Recognizing Emotion and its Postcolonial Potentialities: Discomfort and Shame in a Tourism Encounter in Turkey

Abstract

This article addresses the fragile and potentially problematic nature of the meeting of tourists and local 'hosts' by shifting the discussion away from the authentic/fake binary and focusing instead on emotion in the worldmaking tourism encounter. This is done through interrogation of one particular encounter which took place in

Perceptions of authenticity in a Malaysian homestay – A narrative analysis

“…produced by both scientists and social scientists are narratives, namely accounts that are socially and culturally situated and accepted (or contested) by the overall scientific community (Botterill, 2003;Hall, 2004;Tribe, 2006). More specifically, this stance has contemplated the role of researchers' reflexivity in the production and dissemination of 'scholarly narratives' (Everett, 2010;Mura, 2015;Tucker, 2009).…”

“…What is displayed as 'other' or 'past' is grounded on politically charged discourses, which mirror structures of power and resistance (Tucker, 2009). More specifically, a selection process occurs throughout which hegemonic discourses are voiced and subordinated discourses are silenced.…”

Tourism and decolonisation: Locating research and self

“…Cognisance of emotion and engagement in reflexivity can enhance the meaning making process during the encounter between the researcher and how s/he comes to know the researched (see Tucker, 2009). …”

Cosmopolitan empathy in volunteer tourism: a psychosocial perspective

“…The desire of the tourist is experienced on a personal level but emanates from the social field, to which the tourist also belongs and contributes. It is an approach that captures the complexity, fluidity and conflicted nature of subjectivity on both a discursive/symbolic and affective level, possessing the potential to contribute to recent theoretical developments in critical tourism studies that foreground affect and embodiment as essential counterparts to the conventional focus on visual experience (Crossley, 2012a(Crossley, , 2012bMolz, 2015;Picard & Robinson, 2012;Tucker, 2009). Equally, the heavy emphasis placed on ideology and the political in Lacanian theory lends itself to the branch of enquiry that advocates greater connectivity between our theorisations of tourists in their destinations and their everyday lives at 'home' (Franklin & Crang, 2001;Hui, 2008;McCabe, 2002;White & White, 2007).…”

“…I also address how cosmopolitan empathy is oriented towards the suffering of particular social groups deemed worthy of volunteer tourists' concern. In order to achieve this, I explore the potential of Lacanianinflected psychosocial studies to enhance our understanding of cosmopolitan empathy in volunteer tourism, thereby contributing to an emerging critical literature on emotion and affect in tourism (Crossley, 2012a(Crossley, , 2012b(Crossley, , 2014Molz, 2015;Picard & Robinson, 2012;Tucker, 2009) and empathy more specifically (Mostafanezhad, 2014;Tucker, 2016). Psychosocial studies theorises subjectivity non-dualistically as an emergent property of interconnected social and psychic fields, avoiding the reductive, essentialising tendencies that make psychology off-putting for some critical tourism researchers (McCabe, 2005;Moore, 2002).…”