Travel Writing As a Representational Space: “Doing Deviance”

Abstract

This study contributes to the ongoing discussion regarding the power and privilege undergirding tourism discourse by examining the representational dynamics of deviance in tourism destinations known in social discourse as consequence-free settings; specifically, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Amsterdam, and Bangkok. Understanding language as constitutive of social reality, this study employed techniques associated with textual analysis to examine feature travel articles published in four of the areas' most recognized and circulated travel and tourism magazines: Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, National Geographic, and National Geographic Traveler. Four main narrative emphases are proposed (Legitimized Deviance, A Voyeur's Paradise, Wholesome Deviance, and The Deviant Host) and followed by a theoretical explanation aiming to trace out questions, as well as comment, on travel writing's “ways of seeing” the world.