Unpopular Culture: Ecological Dissonance and Sustainable Futures in Media-Induced Tourism

The article deconstructs media-induced tourist development’s relationship with “sustainability,” “ecology” and the “popular”. I highlight the interconnected, but often competing interpretations of “ecology” as interactions among technics (representational regimes), technological regimes and institutions (media, tourism), social agents (media/tourism experts, fan tourists and their hosts), and the natural and built environment in which these take place. Constitutive of contemporary economic and sociocultural complexities in which media-induced “popular cultures” are produced and consumed, these ecological landscapes are increasingly in conflict between and within themselves. Such conflicts destabilize “popular culture” as ritualized behavior or experiential domain, enmeshing it into populist reactions against tourists/guests/strangers

Breaking bad, making good: notes on a televisual tourist industry

This article explores emerging intersections between the consumption of mediated popular culture and the real and imagined topographies within which those representations are framed. Through an examination of the ‘televisual tourism’ centred around the successful TV series Breaking Bad, we scrutinise the multiple modes of sensorial and embodied travel experience enjoyed by fans of the show as they consume their way around the show’s sites, scenes, and tastes in the city of Albuquerque . This exploitation of media textuality through fan tourism is, we suggest, centred upon a carefully managed commodification of crime, criminality and transgression

Biopolitics in critical tourism theory: a radical critique of critique

The article reviews the uses of the concept of biopolitics in critical tourism studies. After a brief genealogical account of the concept in political philosophy, it follows its transposition and its thematic applications in tourism theory and practice. It is argued that biopolitics is only one of the three key domains of ‘human interests’, which must be subjected to a radical critique in tourism studies and practice. Such critique should be entwined with questions of (a) institutional and discursive power in the making of tourism worlds and destinations (‘worldmaking’ – Hollinshead, 2009a), but also, crucially (b) the analogous counter-discourses instituted by critical tourism studies scholars, who seek to legitimise their own epistemic community and thus produce a majoritarian voice endorsing an apparent (but not interest or motivation free) support of morally just causes for a better human and planetary futures

La biopolitique dans la théorie critique du tourisme : une critique radicale de la critique

L’article discute des utilisations du concept de biopolitique dans les études critiques sur le tourisme. Après un bref exposé généalogique du concept en philosophie politique, il suit sa transposition et ses applications thématiques dans la théorie et la pratique du tourisme. L’auteur affirme que la biopolitique n’est qu’un des trois domaines clés des ‘intérêts humains’ qui doivent faire l’objet d’une critique radicale dans les études et les pratiques touristiques. Cette critique doit s’articuler avec les questions de (a) pouvoir institutionnel et discursif dans la création des mondes et des destinations touristiques (worldmaking, Hollinshead, 2009a), mais aussi, et surtout, (b) les contre-discours analogues institués par les chercheurs critiques en études touristiques, qui cherchent à légitimer leur propre communauté épistémique et à produire ainsi une voix majoritaire assurant un soutien apparent (mais non exempt d’intérêts ou de motivations) à des causes moralement justes pour un meilleur avenir humain et planétaire

Paradoxes of Belonging: Migration, exclusion and transnational rights in the Mediterranean

Rodanthi Tzanelli and Majid Yar examine Mediterranean and wider European policies on migration in light of their exclusionary and discriminatory tendencies. The current rhetoric and exclusionary practices are cementing of profoundly differentiated rights to live, work and belong. They argue that the outsider status of migrants from the global East and South is reproduced in Europe through a range of patriarchal, racialized and nationalist cultural discourses that strip away rights and consign migrants to political, social and economic marginality.

Filosofia del pasaporte y reciprocidad en tiempos de movilidad: una construcción alternativa a la tesis de los no-lugares

Philosophy of Passport and Reciprocity in Days of Mobility: A Fresh Insight to Non Place Theory. This paper focuses on what promotes ‘hospitality’ into a norm within polities, leading to further mobilities of humans, ideas and cross-cultural exchange in an ever more globalized world. On this, the social sciences identified an anchor in practices commonly known as reciprocity, which are based on gift exchange or giving-while-taking. As the argument goes, hospitality derives from our social propensity towards reciprocity as an exchange of intangible gifts (cultural habitus). One of the social contexts in which the theory of gift exchange can be implemented concerns the role that the visa and other migratory requirements play in the (temporary or permanent) acceptance of any human subject by a nation-state. As a disciplinary mechanism imposing control over free movement, the passport produces certain types of subjectivity at ‘borderline’ spaces such as airports. We argue that an elaboration over the role of the passport as a regulatory mechanism promotes fresh interdisciplinary observations on the nature of global capitalism via the new mobilities paradigm. To achieve this, we critically elaborate on Marc Augé’s ‘non-places’ in the same contextEste trabajo focaliza en aquello que transforma la hospitalidad en regla, y que apelando a la política conlleva la idea de una mayor movilidad y entendimiento entre las culturas. En este sentido, las ciencias sociales han construido un andamiaje conceptual respecto a la solidaridad, la cual es comprendida como un proceso de dones y contra-dones. La hospitalidad, según este argumento, es parte resultante de esta reciprocidad o intercambio de dones entre diferentes grupos humanos. Entre las instituciones que mejor reglan sobre la hospitalidad se encuentran el pasaporte y la visa, comprendidos como instrumentos ideológicos de aceptación o rechazo de la otredad. Los aeropuertos y la figura del pasaporte son dos baluartes icónicos importantes del mundo Occidental. En el presente ensayo establecemos una concepción crítica de la tesis de los no lugares en Marc Augè, ya que para este autor los aeropuertos serían espacios de anonimato conocidos como no lugares. Lejos de eso, los aeropuertos deben ser rediscutidos dentro del marco de espacios disciplinarios donde se valida a quien se le confiere hospitalidad

Paradoxes of Belonging: Migration, Exclusion and Trans-national Rights in the Mediterranean

Rodanthi Tzanelli and Majid Yar examine Mediterranean and wider European policies on migration in light of their exclusionary and discriminatory tendencies. The current rhetoric and exclusionary practices are cementing of profoundly differentiated rights to live, work and belong. They argue that the outsider status of migrants from the global East and South is reproduced in Europe through a range of patriarchal, racialized and nationalist cultural discourses that strip away rights and consign migrants to political, social and economic marginality