(Post‐)Cartographic Urges: The Intersection of Museums and Tourism

Abstract

This quite particular mediation explores some of the ways museums and tourism have become entwined theoretically and the circumstances whereby the ontological distinctions between them collapse. The chapter explores a tourist‐centric notion of the museum as a “destination” for sightseeing and pleasure by examining the museum through the lenses of recent tourism theory, particularly theory that can be broadly understood as having a twinned locus, mobilities and performance. Recent tourism theorization reminds us that the museum doesn't precede the tourist – awaiting their arrival – but is brought into being in the experience. This goes beyond cartography, and yet the map and the exhibition plan continue to choreograph movement and performance though now one conceptualized as highly improvised, with a locus in embodiment. To paraphrase Elizabeth Grosz, outside objects, monuments, buildings, and so on are inside bodies.