Last week I dedicated an entry to the topic of Ground Zero -the place where the Twin Towers of New York used to be- and how this place, deserted now, could be touristified in the usual ways. That is, tragedy could be represented using the usual dispositives of the touristic field: t-shirts, souvenirs, keyrings, and any type of memorabilia.

My question today is around one thing: What makes us buy souvenirs? Some explanations are simple: it’s about the confirmation of our ‘been there’ fact. In this sense, the souvenir has a similar status of the picture: to prove our presence in a relevant location that deserves to be visited.

But, at the same time, it would be too limited to believe that it is all about a confirmation. What makes us buy souvenirs that we know clearly do not represent anything but an stereotyped vision of the place we visit? Why do we buy so many bottle opener Tumis, good luck charms, and things none of us would take seriously? Here’s some usual explanations on the academic side: the famous posturist, able to take distance from himself, make fun of his role and admit that what natives try to sell him is nothing but a show, a stage set that pretends to be authentic, but the more attractive it tries to be, the silliest it really is. I still have my doubts with this image of the tourist. The same way I never accepted the other image, the despective one, I’m not too convinced that the tourist is an disenchanted ethnograph having fun in his cynic view and who can collect souvenirs in the same way he would collect cereal box prizes or Happy Meal’s fun toys.

It’s shocking that even pain and tragedy can gain an aesthetic status in the most conventional ways. Where there was once blood and pain, now there can be mass produced souvenirs. In the case of Ground Zero, even the presence of street vendors can call for conflictive explanations, although all based on common sense: from those who condemn their presence as “the representation of the most predatory capitalism” to those who justify their presence as “enterpreneurs”, in theory representatives of the american lifestyle.

And we’ve seen other tragic locations become quite trivial representations of the conflicts that once took place there. It’s the case of the so called Che Tourism, which we commented in this and this entry. Or the touristification of Zapatism, something we made reference to in a previous post. And I suppose you, readers, have a few more examples of the touristification of a particular tragedy.

Modern tragedies -even not so modern ones- are one of the historic elements most touristified. Sites where huge massacres once occurred are later transformed into museums or promenades, in most case in the name of “memory”. Such conversions are not always pacific: there are those who speak out loud about what they consider a “commercialization” of pain; where there should be respect, there are postcards and souvenirs. Is sometimes tragedy a business opportunity? In fact, it is, even when it causes some degree of consternation.

All of these thoughs came to my mind while I read, during lunch time, “Morality and merchandise. Vendors, visitors and Police at New York’s City Ground Zero”, by Molly Hurley and James Trimarco. The article narrates the conflictive process of “commercialization” of the place where the Twin Towers used to be and how different senses the actors -in this case, tourists, street vendors and policemen- attributed to the place gave place to a conflictive relation, interpersonal or at the time of the appropiation of the space. As usually happens with other touristified locations, one of the most interesting things is that in the site of question there isn’t much to see; what makes it important is the story that gives sense to a visit to the Ground Zero, and not so much what you can observe directly.

The work in question is focused in the complex process of appropiation of the surroundings of Ground Zero by street vendors. Even when simpler representations tend to conceive them as an “only group”, the article shows the many divisions existing between the different types of vendors.

The authors analyze how the presence of street vendors in this place inspire many reflexions. From the condemnation to its “predatory capitalism” that sees an opportunity where others see death, to the reivindication of the enterprenurial spirit that in theory characterizes the United States.

Hurley and Trimarco see how in fact these simple representations make no justice to what happens to vendors at Ground Zero. An important note is that not all of them are the same; some, in particular war veterans, have a legal permit to sell there (and, in many cases, they use the pertenence to this category as a sales strategy towards the most patriotic americans), while others, specially illegal inmigrants, lack any kind of authorization. The authors of this article show how both groups are in permanent conflict between “inmigrants” and “americans”, despite the fact that their economic position is in both cases precarious, at least.

And there are more divisions. For example, between those who manufacture the products the sell, and those who are only resellers. This is an usual dicotomy in crafts fairs, where representations that try to draw the line between “authentic artesans” and those who only sell crafts they buy from others are always present.

But the main problem of street vendors is hidden to the eyes of pedestrians and tourists. Far from being “enterpreneurs”, most part of street vendors are subject to the orders of groups who give them the merchandise they will sell, as usually happens in most of Latin America. Far from being a celebration of the enterprenurial spirit, what we see in this case is closer to the old problem of how private groups appropiate public spaces to make money.

But not everything is a problem of power distribution within the group of vendors, since they have to interact with other actors. There, the perception of the police on the location gains importance. Many of their friends died there, so they tend to see Ground Zero more as a “sacred location”, where we have to pay respects. As long as they have the legal power to impose this representation, they can go into conflict with street vendors, legal or not. Obviously, both sectors believe they have a lot to complain about. Policemen will say street vendors don’t respect basic norms of respect; street vendors might say they are not allowed to work for a living.

And what’s being sold in this touristified space? For example, toilet paper with Osama bin Laden’s face printed on it which includes the motto ‘Help Wipe Out Terrorism’; keychains, pens, and other objects that ‘conmmemorate’ the attack of the Twin Towers. But there are objects that cause more controversy. For example, NYPD (New York Police Department) and FDNY (Fire Department of New York) t-shirts, two of the institutions that suffered the most losses on 11-7. Most of these t-shirts are illegal, since they were not authorized by the city government (the only authorized company is City Merchandise). Obviously, vendors already found out the way to keep on selling their t-shirts. They make slightly modified versions, such as FD-NY-PD. city Merchandise has been in the eye of the media since, apparently, hasn’t give the promised percentage of sales money to fire and police departments.

The work of Hurley and Trimarco shows how a place, by being touristified, can acquire a complex dynamics, be it for the appropiation of space or for the direct communication between different groups. No one speaks about the pain? Surely, there are those who still reivindicate this aspect of the phenomenom; but the feeling is that with time, the normal course of events -to borrow this expresion from ethnomethodology- that ends up imposing is the one of everyday survival. In other words, the commercial opportunities, the work and the possibility to eat on an everyday basis.

The photos of the Ground Zero and the World Trade Center subway station that illustrate this note were taken on a rainy day, on february 2004, by Maryori Mancilla.

Bibliography

Hurley, Molly and James Trimarco (2004) “Morality and Merchandise. Vendors, Visitors and Police at New York City’s Ground Zero�, in Critique of Anthropology, vol.21, num. 1, Sage Publications.

Some years ago, Martín Caparrós said in his book Larga Distancia (long distance) how the figure of Che Guevara was mixed -without much trouble- with Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the bolivian town of La Higuera. Of course: it’s about a location where Guevara was executed. Now the subject returns, with a note made by the newspaper Miami Herald, that talkd about the projects being held by the ngo CARE to promote Che tourism. This iniciative includes the construction of a backpacker’s lodge, reinforcement of infrastructure and pavement of the road that leads to the town. The investment would be of $300 000 and the money would be provided by the english government.

The note of the Miami Herald is frankly a horror in journalistic terms. They talk about Guevara as “the Bin Laden of the cold war” (???!!!) (originally seen in Guillibility isn’t in the dictionary).