Abstract

This book examines how the growth of tourism in locations that have historically been considered geographically remote plays a major role in the consolidation and transformation of often longstanding and powerful cultural imaginaries about ‘the edges of the world’. The contributors examine the attraction of the sublime, remoteness, continental border-points, and the dangers of the sea in Finisterre (or Fisterra) in Galicia (Spain); Finistère in Brittany (France); Land’s End, Cornwall (England); Lough Derg (Ireland); Nordkapp or North Cape (Norway); Cape Spear, Newfoundland (Canada); and Tierra del Fuego (Argentina). While those travelling to these locations can be seen to be conducting some form of religious or secular pilgrimage, those who live in them have long contended with the implications of economic and political marginalization within global political economies.

This volume inscribes itself in the emerging scholarship on the role of imaginaries in tourism and beyond. The authors take the reader on an imaginative journey to various (physical) ‘edges of the world’. Their in-depth scholarly analyses reveal how people, in the past and today, are drawn to these peripheral geographical sites as tourists and pilgrims.

These case studies consider not only the touristic or even pilgrimage aspects of these special places, but also their history, liminality, spirituality and eventually their incorporation into the modern, global world. A valuable addition to the historic, geographical and tourist literature.

Nieves Herrero is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Her research interests include cultural heritage, cultural tourism and gender studies.

Sharon R. Roseman is Professor of Anthropology and Academic Editor of ISER Books at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Canada. She is editor of the European Anthropology in Translation book series (Berghahn Books).