This
paper examine the ways in which those in literary
societies learn to be tourists through the leisurely
practices of 'reading' creative writings and fictive
texts. This cognitive act is a playful, inventive
and an integral part of the normative process of socialisation
whereby humans are imbued with knowledge of cultural
practices and values, together with social norms and
expectations. It is argued that from our readings
of the many deep and central themes that run through
fictional narratives we encounter the meanings of
what it is to be a tourist. Through the meeting of
imaginations we learn of pervasive and eternal ideas
that are woven into our literary culture and that
are the essence of tourism: places and peoples that
are elsewhere; encounters with various forms of 'the
other'; journeys, quests, pilgrimages and discovery;
notions of paradise; redemption and loss; a sense
of belonging; the fleeting and the recollected. In
the act of reading we construct imagined frameworks
which will later inform our actions and experiences. |
