The Maasai and the Lion King: Authenticity, Nationalism, and Globalization in African Tourism

Abstract

In this article, I analyze how the Maasai of Kenya are presented in three different tourist performances—postcolonial, postindependence, and postmodern. Each site tells a different story, an alternate version of history, with its own perspective on the role of ethnicity and heritage within the nation‐state and in the world community. Using a method of controlled comparison, I expand the theoretical dialogue in tourism debates by departing from the monolithic discourse that has characterized so much of tourism scholarship, [ethnic tourism, Maasai, globalization, performance, authenticity, ethnography, media images]