Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
author examines the socially constructed nature of this concept as it relates to the materiality
of the landscape. Despite the fact the 'ghost town' is maintained in a state of 'arrested decay',
she fi nds that tourists engage with the authenticity of the site and its narrative imaginatively
through the ability of the landscape (a visual, external medium) to connect to internal percep-
tions, emotions, and even cultural beliefs about the West, the frontier and progress. This
suggests that authenticity in the context of the tourism landscape is something far more
complex than a simple dichotomy can capture.
The new geographies of tourism landscapes
Geographers have been among those tourism scholars pushing the boundaries of theoretical
advancement in the fi eld. MacCannell (1976) fi rst pinpointed the signifi cance of symbolisa-
tion in tourism. Yet questions remained as to the processes that mediate signifi cation and the
contested meanings between locals and tourists. While semiotics is not new to tourism studies
(Culler, 1981; Davis, 2005; Frow, 1991; Nelson, 2005), the formal introduction of Peircean
sem iot ics by Met ro -Rola nd ( 20 09 ) sh i f t s the empha sis away f rom i nter pret at ion i nto mea n i ng
manifested as thought and action. Like MacCannell's work, Urry's (1990) 'tourist gaze' was
also foundational, establishing the visual as a dominant trope in tourism. Again, its shortcom-
ings have been improved upon through the incorporation of landscape theories. In particular,
ideas about 'reading the landscape', much like reading a text, drawn from landscape studies
have been a fruitful contribution to tourism studies. 'Reading' as opposed to 'gazing' is
particularly useful in dealing with issues of heterotopia, mediation, contestation and the
consumption of places in tourism (Knudsen
et al.
, 2007).
While both landscape and tourism are highly visual, our experiences of tourism landscapes
are much more complex. Tourism landscapes, and the memories associated with them, invoke
all of our senses (see Edensor and Falconer,
Chapter 9).
They are multisensory, experienced
simultaneously as smellscapes (Dann and Jacobsen, 2002; 2003), soundscapes (Schofi eld,
2009) and tastescapes (Everett, 2008). Because landscape is experienced on all these levels,
Terkenli argues that more attention should be given to its multiplicity - the 'multiformity,
multitextuality, multivocality, multisemity, and so on' (2001: 199). In a similar vein, there
has also been movement to conceptualise the embodied experiences of tourism (see Chronis,
2006; Everett, 2008). Embodied experiences are the emotional and sensory reactions to
material objects. 'It is the sensory that animates the narrative,' argues Chronis (2006: 283);
'the sensory understanding and the emotional response brought about by objects [in the land-
scape] links directly the narrative of the past with the human body in its present actuality.'
Among the newer additions to theoretical perspectives on tourism landscapes has been
performance theory and non-representational theory (Baerenholdt
et al.
, 2004; Cloke and
Perkins, 1998; Coleman and Crang, 2002; Larsen, 2008,
Chapter 8
of this volume; Obrador
Pons, 2003). These perspectives understand landscapes as more than their representational
qualities and emphasise the dynamic processes of making places through movement. Places
are not static containers of experience but are made through the act of touring - walking,
sensing, doing
and
being. The performance of tourism places is accomplished by a
set
of
discourses and texts, bodies and objects, affects and percepts, technologies and mediums (see
Baerenholdt
et al.
, 2004; Coleman and Crang, 2002). Cloke and Perkins (1998) explore
adventure tourism in New Zealand, focusing on the sociocultural dynamics of these tourism
landscapes, the transcendence of tourism as a gaze to an embodied practice, and the discourse
of nature-based adventure tourism. Their study shows the non-representational qualities
of tourism as they deconstruct promotional materials in conjunction with performance
