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Image: 1949 “Le Regard Des Touristes”, Picture archive Canton Wallis, Switzerland. Co‐existence of two worlds. A confrontation of the defining stares. Do we see a TOURISTIC DESTINATION (from the point of view of the sitting tourists) or a PRODUCTIVE SPACE OF A TRADITIONAL CULTURE (from the point of view of the standing girl)? Can both co‐exist in the same space? Concretely, the presence of tourists means a different economy: e.g. restaurants, hotels
etc. able to provide greater wages than field work [see Kousis in Apostolopoulos 1996]. This economy pushes out other economies, other ways of life. The touristic transformations of space imply also a restructuring of the community pre‐
existing to the arrival of tourists.
Even if they are beneficial to the most (which sometimes they’re not), these changes can also meet resistance from those in power (usually elderly males) in the “traditional”, pre‐touristic, community. Also from those, of course, who find advantage in their submission to those in power. 25
Image: Crypt of St. Paul’s cathedral, London.
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Extreme action taken against touristification: Image: The consecration of the Sagrada Familia by Pope Benedict XVI on 7 November 2010 in front of a congregation of 6500 people, including King Juan Carlos I of Spain and Queen Sofia. The consecration has been accomplished even though construction is not finished. This mainly in order to avoid the Sagrada Familia turning into a purely touristic attraction. [cf. preceding slides]
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Image: According to Palestinian media: Sionists in front of Al‐Aqsa Mosque, 2010. (from: http://www.palestine‐info.co.uk; alternative source: http://www.habername.com/haber/mescidi‐aksa‐israil‐isgal‐siyonist‐48703.htm)
Tourism as a means of religious territorial claim in two diverging perspectives:
In the Muslim perspective: third holy place of Islam, place believed to have been visited by Muhammad, on something might be called today a “self‐discovery trip”, as reported in the Isra and Mi'raj chapters of the Kuar’an. In the Jewish perspective: the “Temple Esplanade”, i.e., the site of the Temple of Solomon destroyed by the Babylonians in the 6th century. The presence of these “tourists” is of course perceived and reported as an aggression, the claim being that the Mosque should destroyed to rebuild the Temple of Solomon. Also note that, to make things more complicated, the Al‐Aqsa Mosque has been built on the foundations of a destroyed Byzantine church. This is a place where inner territorial struggle of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic cultures has crystalized for thousands of years. As such, any act or presence here, touristic or other, has a far‐reaching meaning and global political implications. 29
1992 September 30: A spokesman for the main militant movement, the Gama'a al‐
Islamiya warned tourists not to enter the province of Qena, which includes some of Egypt's most famous Pharaonic temples and tombs. Since then, recurring tourist killings take place in the region. Images: screenshots of a BBC reportage about the Massacre Luxor 17.November 1997. 62 people killed were at the “attraction”: 4 Egyptians, 36 Swiss, 10 Japanese, 6 British, 4 Germans, 2 Colombian. Many bodies, especially of women, were mutilated with machetes. A note praising Islam was reportedly found inside one disemboweled body.
The tourist industry had been seriously affected by the resultant slump in visitors. September 11th, and subsequent bombings (Sharm el‐Shiekh 2005, Dahab 2006) further worsened the situation.
Here, THE TOURIST’S BODY ITSELF BECOMES AN INTEROBJECT OF STRUGGLE. He represents not only the world domination by the “Triad” (US, Europe, Japan). His mobility itself is in absolute contradiction with the local culture oriented towards the home [see course week 4]. As in the example of girl and tourists in Wallis, the tourist transforms a local society in ways bothering its traditional power‐holders and those sharing their power. Only here, the conflict has sharpened to the absolute extreme. Poverty, by the way, is not an incentive, here. The killers of Luxor were wealthy university students. As said, spatial extension of power is the issue. The tourists are both its actors and victims. 30
Of course, there are less violent ways of struggle. The situation illustrated here (Photo by
Jacques Lévy) can be considered as a moment of negotiation of the frontiers between the intimate and extimate in the public space.
In general, any gesture, any word in public space is a part of bottom‐up structuring of society. From this perspective, tourism at all times modifies local societies. It is a vector of a global culture. 31
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Here a critique of this individual plurality, as seen by Robert Musil (note that the writer Musil is among the first to point to this social plurality, long before [cf. Lahire 1998] or any other contemporary theoreticians of the plural individual).
At its beginning, the 20th century only scientifically discovers the plurality of the individual (e.g. with Freud) and the problems of identity linked. It is important that models capable of seizing this new individual’s world be proposed by the social sciences, and that they be kept up to date with social and technological developments. It is only with the help of such models and self‐representations that the plural individual makes himself able not to feel as an “ausgewaschene Mulde” (washed‐out mold) while conserving his plurality.
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From the spatial point of view, each identity of the plural individual has its place. It is linked to a context of action, composed of affordance and co‐presence (as we have seen). For some identities, this place corresponds to where the individual resides. For other identities, it does not. Thus mobility is an existential necessity for the plural individual.
Many aspects of this mobility can be classified as touristic, especially when allowing the expression of an identity outside of mechanisms of obligation (contact with friends in a pub, contact with nature in the mountain, in the national park, remembering your culture by visiting monuments, remembering your religion...)
Tourism, from this point of view, can be interpreted as
• a way to make multiple identities “tangible”, to turn them into a material reality
• but also a vector of complexification of individual identities (since it makes you discover further remote places and people, by the effect of serendipity)
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Other examples of multilocal identities.
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We’ve seen that individuals have multi‐local spatial identities. We can adopt another perspective: the perspective of places, saying that places are multi‐habited, i.e.
inhabited by a plurality of individuals in many diverse ways: residentially, touristically, professionally, etc.
The map shows the time spent in the cities of Lausanne and Zürich by the residents of their surrounding communes. Though not residents, they contribute to the social composition of these places, and, more importantly, to their unique position on the social map of identities and significations. 40