Ethnography on tourist spaces

Tourism-related research, despite the great number of books and studies, seems to face one of its worst epistemological crises. At some extent, scholars have serious difficulties to define what tourism means. Though anthropology was the discipline more prone to tourism, as it is, a rite of passage, the current state of indiscipline claimed by Tribe, de Escalona and Korstanje as well as the autonomy of an international academy is more oriented to marketing than to science, are some of the problems tourism research faces today (Tribe, 1997, 2010; Korstanje, 2010; de Escalona, 2015). In this difficult context, Nogues Pedregal provides readers with a masterful ethnography which serves to interp…

Tourism and terrorism: conflicts and commonalities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore why tourists continue to visit troubled and often violent nations, even when there is perceived risk. Tourism and terrorism reflect very different philosophies, but there are also some disturbing commonalities. Both need modern technology to be effective, both rely heavily on media management and both require the manipulation of perceptions and attitudes.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses historical evidence to examine the rise and fall in world travel and tourism demand related to acts of terrorism.Findings – The paper observes that the Caribbean experienced a 13.5 percent decline in US visitors after the 9/11 terrorist attack in …

La fobología, ¿ciencia o forma de entretenimiento?

In last years, a wide range of manifestations linked to fear have been certainly become in a serious concern and challenge for citizenry worldwide. Ranging from the war on terror, outbreak of a new virus, natural or man-made disasters to the risk of a nuclear accidents we are now witness (in the inception of a new millennium) of a proliferation of fears and panic. As a result of the high-related degree of uncertainty that characterizes our postmodern life of consumption, our ontological state of security seems to be overloaded. As the previous argument given, the present paper provides readers with a new discipline to research these types of issues in a near future, the phobology. To what a…

LO NO-PATRIMONIABLE ES INVISIBLE A LA VISTA: la obsesión moderna por el Patrimonio Turístico.

El presente ensayo cuestiona la presente obsesión occidental por la cultural y la tradición. Desde una perspectiva postmarxista critica, se traza un paralelismo entre el ideal caballeresco de la edad Media tal cual fuese retratado por Johan huizinga y el patrimonio turístico. Ambos dispositivos discursivos tienen como objetivo controlar a la población por medio de la inversión de los valores culturales que rigen la sociedad. En el mundo actual, la busqueda de la tradición intenta sacar de discusión la estructuracion de un sistema donde todos compiten con todos.

Duda y realidad: El uso político de los Derechos Humanos

El siguiente ensayo filosófico trata el complejo tema de los desaparecidos en la última dictadura argentina, conocida como Proceso de Reorganización Nacional. El es tado nacional secuestró, torturó y asesinó a miles de ciudadanos sin un juicio oral y público pasando todo el andamiaje jurídico a la clandestinidad. Muchos niños fueron secuestrados y reconducidos a nuevas familias con una identidad cambiada. Con el retor no a la democracia, varias agrupaciones civiles buscan a esos niños de ayer que hoy son adultos. Pero ¿hasta que punto una persona puede ontologicamente asumir una identidad fuera de su vida biográfica? Nuestra tesis apunta a que el Kirchnerismo como proye cto ha tomado el tem…

Thana-Capitalism and the Sense of Reality

Based on the contributions of Jean Baudrillard, a French well known philosopher who exerted a radical criticism to the mass-media and its position respecting to migration and terrorism, Korstanje alluded to a neologism, “Thana-Capitalism”, which situates as a new stage of production where the suffering of others is the main commodity exchanged among classes. In times of Thana Capitalism, though we horrify from refugees and their miseries or the latest terrorist blow in CNN, we have doing nothing to change reality. This begs an interesting question, how does perception form in times of thana capitalism? what is the concept of reality in the age of pseudo-reality? is the media and the spectac…

Ley y democracia en la era del terrorismo

Gradually, the law and state are funcional to defend the interest of status quo. We believed having seen anything before the disaster of Nuremberg, but we were wrong. Even United State defended racism inner-ward at time this power expanded the discourse of democracy beyond its boundaries. We strongly believe not only that the law is determined by economy but also the right paves the way for the upsurge of dictatorship. Whether the old democracy in Greece encouraged the possibility to derogate an unfair law if necessary, the Anglo democracy (functional to capitalism) today recycles sites and states in order to install a regime of consumption where the gap between representants and citizens a…

Filosofía del desastre: El terremoto de Japón de 2011 y el viaje-producto

No es extrano observar como en momentos de emergencia y/o desastres naturales, surgen diversos mecanismos que ayudan a los grupos a comprender lo que esta sucediendo y a no desintegrarse. El nacionalismo y el apego-consumo-cultura son dos mecanismos sociales cuya funcion radica en comprender los eventos del mundo sensible. La tragedia presupone una exterminacion radical pero a la vez una fortaleza individual y grupal para sobreponerse a la misma. Es en ese contexto, el orgullo por lo nacional se exacerba luego de un evento de tales proporciones como un terremoto o tsunami. En este sentido, analizamos la cobertura de algunos medios y la reaccion de la comunidad japonesa en Buenos Aires frent…

Neither Passive nor Powerless: Reframing Tourism Development in a Postcolonial, Post-conflict and Post-disaster Destination Context

The present chapter centres on Haitian case, which evinces not only the failure of development theory in improving the economies of pour countries but also how political instability and corruption affect competitive capabilities of tourist destinations in the periphery. In the turn of the century, the rise of different risks as terrorism, natural disasters or virus outbreaks forced the specialists and policymakers to rethink not only its policies but its marketing tactics. The post-disaster marketing as well as the post-conflict destinations emerged as valid options to revitalize tourist destinations obliterated by disasters or any other major threats. More important, policymakers acknowled…

Issues of authenticity in religious and spiritual tourism

Terrorists Tend to Target Innocent Tourists

Over last decades, policy makers in tourism and hospitality acknowledged that terrorism was the worse threat to tourism and West because of many reasons. Terrorism not only affects seriously economies generating unemployment and stagnation in international demand, but also triggers an escalation of violence where all advertisement efforts are backfired. Nevertheless, this essay review explores the historical roots of modern tourism and worker unions to see the point of connection between both. What beyond the boundaries of society is called terrorist attack, inside is named “strike”. This review reminds that the origin of terrorism has been coined in West, as a result of capitalism expansio…

Turismo y Cambio Sociocultural: Una Perspectiva Conceptual

Book Review: Counterfeit Politics, Secret Plots and Conspiracy Narratives in the Americas

The Travel and Tourism Industry

Earlier chapters focused on the intersection of terrorism and tourism, but this depends on how terrorists changed their tactics to instill terror in society. Some decades ago, terrorists selected celebrities, important persons, or chief police officers as main target of their attacks, but now this role is filled by tourists and global travellers. The situation worsened when Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi declared jihad against ‘tourism and modern hot-spots of consumption’. The concept of mobilities was historically manipulated by Western powers to impose a one-way discourse which aims to discipline the Other as inferior to European masters.

Review of "Methanastasis"

Towards new paradigms in tourism fields: an anthropological perspective

The present notes of research centres on the problem of fragmentation, which is experienced by tourism applied research in the recent years. Echoing the original claims issued by John Tribe –followed by many others scholars–, we discuss further on the socio-economic factors that prevented tourism its maturated and stylised form. Though we introduce a materialist viewpoint, echoing David Harvey, no less true is that the point is open to further debate, incorporating cultural viewpoints. The impulses and bursts of interest received simultaneously from social science but also by the theory of scientifisation coined by Jafar Jafari did not suffice to gain purchase over a maturated discipline. E…

Review of Burúcua (2013). El Mito de Ulises en el Mundo Moderno

Sports and safety management

Sports and safety management, by Steve Frosdick and Lynne Walley, Oxford, Elsevier, Butterworth Heinemann, 2012, 336 pp., $57.95 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-750-64351-1 The problem of hooliganism is g...

The politics of Argentina today: human rights and Kirchnerismo

After the effects of bloody dictatorship that whipped the region, Argentina as many other Latin American countries experienced a great trauma which not only altered the ways politics was lived, but also undermined the social trust of citizens respecting to their institutions. The rise of Kirchneristes and Kirchnerismo post stock and market crisis of 2001, initiated a new age in Argentina. Kirchnerismo opened the doors for the vindication of many claims of human rights organisations, but at the same time, the discourse of human rights was adjusted to the interests of Cristina Kirchner and her followers. As a result of this, the cause of human rights allowed government to produce a new way of…

Ethical Assumptions: A Criticism against Modern Pragmatism

The advent of neoliberalism in the early 1970s marked a new age for ethical practices. Although pragmatism as an approach to ethics pre-dated neoliberalism, the neoliberal approach to political economy ushered in a new kind of pragmatism, owing little to Jeremy Bentham, even less to the American philosophical pragmatists Charles S. Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Today’s pragmatism has permeated the penal systems of the central countries of the world capitalist system. A new ethics emerged, a neopragmatism. Acts came to be judged by their effects and not by the motives that led to the actions. This altered the doctrine of Abrahamic religions, and led to the disappearance of forgivene…

The economics of tourist destinations

Disasters in the Society of Fear

From immemorial times, Aborigines and ancient cultures were frightened of disasters because these events were seen as divine reprisals or punishment for their sins (as the Noah’s Ark myth shows). Although modern science introduced instrumental thinking to understand disasters, improving the quality of life, it is equally true that capitalism obscured the diagnosis of scientists to protect the system. Blind to see the real problems of earth, today, capitalism offers distorted answers to the problem of climate change, migration and refugee crises, and even to the economic downturn. Based on the tactics of blaming Others, the elite allude to poverty as the precondition toward humanitarian disa…

Regina Schlüter – an entire life devoted to tourism research

Now that tourism has transformed into a growing commercial trade, which revitalizes local economies and poverty relief, social scientists were captivated by tourism as a promising theme for their i...

Emotions and epistemology: a path for reconsideration in the 21st century

The present paper explores the gap between sensations and emotions in the global capitalism. We held the thesis that there are diverse ways to systematise the theoretical orientations on which the studies on the body/emotion are based; a possible one, having in mind the Latin American context and without intent of exhaustiveness, is the following: a) a line of work connected to Foucault and his concepts of control, discipline, and technologies of the self; b) an approach connected to Bourdieu and his notions of habitus, body hexis, and social fields; c) a set of investigations in the field of biopolitics referring to Esposito and Agamben on the one hand, and to Negri and Hardt on the other;…

Estados Unidos y el principio de extraordinariedad

En los últimos años, los cientistas sociales se han visto atraídos por el unilateralismo estadounidense en política internacional. Sus observaciones coinciden en resaltar el sentido de especialidad promovido por los estadounidenses para verse asimismo frente a otros. En este sentido, el presente trabajo examina las causas culturas y sociales de cómo se ha formado el principio del destino revelado, que lleva a los americanos a sentirse especiales. La discusión apunta a defender la tesis de que este pueblo ha desarrollado una visión realmente trágica del mundo por medio del cual la necesidad de alcanzar la virtud converge en el temor del hundimiento.

Book Review: Spirituality in Dark Places: The Ethics of Solitary Confinement

Filosofia Do Turismo: Teoria e Epistemologia

Filosofia Do Turismo: Teoria e Epistemologia, by Alexandre Panosso Netto, Sao Paulo, El Aleph, 2011, 198 pp., $30.00, ISBN 978-8-576-57109-4 Taking advantage from the lack of studies regarding the ...

Sustainable tourism and global warming: panacea, excuse, or just an accidental connection?

PurposeThe debate linking tourism with global warming is very polemical: neither camp engaged in the debate sees the other side. Sustainable tourism is seen by some as a panacea to mitigate the negative impact of tourism on global warming, and by many others as a ploy planted by post‐industrial society to divert attention from the core issues. A few see it as just an accidental relationship. This paper aims to be a reflective essay on the current state of polemics relating to tourism and global warming.Design/methodology/approachA critical review of relevant literature coupled with original reflections of the authors forms the basis of argument employed in this paper. In certain ways, this …

Managing Change in Tourism: Creating Opportunities—Overcoming Obstacles

Discussing Tourism as a Rite of Passage

This chapter recapitulates the discussion originated by John Tribe respecting to the dispersion of produced knowledge in tourism. We critically give a new fresh paradigm in order for readers to understand what tourism is. This chapter centers on themes I am not accustomed to discuss but are very important to the epistemological advance of the discipline, precisely in a moment where the epistemology of tourism enters in a serious crisis. Though I here am synthesizing my experience as author, reviewer and editor, no less true is that it situates as a complementary platform to expand the current understanding of tourism and its intersection in culture.

Turismo, Reflexivilidad y Procesos de Hibridación Cultural en América del Sur Austral

Dark tourism and place identity: managing and interpreting dark places (contemporary geographies of leisures, tourism and mobility)

Leanne White and Elspeth Frew present a compilation that explores the roots of dark tourism and the problems of place identity. Overall, the work is formed by 19 chapters, which although interestin...

Tourism & development: concepts and issues

In this interesting book, Richard Sharpley and David Telfer edit 16 chapters that discuss the role of tourism as a facilitator of development for third-world. Though this classic work was already p...

Prospects of Tourism for Peace

Over the years, philosophers have debated the problem of war and peace. Is violence inherently enrooted in our minds? Or simply are we educated in a violent society? Is war a social malady to be eradicated or part of our nature? The myth of Cain and Abel gives some hints on this, but, of course, it does not suffice to explain the complexity of the conflict in the societal order. Humans often are slaves of negative emotions such as rage, fear, greed, and envy. Nonetheless, as Immanuel Kant imagined, a durable and perpetual peace can be internationally achieved, where a tacit agreement is convened among nations. In so doing, they should share a common-grounded constitution and be subject to t…

Beyond the Precautionary Principle

This chapter centers on the discussion around terrorism. While some scholars emphasize on terrorism as a risk, others alert on the limitations of thinking terrorism within the field of risk. This does not mean that terrorism does not exist, it is a big problem for urbanized contexts, but it escapes to the control of laycitizens. Following Niklas Luhman's definition we exert a criticism on those who think terrorism as a risk. This piece interrogated on the epistemological border of terrorism as well as the interest of publics and audiences to consume the others` mourning as a form of entertainment. This trend was facilitated by the unification of risk and threat notions. As we have explained…

Heritage in the digital era: Cinematic tourism and the activist cause

Tourism in the European economic crisis: Mediatised worldmaking and new tourist imaginaries in Greece

The article interrogates the rationale and origins of changing imaginaries of tourism in Greece in the context of the current economic crisis. We detect a radical change in the ‘picture’ of the country that circulates in global media conduits (YouTube, Facebook, official press websites and personal blogs). We enact a journey into past media representations of Greece as an idyllic peasant and working-class site, but proceed to highlight that such representations are being recycled today by Greeks (especially but not exclusively) living and studying abroad. This stereotype, which focuses on embodied understandings of happiness and well-being, is being challenged by the current economic crisi…

The Undesired Other

Over the recent years, the theme of abortion has set in the agenda of many countries. Although the abortion law was already present in France, the US and the UK, in some other countries the law was recently sanctioned just after the 2000s. This chapter deals with the problem of hospitality in the days of terrorism. From different angles, this chapter explores the question of abortion and the ideas of hospitality and multiculturalism, points that modern terrorism has instilled as necessary debates. We hold the thesis that the modern self has serious problems to understand the alterity when it confronts the own desires. The right of legal abortion should be framed as a decline of hospitality,…

Book review: Yves Michaud, Le Nouveau Luxe: expériences, arrogance, authenticité

Mythical Geographies

This chapter explores the anthropological roots of Lost Paradise, which pivoted the expansion of Western civilization over centuries. tourism has evolved into many forms and practices that escape from water and fire, or the sand, but originally thermals were fertile grounds for the expansion and consolidation of modern tourism. This happens because of two main reasons, civilization whatever its origin symbolizes water as the most important resource for its production and expansion. Secondly, mythologies across cultures and times appeal to an “Eden” where water plays a crucial role as configurator of social order. For that reason, not surprisingly, in making tourism we need from reproaching …

The darkest spectrum of Republica de Cromañón, Argentina: an auto-ethnography on a post-disaster (traumatic) site

The turn of the century has brought many dangerous and unseen risks for the tourist system. The methodological limitation of risk perception theory to make safer destinations has led towards a new paradigm where risk-management the pace to post-disaster consumption. The precautionary logic, which plays a leading role in the risk perception paradigm, is replaced by a type of morbid consumption (ipso facto) where adaptation is vital. Having said this, post-disaster tourism flourishes in a moment where the tourism industry -if not tourism epistemology- seems to be in crisis. The present paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of current post-disaster tourism research to unpack the pro…

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Rent-a-Car Industry

Without any doubt, coronavirus disease slumped global economies in an unparalleled crisis, one of the worst downturns since 2008. COVID-19 not only affected negatively the tourism industry but also other service sectors. To some extent, governments have adopted two different dispositions against the virus. While some nations imposed a strict lockdown, others privilege the consumption and domestic circuits of payment. In its history, the tourism industry has never faced a crisis of this caliber, and its impacts remain unsure even to date. Although the interests and studies evaluating the impact of COVID-19 have captivated the attention of countless scholars, less attention has been given to …

Los medios masivos de comunicación y el terrorismo: entre la verdad y el miedo

Los medios masivos de comunicación cumplen un rol importante en la sociedad, son una suerte de reforzadores morales que problematizan y ofrecen soluciones a las cuestiones importantes de la sociedad. No obstante, en la sociedad de consumo, somos testigos de un cambio sustancial en el rol de los medios quienes han pasado a ser productores del “espectáculo del desastre”. El 11 de septiembre ha marcado a fuego no solo el poder de los medios para distorsionar ciertas realidades a sus audiencias, sino para cubrir la noticia escondiendo las causas reales que fomentan el terrorismo. El presente ensayo intenta situarse como una critica constructiva al discurso periodístico y de los medios dominante…

Conclusion: Hospitality in the New Millennium

The main thesis held here is that Western civilization has subscribed to a medical / surgical metaphor, which consists in extirpating the affected part to save the body. If this is applied in the case of terrorism, the Muslim community runs serious risk of being demonized and martyrized in the name of security.

Interrogating on the Essence of the Zombie World

The chapter discusses critically the ontology of zombie world, as well as its interlink with the Thana-capitalism, as a new stage of capitalism where the Other’s death is gazed, consumed and preferred. The paradigm of the zombie world is debated in this chapter. In this respect, the culture of zombies situates in a futurist—apocalyptic—world, where technology and modern science have contributed to the end of mankind. The survivors not only struggle against zombies in a hostile world but also redeem the human nature according to two contrasting forces, the needs of survival which led to extreme individualism and the needs of re-foundation. The figure of the zombie represents the pauperized o…

Virtual Dark Tourism

This study looks at some primary points in the discourse of virtual dark tourism (VDT) formation. Derived from the spectrum of sound branding (SB), virtual reality (VR), coupled with augmented reality (AR), the case is used as a tool to support the claims of VDT. Findings suggest viewpoints for making death sites exclusive, and offer valuable clues to the design of VDT formation as an option to include death sites as market offerings of dark tourism. Guided by social constructionist research philosophy, coupled with semiology and compositional interpretation, the analysis offers valuable clues to position sites built around the narratives of death. Not only does it verify elements of unique…

Violencia de Estado, guerra, resistencia. Por una nueva política de la Izquierda

The Dark Society

Ulrich Beck, a German sociologist who does not need previous presentation, casts his diagnosis about risk society as a new emerging ethos where social class and hierarchies blurred before the figure of risk. Although he shed light on the post-industrial society of the 90s, today the society he studied seems to be pretty different. Hence, a new fresh insight should replace it. This article introduces readers to the conceptual foundations of Thana Capitalism, as it was critically debated in our book The Rise of Thana Capitalism and Tourism. Per the author's conception, the risk society sets the pace to a new facet of capitalism where the other's pain remains as the main commodity to exchange.…

Reviewing education concerns

Abstract Education issues often recur to the usage of mathematical and economic theories to expand the current understanding about student's motivation. At some extent, their goals are valuable and for that merits recognition, but their findings should be re-visited. In the present review, we explore the connection of limitation of awards in education issues. From our end, it is important to remind that efficiency seems not necessarily determined by self-motivation. Furthermore, based on the few knowledge respecting to the dynamic of groups these types of award programs have, reinforcements are not being applied in a correct way in the field.

The Colonial Voyages

In the preceding chapter, we introduced readers to the complex and dense interplay between scientific expeditions, which were moved by scientific interests, and colonialism. In this chapter, we focus on the ways and morphologies of colonial voyages to draw new borders of colonial geographies. Of course, some might speculate both chapters overlap, but one continues the discussion the other leaves. In the introductory chapter, we discussed the imperial machine (and the cultural matrix) that invented, fabricated, and packaged the non-Western “Other” to legitimate the would-be European supremacy. Now it is time to review how Western reasoning develops the gaze to explain and expropriate the new…

Technology and Terror

The present chapter discusses to what extent rationality plays a leading role not only in forming a culture of fear in western societies, but paves the ways for undemocratic attitudes and reactions. Our founding parents envisaged a world where progress, rationality, and technology played a vital role in building a better place to live. They never imagined the effects of 9/11 nor the financial market and stock crisis in 2008. The rise of uncertainty as a main cultural value of contemporary society raised the question of how much technology facilitated the evolution towards a more pacific, fairer, and safer world. We have witnessed how 9/11 strengthened a process of securitization where high …

Dictionary of tourism

Avaliando o caso da dengue na Argentina em 2009: discriminação e medo

Após quase uma década, a reaparição da Dengue na Argentina causou pânico e medo. Diferente da Bolívia, do Brasil e do Paraguai, onde as políticas de prevenção têm sido seguidas, o futuro da dengue fica incerto para a Argentina; este trabalho não tem qualquer afiliação política, mas destaca o papel da mídia de massa na cobertura das epidemias. A questão de se um jornal ou corporação de mídia de massa deveria manter um mínimo de objetividade é extensa demais para ser resolvida neste artigo curto. Entretanto, temos apresentado um modelo que ajudará outros pesquisadores a interpretarem temas desta natureza no futuro. Nos momentos de desordem, incerteza ou desastre, as sociedades passam por uma …

Open roads, closed borders: The contemporary French-language road movie

El 11 de septiembre y la teoría de la percepción del riesgo

El turismo como actividad y como institución social se encuentra asociado a un sinnúmero de variables y a problemas que pueden afectar su desarrollo. Si bien los atentados terroristas han estado presentes como forma política de reivindicación tomando como rehenes a turistas extranjeros, la bibliografía especializada no dubita en señalar al ataque del 11 de Septiembre de 2001 en Nueva York como punto de quiebre en lo que respecta a la percepción del riesgo aplicado a los viajes. La aceptación que hoy goza esta teoría, en el mundo anglosajón, nos lleva a un abordaje de tipo crítico que intentará enfatizar en los puntos fuertes y débiles que plantea. El futuro de la teoría de la percepción del…

A portrait of Jost Krippendorf

The problem of sustainability emerged in last decades as a result of climate change and pollution produced by modern industry to the atmosphere. Seminal studies have contributed to give alternative...

Surveillance and terror in post-9/11 British and American television

Over recent years, social scientists have reached something of a consensus on the dominant role of television in a global society, arguing that it not only provides viewers with vital information t...

The Organizational Culture in the Days Post 9/11

In the recent years, terrorism has posed as one of the main threats of the West. In fact, TV programs, books, documentaries, and thousands of published papers have flooded not only the media screen but also the academic events. In spite of this exaggerated attention, little is known on the effects of terrorism in daily life. To be more exact, the effects of terrorism in the working culture. This paper focuses on how the life of lay-worker has been modified after the 9/11, as well as how the organizational culture and labor relations have radicalized in the days post 9/11.

El 11 de septiembre y el Temor. R.J. Bernstein: "El Abuso del Mal. La Corrupción de la Política y la Religión desde 11/9"

Divorcing after Holidays

Divorcing is a common-place practices that characterized our modern daily life. What is more than interesting to explore is why one of third takes after holidays. Are holidays accelerating the social decomposition the founding parents of sociology denounced in earlier century? or simply, as Maccannell puts it, tourism serves as a valve (mechanism) of cohesion similarly to the role played by religion/totems in primitive societies? To answer these questions, we present statistical information given by the Dirección General de Estadística y Censos (Ministerio de Hacienda GCBA). Although this information had its own limitations, which suggests more investigation is needed, we strongly beliefs t…

The Allegory of Holocaust

The current bloody conflict between Israelis and Palestine in Middle East has widely approached by social scientists and humanists as a moral campaign to impose the human dignity. Although in some respect, literature would play a leading role in narrowing both sides, the fact is that in digital times Holocaust is far from being a closed issue. As a platform towards victimization or political oppression, Holocaust still remains in the heart of West as well as the negative effects of depersonalizing subject identities. The nature of any genocide is associated to the power of Gods to select who lives or not, in the same way, Noah abode the decision of God to destroy a world which unfits with h…

Genocide, torture, and terrorism: ranking international crimes and justifying humanitarian intervention

Book Review

Maccannell en perspectiva: análisis crítico sobre la obra el turista

A obra de Dean MacCannell representou uma grande contribuição aos estudos do turismo, a partir da década de 1960, por aportar conceitos na época inovadores sobre o tema da autenticidade da experiência turística. O artigo critica a obra deste sociólogo, não mediante um contraste com a evidência empírica mas indo diretamente ao núcleo teórico, buscando antecedentes na sociologia francesa e na  etnometodologia estadounidense.

Palacios, Marco (2012) Public Violence in Colombia: 1958-2010 (Violencia Pública en Colombia: 1958-2010). Bogotá: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Reviewer: Maximiliano E Korstanje

The Lost Paradise

A vast array of studies focuses on religious tourism as the promising segment of tourism growth for next decades, this is a really prominent theme concerns many scholars today. However, our chapter is on the opposite direction, tourism is an expression of religiosity enrooted in Western Culture. this chapter explores the religiosity of tourism in order to expand the current understanding we have of this complex phenomenon. Far from representing a radical critique to some scholars or some position, this chapter aims to become in a contribution to expand the current paradigms in tourism-led research.

Review of Eid (Ed.) (2014) Exchange Terrorism Oxygen for Media Airwaves: the age of terroredia

Tourism: An Integrated Vision

Book Reviews and Presentations

Politics of Dark Tourism: The Case of Cromañón and ESMA, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Tourism has been recently catalogued as a key global industry (Shaw et al. 1990; Buckley and Witt, 1990; Lee and Chang, 2008). The influx of visitors not only potentially revitalises cultural resources but also generates economic resources of specific destinations. Recently, even spaces of mass-death or disasters such as Ground Zero in New York (9/11 terrorist attack), the Tsunami on Sri Lanka, or Katrina Hurricane hitting New Orleans, USA, can be ‘recycled’ by adopting tourism policies that take death as a main attraction (Klein, 2007). Although this type of tourism has attracted criticism of post-Marxist sociologists, as the sign of sadist spectacle (Bloom 2000; Baudrillard 1996, 2006; Ko…

Investigating the Challenges of Promoting Dark Tourism in Rwanda

ABSTRACT J. Ntunda interrogates to what extent dark tourism would be a product to be fostered in Rwanda. Based on formal interviews done over 43 specialists who take part of RDB [Rwanda Development Board], Ntunda holds that several incompatibilities which include lack of skilled staff and problems in the accessibilities to the site prevent today dark tourism would be a valid option. However, we live in a hyper-globalized world where information is produced, packaged and disseminated in minutes to a broader audience. In this new world, there is no place to hide. Therefore, specialists and policymakers should promote Rwanda taking advantage of global sources and the information which is digit…

The strange case of Pomar family: the dangers of roads

Many studies conducted on risk-related issues use quantitative methods. Questionnaires or formal interviews are applied to subjects to construct some attitude or particular opinion about their sense of security. Since the risk-perception theory has been brought from cognitive psychology, there is a biased assumption to think this issue should use these survey types of techniques. In contrast, this article proposes that risk as social construal should be studied according to qualitative analyses that explore the connection between variables. That women perceive more risks than men can be a of second-order explanation, appropriate for opinion polls or managerial policies, but not scientific a…

An Essay on the Social Costs and Benefits of Technology Evolution

The Society 4.0, Internet, Tourism and the War on Terror

The 9/11 marked the end of an epoch, or so it is claimed by many voices. Scholars and colleagues of all stripes agree that the attacks on the World Trade Center changed international relations and geopolitics as never before. In this context, this chapter interrogates the ramifications of terrorism, its connection with media society and with Society 4.0. As Slavoj Žižek puts it, 9/11 was not only a founding event, but it also woke the Occident from its slumber. In view of this, terrorism paradoxically not only uses the media and digital technologies to instil its message in society, but alerts us to the risks posed by virtuality. This chapter, henceforth, continues Žižek’s reflections unvei…

Reconsidering cultural tourism: an anthropologist's perspective

After returning home from fieldwork on the Guarani reservation in Misiones, Argentina, the author was approached by one of his colleagues and asked about the difference between ethnography and ethnic tourism. The immediate response was, what do you mean by ‘ethnic tourism’? After a moment of silence, he responded that, to him, ethnic tourism meant people traveling to interact with indigenous people and experience their lifestyles and customs. This thought process brought about the interest in writing this reflective research note. This short opinion piece teases out the importance of aboriginal peoples and their culture as heritage attractions and proposes the role of anthropology in creati…

Sun & sea tourism: Fantasy and finance of the all-inclusive industry

Dark Tourism in the Philippines Islands

Though the study of dark tourism has been widely expanded over the recent years, less attention was given to the Southeast Asian destinations. Dark tourism exhibits events that are marked a disgrace, the fatalities that interrogate on our own vulnerability. As a gaze of the Significant Other, dark tourism anthropologically mediates between our finitude and the future. The chapter centers on Philippines as a new emergent destination of dark tourism, stressing the contributions of the industry to the heritage sites but alerting the contradictions this new morbid consumption generates.

The epistemological structure of mobilities

Purpose This paper aims to revolve around two problems which, though imagined as different, can be addressed altogether. On one hand, the advance of terrorism as a major threat to the tourism industry, while – on the other – we discuss the ontological nature of tourism as a rite of passage, which is vital to keep the political legitimacy of officialdom. At the time, paradoxically, social scientists shrug off tourism as a naïve commercial activity, while the main tourist destinations are being attacked by jihadism. This suggests the disinterest of ones associates to the interests of others. Design/methodology/approach The author holds the thesis that tourism derives from ancient institution…

El Culto K en la era contemporánea: Crónica, génesis y apoteosis del proceso Kirchnerista

Desde el ano 2003, con la asuncion de N. Kirchner y posterior relevo de su mujer Cristina F. de Kirchner la Argentina ha experimentado una nueva razon para creer en la politica pero a un costo muy alto. El trauma inicial que subsumio a la Argentina en grandes tasas de pobreza y desocupacion consolidaron las bases para el nacimiento de un nuevo discurso politico el cual en los ultimos anos se ha transformado en un Culto con todos sus elementos constitutivos. En este sentido, miedo politico, dogmatismo, sufrimiento, grandeza, palabra, texto sagrado, arquetipo mitico, triunfo, debilidad, fortaleza y salvacion son algunos de los componentes mas representativos de la era politica K. Desde una pe…

Anthropology of misery: poverty and the media

El presente trabajo explora las conexiones entre la prensa argentina y el sismo que azotó a Haití a principios de 2010. En él se cuestiona la idea de según la cual la pobreza es, per se, un potenciador de las consecuencias del desastre. También se quiere, con él, brindar al lector un modelo claro de cómo comprender la conducta humana en momentos de emergencia social y cómo los medios gráficos de prensa, en tanto que parte de la sociedad, construyen una respuesta a la pregunta que todos nos hacemos en este tipo de situaciones: ¿qué ha pasado, y por qué a nosotros? The present work explores the connections between the Argentinean press and the ear - thquake that struck Haiti in early 2010. It…

Murals and tourism: heritage, politics and identity

A decade ago, the well-read Latinist Pierre Vidal-Naquet (2001) assertively called attention to the fact that Ancient Greece welcomed thousands of travelers in search of Achilleś Tomb and other att...

Mediating Death

Originally, digital technologies were contemplated by public opinion as instruments which serve to make from this life a safer place. While over recent decades, the digital revolution was oriented to discuss to what extent humans being are credible and agents who can reach objectivity, no less true was that some mass-media paved the pathways for the rise of a new atmosphere of terror, which triggered after 9/11. Doubtless, terrorism, ISIS and 9/11 were the main allegories for the society of consumers. This opens the doors for a paradoxical situation, simply because viewers are enmeshed in a strange fascination for news disseminating crimes, terrorist attacks, calamities and disasters. In ea…

Through the Gaze of Morbidity and Consumption

The chapter theorizes the rise of dark tourism in Southeast destinations. This represents an unexplored segment for the specialized literature that devotes its efforts in studying Western study cases. There were two important findings. Firstly, and most importantly, dark tourism gives an ideological explanation to the Cold War that sometimes singles out the history of colonialism, the rise of the US as a superpower, and the interests of the Soviet Union. Essentially in consonance with Tzanelli, Sather Wagstaff, and Guidotti Hernandez, the authors hold the thesis that the heritage of dark tourism serves an ideological instrument of power, which is orchestrated by a ruling elite to promote a …

The discourse of risk in horror movies post 9/11: hospitality and hostility in perspective

Risk perception has been a newer field of research for tourism scholars. The purpose of this paper is to add to this growing literature by examining how some horror movies play upon the discourses of risk, ethnocentrism, hospitality, and radicalised otherness as a part of their plot lines. In doing so, the authors discuss the literature on risk perception, the role of hospitality in risk perception, and the value of visual and content analysis of movies. Then, four horror movies are presented that include a number of discourses inherent in tourism, risk perception, and hospitality research.

Terrorism and Tourism: two sides of the same coin

The present short essay brings the problem of terrorism into the foreground. Basically, terrorism not only was catalogued as the major threat for Western civilization but also for tourism and hospitality industries. We hold the thesis that far from being affected by, tourism and terrorism share the same origin, the same point of convergence, which dates back towards nineteen century and the unification and formation of the first worker unions. Though polemic, our argumentation is based on the historical facts and evidence left by the action of first anarchists in the US. The same benefits prompted by anarchosyndicalists who by an extreme violence shocked the government, were the background …

A Review of “Tourism and Socio-environmental Effects”

Death and Culture

Taking cues from the surging popularity of thana-tourism, this paper argues that its prevalence echoes the end days of capitalism. The predominant forms of tourism in a society reflect the ethos of that society. What we once called ‘mass tourism' reflected the spirit of classical capitalism; later, ecotourism and various other alternative forms of tourism reflected a critical turn in capitalism, often called the ‘sympathetic capitalism'. These were incremental alternations, however. Thana-tourism is a qualitatively discontinuous form of tourism and its surge should thus correspond with a similarly discontinuous, radical, shift in capitalism. The authors present scholarly perspectives to bri…

Reseña Geoffrey Skoll, La teoría social del temor: terror, tortura y muerte en el mundo post-capitalista.

Reseña. Geoffrey Skoll, La teoría social del temor: terror, tortura ymuerte en el mundo post-capitalista. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

A Paradoxical World and the Role of Technology in Thana-Capitalism

In this chapter, the authors hold the thesis that, although technology introduced plenty of liberties and rights for humankind, which are protected by democracy, it resulted in a much deeper disciplinary mechanism that leads to censorship. To put this in other terms, in medieval times, writers, thinkers whose text defied the authority of king or Catholic church were jailed, tortured, and condemned to the stake. The power of coaction emanating from prince exerted violence as an efficient instrument of dissuasion, circumscribing the leviathan's whims. The dissemination of books was limited to those authors who were conducive to status quo.

Review of "The Lucifer Effect. Understanding How Good People Turn Evil"

Constructing an American fear culture from red scares to terrorism

Building on the work of social analysts who have identified the emerging culture of fear in the USA, this article argues that the current fears about terrorism derive from deliberate campaigns by the world capitalism’s elites. It traces the history of political scares since the late 19th century to show an evolution from red scares to terrorism. While acknowledging the complexities of cultural constructions, the obsession with terrorism is shown as an outgrowth and offspring of earlier, anti-communist hysterias in the USA.

The Role of Technology in Thana-Capitalism

In the days of Thana-capitalism, death is the main commodity which is produced and disseminated by the media worldwide. As in dark tourism practices, people are interested to gaze the Other´s suffering but in fact, far from being closer to others, it reinforces their happiness not to be touched by death. Since thana-capitalism is based on a social Darwinism where all are struggling against all to survive, others` death endorses an exclusive sign of supremacy for those who are still alive. Metaphorically speaking, life is understood as a thrilling race where only a few selected participants win. In reality shows like Big Brother, or Films like Hunger Games, there is only one winner. The comp…

Isle of the Dead

This essay aims to explain the phenomenon and effect on tourism of the Balinese cemetery in the village of Trunyan, where the dead are not buried. It is a narrative enquiry combined with critical theory largely grounded in the scholarship of dark tourism and communication theory, coupled with content analysis of the online community's reviews from the TripAdvisor website. The study indicates that (1) connectedness to death suggests the existence of spirituality needed by people, at the same time indicating understanding of mortality; (2) social connections developed as a result of visiting Trunyan cemetery not only bring self-awareness and awareness of others, revolving around intrapersonal…

Book Review

Nota crítica: El COVID-19 y el turismo rural: una perspectiva antropológica

La ruralidad juega un rol importante en la historia del turismo en América Latina, con un lugar dentro del colectivo imaginario de las grandes urbes. El sistema capitalista ha forzado la migración masiva de las zonas rurales, las cuales quedaron despobladas, a las grandes ciudades. Hoy, el turismo rural ofrece un escape para miles de turistas citadinos y una oportunidad para las economías domésticas. En momentos de crisis como aquella que ha suscitado el COVID-19, se presenta como un destino obligado para miles de personas, como alternativa válida a una nueva normalidad donde el encuentro con el otro se encuentra clausurado. La pandemia no solo ha acelerado una crisis de sentido en el mundo…

Filosofía del riesgo: Crónica de la Modernidad

El presente ensayo reflexiona sobre el papel que el riesgo juega en nuestra vida diaria, desde varias perspectivas, no desde un punto de vista vinculante del peligro sino como una estrategia de difusion y persuasion para desdibujar la linea moral entre la decision y sus consecuencias. A mayor racionalidad, mayor la desproteccion percibida. La tesis principal del presente trabajo es que en una sociedad post-capitalista, donde el seguro domina las relaciones humanas, el riesgo (como forma estereotipada del miedo) se transforma en el requisito primordial y funcional de las formas modernas de produccion. Todos, casi sin excepcion, tememos en mayor o menor medida al viaje porque este nos conduce…

The Citation Factor Reconsidered: New Alternative for Tourism and Hospitality Research

This note of research deals with the obsession of tourism scholars for citation impacts. Here I analyze not only the problems of tourism research but also how commercial publishers monopolized the production and the academic market through the imposition of the sense of prestige. We hold the thesis that the citation impact corresponds with a narcissist trend oriented to undermine the critical thinking. AUTOR Maximiliano E Korstanje - Doutorando. Professor na Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Curriculo: http://palermo.academia.edu/MaximilianoEKorstanje/CurriculumVitae . E-mail: maxikorstanje@hotmail.com REFERENCES Aramberri, J. (2001). The host should get lost: Paradigms in th…

Being lost: tourism, risk and vulnerability in the post-‘9/11’ entertainment industry

This study explores the ways in which the post-‘9/11’ film industry employs tourism as a plot that re-creates mythical imageries of the ‘West’ in relation to a radical ‘other’. Reflecting on sociological and psychological concepts of ‘vulnerability’ and ‘risk’, the authors undertake a content analysis of four ‘horror’ or ‘terror’ films and reveal complex discourses linked to nationalist sentiment, political ideology, the power of expertise and public insecurity in the post-‘9/11’ USA. One interesting feature of the current horror-movie genre is the extent of violence and sadism exerted on Western tourists going abroad. Drawing on the image of the tourist as victim, the authors further discu…

A Review of “Risk, vulnerability and tourism in developing countries: the case of Nepal”

Risk, Vulnerability and Tourism in Developing Countries aims at synthesizing a wide range of concerns with respect to global warming, sustainability, poverty and the existing material conditions th...

The Concept of Civility and Law

From Hobbes on, the concept of law-making was strongly associated with the needs of creating a third-object (dialectics) that can control force and violence. The same concept of law and violence, which is historically associated with the Occident, paved the way for the creation of borders. By studying the legacy of Foucault and R. Castel and the contribution of sociological thinking, in this chapter we will dissect the roots of national identity and the evolution of security. While industrialism emancipated medieval peasants from their attachment to the soil, a great process of urbanization produced slums and ghettos in. Against this back drop, a new concept of civility erected a barrier be…

Decodificando la esencia del mal, o del terror a la muerte del hijo

Durante muchos años filósofos y teólogos se han cuestionado sobre la cuestión de la caída. Es innumerable la bibliografía sobre el tema como así también las propias dudas sobre la omnipresencia y sabiduría de un Dios que implícitamente o no permite la presencia del pecado por medio de su propia creación. El mito fundador de querubín Lucifer no sólo simboliza la relación entre el hombre y la traición sino también el amor filial entre el padre y su creación las cuales concilian la negación cultural de la muerte de la progenie o generaciones más jóvenes. Utilizando la teoría antropológica de los dones de M. Mauss, el presente trabajo teórico intentará explicar el origen mítico del mal dentro d…

Diaspora and ambidextrous management of tourism in post-colonial, post-conflict and post-disaster destinations

This exploratory study aims at identifying diaspora tourism practices and at exploring its benefit in Haiti, a Carribbean island. In so doing, this research work fills both theoretical and practica...

Tracing the Cultural Background of Lone-Wolf Terrorism

The end of the Cold War, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union, posed new greater challenges and risks for the “Global North.” Terrorism—doubtless—seems to be one of them. Over the recent years, and particularly after 9/11, terrorists changed the focus of their attacks. While classic terrorism targeted important persons such as politicians, chief police officers, or celebrities, modern terrorism planned attacks on leisure-spots spaces, tourist destinations, and lay-persons. This is particularly troublesome for policymakers (who are in charge of orchestrating all-pervading models to preserve homeland security) and for field-workers who are seriously punished when they are in contact wi…

Tourism as a Form of New Psychological Resilience: The Inception of Dark Tourism

Tourism industry is considered as an activity based on higher tolerance to frustration, in other terms as a resilient industry. At some extent, the diverse threats that impinge on tourism in late modernity not only did not alter its logic, but strengthened its presence worldwide. Concepts as dark tourism or thanatourism started to be adopted and applied in tourism-related research. Nonetheless, these studies are not interested in revealing neither the anthropological roots of the issue nor the representation of founding trauma (as sacralisation of the dead). Natural and made-man disasters give lessons to communities that are rechanneled by means of mythical mechanism of resiliency. Tourism,…

From Religiosity to Traumascape

This chapter theorizes on the role of death's figurations on the Western culture. The authors focus on dark tourism as the sign of a new phenomenon, which remained ignored for many sociologists and anthropologists. While the process of secularization ended the hopes and promises of religion, new forms of consumption emerged. The authors here coin the term Thana Capitalism to denote the obsession of modern society to capture the others suffering, and in so doing, perpetuating their logics of domination and surveillance. This chapter opens the doors towards a much deeper debate ignited by the needs of understanding dark tourism and its connections with religiosity.

Controlar el Delito, Controlar la Sociedad. Teorías y debates sobre la cuestión criminal, del siglo XVII al XXI. Darío Melossi.

 Se ha hablado mucho de la seguridad y se ha debatidomás aún, pero argumentos sólidos como losque se encuentran en el libro Controlar el Delito,Controlar la Sociedad,  no son tan frecuentes. El autorde esta obra, Dario Melossi, nos deleita con unatesis por demás interesante: los procesos delictivos yel orden reproductivo de la sociedad se encuentraninextricablemente unidos.El libro se encuentra estructurado en tres partesprincipales. La primera se corresponde con unalectura teórica del abordaje de los primeros criminólogoso sociólogos respecto a la pena y la desviación.Desde Beccaria hasta Durkheim todos losautores clásicos pasan por la pluma de Melossi. Losdiferentes estudiosos partieron d…

ODIN, EL DIOS VIAJERO: La influencia de la Mitología Nórdica en la creación del Turismo

Dadas las condiciones ambiéntales necesarias, la segunda gran Guerra dio como resultados un crecimiento económico y una disponibilidad de consumo sin precedentes a la vez que un gran avance en la condición técnica de los países vencedores quienes, indudablemente, observan la creación de una nueva actividad en donde se “expande” el derecho a las vacaciones para una gran cantidad de segmentos, el turismo. Esta masividad es paralela no solo a la economía de consumo sino a la turistificación de las economías emergentes. Dentro de esta coyuntura, muchos historiadores apuntan al mundo greco-romano como el arquetipo ideal y cultural del turismo moderno y los viajes. Si bien la influencia de Roma e…

Small-Scale Sport Events and Local Community Perceptions

With issues related to overtourism and, more specifically, tourismphobia, the impacts of any tourism-related activities are being scrutinised. Events falling under this category are therefore being scrutinised. Community events having been hailed to contribute to bridge the gap between locals and visitors, this chapter is going to look at small scale events and, more specifically, community sport event in Winchester (UK). Research carried by Seraphin et al. provided evidence that locals are overall very supportive of events going on in the city. That said, the research did not look at types of events, but events overall. This chapter is therefore going to provide a close up on a specific ty…

Chile helps Chile: exploring the effects of earthquake Chile 2010

Purpose– The purpose of the present paper is to explore the political discourse present in the show Chile Ayuda a Chile [Chile helps Chile] to support the survivors and victims of the last earthquake hit Chile in 2010. Based on the belief that nationalism plays a vital role in cementing the process of recovery by making survivors believe that they, after all, have a new opportunity to be on feet again.Design/methodology/approach– The visual methodology (enrooted in the analysis of content) is the chosen technique to develop five indicators which replicates the nationalist sentiment of Chileans post-disaster context. The archetype of nationalism is activated whenever the community is in dang…

Formas de ocio en la antigua Roma: desde la dinastía Julio-Claudia (Octavio Augusto) hasta la Flavia (Tito Flavio Domiciano)

<span>Basados en una mitología netamente política (helénica) y poseedores de recursos </span><span>estratégicos favorables, los romanos se convirtieron en una de las civilizaciones </span><span>dominantes de su tiempo. En este sentido, muchos investigadores dedicados al turismo, </span><span>actualmente, han investigado los orígenes y las formas de ocio en la antigua Roma, </span><span>aunque de manera superficial y muy general. El objetivo del presente trabajo es profundizar sobre las formas de ocio en la Roma Imperial durante las dinastías Julio-Claudia y Flavia, para así poder explicar cuál era la relación del ocio, como institución, …

Ahmad, Jared (2018): The BBC, The 'War on Terror' and the Discursive Construction of Terrorism. Representing al-Qaeda [La BBC, la Guerra contra el terror y la construcción discursiva del terrorismo. Representando Al-Qaeda]. New York, Palgrave Macmillan. I

Tourism and climate change: impacts, adaptation and mitigation

In recent years, climate change has caused a set of disasters and economic troubles for the globalized economy. This book presents a clear diagnosis of the climate change dilemma for industrial and...

Halal Tourism in Bali, Why Not?

The case studied in this chapter is about the discourse of halal tourism (HT) to be implemented in Bali, and to be proposed as layer in special interest tourism (SIT). It aims to offer a framework that attempts to demystify the halal dimensions attributed at non-Muslim destination. Literature review is used as method of the study. Discussion of this chapter lies on the basic elements to be attributed to HT and SIT as a basis to strengthen and to support the framework derived from the review literature and to clarify the record of literature which suggests economic benefits by providing HT in the non-Muslim-friendly destination and sustaining tourists' arrival by mapping SIT as priority in d…

The Other in Western Civilization

This chapter explores how the Otherness was imagined by Europeanness, as well as the stereotypes, prejudices and idealized image around the non-Western Other. This section not only discusses to what extent Europe launched to colonize the world but the socio-cultural background for the European proclamation of supremacy over the rest of the world. The perverse core of European ethnocentrism rests in its paternalism to understand the cultural difference, adjoined to the rise and consolidation of Science, which paradoxically accelerated what David Riesman dubbed ‘the Other-oriented’ gaze. This is the moment of great technological breakthrough and the flourishing of romantic novels, literature …

A tanto años de Cromañón: ¿Y después de esto qué?

Ante momentos de dolor y trauma, la sociedad elabora diversos arquetipos o procesos de resiliencia con el fin elaborar los eventos que pueden afectar la confianza que depositan los ciudadanos en sus instituciones. Cromanon no solo es un caso unico por la diversidad de actores involucrados, sino que pone evidencia variables que parecen no darse en otros procesos de duelo como ser los atentados a la Amia o los “desaparecidos en la ultima dictadura”. La naturaleza de accidente anunciado de Cromanon, y la falta de una sentencia firme, hacen de este movimiento un campo fertil para el analisis cientifico. El presente trabajo exploratorio tiene como objetivo principal someter a dos textos, Cromano…

The Rise of the Nation-State and Free Transit

With a focus on Anthony Pagden, this section delves into the conquest of Americas, and explains how the manipulation of the concept of hospitality legitimated the subsequent dispossession of aboriginal lands. In part, this was because Spain colonized this continent as Rome did Europe, but, and most important, hospitality played a vital role subordinating the indigenous to European archetype, endorsing and granting legitimacy to Spain’s rule over this New World. In so doing, hospitality not only accompanied the ideological discourse of nationhood, but free transit became the touchstone of the West.

The Power of Literature to Decipher the Archetype of Lone-Wolf

The Soviet Union collapse marked the end of the Cold War and the rise of the US as the only superpower, at least until 9/11, a foundational event where four civil aeroplanes were directed against the commercial and military hallmarks of the most powerful nation. Terrorism and the so-called War on Terror characterized the turn of a bloody century whose legacy remains to date. The chapter explores the dilemmas of lone-wolf terrorism from the lens of literature as well as cultural theory. The authors hold the thesis that terrorism activates some long-dormant narrative forged in the colonial period respecting to the “non-Western other.” Having said this, the chapter dissects the plot of some no…

A Review of “Travel and Geographies”

Economía del riesgo, un análisis crítico a la mirada de Ulrich Beck

Beck, Ulrich (2006), LasociedaddeLriesgo:haciaunanuevamoder-nidad, Paidos, Barcelona, 393 pp., isbn 84-493-1892-0

Creating a new epistemiology for tourism and hospitality disciplines

The present paper develops the need for an all-encompassing view of tourism, exploring the limitations of other previous approaches. Under the premise that tourism is associated to a dream-like sub-system which controls social and personal behaviour, it is hypothesised that a new methodology of understanding tourism from a cross-cultural point of view, rather than purely a Western point of view, is needed. Our thesis is that there is not one unique definition of tourism, but many definitions, adjusted to the requirements of each society, and demanding a new systemic dialogue involving economics, religion, politics and security. This is an inter-linguistic effort to link the most representat…

Education as a Strategy to Tackle Over Tourism for Overtourism and Inclusive Sustainability in the Twenty-First Century

Overtourism is a systemic indicator of failure in the process of planning and destination management and temporary patchworks will not solve it. Inclusive Sustainable Tourism is proposed as a lasting intervention to address the evil of Overtourism. Cultural analysts call the attention on over-tourism as a post-modern social malady which exhibits the decline of the social bondage. This vantage point needs to meet with the more pragmatic ones advanced by tourism management practitioners and find an agreeable middle ground. It is believed that both sides find agreement in the need for providing appropriate educational interventions to overcome the problem of Overtourism.

The War on Terror

9/11 has changed the world in many senses. It introduced not only fear in the contemporary society, but also ignited the counter-reaction to the US in what G. W Bush dubbed as “War on Terror”. This chapter centers on a philosophical discussion that relates the international geopolitics with the sociology of terrorism. Basically, the archetype of 9/11 has woken the interests of many scholars though, to date, it is ideologically inspired. Paradoxically, while much attention was paid on the archetype of 9/11 as a founding event that subordinated other similar events, less understanding of the issue scholars have. This chapter places the war on terror and 9/11 under the critical lens of scrutin…

Event Management and Terrorism in a Global Order

Over the recent years, the public spectacle and media events have become fertile grounds for terrorist attacks. Particularly, media events play a leading role enhancing the social cohesion as well as revitalizing the psychological frustrations that happened during the working days. Paradoxically, terrorism needs to maximize its gains while the costs are minimized. The spectacularisation tourism and events offer a double-edge sword. The same attractiveness that makes global cities a safer place to live are employed by the terrorist cells to cause chaos and uncertainty. The chapter theoretically explores the difficult interrelation between terrorism and event management as well as the concept…

Neoliberalism in the Culture of Terror

One of the most troubling aspects of neoliberalism is that paradoxically though it is widely used and cited in the different studies, books, and dissertation in social sciences, little is known respecting its nature. This is the reason why the present chapter theorizes on neoliberalism, its different meanings, as well as its ideological core. Today’s neoliberalism coincides with something else than the need to adopt free trade globally to curb social conflict. It traverses many other fields that are confronting neorealism. I dissect, here, not only the evolution of liberal mind through different authors and authoritative voices, but also how 9/11 and an imposed culture of fear gradually und…

Antropología del turismo en el siglo XXI

Desde la introduccion, por parte de Jafar Jafari (2005), de las cuatro plataformas del turismo; recuerdese, apologetica la cual remarca los beneficios del turismo en las comunidades locales, como la precautoria en cuyo caso se reparan en los efectos no deseados, pasando por la adaptativa y la cientifica, no ha existido un esfuerzo comprensivo (sostenido en el tiempo) por parte de los investigadores por revisar los sustentos epistemologicos de la disciplina. El turismo hoy en dia se lo define como una actividad netamente economicaproductiva y en razon de tal, el marketing y el management han extendido sus tentaculos influyendo notablemente no solo en los programas de estudios, sino tambien e…

Dark Tourism Tribes: Social Capital as a Variable

There is a recent morbid tendency to consume (gaze) sites of mass death, mourning and suffering. This tendency was baptized in different forms such as dark tourism, thana-tourism or mourning tourism to name only a few. To date, no matter the multiplication of theories and studies, two great tendencies coexist. On one hand, some voices allude to the dark tourism as a mechanism of reisilience which helps community to recover after a disaster takes hit. The other signals to the pedagogical functions of dark tourism as a fertile ground to develop empathy with the Other’s pain. The present chapter reviews the strengths and weaknesses of both position with strong focus on the cultures of neo-trib…

Book Review: Dialectics in Social Thought

Tourism in the Days of Morbid Consumption

This chapter centers on the changes, limitations and future challenges tourism research faces in the years to come. In the days of morbid consumption, which means the proliferation of new dark forms of consumption as dark tourism, slum tourism, last day tourism or even war-tourism, scholars seem to be misguided or trapped into conceptual gridlocks. In fact, our grandparents chose other types of destinations for their holidays. Instead, new forms of tourism—more oriented to spaces of destruction, mass death and suffering—are surfacing. This chapter, echoing the main contributions of Dean MacCannell, calls for the introduction of ethics in business. This begs the following question: to what e…

Banalizing the Alterity

This chapter discusses the problem of poverty as something finely integrated in dark tourism. Though originally, both concepts sound very distant, no less true is that dark tourism and slum tourism are inextricably intertwined. Throughout this chapter review, we placed a hot debate on the role of globalization as a chief agent oriented to connect dissimilar economies into an all-encompassing system. The question whether tourism should be considered ethical or not still remains open. In days of Thana-Capitalism the suffering pivoted as the main commodity not only that helps structuring social institutions, but the necessary mediator between lay-people and their states.

Research Methods in Dark Tourism Fields

The current chapter delves into the methodologies as well as limitations of used method in dark tourism fields. As fieldworkers are familiar, sometimes interviewees not only are incognizant of their inner-world, but in other occasion, they simply do not say the truth to protect their own interests. Though in tourism and dark tourism fields, researchers are prone to administer questionnaires or interviews as the main methodological option, no less true is that results are far from being clear or have very problems to be organized in an all-encompassing model.

What does insurance purchase behaviour say about risks?

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the world of insurances as rites of adaptancy and resiliency before risk and disasters. The research on risks, both perceived and real, has become a frequent theme of academic research in the recent past. Design/methodology/approach – The information given by the superintendencia de Seguros de Buenos Aires involves 100 per cent of the insurances companies of Argentina. The reading of insurance demands corresponds with a new method in the studies of risks. Findings – Using advanced probability theory and quantitative techniques, risk management researchers have been able to construct sophisticated mathematical-statistical models of risk. Research limitat…

Maids and housekeepers at luxury hotels: life stories in hotels of Buenos Aires, Argentina

The tourism industry evinces a high turnover of staff which needs further hard training and organisation. Broadly speaking, the service quality seems to be directly proportional to excessive working hours, which are accompanied by less-paid wages and hard working conditions. This paper interrogates furtherly on the (real) motivations of maid and housekeepers who are professionally educated to serve high purchasing power tourists. The research focuses on the needs, socio-economic background of maid and housekeepers as well as the pro and cons of their daily tasks. Based on the life story and story-telling and as the main method of study, we conduct exploratory research -sampled by 8 in-depth…

TURISMO: UNA PERSPECTIVA EMPRESARIAL

Empire and Democracy. A critical reading of Michael Ignatieff

Empires expand their hegemony combined two contrasting forces; one is violence the second is characterized by persuasion. Ideology works in these contexts, as an efficient instrument of self-indoctrination whereby dominated cultures accept the cultural matrix of empire. In this vein, the present essay-review not only questions the employment of human rights in the liberal thought, but also tries to respond to the conceptual problems of liberalism to understand terrorism. Based on two seminal texts written by the liberal Michael Ignatieff, we formulate the thesis that liberalism supports the war against terror because of its doctrine of self-determination.

Comparing the Socio-Political Ethics of Fighting Terrorism with Extreme Self-Defense in USA

In this study the authors adopted a post-positivist research design philosophy to explore the likelihood that Americans would support extreme self-defense policies like torture, reducing human rights or banning Muslims to fight against global terrorism, especially after 9/11 and in light of the Trump conservative government. The authors grounded their research questions into the literature to form hypotheses in a correlational design strategy which they tested using nonparametric statistics. They collected opinions from 3213 Americans during 2016-2017 about applying extreme self-defense tactics to combat global terrorism and how these opinions contrasted between those holding a conservative…

Swine flu in Buenos Aires: beyond the principle of resilience

PurposeThroughout April/May of 2009 a new type of virus surfaced in Mexico and the USA, denominated H1N1 or swine flu, that has been immediately disseminated worldwide. Even though the mortality of this virus has been slow, comparing with other antecedents, the mass‐media articulated a troublesome discourse that put the world in tenterhooks waiting for the evolution of the symptoms. Emulating the mythical archetype of what we knew as Spanish flu, which affected more than 50 million people during 1918 and 1920, journalism triggered panic in the four corners of the world. Under such a context, the purpose of this paper is to explore the connection between the coverage of mass‐media and press …

Huntington and the liberal thought. Problems of Anglo-democracy to understand politics

The liberal thought has inspired philosophy and sociology during years. From its view, US has two main goals. One is to expand the civilized culture to other non-western countries, and second to grant the democratic values. Paradoxically, terrorism poses one of the most troubling aspects of contemporanean democracy. On one hand, not only it defies the democratic resources to anticipate the next blow, but also put US to conduct one-sided attacks to autonomous countries. To legitimize the expansion of this new imperial order, the liberal discourse appealed to two strategies: first and foremost, denoting pejoratively as the case of Latin America that there is a cultural matrix that impedes the…

Sociologìa del Turismo y el tiempo libre [Sociology of tourism and leisure time]

Sobre la Violencia. Seis reflexiones marginales (En respuesta a S. Zizek)

The Problem of Terrorism

In the ninetenth century, many migrants ethnicities from central Europe arrived in the United States. This happened for two main reasons: the passage from a medieval to an industrial society, and the pauperization of European peasants who were pressed to migrate to new promising destinations. Within this cohort of migrants, many anarchists exerted a radical violence against capital owners. While they were resisted, often repulsed and exiled from the United States, newly emergent unions pressed nation states for further working enhancements. At the time, the nation state ceded to these unions better conditions of work, which facilitated the rise and expansion of modern tourism: terrorism was…

Review of Skoll (2016) Globalization of American Fear Culture: the empire in the Twenty-First Century

Let Me in! The Affirmation of a Radical “Other”

In the preceding chapters, we carefully revised the history of colonial expeditions, the intersection of the native “Other” with science, and the evolution of leisure travels and the consolidation of the tourism industry. We make the point that after the terrorist attacks in 2001 in the US, Western civilization entered a state of crisis which gradually tended to demonize the non-Western “Other”. These chapters acted as conceptual platforms that guided readers to understand the role played by hospitality in the configuration of the modern nation-state. Although illustrative to some extent, these chapters lacked an empirical approach. This chapter, complementarily, keeps an empirically based …

Street Food as a Special Interest and Sustainable Form of Tourism for Southeast Asia Destinations

Sustainable development is an objective that every destination is aiming at. This chapter provides evidence that street food, as a special interest for of tourism, if appropriately explored, has the potential to contribute significantly to the sustainable tourism development of Southeast Asia, and more generally to emerging destinations. Within this context, there is an opportunity to convert street food into a tourism resource that can align with the SDGs of the UNWTO. From a management point of view, this chapter highlights the fact that destination marketing organisations need to rethink the type of products and services offered to visitors and more importantly how they advertise themsel…

Tourism planning and innovation: The Caribbean under the spotlight

International audience; The importance of the islands working together toward a multicentre product for tourists has been highlighted asearly as the 1980s, and yet hardly anything has been done in that sense. Can cluster be considered as the wayforward for the sustainable development of the Caribbean? This question could be considered as the first step ofthe tourism planning process. Hierarchical method or linkage method that works by identifying entities thatmatch each other based on the investigator selection of similar attribute categories is the most suitable clusteringapproach for the Caribbean. Despite the fact that cluster appears as a potential solution for issues faced by someCarib…

Terrorism and the Allegory of the Lone Wolf: From 9/11 to COVID-19

The lone wolf is a personality type that symbolizes individualism and a deep yet sometimes dangerous quest for self-search. At its very extreme, this search turns out to become hatred for anything that these wolves cannot identify themselves with. In this regard, even some societies are lone wolves. We have lone wolf groups, communities, societies, and even nation-states. By analysis, terrorists carry certain traits of lone wolves, although not every lone wolf would be(come) a terrorist. Some rather grow into hermits and saints. Globalization, a central theme of this book, has a lot to do with the development of the lone wolf trait the way we see it now. Instead of flattening the world’s cu…

Reconnecting with poverty: new challenges of disaster management

PurposeIt is clear that poverty can be a key factor to take into consideration at time of potentiating or mitigating the unexpected aftermaths of disasters. In some extent, the degree of vulnerability created by poverty leads scholars to preclude material conditions of life plays a pivotal role in disaster rebuilt. Nonetheless, the present paper aims to explore precisely the connection between the false conceptualization of poverty as pathways towards the conditions of disasters with the disaster in such.Design/methodology/approachThis thesis is that the poverty is a humanitarian disaster often intellectualized as cause of disaster in order for real liable actors not assume their faults. Th…

How Terrorism Changed the Ways of Interpreting Hospitality

The consolidation of Thana-Capitalism doubtless affected the tourism industry, but also changed the ways in which the Other is conceived. Needless to say, anthropology should play a leading role in providing new theories to understand ‘cosmopolitanism’, and the position of this global dangerous Other in Europe. Discussing and engaging directly with Derrida as well as other scholars, this chapter focuses on how hospitality is dying. The end of hospitality represents a serious challenge of Europe simply because it was ‘the alma matter’ of its rationality and social trust. At times, terrorism targets ‘the exemplary centre of consumption’ to extortionate the developed nation-states, the surveil…

Mobilities and Globalization in the Aftermath of COVID-19

Will COVID-19 kill tourism? This was a big question that came to trouble everyone dependent upon tourism, especially in the early days of it being declared a pandemic. Before it became a pandemic, experts opined that Chinese tourists and tourism businesses would be cut off from it; certain political groups in the US considered this to be a blessing in disguise. Covertly and overtly, many even celebrated how COVID-19 would dent the Chinese economy. Then, it was declared as a global pandemic, and panic ensued. The US and Europe found they no longer had the upper hand over China in containing it; rather, to the surprise of many, the Chinese government proved it could weather a pandemic much be…

Assessing the case of Dengue in Argentina 2009: discrimination and fear

After almost a decade, the re-appearance of Dengue in Argentina caused panic and fears. Unlike Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay where policies of preventions have been followed, the future of dengue is uncertain for Argentina; this paper does not have any political affiliation but emphasizes the role that mass media play in the coverage of epidemics. The question as to whether a newspaper or mass media corporation should maintain a minimum of objectivity is too complex to be resolved in this short article. However, we have so far set forth a model which will help other researchers to interpret topics of this nature in the future. In moments of disorder, uncertainty or disaster, societies experi…

The End of Tourism as We Know It

The present chapter posits an interesting discussion revolving around the term Thana Capitalism, which was originally formulated in earlier works. Originally formulated to serve as an opposite alternative against neo-pragmatism, neoliberalism toyed with the belief that the world can be united through the consumption and free trade. During 80s and 90s decades, the theory of development adopted tourism as an efficient instrument to struggle with poverty. Under the auspices of neoliberalism, modern tourism not only paved the ways for an “Kantian eternal peace,” but also conducted a much deeper process of democratization beyond the borders of Western civilization. After the recent, stock market…

Cuando viajar no es un placer: El divorcio en vacaciones

En los últimos años los especialistas en psicología y los terapeutas, se han dado cuenta que existe un cambio en los patrones de conducta en el veraneante cuando debe ser reinsertado en su vida laboral cotidiana. Estos cambios van desde la depresión hasta el divorcio, y han sido clasificados como “síndrome post-vacacional”. Si bien, por un lado, la cantidad de síntomas de este síndrome hace muy difícil el reconocimiento por parte de la academia, la realidad es que parece existir una relación directa entre el divorcio, siempre un fenómeno en ascenso, con las vacaciones y el turismo. El presente trabajo de investigación reúne evidencia que no solo refuta dicha hipótesis sino que pone en cuest…

MIAMI: Turistas, Colonos y Aventureros en la última Frontera de América Latina

Cuando alguien decide viajar, se deben dar dos elementos, hospitalidad, es decir una proteccion temporal y un motivo para hacerlo; si ambas cosas no se dieran, uno se encontraria frente a una conquista. En este contexto, Hernan Iglesias Illa, escritor de nacionalidad argentina radicado en Nueva York, trae este libro en donde combina una prosa llevadera con experiencias y vivencias de quienes han tenido que Migrar a Miami en busqueda de un mejor porvenir. Indescriptibles son las razones que llevan a una persona a abandonar su lugar de residencia, rompiendo temporalmente (en ocasiones en forma definitiva) con sus amigos, familiares, y recuerdos. En este sentido, Miami se transforma para miles…

COVID-19 and the End of Hospitality

The turn of the century has brought many mega threats for the West, such as terrorism, natural disasters, and virus outbreaks including SARS, H1N1, Ebola, and now COVID-19. An invisible micro-organism suddenly paused our progress towards a globally interconnected flat world. We now realize that super-structures driving economic development cannot grow in specific directions without destroying themselves in certain other directions. The precautionary logic suggests the rational planning aided by our technological progress ought to alleviate most of these problems. The manner in which we deal with disasters like COVID-19, however, does not inspire confidence. Application of the precautionary …

Book review: Rodanthi Tzanelli, Socio-Cultural Mobility and Mega-Events: Ethics and Aesthetics in Brazil 2014 World Cup

Challenging the negative images of Haiti at a pre-visit stage using visual online learning materials

Post-conflict destinations can struggle to attract visitors because of their negative image. Research addressing this remains limited. The same can be said about the education of tourists. This research paper contributes to the literature in both areas as it examines the proposition that the education of tourists at a pre-visit stage using online, game-based material could be effective in challenging the negative perception of these destinations. From a destination management point of view, this paper offers an alternative to existing promotional material as there is little evidence at the moment that existing strategies are effective. From a conceptual point of view, this paper contributes…

RESEÑA DEL LIBRO: PSICOLOGÍA SOCIAL DE LOS VIAJES Y DEL TURISMO

En su capitulo introductorio, el autor analiza las diferentes corrientes e instrumentos metodologicos como asi los fundamentos esenciales que hacen de la Psicologia Social una disciplina interesada en los estudios turisticos. Basicamente, el turismo ha crecido en las ultimas decadas con una fuerza inusitable a pesar de los diferentes “atentados” en todo el mundo entre 2001-2004. Uno de los aspectos de mayor interes en el tratamiento del capitulo es la explicacion metodologica de las diferentes herramientas disponibles en los estudios del fenomeno como asi tambien sus principales limitaciones y situaciones de aplicacion, los mapas cognitivos, encuestas, etnografias, entrevistas y tecnicas de…

The media or the message? An examination of myths as resources to understand the tourism phenomenon

The present paper discusses the histories of tourism knowledge. The authors argue that tourist travel should be considered in the perspective of broader institutions enrooted into the mythical structures of cultures. The inadequacies of some of the previous attempts to understand tourism from various methodological perspectives are noted. Then, myths are introduced as offering alternate explanations of the tourism phenomenon. Myths have two pronged advantages in understanding tourism: they contain our collective historical understanding about tourism; also, they are a methodological solution to tap into the wealth of tourism knowledge hidden in expressive artefacts. These claims are verifie…

Conflictive Touring

Problems to understand social phenomenon associates to our misconceptions, stereotypes and prejudices imposed during our early socialization. This happens not only with tourism which is valorized as a right of all citizens in modern societies, but also with terrorism, judged as the main threat of West. However, what would happen if both would be different sides of the same coin? This essay review explores the roots of tourism and terrorism during the process of unionization in US. What on one hand resulted in a hyper-mobile process that shore up tourism, on another was a desesperate attempt to struggle against terrorism. In this vein, it is safe to say that tourism is terrorism by other mea…

The portrait of Dean MacCannell – towards an understanding of capitalism

Certainly, the sociology of tourism has gained recognition over the last decades. This achievement was based on the legacy and contribution of many voices, but one of them deserves my personal admi...

Commentaries on our new ways of perceiving disasters

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to help readers gain more understanding of the new phenomena of terror, risk, and threat perception.Design/methodology/approachVarious authors are reviewed: Castel, Beck, Baral, Kellner, Sabada, Korstanje, and in particular, Baudrillard.FindingsSeveral matches are found among the reviewed authors which comprise, for example: late modernity (from 1970 to date) witnesses an increase of fears, panic, and risk assessments in social imaginary; these concerns are part of a process that opens the future to the contingency. That way, the decision‐making process in human beings sheds light on certain aspects of life such as health, body‐care planning but this has …

From the Risk Society to Thana Capitalism

The current paper focused on the spectatularization of disasters as the main commodity thana capitalism exchanges. The discussion around the crimes against mankind perpetrated by Nazis in the clandestine concentration camps opened the doors towards new insights respecting the roots of thana capitalism. Nazis violated human rights secreting their crimes in a moment of the world where millions certainly died. Today´s philosophers are shocked to see how Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was the sanctuary of the horrors of the Second World War, sets the pace to a new allegory, intended to entertain thousands of tourists, many of them unfamiliar with these events. As a highly-demanded tourist destinatio…

A World without Islam

The Effects of COVID-19 on the Rent-a-Car Industry

Doubtless, COVID-19 has accelerated an economic financial crisis since 2008, affecting seriously not only the tourism industry but the global commerce. Governments have adopted different positions and programs to mitigate the economic aftermath of COVID-19. As never before in its history, tourism has been placed between the wall and the deep blue sea. Although the interests and studies evaluating the impact of COVID-19 have captivated the attention of countless scholars, less attention was given to the rent-a-car industry, which occupies a central position in the tourist system. As substitute competitors of train, bus, and airplanes, the rent-a-car organizations seem to be a quintessential …

Tourist Gaze Reconsidered

The term tourist gaze was coined initially to represent those superficial expectations that tourists have on destination communities; tourists impute their ideas of authentic experience upon destination residents and their social structure and see what they have predetermined to see. This is made more real when local communities consciously act out the desired roles for financial reasons. Thus, gaze leads to surreally authentic experiences. However, does this always happen? Say, in community-centered tourism where empowered destination communities choose tourists, tourists do not have the privilege to gaze. These communities might even be able to apply their own versions of gaze upon the to…

The Application of Monetary Awards in Tourist Organizations

Over years, management and marketing has been influential and useful to organize the working condition in modern corporations in tourism fields. The classical literature suggests that motivated workers enhance their commitment respecting to the goal of corporation. In this process, the assistance of managers is vital to achieve the success. In doing so, the program of incentive (monetary awards) gives to workers a reason to internalize management decisions. This not only is not truth but also we have found in this case-study opposite evidence. The capital somehow, disorganizes the human relations and harmony in service organizations. Of course, outcomes of this review should not be extrapol…

Global warming and tourism: chronicles of apocalypse?

PurposeGlobal warming is a huge challenge faced by the mankind in the twenty‐first century and beyond. The paradox of ecology lies in the pervasive attitude of lay people who overtly condemn pollution but do not alter their individual practices. Unfortunately, the scientific community has still not reached unanimous conclusions about the causes or impacts of global warming. To close this gap, the present paper aims to stimulate discussion in two main senses: the relationship between industry and global warming; and the role of tourism in the coming decades.Design/methodology/approachBased on reading and criticism of many works, this paper provides a conceptual framework for readers to under…

Tourist behaviour: the essential companion

It is noteworthy to say to readers that Phillip Pearce is doubtless an authoritative voice in the psychology of tourism. On this occasion, he edits a book which entitles Tourist Behaviour: the esse...

Esser, F. & Stromback, J. (2014). Mediatization of Politics. Understanding the Transformation of Western Democracies. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 246. ISBN 978-113727583-7

The Globalization of Fear

In this chapter, we combine the advances of other disciplines to expand our understanding of terrorism and the fields of emotions. In this respect, as L. Howie puts it, the media industry engendered a culture of witnessing which not only is conducive to terrorism, but enlarged fear to other continents. The globalization of fear operates in a new field which is based on what Baudrillard named ‘the spectacle of disaster’. Though this vicious circle between the spectatorship of disaster and terrorism not to be broken, the problem is far from being solved. Terrorism and 9/11 as founding event ignited a new stage of capitalism which Korstanje called ‘Thana-Capitalism’. Unlike modern sociologist …

Mobility in and of the Empire: A Colonialist History of Mobility

Mobility is freedom. Freedom is power. Those who wield control over the mobility of others control their freedom. The global reach of this control was first evident in the history of colonialism. The empire both incentivized and restricted travel, depending upon who aligned with the colonial vision of the world. Unfreedom is a situation when there is no evident bondage but there is still no exercise of freedom. Fast forward from the times of the European empires, the contemporary forms of colonialism institutionalized this. Television shows, social media, and the internet made people unfree to aspirations that would truly liberate them but rather glued them to shallow pursuits. In this intr…

Eschatology and the Theory of Apocalypse

This chapter centers on the role of myth-building and myths as the touchstone of culture and society. It deals with the idea that far from being silly stories, myths are a representational archetype that helps society to resolve practical problems or philosophical quandaries. Having said this, one might speculate that the scatology, which is understood as a tradition that narrates the end of the world, has occupied a central position in the industry of cultural entertainment. However, this obsession for the apocalypse theory seems to be proportionally indirect to the scientific studies in the field. This suggests not only the needs of discussing why the human will opposes the desires of God…

COVID-19, Terrorism, and Conspiracy Plot: Everyone Is Guilty Until Proven Innocent

COVID-19 is reaffirming the tendency of nation-states to find imaginary enemies when hit with a crisis—enemies to whom its origins and perpetuation could be attributed. This is needed for their unity and survival. However, a strong and serious global pandemic like COVID-19 would need the identification of strong and serious enemies. This is a dangerous proposition if taken to anywhere beyond rhetoric. China is identified as the antagonist; yet, a real confrontation with China would cause more harm than what COVID-19 might cause. It is essential that we lead the world toward a new war, “against a virus”. This chapter reflects the problem of hospitality, as strongly associated with conspiracy…

Israel State, Genocide and Thana-Capitalism

The term “genocide” was originally coined by Lemkin just after the horrendous crimes committed against innocent civilians in Nazi Germany. At that moment, the SS officials disposed of a systemic rationalized system of death which was oriented to domesticate and eradicate the “inferior” or the undesired “Other”. The concentration camps were space of torture, violence, death and mourning that marked the state of Israel forever. Today things have changed a lot, and the state of Israel is accused of violating the human rights in Palestine. While we review the discussion of senior lecturers such as Slavoj Žižek, Richard Bernstein, Norman Finkelstein and Yakov Rabkin, we reconstruct the philosoph…

The Cultural Roots of Risk

This paper discusses the story of Mary and Roger an elderly couple who opted to buy a car, but later were pressed to sell it because they were unable to absorb the costs of insurance. The world of risks does not work in the same lines in North than South. This pieces invites the discussion to what extent risk perception is not an instrument for controlling workforce in under-developing nations. The mythologies of mobility have been formulated around life in the First World. They work as ideological devices to activate certain circuits of the economy, which in other times were relegated to peripheral positions. The industries of tourism and air travel transport millions travelers who enjoy t…

Daños colaterales. Desigualdades sociales en la era global

Daños colaterales, una obra estrenada hace un par de años por Zygmunt Bauman, sintetiza no sólo parte de su carrera profesional e intelectual, sino que pone el foco en las asimetrías causadas por el capitalismo avanzado, al cual el autor bautiza como modernidad líquida. Particularmente, la tesis central del trabajo de Bauman discute los alcances y los resultados de una gran desigualdad entre los que tienen y los que no. En parte, porque el estado nacional como protector de la ciudadanía, o como aquel organismo funcional a la seguridad general, dio paso a una nueva forma de estado, en donde lo social impone los riesgos y/o peligros que las personas deben afrontar en forma individual...

Nuevos Conceptos, Nuevas Realidades: revisando el rol de la belleza en la formación del turismo oscuro

Este artículo tiene como objetivo discutir el concepto de belleza a través de la teoría estética de Theodor Adorno y la noción de sublime en Kant. El turismo clásico priorizaba una idea apolínea de belleza, que con el tiempo ha cedido a formas mórbidas en el que el sufrimiento se ha transformado en el principal atractivo. El producto sol y playa ha sido reemplazado por visitas al Museo del Holocausto en Auschwitz, o a lugares plagados de pesar y sufrimiento. En este sentido, se discute la significación de la estética inscripta en la filosofía marxista de Adorno la cual se sitúa como un campo fértil para comprender el rol que representa el espectáculo del desastre en los medios de comunicaci…

Heritage that hurts: tourists in the memoryscapes of September 11

As the symbolic epicentre of American supremacy, the World Trade Centre was targeted by the September 11 terrorists to convey a message of fear to the USA and the rest of the world. To some extent,...

Cooperativismo e Turismo: a pobreza como eixo discursivo da agenda neoliberal

A teoria do desenvolvimento sem dúvida abriu uma brecha entre os intelectuais, o que se baseia em seus efeitos. Parte da biblioteca ou literatura especializada chama atenção para a dependência de estados pobres em relação às agências internacionais de financiamento tais como o FMI ou o Banco Mundial, enquanto outros destacam os benefícios de desenvolvimento que, associado ao turismo, tirou certas economias emergentes da estagnação econômica. Este artigo explora teoricamente parte das limitações e vantagens da teoria do desenvolvimento aplicada ao turismo e a hospitalidade; e o faz através d…

Pay Now, Consume Later: The Power of Delayed Gratification

This chapter analyzes the birth and development of modern tourism. The bubble model, an economic instrument that originated in Fordism, provides the direction to this analysis. Mass-scale production generated much frustration and discontent in society. Economists who historically suggested consumption as a great malady for the economy emphasize consumers’ self-control as the only way to reach a zero-poverty society. Tourism not only revitalized the social frustration of capitalism but also allowed rapid globalization of the world. For this project to be successful, all-paid packages and tours were widely offered to travelers. Prepaid tours or all-inclusive tours emerged as an excellent reas…

Terrorism in the Website

Without any doubt, terrorism causes higher levels of anxiety and very well enhances our fears as never before. The post 9/11 context witnesses the multiplication of xenophobic expressions, such as Islamophobia or tourist-phobia, only to name a few. These expressions result from a culture of intolerance, which not only was enrooted in the ideological core of western capitalism but was accelerated just after 9/11. Some voices emphasize the needs of employing technology to make this world a safer place. This chapter goes in a contradictory direction. The authors focus on the ethical limitations of technologies when they are subordinated to the ideals of zero-risk society. Echoing Sunstein and …

A Review of “Volcano and geothermal tourism: sustainable georesources for leisure and recreation”

La Fotografía en Pierre Bourdieu y el problema de la integración social

La siguiente reseña se orienta a la obra de Pierre Bordieu, Un Arte Medio: ensayo sobre los usos sociales de la fotografía, libro publicado por vez primera en versión francesa en 1965, y traducido en español en 2003 por Tununa Mercado. En este trabajo de inmensa calidad académica, la preocupación principal del autor radica en estudiar a la fotografía como forma o proceso ritual específico. Bordieu, comienza introductoriamente preguntándose: ¿Por qué la actividad fotográfica tiene tal predisposición a ser difundida que son muy pocos los hogares, al menos en las ciudades, que no poseen una cámara? Según el sociólogo francés, los recursos económicos y la fotografía están estrechamente ligados …

Terrorism, homeland safety and event management

As the last attacks on Boston showed terrorism is based not only on speculation but also on surprise. Terrorists do not want to destroy or to kill everybody, their goal is aimed to inflict and administrate fear to the witnesses. The fact is that tourism and mega-events represented a fertile source to perpetrate terrorist attacks, not only for the casualties but also by the psychological effects on citizenry. This paper explores the nature of terrorism in the context of leisure as well as proposing a valid model to understand the connection among tourism, event management and terrorism.

Heritage tourism: from problems to possibilities

Heritage tourism is, at least for anthropologists, a conception very hard to define, if not operationalize. In Heritage Tourism: From Problems to Possibilities, Yujie Zhu critically explores the co...

Evaluating the Risks of Technological Evolutions

Philosophical problems in the theory of non-place: Marc Augé

In recent decades, the theory of non-places has gained a wide recognition and esteem in the global journals. It is originally oriented to discuss the negative effects of postmodernism or hyper-mobilities in the real world. It was coined by French ethnologist Marc Auge. Although illustrative and pungent, Auge's argument should be seriously revisited. To what an extent a place can be called a non-place?, what are the specific condition for the non-places production? Auge explains his model respecting to three indicators, identity, conflict and tradition. Not only, our own fieldwork validated the belief that airports are spaces of conflict and identity, but we found serious ethical limitations…

Exegesis and myths as methodologies of research in tourism

Anthropology has given interesting paradigms to tourism-led research. From the role played by culture to the conflict between host and guest, anthropology has focused in mobility and tourism issues. Nonetheless, when we think in tourism we imagine an all-encompassing institution. There were many forms of tourism, each one enrooted in their own culture. Mythology and exegesis remind not only that other non-western forms of tourism are interesting to study but also how we can examine those cultural values that do not exist any longer. What this note of research sustains is that positivism monopolized in tourism fields some methods at the time pushing others to the periphery of knowledge, like…

Southeast Asia Tourism

The chapter starts from the assumption that in spite of the abundance of research about Southeast Asia, they are published by native English speakers such as Australians or Britons, instead of genuine Southeast Asians. In addition, they emulate long dormant discourses forged and used during the colonial rule to domesticate the non-Western “Other.” Alternating among the fields of heritage consumption, dark tourism, a post-colonial landscape, and of course the scourge of terrorism, these studies obscure more than they clarify – most probably replicating the essence of colonialism. This book aims to discuss new themes and horizons allowing youth researchers to produce knowledge from the bottom…

Horror movies post 9/11: delineating tourism in a context of certainty

In recent years, specialized literature has devoted much attention to the narratives of cinema and destination attractiveness. International cinema projects of the calibre of the Lord of the Rings ...

Understanding the Indiscipline of Tourism

Over last years, the current growth of tourism flourished in a wealth of courses, Ph.Ds., Masters and academic offerings that positioned tourism as a good perspective for students. Jafar Jafari signaled to the term “scientifization of tourism” to explain the ever-increasing attention given to this new field (Jafari & Aeser, 1988; Jafari, 1990, 2005). At a first stage, the great volume of bibliographic production offered an encouraging prospect in the pathways towards the maturation of this discipline. However, some epistemologists have recently alerted that not only tourism-research failed to develop a unified consensus of what tourism is, but also lack of a coherent epistemology that h…

Heritage Consumption in the Neo-Liberal Agenda

Buenos Aires city in the days post convertibility crisis appealed to the adoption of tourism as a fresh economic alternative to struggle against poverty and the financial crises. The currency exchange, as well as the abandonment of the convertibility system, favoured Argentina in many ways. For example, Buenos Aires was selected by neighbouring countries as a main tourist destination. This chapter reviews the effects of tourism in the urban landscape, such as real estate speculation, gentrification process, only to name few. The authors stress the role played by urban heritage in the process of touristification—as some voices adhere—which is conducive to the transformation of old industrial…

Terrorism in the Age of Information

While a lot of studies focus on the contours of cybercrime and cyber terrorism as well as their effects in daily lives, less attention has been given to the use of ICT by terrorists. In fact, through the ebbs and flows of technology, the society of information seems to develop a particular vulnerability to the fear instilled by terrorism. This particularly reveals a paradox because the original technology, which was oriented to make of our lives safer, is used by terrorist cells to inspire a terror-driven atmosphere, which only nourishes intolerance and ethnocentrism. The authors, in this review chapter, discuss critically the cutting-edge role of technology in the struggle against terroris…

The Risk, the Real, and the Impossibility of Life

The discourse of the Matrix not only wakes up philosophy from the slumber they are, but reflects the rise of fears which are proper of a culture, that manipulates anxieties to fix policies otherwise would be rejected. Basically, Neo is subject to an ethical dilemma which means that we are free to make the decision to live in a fake without suffering or in “the real of the dessert” as Morpheus put it. At this extent, if technology is used to protect humankind, Matrix evinces under some circumstances, it can oppress human beings when they renounce to their “free-will”. This chapter not only explored the limitations of the society of risks within liberal thought but taking into consideration t…

The Routledge Handbook of mobilities

Problems of Monetary Rewards in Tourist Organizations

Over years, management and marketing have been influential and useful to organize the working condition in modern corporations in tourism fields. The classical literature suggests that motivated workers enhance their commitment to the goal of the corporation. In this process, the assistance of managers is vital to achieve the success. In doing so, the program of incentive (monetary awards) gives to workers a reason to internalize management decisions. This not only is not truth, but also, we have found in this case-study opposite evidence. The capital somehow disorganizes the human relations and harmony in service organizations. Of course outcomes of this review should not be extrapolated t…

Emotionality, Reason, and Dark Tourism

The present chapter questions to what extent visitors in dark sites are really interested for heritage issues or understanding the roots of moral disasters as the specialized literature suggests or simply are in quest of pleasure-maximization. This text is based on a criticism of the book Heritage that hurts authored by Joy Sather-Wagstaff. Far from any emotionality, dark tourism represents an ideological mechanism to reinforce the supremacy of liberal cultural values which are enrooted in late-capitalism. As the previous backdrop, to what extent tourists visiting these sites emulate (living as victims) or produce a genuine empathy with suffering is the main question goes unnoticed for soci…

Supremacy of English in Tourism Research

Conexiones de viaje, turismo, tecnología y cohesión social en un mundo móvil

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