Claudia Bell

personal information

Biography

Senior Lecturer Department of Sociology The University of Auckland Human Sciences Building 10 Symonds St. New Zealand	Phone: 649 373 7599 Email: c.bell@auckland.ac.nz
Dr Claudia Bell , Department of Sociology, University of Auckland , has been awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre Fellowship, for November-December 2006. This prestigious award is open to international scholars, with varied the themes of each years programmes. Scholar work together at the Bellagio Centre, Lake Como , Italy , where the emphases are completing material for publication, ideas exchange, and networking. Dr Bell will be joining about 18 international scholars, working on issues in Africa . Her own work fits under the rubric ‘The Mystique of Africa', and is primarily concerned with tourism development issues in African countries, particularly Namibia . This follows fieldtrips to Namibia and other African countries since 2001 for various projects; and international publications, including ‘The Nervous Gaze: Backpackers in Africa ' in The Blackwell Companion to Global Inequalities (2005). Her work during this fellowship will focus on how the tourists' quest for authenticity valorizes the colonial legacy: exotic peoples continue to be constructed as subjects of colonization, but now through travel capitalism, which can be reframed as neo-imperialism. The subjugation of indigenous populations under colonialism is reiterated in tourism. The terms ‘mystique of Africa ' and ‘the romance of Africa ' are commonly used in tourism promotion, and rely heavily on the tourism industry perpetuating Western fantasies. She is also writing about issues surrounding the tourism researcher in Third World Countries, who is, inevitably, also a tourist. Qualifications BA Massey (completed Stage 111 at Auckland), 1979 MA (Ist Class Hons) Auckland, 1983, Thesis: The Working Unemployed: Job Creation in Hokianga PhD Auckland, 1993, Thesis: Rural Way of Life in New Zealand; Myths to Live By Professional societies SAANZ Sociological Society of New Zealand; ISA International Sociological Association EASA European Anthropological Association Honorary Fellow, Roehampton College, London, 2000

Publications

Book chapters

2005
2005. BELL, C. 'Tourists in Africa: the Uneasy Gaze.' African Quarterly. Vol 44, No 3, 2004; pp 91 - 96.

2005. BELL, C., 'The Nervous Gaze: Backpackers in Africa' The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities Blackwells, London; Pp 424-440.

2005, BELL, C. 'Disembodied objects: Curitiba Garbage Museum, Brazil' in Inflections of Everyday ed Adam Lam and Howard McNaughton, New Zealand; University of Canterbury Press.

2005. Bell, C. and J. Lyall. 'Pixilated Evidence' in The Media and the Tourist Imagination: Converging Cultures Ed David Crouch. Routledge, U.K. Pp 135-142.

2004
2004. Bell, C. and J. Lyall. 'Welcome to Auckland: a City Bus Tour' in Great Auckland ed Ian Carter, David Craig, Steve Matthewman. New Zealand; Dunmore. Pp 210-224.

Journal articles

2005
2005: BELL, C. and J. LYALL Performing van Gogh in Vietnam' Tourism, Vol 53, No 4 pp 325-334.

2005, BELL, C. and J. LYALL. 'Tourists Perform at the Crazy House, Dalat, Vietnam.' Continuum, 19, 2 Australia; pp 285-298.