Public Events

Brownbag Lectures: Yachties in Fatu Hiva: Tourism Theory and Ethnography by Leisure Sailors

Brownbag Lectures: Yachties in Fatu Hiva: Tourism Theory and Ethnography by Leisure Sailors

• Location: ISM Research & Collections Center, Springfield
• Date: Tuesday, May 28, 2013, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Lecture will be held on TUESDAY, May 28th. 

Presented by Dr. Sharon S. Graf, Associate Professor, Ethnomusicology and Director of Music, University of Illinois at Springfield

Dr. Graf will talk about her research on ethnographies written by contemporary leisure sailors-known as "yachties" in ports of call-that document their first-hand experience in remote places via colorful blog posts on the internet. These texts contain observations on folklore, language, music, dance, hospitality, landscape, nature, trade economics, weather, and other subjects. She will also draw from her fifteen months of fieldwork as one of two crewmembers who travelled aboard the offshore sailing vessel Larabeck from Florida in the Gulf of Mexico to Fiji in the South Pacific, via New Zealand. Dr. Graf presents a case study of leisure sailors' experience of the remote island of Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas of French Polynesia, including the approach to the island that often includes twenty-one days or longer on the open ocean, the arrival, and the interactions with the people, flora, and fauna once ashore. Her exploration of leisure sailors' narratives gives us information about Fatu Hiva as well as the variety of interactions between "yachties," islanders, and other visitors such as passengers on commercial cruise ships. Dr. Graf's study of leisure sailing ethnography contributes to the anthropology of tourist-local encounters and sheds light on the effect that travel has on the tourists themselves.

One of our Brownbag Lectures

Weekly lectures held at the Museum's Research and Collections Center. Lectures are usually held during lunchtime on Wednesday. The RCC is located at 1011 E. Ash Street in Springfield. Access to the building is from 10 ½ Street (between Ash and Laurel Streets), where there is ample visitor parking in the west parking lot. For more information, please call 217-785-0037. Brown Bag Lectures are free and open to the public.

Also, if you want to be informed of upcoming lectures by email, you can sign up for the brownbag announcement list.