Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society
2 total works
Book 54
Demonstrating that all notions of nature are inextricably entangled in different forms of social life, the text elaborates the many ways in which the apparently natural world has been produced from within particular social practices. These are analyzed in terms of different senses, different times and the production of distinct spaces, including the local, the national and the global.
The authors emphasize the importance of cultural understandings of the physical world, highlighting the ways in which these have been routinely misunderstood by academic and policy discourses. They show that popular conceptions of, and attitudes to, nature are often contradictory and that there are no simple ways of prevailing upon people to `save the environment′.
Tourism is both a key aspect of modern life and a substantial industry; yet its importance has been generally unrecognized by academic commentators. In this book John Urry sets out to construct a distinctive sociology of tourism. He demonstrates that tourism deserves attention not only in its own right but as a central element of broad cultural changes in contemporary society. The book's primary focus is on the idea of the "tourist gaze" - that there are systematic ways of "seeing" what we as tourists look at and that these ways of seeing can be described and explained. John Urry develops this analysis through various levels - historical, economic, social, cultural and visual. Mass tourism is charted from its origins in the English seaside resorts to its development as a global industry. The economic impact and complex social relations involved in international tourism are explored. Changing patterns of tourism are shown to be connected to the broader cultural changes of postmodernism and related to the role of the service and middle classes.
The author argues that we are seeing a universalization of the tourist gaze and increasing confusion between "tourism" as it is conventionally understood and a host of other social practices - shopping, sport, culture, hobbies, leisure and education.
The author argues that we are seeing a universalization of the tourist gaze and increasing confusion between "tourism" as it is conventionally understood and a host of other social practices - shopping, sport, culture, hobbies, leisure and education.