Tourism and the Power of Otherness


The book explores the paradoxes of Self–Other relations in the field of tourism. It particularly focuses on the 'power' of different forms of 'Otherness' to seduce and to disrupt, and, eventually, also to renew the social and cosmological orders of 'modern' culture and everyday life. Drawing on a series of ethnographic case studies, the contributors investigate the production, socialisation and symbolic encompassment of different 'Others' as a political and also an economic resource to govern social life in the present. The volume provides a comparative inductive study on the modernist philosophical concepts of time, 'Otherness', and the self in practice, and relates it to contemporary tourism and mobility.

Review:
"Tourism and the Power of Otherness" is an intriguing collection, strong in terms of both theory and ethnography, and quite enjoyable to read. Picard and Di Giovine have brought together a diverse array of European scholars who provide fresh insight into a question of enduring importance: how tourism stages the encounter between the familiar and the strange.
Sally Ann Ness, University of California, Riverside, USA

The experience of the tourist is frequently evoked, yet it remains conceptually elusive. This volume approaches the subject with a masterful perusal of the philosophical and anthropological underpinnings, exploring the crucial relationship between Otherness and Self. The reader is led to consider how this relationship underlies every successful tourist enterprise.
Elvi Whittaker, University of British Columbia, Canada
Author Biography:

David Picard is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Research in Anthropology (CRIA), Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (FCSH) at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. Michael A. Di Giovine is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, USA.