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indeed, that different tourists may have contrasting experiences of travel, does not negate the
fact that the consumption of tourism is structured by the material inequalities of wealth and
opportunity, which are differentiated according to class, ethnicity, gender and sexuality
(Perrons, 1999: 101). In addition, the differentiated mobilities of travel intersect with global
commodity chains and divisions of labour in which tourism produces and reproduces inequal-
ities between markets and destinations, no matter the good intentions of the 'mindful
traveller'.
McLennan states that 'it is both inaccurate and patronising to claim that culture should be
seen as a signifi cantly more important “determination” of social life today than it was back in
those simple “economistic” days' (1996: 57). Indeed, anthropologists from Malinowski (1984
[1922]) to Sahlins (1972) have long sought to demonstrate the centrality of culture in the
constitution of economic systems whilst Veblen (1925) and others (e.g. Adam Smith and
David Hume) have always recognised that commodities encompass more than mere use and,
indeed, exchange values (O'Neill, 1998: 81). Additionally, as Narotzky (1997: 94-8) demon-
strates, it makes no sense to compartmentalise 'culture' and decouple it from the economy -
economic relations permeate all aspects of our everyday lives, in as much as markets are also
embedded in multiple social relations and shaped by cultural meanings.
An equally consistent theme running through the 'new' economic and cultural geography
of tourism, with which the 'critical' turn is closely associated, relates to the inherent
'complexity' of post-industrial tourism (Milne and Ateljevic, 2001: 370). There is little argu-
ment that the political economy of tourism has become increasingly globalised, its structures
of ownership and fl ows of capital increasingly transnational, and the diversity of its workforce
more pronounced in some areas. However, this perspective appears to confuse complexity
with evidence of the
pluralisation
of power. However, notwithstanding that the world has
shifted somewhat towards a state of multi-polarity since the events of 1989, and the rise of
regional centres of capital accumulation beyond the capitalist heartlands, arguably a 'transna-
tional market-based free enterprise system' is now more pervasive than ever (Gill, 1995: 400).
Not only that, but the suggestion that power is fl uid and unstable (more on this later) ignores
the fact that the processes of privatisation and liberalisation associated with neoliberal
economics are forces that have been driven by the state as part of a move to restore shareholder
value and the structural power of capital (Harvey, 2006b).
The elusiveness of power
The 'critical turn' owes a substantial debt to Foucauldian thinking on the relationship between
power and knowledge/reason, symbolised by the publication of such seminal works as
The
Tour ist G aze
(Urry, 1990). Many analysts subsequently began to shift their attention towards
the social and cultural relations of power in tourism, drawing on Foucault's insights into the
interconnections between discourses and the power of surveillance in tourism (see Hannam,
2002: 229-33). Critical turn theorists thus conceive power as unstable and originating from
an 'assemblage of diverse sources' (Morgan and Pritchard, 1998: 165). In this regard, Cheong
and Miller (2000) are critical of binary/uni-directional models of power put forward in many
tourism studies, arguing that power permeates the micro-practices and interactions
of everyday life. Thus not only do locals have considerable discretion over the direction of
tourism development, but tourists themselves are often the 'targets of power' by virtue of
being in an unfamiliar environment (Cheong and Miller, 2000: 380).
In a further discursive examination of power in tourism, Edensor (2000) draws on
Foucault's notions of 'surveillance' to illustrate the distinctive ways in which tourist
