Tourism and nation-building in South Sulawesi: Tourism promotion as threat for national unity?

Seminar paper from the year 1998 in the subject Ethnology / Cultural Anthropology, grade: 2,5 (B), University of Heidelberg (Ethnology South Asiean Institute), course: Tourism and Nation-building in the South Pacific, language: English, abstract: In the 1970s the aim of the new Indonesians government was to lead the diverse, multicultural state to a national unity. This was a difficult task for which good ideas were necessary. By promoting tourism the government devised the most successful solution to approximate the aim of unity. Now, the government overlooked the historical ethnic boundaries and cultural and religious differences of some ethnic groups in Indonesia. Therefore some problems arised which must be seen as a threat for the national unity. In this homework I try to show which positive and negative effects the governments efforts had by promoting provincial identities as tourist destinations. I will show mainly the negative results of the governments tourist campaigns with the example of Toraja in South Sulawesi, Indonesia.