The Tourism Imaginary and Pilgrimages to the Edges of the World: 44 (Tourism and Cultural Change) - Hardcover

These case studies consider not only the touristic or even pilgrimage aspects of these special places, but also their history, liminality, spirituality and eventually their incorporation into the modern, global world. A valuable addition to the historic, geographical and tourist literature. -- Nelson Graburn, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, USA This volume inscribes itself in the emerging scholarship on the role of imaginaries in tourism and beyond. The authors take the reader on an imaginative journey to various (physical) `edges of the world'. Their in-depth scholarly analyses reveal how people, in the past and today, are drawn to these peripheral geographical sites as tourists and pilgrims. -- Noel B. Salazar, University of Leuven, Belgium

This book examines how the growth of tourism in locations that have historically been considered geographically remote plays a major role in the consolidation and transformation of often longstanding and powerful cultural imaginaries about `the edges of the world'. The contributors examine the attraction of the sublime, remoteness, continental border-points, and the dangers of the sea in Finisterre (or Fisterra) in Galicia (Spain); Finistere in Brittany (France); Land's End, Cornwall (England); Lough Derg (Ireland); Nordkapp or North Cape (Norway); Cape Spear, Newfoundland (Canada); and Tierra del Fuego (Argentina). While those travelling to these locations can be seen to be conducting some form of religious or secular pilgrimage, those who live in them have long contended with the implications of economic and political marginalization within global political economies.