“Going Native in the Australian Outback” at Slate.com

The fifth and final installment in Rolf’s latest Well-Traveled dispatch, “Going Native in the Australian Outback,” is on-line at Slate.com. In the series, Rolf sets out in Australia’s outback on a hunt for a “meaningful experience of Australian aboriginal culture,” and finds that while it may go against the spirit of independent travel, the hiring of a guide is somewhat of a necessity.

“Indigenous people in this part of Australia are famously averse to the notion of random backpackers wandering onto tribal land without a formal welcome, and anthropologists have noted that Aborigines generally prefer busloads of superficial tourists (who buy a lot of souvenirs and are quickly gone) to more earnest seekers, who unwittingly traipse through ceremonial lands, make themselves at home, and ask a lot of intrusive questions.”

Often as it is with a guided tour of anywhere – the Australian outback included – companies are quick to offer “authentic” experiences to passing tourists hungry for a taste of real culture. The irony of this, notes Rolf, is that “in seeking out a culture based on its difference from our own, we risk confusing ‘authenticity’ with our idealized expectations of what that authenticity is supposed to look like.” And as a traveler – an outsider – we may never truly know that authentic experience as it is known by the host culture.

“This is because authenticity anywhere is an internal dialogue within a culture as it synthesizes its past with the present, hoping to better navigate a changing world. The job of the traveler, I reckon, is to slow down and listen so that he can hear snippets of that conversation.”

“Going Native in the Australian Outback” at Slate.com, in parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5