Moral Apprentices at the Margins: Come and See Tours and the Making of the Ethical Self Restricted; Files Only
Williams, Sara (Spring 2021)
Published
Abstract
This dissertation examines an increasingly popular form of travel among U.S. progressive Christians I call “journeys to the margins”: short-term packaged tours oriented toward engagement with marginalized persons as exemplary practitioners of virtues and values intended to facilitate participants’ ethical formation. I argue that journeys to the margins raise two related concerns: (1) the possibility of essentializing and instrumentalizing marginalized persons as tools for projects of ethical self-making and (2) the possibility that the structural form of commodified travel limits a move from instrumentalism to mutuality and solidarity. My inquiry centers on how these ethical concerns relate to the formative potential of journeys to the margins. To address my inquiry, I use ethnographic method to examine six “Come and See” Tours of Israel/Palestine focused on solidarity with Palestinian Christians. I regard this as a case of journeys to the margins from which insights can be “extended out” to the broader ethical questions I have raised. After offering a thick account of the case, I draw on ethnographic material from interviews, questionnaires, participant observation, and other primary source data with six tours to argue that the commodified form tours take can but does not necessarily preclude ethical formation. To build my case, I begin by demonstrating how Come and See Tours package the Palestinian Christian community in ways that appeal to the ethical desires of Western Christian consumers. I situate these desires in the scholarship on “authenticity” as a modern value, revealing how they are intertwined with Orientalist and neocolonial logics. While such logics impede mutuality and constrict conditions for the kind of ethical transformation tours promise, I argue that possibilities for ethical formation arise in and in spite of this. Drawing on Foucauldian accounts of freedom and ethics, I argue that moments of moral ambiguity in which Western expectations come into question afford the most expansive possibilities for ethical formation, the deepening of moral agency, and the cultivation of relationships of accountability and care. I suggest that to align more fully with their moral ideals, journeys to the margins should center such moral ambiguity rather than obscure it in favor of “smoother” moral narratives.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Come and See, Go and Tell 1
Journeys to the Margins in Relationship to Similar Forms of Travel 7
Pilgrimage 9
Tourism 13
Educational Immersion 19
Short-Term Mission 22
The Structural Form of Journeys to the Margins 28
The Ethical Aspirations of Journeys to the Margins 33
The Ethical Stakes of Journeys to the Margins 37
An Invitational Ethics 40
Case Study and Method 43
Access, Power, and Positionality 47
Map of the Present Work 53
Chapter One: Creative Resistance Through Tourism:
Come and See Tours in Context 58
Come and See Tours in the Scholarship 61
Come and See Tours in Theological and Historical Perspective 65
Palestinian Liberation Theology 67
The Rise of Alternative Tourism as “Creative Resistance” 87
The Response of the “Churches of the World” 99
Chapter Two: Ethics in Situ: Come and See Tours as an Extended Case Study 105
Tour Profiles: Curating “Come and See” 108
Participant Profiles: Who Comes to See? 119
Chapter Three: Moral Commodities and the Practice of Freedom 131
Moral Commodities and the Outsourced Ethical Subject 134
Marketing the Moral: Brochures, Websites, and Itineraries 139
The “Living Stones”: An Etymology 150
Authenticity and Modern Selves 158
Authenticity and the “Living Stones” 162
Ethical Authenticity and the Practice of Freedom 170
Chapter Four: Come and See: The Ethical Affordances of Moral Ambiguity 176
How Should Peacemakers Think About Suicide Bombers? 179
What is the Role of “Balance” in Peacemaking? 197
Chapter Five: Go and Tell: Re-Envisioning the Ethical Self at Home 211
Vocation: Becoming a “Missional Activist” 215
Religious Orientation: Becoming “Global Bridge-Builders” 226
Life Stage: Activist Retrospectives, Activist Experimentation 239
Conclusion: Toward an Ethic of Journeys to the Margins 248
Appendices 256
Appendix A: Methodological Appendix 256
Appendix B: The Politics of Naming: A Word on Terms 263
Appendix C: Oslo II Map of the West Bank 266
Appendix D: Acronyms Key 267
Appendix E: Tour Reference Key 268
Appendix F: Tour Demographics 269
Appendix G: Map of Itinerary Stops by Tour 271
Appendix H: Participant Questionnaire 272
Bibliography 274
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