PERFORMING CULTURE IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE

This paper discusses the revival and performance of cultural tradition s and 'ethnic lives' for a tourist audience in the third and fourth wo rlds using the example of a newly emergent development on Wala island, Malekula, Vanuatu. It examines issues of the commodification and obje ctification of culture, in the light of debates about the 'invention o f tradition', in relation to a global tourist industry. A major concer n is with the politics and values involved in an active appropriation on the part of indigenous populations of their past and how this might relate to a notion of authenticity in the context of a Melanesian cul ture.