A Landscape of Travel

"A stimulating and fascinating book . . . a good read not only for experts or a broader public interested in China, tourism and cultural heritage preservation, but also for researchers in con-temporary visual culture, ethnography and migration."

"A Landscape of Travel is a valuable contribution to the study of tourism and ethnic minorities in contemporary China. . . . It provides an updated account of dynamics detailed in the work of scholars such as Tim Oakes, Margaret Swain, and Louisa Schein, and it stands out among more recent but less rounded ethnographic books on tourism in China."

"Chio skillfully unpacks the complexities of ethnic-tourism development in rural China. . . . She lays bare the regimes of mobility and visuality that turn one person’s leisure into another person’s labor. . . . A Landscape of Travel is a beautifully written, accessible, and engaging ethnographic monograph."

"[A] vivid ethnography. . . . A Landscape of Travel is well-organized, theoretically innovative, and ethnographically rich."

"A fresh look at the impact of tourism on the ethnicity and identity of villagers and interrelation between leisure and labor of rural tourism in China. . . . Chio’s work is theoretically dense and empirically rich. . . . A Landscape of Travel makes a fine addition to the existing anthropological literature on tourism. . . . A valuable resource for a range of educational purposes."

"A Landscape of Travel makes a fine addition to the existing anthropological literature on tourism. The book moves beyond theoretical abstractions to the complexity and richness of reality. The monograph is a valuable resource for a range of educational purposes, including in undergraduate classes on the anthropology of tourism and for perusal by postgraduates who are researching tourism in China."

"A Landscape of Travel is about China becoming a nation that travels, and one way of traveling is to be a tourist. . . . Tourism is of course only one mode through which China’s mobility expresses itself, and we must remember that most villages have no tourists at all. But if we want to understand why tourists see and experience what they do . . . and how this reflects China as a nation that travels, [this book] is both delightful and essential."

"This book explores how ‘travel’ can be a useful framework with which to better understand how rural China is changing. While it has not been uncommon to view rural China as an increasingly ‘mobilized’ landscape of excess labor seeking better livelihoods in the cities, Chio’s study approaches mobility in both more abstract and broad—ranging terms. Her work offers an important contribution. Anyone interested in ethnography, ethnicity in China, and anthropologies of tourism will find A Landscape of Travel interesting."