ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author would like to emphasize an additional dimension of wildlife tourism—one far more experiential—which, the author believes, has been neglected in safari tourism literature. The author focuses on the dynamics of interactions between tourists and wild animals through the consequences of the proximate presence of the wild animals living in their natural habitat, and through the consequences of their spontaneous performance in the presence of tourists. The analysis of individual and social identity formation through human-animal interactions is one direction of study amongst a growing number of anthropological analyses delineating human-animal relations. Most tourism scholars agree that contemporary tourism and international movements of people are rooted in modernity. Literature often depicts wildlife watching like any other modern phenomenon of cultural display or ‘sites’. A long process of defamiliarization has allowed the author to adopt a critical perspective towards tourism, safaris and the construction of the concept of wildlife, yet maintain an intimate perception of nature.
