Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
What feeds the impulse to explore new horizons? What makes travel meaningful? In Being a Tourist, Julia Harrison explores the motivations of a large group of middle-class travelers to find out why people invest their financial, emotional, psychological, and physical resources in this activity. She suggests that they are fueled by several desires: to find intimacy and connection, to express a personal aesthetic, to explore the idea of "home," and to make sense of a globalized world.
Engagingly and thoughtfully written for readers of travel writing, tourism studies, anthropology, cultural studies, and sociology, Being a Tourist goes beyond current debates about authenticity and consumption to analyze the nuanced moral and political complexity of privileged travel.
Synopsis
What is meaningful about the experience of travelling abroad? What feeds the impulse to explore new horizons? In Being a Tourist, Harrison analyzes her conversations with a large group of upper-middle-class travellers. Why, she asks, do these people invest their resources -- financial, emotional, psychological, and physical -- in this activity? Harrison suggests that they are fuelled by several desires, including a search for intimacy and connection, an expression of personal aesthetic, an exploration of the understanding of "home," and a sensemaking strategy for a globalized world. She also reflects on the moral and political complexities of the travels of these people.
Being a Tourist draws on a wide range of social theory, going beyond current debates of authenticity and consumption. Engagingly and thoughtfully written, it will be required reading for those in anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and, more generally, for anyone interested in tourism studies and travel writing.