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explains, the material semiotics of tourism are also bound up with a feeling of belonging, and,
ironically, of 'coming home'.
The attention to performativity has important implications in terms of how we understand
urban tourism. Urban spaces are always contingent, created through the myriad encounters of
both residents and visitors. As Bonta (2005) suggests, we should move beyond conceptualising
the urban tourism landscape as a fi xed text, and consider the embodied encounters that
constantly produce and reproduce the urban tourism destination. Under 'non-representational
geography' (Thrift, 2008) representations are regarded as 'fl uid and engaged' (Crouch, 2010:
62), as performative in themselves, as
doings
(Dewsbury
et al.
, 2002: 479; cited in Crouch,
2010: 62).
Moving on
Whilst authors such as Crouch (2010: 62) argue that non-representational geography is not
antagonistic to representations, the phenomenon of urban tourism raises some interesting
issues. An important one relates to the ontological status of urban tourism. The acts involved
in experiencing an urban tourism destination fi rst-hand are vastly outnumbered by mediated
encounters through a plethora of representations. The mass media has received considerable
attention in this context, but as Selby
et al.
(2010) discuss in relation to images of crime, the
explosion of social media has vastly increased the number and infl uence of representations of
tourism places. Not only are travel reviews and web blogs likely to be perceived as relatively
credible representations by consumers, but they are closely linked to the fi rst-hand experi-
ences of fellow place consumers, almost occupying a liminal space between fi rst-hand and
mediated experience. Whilst non-representational geographers would no doubt claim that
they are equipped to engage with such phenomena, current preoccupations have hardly
encouraged such an engagement. In terms of fi rst-hand experiences of urban tourism, it is
interesting that Angkor Wat (see Winter, 2007) can still be read (or encountered) as carefully
scripted and visual, where every morning the sunrise is greeted by hundreds of camera-
wielding backpackers clutching their
Lonely Planet
guides.
Likewise, the performances at the Taj Mahal (Edensor, 2000) are underpinned by the 'recipes
of acting' and a 'stock of knowledge' (Schutz, 1972) provided by the various ethnic, social and
cultural groups with which the visitors identify. In Liverpool (UK), the Beatles Story attraction
and the Magical Mystery Tour would be meaningless to those lacking a 'stock of knowledge' of
the Beatles. It is curious, too, that my short journey to work is impeded most mornings by eager
visitors spilling out of tour busses to take photographs of the Penny Lane
sign
.
In the context of urban tourism, it sometimes feels as if the case for non-representational
geography has been rather overstated, perhaps in order to reposition the discipline away
from the shopping mall and theme park fetish amongst semioticians. Whilst a more nuanced
and multi-sensual approach has evolved, there is still a risk that the non-representational
will be elevated 'not only above the visual, but often the social and cultural world' (Nash,
2000: 658).
Many urban tourism performances are still 'mediated by words . . . scripted, performed,
and watched' (Nash, 2000: 658). I have argued elsewhere (Selby, 2004, 2010) that phenom-
enology (Schutz, 1972; Schutz and Luckmann, 1974; Merleau-Ponty, 1962) has unfulfi lled
potential in addressing tensions between the representational and non-representational. The
work of Merleau-Ponty dismisses such dichotomies, in order to focus on 'being-in-the-
world'. The endeavour of existentialists such as Sartre (1969) to break away from the dualism
of being and appearance and emphasise the 'monism of phenomena' has become imbued with
