditional publications typically is written by a white person, which is shaping a specific narrative.

So we've talked a bit about where the white gaze comes from, but what does it actually look like in practice when we travel?

I thought we could talk about a couple examples.

Audrey, let's start with you.

If you want to share one example that maybe you've seen or experienced yourself.

I think, like one example, we are seeing a lot on social media, and I'm doing the same.

Seriously, every time I arrived in a new destination, I always have the same thought.

It's to think, oh, this place is cheap.

And we always take our own Western perspective telling, okay, this place is cheap, but we never ask why.

And obviously, if you're coming from a country with a strong currency and a strong purchasing power, you're going to find all the global stuff cheap.

And even, like, even if you're German and you're going to Spain, you're going to find it cheap anyway.

In most of the time in content, nobody is analyzing why is it cheap.

But maybe it's not cheap for the local people.

Maybe they have, like, difficulties to access to accommodation or maybe just to access to basic food.

And I think it's like something we see a lot.

And I think, yeah, it's a good example for me of the white guest, because we see it through our own norms, which are normally Western and normally from the Europa or the US or Australia.

I love that example because it also, I think, shows how we tend to like, center our own experience when we travel.

Like, you can arrive in a place and you're thinking about it through the perspective of your own economic reality rather than the economic reality of the people in the place that you're visiting.

To you, it feels cheap, but you're not thinking about how that economy functions.

And works and feels for the people that actually live in it.

You mentioned this already, but one that I was thinking about is calling a destination chaotic or backwards.

That kind of language is just like.

Comes from such a place of misunderstanding and comparison to how places might function where you're from.

How about you, Emma?

I had a really.

I've had.

Obviously seen a lot of the ones that you two both mentioned as well, and I think they're really good examples.

But maybe one that will make it a bit clearer because when I spoke to my husband about this and I was kind of explaining what it means, and he was so saying, I still don't really get it from what you've said, you know, what do you mean the default reader is white?

We were visiting Malawi one time and we were reading about this ferry that we were going to take across the lake in Malawi.

And every blog we were reading, it was absolutely terrifying.

It was like, there's cockroaches everywhere.

The bathrooms are disgusting.

Like, make sure that you don't go.

It's so rugged and adventurous.

Like, you'll be wading through water waist high.

And honestly, guys, like, I swear to God, we get there and it's just a ferry.

And we were terrified.

We were like, this is.

What are we getting ourselves into here?

And you think about it and you think, like, obviously in the uk, if anybody's from the uk, like when you're taking a train, the toilets are pretty gross and there's probably going to be a few bugs on the floor.

There's probably going to be this, you know, all the same stuff.

But can you imagine anybody writing that way about a train going from London to Newcastle?

It just wouldn't happen in that way.

So it's very interesting.

And it has the effect of also shaping our perceptions of danger and safety, which is such a problem with Western media specifically framing places as unsafe, when actually it's completely untrue.

That's what I find interesting about the white gaze.

I think it does reach into other areas of these concepts that we talk about in travel media.

I was thinking a lot about the term ethnocentrism, which I think is directly related to this concept as well.

So I have a feeling I know what both of you will answer here, but do you think that social media is amplifying or perpetuating the white gaze?

I think we know the answer, but if yes, what are some content trends that reflect it?

I know there are some, like, very trending styles of content that we can point to.

So I thought we could talk about a couple of them.

I mean, definitely.

I think social media is not helping with this issue.

And actually, when I, before we start speaking, I was like thinking about two examples.

And I think they are like, different, but I think they are, like, easy to understand.

At some point, everyone we have watched on Instagram reels, like videos of Indian street food where were messy places, dirty places.

And me, I remember when I was scrolling, it was not like one video, it was like maybe 10 reels in a row.

And this winter I was in Brazil and I have a very good friend there.

And he said to me, I never had like Indian food in my life.

And I said, okay, look, before I leave, I'm going to take you, I'm going to look for a nice restaurant and I'm going to take you there and you're going to try the Indian food, because Indian food is delicious.

You have to do it.

You have to try it.

And he said to me, no, I'm afraid.

And I say, why are you afraid?

And he said, yeah, because I've watched so many reels on Instagram and for me it was like crazy because I'm offering him to go to a restaurant in Brazil, which is literally in another continent than India.

But he watched so many reels that represent only that one tiny part of India.

Because obviously we are not going to deny that there are dirty and messy places, but is not representing all India, which is a huge country and have like many different places to eat, many different kind of food and different level of cleanness.

Some places are really trendy, very clean.

Other are not going to be like in any country actually.

But he saw so many videos on Instagram that he got like this ID than India is dirty and food is dirty, even if it's literally I'm offering him to go to a restaurant in a different country, on a different restaurant.

And I think he show our social media content through a western white gaze, which is kind of weird also, I think because for me this kind of content doesn't make any sense, but still, they do exist.

Well, this person is having one image, totally fake, of an anti oak, huge country.

And also like 2 weeks ago I thought I watched a reel of a white girl.

I think she was from a country from South America and she was in East Africa.

I think it was in Kenya.

And in the reel you could see her like the white savior with black kids.

The black kids were presented like poor, hungry, uneducated, typical.

And I jumped into the comments because I thought, okay, somebody is going to Tell her that what she's doing is not right.

No, no, no.

She had hundreds and hundreds of comments.

Everyone was saying, oh, you're so nice.

Thanks to this kid they can have education, blah, blah, blah.

And by the time I watched the reel, it had 50,000 likes.

And I was thinking, if you're another content creator and you want to get like to get viral on Instagram and you see this kind of content, they are working so well, you're going to repeat it.

And that's another problem with the trend on social media because in this case we still continue to maintain like the white person going to Africa who is going to save the black kids who are hungry, poor, uneducated.

And also we are totally missing the fact that maybe these kids, they have certainly it's not maybe, certainly they have families, they go to school, they have communities, they have dreams.

It's not only poor kid, but the same way we maintain India to adulting country, we maintain black kid as poor.

And I think social media, with only two or three trends, it just can change the perception, or maybe not changing, but reinforcing the perception we have of people in the global south or destinations.

I was thinking about this example myself, like culture shock content or just like clickbait or rage bait.

All of those forms of content, especially, especially in the travel context, frustrate me so much because they lack the context to explain what you're seeing.

And I think it's a big problem when it comes to the white gaze because without that context, like a viewer is going to draw their own conclusions about a place.

And like the example you shared, that could mean being terrified to eat food and completely miss out on like a really important cultural experience.

You also jogged my memory that I met someone when I was backpacking in Thailand who was the same.

He told me he wasn't eating any Thai food because he was convinced that he was going to get food poisoning from it.

Meanwhile, like my partner and I are like eating so much Thai food and like totally fine.

Certainly the black children, white savior thing really, it doesn't just frustrate me, it like really upsets me because I think as well, the danger that you put those children in by just putting them on the Internet is so selfish.

But the example I was going to give is the sort of social commentary content that you get where someone will be filming someone and like they'll say, oh, you know, I'm so poor, I haven't eaten in days.

Like could you, could you give me a free meal?

And then they get their Free meal.

It turns out they were never poor in the first place.

And then they give them a hundred dollars or whatever for being so kind and then they say, oh, you know, they were so kind to me, even though they had so little.

You know, I'm seeing these more and more.

They're becoming like a trend.

And I just think it's, it's, it's disgusting really to expose somebody in that way that they haven't kind of consented to.

And it does reinforce these stereotypes of they need us, they need our help.

Like we as travelers are the people who are kind of giving the most.

And particularly it.

I, I've never seen somebody who isn't white making this kind of content or who isn't from the West, I suppose.

And it's just, it's just a really strange phenomenon.

Like if somebody, imagine if somebody came to your home and did that, I think you would find it odd.

So I don't understand why people do it in other parts of the world.

And it's like the modern version of missionary tourism from, I mean that still exists now, but it's like placing us in that position of like the savior.

The white person, the protagonist of the video is the savior.

Yeah.

And you just have me thinking about like other types of videos as well that I see like pret frequently like crazy things about this country or like culture shocks that I had in this country that are usually just like regurgitating well known stereotypes without any context.

Even the rating countries I saw.

Yeah, like when people go south to north in say Africa or in South America and they say rating all the countries, like you cannot rate a country.

I just, this is beyond me, this concept because it's obviously so big, so diverse, so culturally unique.

It's wild.

Who do you think is responsible for this?

Like, I think about this a lot because obviously these videos get engagement and so people copy them.

Why does the algorithm like favor these videos?

Maybe this is like too deep of a question to ask, but I'm curious your thoughts on this.

Like how do we stop this kind of content, do you think?

I think it's complicated because I mean I'm working in social media for like many years and I don't know if it's still the case.

But five or six years ago, if you put like a picture of a white person and the same picture with the same pose of a black person, the algorithm was pushing the white person and it could be the same content.

So I think that algorithm, they're kind of racist and I think you know that maybe that's, maybe it has changed because I remember it of five, six years ago.

But, you know, we know who is running, who are running social media and big platforms and they are all the same kind of person.

So I don't know, maybe it can be like one idea, but I don't know, there's maybe more.

I do think it's a bit of racism from the platforms and I also think it's like perpetuated by.

It keeps happening.

So therefore it keeps happening, if that makes sense.

Like it perpetuates itself in a way.

It maybe came from all the explorers who would go traveling to, quote, unquote, discover the world.

And I think that's the way they position themselves as being super intrepid.

And that mindset has.

And this, this is very much the white gaze, because of course a lot of them would be white.

And it's kind of come down into the way that we consume social media content.

And we think that, you know, the things that interest us is kind of this exoticism, like fetishizing things that are completely different from what we've seen.

And it just isn't.

It isn't a way to consume that content that's conducive to being actually helpful or interesting or lifting up other people.

Something I think about a lot too, because I read an article about this recently, is about how, especially in the last few years, we've shifted to these short form videos, these short clips.

And it's mostly what we see these days, even podcasts these days.

The article was actually about how people aren't creating podcasts anymore.

They're creating content that they can chop up and put on social media.

So it's about those short clips.

They have literal short clip farms, companies that specialize in generating these short clips.

So we're just seeing them everywhere, all the time.

And I think that it's shaping the way that we create content as well, because these platforms are prioritizing short form video.

And then creators, as a response, start to creating short form video.

And as we've talked about, like with short form video, there's only so much context that you can provide and you're just trying to capture attention as quickly as possible.

And one of the best ways to do that is with shocking content or content that makes people mad or content that makes people want to comment.

So I thought we could talk about a white gaze narrative that I have heard pretty often, which is the idea that they have so little, but they're so happy.

This idea tends to come up when tourists visit communities that are visibly experiencing economic inequality and often marginalization as well.

I think this is such a common phrase.

I have heard it out of people's mouths.

Like people that I know have come back from their travels and made this comment.

To me, it is extremely normalized, but I do think that it reflects the white gaze and reveals something about the way that some travelers interpret poverty, wealth and quality of life through their own lens.

So I wanted to talk about that.

What do you guys think?

Have you encountered this perspective yourselves?

And how do you think that it might reflect the white gaze?

Yeah, I do think it represents the white gaze and I've definitely heard it.

If nothing else, it's extremely capitalist centric.

Like, it's assuming that having nothing is directly related to wealth.

Whereas where does that leave things like, you know, familial love and community and people being around and like sharing things that you have?

And it's not necessarily that we like, I guess, that people in the west or that people who are traveling are so much richer because they have a bit more money or because their currency is worth more.

It's just something to think about in the way that we value material possessions, in my opinion.

But it's definitely very much placing emphasis on what you think is worth something versus what might actually be worth something.

No, I totally agree with Emma, but also, I think there's also a dimension of the tourists are putting themselves in a superior position, deciding what is happiness.

Because normally they say that after a trip.

During the trip, I don't think they engage really with local communities.

So they decided they were happy.

But why?

Because they were nice to you.

Because they were smiling to you.

And also I think it's an issue.

I mean, what does it mean to be happy if you didn't speak with a person?

You didn't know the realities they are facing.

You don't know if it's difficult for them, if they have desire to leave the situation they are in or if they're happy with it.

You just decided, okay, they're happy from an upper position.

It doesn't make sense either to me.

Also, just because I think a lot of the time, like Audrey said, they do assume that they're happy because they're smiling, but they're probably smiling because they're in this sort of tourist centric bubble where people are directly catering to them because they're a tourist.

Like maybe, you know, the service is involved in that kind of thing.

It's not.

The tourists are not then stepping out of their bubble and thinking like, hang on, why were people nice to me?

Why were people smiling?

Like, it's.

Yeah, there's a power dynamic in play, an economic dynamic as well.

Because a lot of the time, like, I hear this commentary coming from people a lot that go to the Caribbean, often staying on a resort and.

And it's like all the people you interacted with are being paid to be there.

Their interactions are important with you because you're going to leave a review, you're a paying customer.

You have to acknowledge that there's a power dynamic there where these people are performing labor, and part of that labor involves performance of happiness.

And I think that people really overlook that fact.

It's the same as when I go and dine in a Toronto restaurant.

The server is going to be nice to me because they are being paid to be nice to me.

I think I was telling.

Maybe it was Katie someone recently.

I was telling them, like, I used to be a server in Toronto and I would be having the worst day and I would go into that restaurant and feel like I was an actress because I was just like, so happy and kind to everyone.

And like, there is a bit of that that is genuine, obviously, because, like, I want to be kind to me, to people, but, like, sometimes you really do have to put it on.

So is the white gaze something that only white people can participate in?

I think, like, what I talked about with Toni Morrison earlier, about the way that she frames the white gaze tells us a little something about this.

But, Audrey, I wanted to ask you, do you think people from, like, any background can internalize these perspectives?

Yeah, I think it doesn't matter if you're white, if you're black, if you're brown, we can have it.

I mean, I am brown.

I had it.

I'm still having it.

It, you know, and I think because at the end of the day, it comes from colonial system.

So we've been all together in this colonialism system, and we've been told that some stuff about the Western people, some stuff about the white people, and the same about the brown and black people.

So I definitely think we.

We can all have it.

It doesn't matter the skin color, but it doesn't matter where you grew up, where you're living in.

It doesn't matter.

You can have it.

And I think the example you were saying, this author, I think she's right.

I mean, for instance, colorism, it's outside of tourism, but it's another example that show that white gaze is totally internalized in the south.

Communities.

I actually, like, I was thinking about this, like, if I've encountered examples of it.

And I thought immediately about how when I've traveled in South Asia, all of the sunscreens and a lot of, like, the skin products have whitening agents in them, which is really upsetting.

And I always wondered about this.

And, like, asked my friends who are from India, like, what is this about?

And they explained to me.

They were like, it's just this internalized desire to have whiter skin.

And it's assumed that, like, everyone wants this, so it's just put into all of the products.

That's something that, like, really stood out to me, traveling in that region.

We've talked about what the white gaze is and some of the ways it shows up in travel, but I think it's important to talk about the consequences.

How does this framework of seeing and interpreting the world, whether we're conscious of it or not, affect the communities on the receiving end of it?

So the most.

The immediate thing that I thought about was stereotypes and how they can be so reinforced.

I think, Erin, it was you who actually shared a reel that I saw where someone was talking about how dirty Belize was, Belize City.

And she thought she was being so revolutionary, and she was kind of saying, like, oh, you know, look at this shockingly dirty place.

And that is a stereotype that already existed that she just went and perpetuated and went almost viral for.

And I kind of.

I don't.

I think people always think that they're the first to think of it just because they thought of it.

They don't really necessarily look at what's been said, but then they end up kind of doubling down on these.

These stereotypes.

And I know there are people who will say stereotypes exist for a reason, but in this case, I think the stereotypes exist because that's the way it's always been done.

These are the people who have been traveling by default or the most, and it's their opinions and their perception of the world that's constantly pushed forwards.

And the other thing that I thought of was voluntourism and how often these communities.

Because volunteerism can be quite harmful to communities in the way that, you know, this endless rotation of volunteers that are going through that are kind of never ending.

And a lot of the times, the communities are sort of left then to deal with the aftershock of all these people who maybe have come and haven't done a job correctly or have created perhaps attachment issues and children, and they're just sort of left with the aftermath.

Your point about stereotypes.

Like, had me thinking also about how I think people don't realize that this can influence how a destination will market itself as well.

Because there are scenarios in which communities are encouraged to perform versions of their culture.

I think you see this a lot in Hawaii, for example.

There's these cultural performances that often lean into stereotypes and it's because they're used so often that DMOs will start to think like this is what people want when they come here.

They want to see this performance of culture.

So I think it can have like a pretty detrimental trickle down effect.

I have a thought, because normally we always speak about like the consequences of the local communities, but I also think that the white gaze in tourism has consequences on the tourists themselves.

I mean, we're still thinking.

I mean, when these people are arriving in south destination, white people are going to be perceived like educated, rich.

But brown and black people especially, we are like still a minority when we are traveling.

We also going to be seen like, not well mannered.

We are not very interesting for many sellers, for instance, because they think, okay, they won't be able to buy and to spend as much money as a white person.

I remember I was traveling like many years ago with my white boyfriend.

I was totally in existence.

He was the one everyone was talking to.

So I also think it creates a hierarchy between the tourists.

And for many years tourism was white.

But we can see, like many black and brown people, especially people living from the west in the west, are traveling now and they are suffering like also a kind of discrimination because of a white gaze.

That's a really important point.

And it's something that I've heard from other couples as well, that they've had a similar experience.

Yeah.

So most of us are internalizing the white gaze to some degree.

We grow up surrounded by media, by education systems, travel marketing, and cultural narratives that often center Western perspectives as the norm.

And I do want to emphasize that talking about this isn't about making anyone feel guilty.

I think it's just important to acknowledge this because doing so helps us become more aware of the assumptions that we might carry with us when we're traveling.

So, Audrey, we'll start with you.

How do you think we can start to recognize when the white gaze could be shaping the way that we're seeing a place?

Are there signs that you keep an eye out for maybe in yourself when you travel or that you've thought could be helpful for people to practice?

Yes.

I mean, because myself, I fall very often into the white gaze trap.

And in December, I Was in Benin.

And actually I spoke to Emma at some point about that.

I arrived with my white gaze, and I was shocked in facing, like, the reality of what I was living there.

And I think it's important when we are thinking about, okay, this place is chaotic fist.

People are not friendly fizz.

People are really smiling fizz.

Destination lacks of authenticity.

When suddenly we have his conclusions coming to our mind, I think we should pause and think, why?

I'm thinking that why.

Making conclusion just for, like, a feeling and impressions, One single experience that suddenly becomes, like, the overall conclusion that you can make from it.

And I think that's the first step for me.

Just, like, to be conscious and to be present.

And every time we fall into one cliche to ask ourselves, why?

Why does it come from?

And I think it's like the same when we are complaining about people.

It's just like office people.

They are always late.

They are disorganized.

But why do you think that?

So I think every time we suddenly we are making, like, big conclusions about the place where we are traveling to or about the people living there, I think we should stop and ask ourselves why we are thinking about.

We are thinking this way.

You make me think of something that my partner and I often do when we travel because, like, it's true, you find yourself, like, having these thoughts, especially when you're, like, used to comparing a place or an experience to, like, your strongest point of reference, which is your experience at home.

So often my partner and I will make a list, just like in our notes app, of things that made us pause that we have questions about so that later we can go and research.

Here's an example.

When we were backpacking in India, we found the honking really loud, and we talked about it a lot.

And eventually we were like, we should read about this.

Like, read about why people drive so differently here than they do at home in Canada.

And through that, we realized it's important to ask questions about things and do research about things so that you can understand what's behind it and why it might be different than what we experience at home.

So we always have our notes app going with all the things we need to find answers to later in the day.

I think it's really interesting to think about this, because if I can present a different perspective, I don't think, like, Audrey's obviously, like, saying she had this issue in Benin, but Audrey's like, a very conscientious person who would naturally be thinking about, is she having a detrimental effect on others?

But more Often than that, I see people who don't even realize that they're making an assumption.

Like, again, Audrey said about the time in Benin and like, this is also a thing.

I have family in Tanzania.

I think I said that last time I was on the podcast as well.

And I also used to get really annoyed that they would be late all the time.

And I'd be like, why are you late?

Like, why are you always turning up an hour late and making me wait an hour?

And one of them kind of sat me down and was like, we're not late.

Like, we have time, we tell them differently.

So time operates here in, in blocks of hours.

So if I say I'm going to turn up at 6 and I turn up at 6:59, I've still turned up at 6.

It's like, it's a linguistic thing.

It's the way they tell the time.

And I think once that kind of clicked for me and I realized, oh, like, everything I know, everything without exception is an assumption that is based on my reality.

Like there isn't.

It's maybe a bit deep, but there isn't really objective fact in the same way that we think there is.

Like, we might think that we are seeing something in black and white, but we're just not.

So when you are sort of transplanted from your home country into a new place, you kind of, in my opinion, should think of yourself like a brand new baby experiencing everything for the first time.

And nothing should come with this negative perception.

But more so, you should always be seeking to learn, like the way that you said Erin.

Yeah, so unlearning the white gaze is definitely not something that happens overnight.

And it's not something that any of us will completely finish in our lifetimes.

Probably.

I think it's probably an ongoing practice where we need to question our assumptions and also be open to correction.

So on that note, what are some practical ways that we can unlearn the white gaze?

Not necessarily when we're traveling, but in our day to day habits.

Are there mindset shifts?

Are there things we can read, things we can do to help actively unlearn it, even when we're not actually on the road?

I mean, I think nowadays actually we have plenty of resources.

So we have Instagram account, we have blogs, we have research papers speaking about it.

So I think it's even movies or films or short movies.

There are so many resources.

So I think it's important to try to look to resources that speak to ourselves also, because you have to find the good content that resonates with you.

But I think yes, we can do this and it can be done before trips, after trips, and I think during trips, I think it's very important to try to engage the most respectfully way with local people.

Yeah, I would agree with Audrey.

I think just reading as much as you can get your hands on, becoming interested is always the first step.

Right.

But there's a lot of even just anti racism resources out there which are quite helpful for the first kind of step of thinking outside the box of just everybody's white, you know, in quotation marks.

Like we, once we realize that that's not actually true and that other people are, and I include myself in that, to be honest.

Like I think all of us have had to do some form of unlearning in this and realize that, you know, maybe we're not the center of the universe.

And it's, it's definitely hard.

But when you start it's, it's easy to find resources like Audrey said.

And something like that I think about often is when you're consuming media to think about it with like a layer of criticism to think about like what stereotypes am I seeing in this content?

Like what is this content communicating to me about?

It could be a place, it could be a culture, and just like bringing that critical eye into everything we consume because like everything is communicating to us.

And once you get into that practice, I find like it's a lot easier to identify what in yourself might be conveying the white gaze as well.

Something I've also been thinking about is practicing shifting from judging to observing.

So drawing a conclusion about something instead of doing that, observing it and then like I mentioned earlier, asking questions about it.

Do you guys have any creators or specific resources that you want to call out?

I would recommend following the hybrid tours.

They've been posting a lot of really good stuff about this lately.

They're definitely one that I think are excellent.

There's just so many people talking about this now.

It's kind of nice to see in a way.

Yeah, I actually was telling my partner recently.

I feel like in the last year, suddenly there are so many more creators talking about this topic.

Like the white gaze in different people give it different names, but like decolonizing travel, ethnocentrism, quote unquote, responsible tourism.

I feel like there's been much more that I see coming up on Instagram.

It's hard to tell because obviously I engage with that content, so I'm going to be served more of it.

But having been in this Space now for like a decade compared to, like, when I first started out.

I feel like there's just so much more and it gives me a lot of hope.

Yeah, I did notice too, and I think it's nice.

But also, I think also it's very nice that white people are speaking about that.

But also I see a lot of black and brown content creators, but not only from Western countries, but also from Asia, Africa, South America.

And I think it's nice that everyone is bringing like some pieces into this discourse.

It's not.

Before it was like only a few people and now everyone is speaking about that.

And it's good because it's bringing in different perspectives because it is true that this space has been very white.

Justice spaces often are led by white voices, which is very problematic.

And so seeing more diversity specifically in this area is really, really good to see.

Just when you said that there, and you kind of got me thinking that I have seen a few bigger creators in particular who've kind of tried to dip their toe in space and have ironically really done so through a very white lens and have kind of been coming at it from.

I think I even saw the phrase, they have so little, but they're so happy and, you know, like, using very outdated, problematic language like developing countries and things like that.

And I think maybe, certainly when I started talking about this, I consumed as much as possible by people who were not white.

And I also want.

Wanted to bring them on as kind of collaborators, like, I know you do as well, Erin, and I know that you have as well, Audrey.

I would encourage people to do a bit more of that rather than just kind of speaking out without having spoken to people who might be more affected.

It's interesting that you say that, because I had a post go quite viral a few months ago.

I don't know if you both saw it.

It was like two images with a sentence with an ethnocentric view, and then the inverse, what a more respectful thought would be.

And it started getting recreated by a lot of large content creators who, when you looked at their page, this wasn't a topic that they were focused on.

And it started worrying me that it was being recreated for virality, that people were like, I'm going to recreate this post with hopes that it'll go viral because this original one did.

And I hate to, like, think about that because at the same time I'm like, I do want to see more content like this, but like you say, it needs to be carefully thought through and, like, you need to have a critical mind about it before you publish something like that instead of just like hitting publish because you're hoping to go viral.

Well, thank you both for joining me today.

This has been an awesome discussion.

Before we let you go, do you want to share where people can find you?

Well, mainly it's my Instagram account, which is complicated because the name is in French, but it's bon voyage with 2s, et cetera.

It's complicated, but it's going to be written down somewhere, I guess.

River Podcast.

Yeah, I'm on thattravel on Instagram or thattravel.co.uk and I also have a podcast, the Sustainable Travel Podcast and Erin's been on it.

That's where you can find me.

And I'll also mention that we will link some resources in the show notes.

There's a couple books that I wanted to suggest and then we'll also suggest some creators that you can follow that are doing great work in decolonizing travel.

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