Souvenirs for Tourists

Maya-second hand-clothes as Souvenirs for Tourists – New Clothes for Indigenous People. Changing Material Culture in Mexico 1989-2007

“Clothing and other textiles are a very important part of material culture basically everywhere in the world, so they are in the context of tourism. This article is about the multifaceted interrelations between tourism, textile souvenir-industry and Maya-fashion in the Highlands of Chiapas in Mexico. The main interest here is the selling of second hand-clothes as souvenirs to tourists and the acquisition of new clothes for indigenous people…

It is shown in which ways the area of textile production is intensely linked to the area of textile consumption. I argue that the existence of a souvenir-industry and changing souvenir-fashions in southern Mexico have a lot to do with fashion in Europe, where many tourists in Mexico come from. Furthermore, souvenir-fashion and –industry have to be analysed together with indigenous material culture and fashion continuously changing in a world in which globalisation offers many new opportunities.”

Huse, Birgitta (2007) “Maya-second hand-clothes as Souvenirs for Tourists – New Clothes for Indigenous People. Changing Material Culture in Mexico 1989-2007”, paper presented at the conference Things that move: The Material World of Tourism and Travel, 19 – 23 July 2007, published in Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change, Leeds Metropolitan University (eds) Conference Proceedings