Themed Session: When “the Rest” enters “the West”: Renegotiating leisure in touristic settings
Convenor: Dr. Sybille Frank (Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany)

Since the beginning of modernity, tourist travel routes – and thus the paths of tourism researchers – have led almost exclusively from the West to the rest of the world (“the West and the Rest”). Correspondingly, as far as the western world was concerned, the presence of people from Asia, Arabia or Africa remained bound to the figure of the migrant or (illegal) nomad. In the last few years, however, the expansion and lower cost of travel opportunities on the one hand, and the economic upturn in parts of the global East and South on the other hand have meant that western destinations have become realistically accessible for more and more people from the former “rest of the world” in the framework of leisure-time travelling.

This session enquires from a postcolonial perspective whether and how western-influenced patterns of world order, constructions of identity, and processes of meaning-creation change when, in the context of cultural contacts influenced by tourism, it is no longer merely the case that “the West” visits the native lands of “the rest”, but instead that “the rest” suddenly stands on the doorsteps of western villages and cities, in order to consume locally, now in the role of tourists to be served,

a) their own culture in the western world, or
b) “the West” in the variety of its local cultures.

With which consequences, re-establishing or thwarting existing power balances between cultures, will “leisure” in these touristic settings be (re-)negotiated and (re-)experienced by different social groups?

By empirically investigating interactions between persons present face to face in specific places, who are separated by the greatest possible cultural distance and who are situated in power relationships that are challenged by traditional roles and cultural knowledge, the
session aims to examine the effects of leisure-time travelling upon travelers and their cultures of origin, as well as on those visited and those active in the service sector. On a theoretical level, it wishes to reflect on how the trans-nationality of the social can be captured
anew through the prism of postcolonial tourism.

Abstracts (limited to 250 words) should be sent to Sybille Frank (frank@stadtforschung.tudarmstadt.de), by 16th of May, 2011. Authors will be notified of acceptance of their abstract for presentation at the conference by 10th of June.

Please ensure that abstracts include all author names, institutions and an email contact for the lead author. Any special presentation equipment (e.g. slide projector) required should be noted in the email in which the abstract is submitted.