Abstract

This book explores the paradoxes of Self–Other relations in the field of tourism. It particularly focuses on the 'power' of different forms of 'Otherness' to seduce and to disrupt, and, eventually, also to renew the social and cosmological orders of 'modern' culture and everyday life. Drawing on a series of ethnographic case studies, the contributors investigate the production, socialisation and symbolic encompassment of different 'Others' as a political and also an economic resource to govern social life in the present. The volume provides a comparative inductive study on the modernist philosophical concepts of time, 'Otherness', and the self in practice, and relates it to contemporary tourism and mobility.

Tourism and the Power of Otherness is an insightful book, comprising a range of chapters that offer a very welcome variety both geographically and historically. The book effectively seduces, educates and seducates us into identifying and conceptualizing the various imaginaries and ideas of Otherness related to the fields of tourism, hospitality and mobilities.

In the past couple of years, an exciting, stimulating and fresh new field has emerged in tourism studies, mostly in tourism anthropology, about the role of emotions, everyday existence and experience in tourism. David Picard and Michael di Giovine’s edited book is, without doubt, an important contribution to this trend.

The book captures the attention of the reader and should be welcomed primarily in academia circles, but also in the tourism sector.

David Picard is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Research in Anthropology (CRIA), Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (FCSH) at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. His research interests include the anthropology of tourism and hospitality as well as land and resource tenure. Recent publications include Tourism, Magic and Modernity (2011).

Michael A. Di Giovine is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, USA. His research focuses on the anthropology of tourism and hospitality, mobilities, heritage studies, and religious tourism and pilgrimage. He is the author of The Heritage-scape: UNESCO, World Heritage, and Tourism (2009).

I heartily recommend the book to senior undergraduates and graduate students who study anthropology of tourism. I believe that the book allows readers to share a sense of the power of Otherness that extends beyond the realms of prevailing language in many tourism textbooks, which often merely validates the tourist-host encounters. By drawing on the language and theories of anthropology, it encourages all of us to attend to and work through difference, so as to make a difference.

This is a fascinating volume, one that succeeds in showing that although pilgrimage and tourism may seem quite different, similar forces are at work in both.

The experience of the tourist is frequently evoked, yet it remains conceptually elusive. This volume approaches the subject with a masterful perusal of the philosophical and anthropological underpinnings, exploring the crucial relationship between Otherness and Self. The reader is led to consider how this relationship underlies every successful tourist enterprise.

"Tourism and the Power of Otherness" is an intriguing collection, strong in terms of both theory and ethnography, and quite enjoyable to read. Picard and Di Giovine have brought together a diverse array of European scholars who provide fresh insight into a question of enduring importance: how tourism stages the encounter between the familiar and the strange.

Tourism and the Power of Otherness: Seductions of Difference is an excellent source for scholars new to the "otherness" debate as its structure is easily accessible with clear linkages between theory, praxis, and well-researched ethnographic evidence. This text is also a great resource for those wanting empirical ethnographic evidence, albeit mainly in the European context, which helps to untangle the complex relationship between host and guest in their eternal quest for a realized Eden as a tourism destination.

The quality of presented articles varies, some of them are more general, some of them are more equipped with the theoretical back-up, others concentrate more on the autobiographic reflections. This diversity constitutes the strength of the volume. All of the papers, thanks to the accessible language and the vividness of examples, offer a pleasurable reading, which provokes a fresh view into old questions.

This is a remarkable book. On first appearance, it appears to be a thin and light tome, but as you read into the chapters you come to realize that the depth and the complexity goes much further than you would have at first imagined. The concerns which are raised here
are about the really important issues which should inform a deeper understanding of the touristic experiences.