Indiana Josh

which are basically just privileged (and often quite sheltered) middle-class white people projecting middle-class white values and prejudices and fears onto the people and places they’re apparently blessing with their presence.

Why do they all act as if they are one of the few white people who have ever encountered these lands and their strange inhabitants, and feel the need to title their blogs things like “Walking Like an Egyptian” or “Encounters of the Exotic?” Why do they feel like, as a result of their first week in a new country, they have all the answers to the alleged infrastructural shortcomings of these places?

And why do they, in the same proverbial breath, bring up Edward Said and Orientalism without, apparently, understanding the theoretical framework he laid down and how it applies to their approach to other cultures? Have they really read Said, I wonder, beyond an introductory chapter or a few selections from The Edward Said Reader?

It’s one thing, of course, if these blogs and their content are purposefully self-mocking as an implicit critique of the very issues raised by their writings (which has been done, but not often enough imho), but by all accounts these people seem to be taking themselves quite seriously.

My assumption is that they’re going buckwild as the result of their first experience outside of the U.S., and that after a few months (will they be there that long?) or more importantly, continued trips abroad, they’ll begin to see how awkward and embarrassing their blogs really are. I hope.