The Lens

By C.W. Cannon, The Lens contributing opinion writer |

When I lived in Europe, I used to josh my British friends with a plan for Britain’s economic future (which looked dim at the time). I suggested that they tear down every structure built after the Seventeenth Century and restore the conditions—industrial, social, economic—of that earlier age, so that American tourists could be assured an authentic medieval experience. Something more realistic and edgier than Orlando’s Magic Kingdom. I assured them that, as a New Orleanian, I was an expert at roping in the tourists.

Being a native of an area loved by tourists has interesting effects on one’s own identity and worldview. Many contemporary scholars, including Tulane sociologist Kevin Fox Gotham, have contended that the spectacle created to lure tourists also impacts those natives involved in staging it. He looks closely at the recent history of the French Quarter in his 2007 study, Authentic New Orleans, and, in particular, at the struggle between residents and tourist industry interests. His most prescient insight is how local authenticity is at the same time a lure for tourists and an argument against further growth in the tourism sector. Since I was raised in the Quarter and Marigny, his thesis illumined for me many riddles of my own personal development, including the way I have staked my own New Orleanian “authenticity capital” in several different cities and countries, to great effect. I could list many other friends, especially musicians, who have benefited abroad in a similar way, by simply putting “New Orleanian” after their names.

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