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Spojrzenie turysty
Czym jest podróż dla współczesnego człowieka?
Jak turystyka zmienia historię miejsc i obraz przyrody?
Dlaczego muzea coraz bardziej przypominają sklepy, a sklepy - muzea?
Turystyka i podróżowanie to niezwykle atrakcyjne pole do analiz socjologicznych. Klasyczna już praca Johna Urry’ego, profesora socjologii Uniwersytetu w Lancaster, o społecznej roli turystyki we współczesnym świecie przedstawia fenomen podróżowania w szerokim kontekście zmian ekonomicznych, społecznych i kulturowych. Przedmiotem analizy jest tu nie tyle rozwój sektora usług turystycznych, ile specyfika postmodernistycznych atrakcji turystycznych, stylizowanie historii i otoczenia, przemiana wizualnego (ale także cielesnego) doświadczenia turystycznego, zwłaszcza w dobie globalizacji. Okazuje się, że zarówno włóczędzy, jak i kosmopolityczni seksturyści wpisują się w niejednoznaczny świat masowej postturystyki.
(opis wydawcy)
Jak turystyka zmienia historię miejsc i obraz przyrody?
Dlaczego muzea coraz bardziej przypominają sklepy, a sklepy - muzea?
Turystyka i podróżowanie to niezwykle atrakcyjne pole do analiz socjologicznych. Klasyczna już praca Johna Urry’ego, profesora socjologii Uniwersytetu w Lancaster, o społecznej roli turystyki we współczesnym świecie przedstawia fenomen podróżowania w szerokim kontekście zmian ekonomicznych, społecznych i kulturowych. Przedmiotem analizy jest tu nie tyle rozwój sektora usług turystycznych, ile specyfika postmodernistycznych atrakcji turystycznych, stylizowanie historii i otoczenia, przemiana wizualnego (ale także cielesnego) doświadczenia turystycznego, zwłaszcza w dobie globalizacji. Okazuje się, że zarówno włóczędzy, jak i kosmopolityczni seksturyści wpisują się w niejednoznaczny świat masowej postturystyki.
(opis wydawcy)
280 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1990
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356 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 6, 2010
In Michel Foucault’s sense of the word “gaze,” knowledge is paramount. The gazer—all-seeing, all-knowing—quickly penetrates depths and layers to perceive a subject’s essence. In the last paragraph of his book, John Urry referes to Foucault’s gaze and its relation to travel and tourism:
Although John Urry refers to Foucault briefly in both the beginning and ending of his book, The Tourist Gaze, Urry is not using the term gaze in precisely the same sense as Foucault. As Urry explains, the tourist’s gaze, though ostensibly quite different from the medical gaze Foucault describes, is just “as socially organized and systematised as is the gaze of the medic” (1). Nevertheless, a major difference exists between the knowledgeable, totalizing gaze of a physician Foucault describes and the variety of gazes a tourist deploys. In terms of reception, the physician’s gaze is respected; by implication the tourist’s gaze is that of an amateur.
In devoting an entire book to analyzing the tourist’s fairly shallow gaze, Urry creates an implicit dichotomy. If the tourist’s gaze is marked by superficiality, kitsch, and inauthenticity then surely there must exist “something else,” a gaze that would somehow be different from that of a tourist. Commonly, distinctions are drawn between a tourist (the gauche novice) and the traveler (the knowing connoisseur).
In many ways, the tourist is the modern-day version of Mary Louise Pratt’s colonialist travelers who presume to “acquire” the countries they visit via their “imperial eyes.” In one ironic passage Pratt explains the motivation of a particular set of imperialist travelers who epitomized condescending discourse: “No one was better at the monarch-of-all-I-survey scene than the string of British explorers who spent the 1860s looking for the source of the Nile … [these:] Victorians opted for a brand of verbal painting whose highest calling was to produce for the home audience the peak moments which geographical ‘discoveries’ were ‘won’ for England” (202). These Victorian travelers who wrote about exotic landscapes and adventures for the armchair travelers’ consumption, prefigure the “pilgrims” Mark Twain lampoons in Innocents Abroad, the “ugly American” that figured in the mid-twentieth century literature and film, and the weary tourists satirized such movies as If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium.
Urry dates the advent of mass tourism to the beginning of the twentieth century when—for the first time—people other than just the upper classes of modern society were able to travel. Though Urry does comment, that with the breakdown of boundaries characteristic of postmodernism “people are much of the time ‘tourists’ whether they like it or not” (83) the distinction (and the stigma) nevertheless persists.
from a prior publication
But what now is happening, as tourism develops into the largest industry worldwide … [is that:] almost all spaces, history and social activities can be materially and symbolically remade for the endlessly devouring gaze … To return to Foucault, contemporary societies are developing less on the basis of surveillance and the normalization of individuals, and more on the basis of the democratization of the tourist gaze and the spectacleisation of place. (156)
Although John Urry refers to Foucault briefly in both the beginning and ending of his book, The Tourist Gaze, Urry is not using the term gaze in precisely the same sense as Foucault. As Urry explains, the tourist’s gaze, though ostensibly quite different from the medical gaze Foucault describes, is just “as socially organized and systematised as is the gaze of the medic” (1). Nevertheless, a major difference exists between the knowledgeable, totalizing gaze of a physician Foucault describes and the variety of gazes a tourist deploys. In terms of reception, the physician’s gaze is respected; by implication the tourist’s gaze is that of an amateur.
In devoting an entire book to analyzing the tourist’s fairly shallow gaze, Urry creates an implicit dichotomy. If the tourist’s gaze is marked by superficiality, kitsch, and inauthenticity then surely there must exist “something else,” a gaze that would somehow be different from that of a tourist. Commonly, distinctions are drawn between a tourist (the gauche novice) and the traveler (the knowing connoisseur).
In many ways, the tourist is the modern-day version of Mary Louise Pratt’s colonialist travelers who presume to “acquire” the countries they visit via their “imperial eyes.” In one ironic passage Pratt explains the motivation of a particular set of imperialist travelers who epitomized condescending discourse: “No one was better at the monarch-of-all-I-survey scene than the string of British explorers who spent the 1860s looking for the source of the Nile … [these:] Victorians opted for a brand of verbal painting whose highest calling was to produce for the home audience the peak moments which geographical ‘discoveries’ were ‘won’ for England” (202). These Victorian travelers who wrote about exotic landscapes and adventures for the armchair travelers’ consumption, prefigure the “pilgrims” Mark Twain lampoons in Innocents Abroad, the “ugly American” that figured in the mid-twentieth century literature and film, and the weary tourists satirized such movies as If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium.
Urry dates the advent of mass tourism to the beginning of the twentieth century when—for the first time—people other than just the upper classes of modern society were able to travel. Though Urry does comment, that with the breakdown of boundaries characteristic of postmodernism “people are much of the time ‘tourists’ whether they like it or not” (83) the distinction (and the stigma) nevertheless persists.
from a prior publication
August 2, 2015
I first read this when I was doing my degree and was driven by nostalgia to read it again. It was first published in 1990 and is very much of its time; utilising theories of Semiotics, Postmodernism and Foucault's idea of the 'gaze'. The section on photography was of most interest to me, but if you are studying the history of tourism or leisure, then I would say that this is a 'must read'. It is interesting how things have moved on - this was written before instagram, twitter, smart phones, and so on, but pre-empted the 'democratisation' of the gaze, without realising quite how technology would change photography and our roles as 'tourist' and 'viewer'.
February 1, 2012
A tourism classic for any student of tourism. Urry's book about the 'tourist gaze', how it all came to be, and what it means to the industry is a seminal work and is continues to be quoted in current tourism research sans limit. So far, I like it too. I should quote it sometime in a paper though, for coolness points of course.
November 29, 2013
A much more insightful read this time around!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews