Breaking and entering, or a feeling of heterotopia in tourism situations

This paper is based on the following field research conducted in 2010: (i) a tourist accommodation experience in Chora, capital of the Greek island of Skyros, in a house that in all likelihood was never originally intended for tourists; and (ii) a visit of the Estonian city of Paldiski, an important...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hécate Vergopoulos
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: Association Via@ 2016-07-01
Series:Via@
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/393
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1832578203011514368
author Hécate Vergopoulos
author_facet Hécate Vergopoulos
author_sort Hécate Vergopoulos
collection DOAJ
description This paper is based on the following field research conducted in 2010: (i) a tourist accommodation experience in Chora, capital of the Greek island of Skyros, in a house that in all likelihood was never originally intended for tourists; and (ii) a visit of the Estonian city of Paldiski, an important military port under Soviet rule. These two cases, a priori very different, generated intense feelings of uneasiness similar to both guilt and voyeurism in the two groups of tourists involved, which included the author of this paper. For both of these experiences, the tourists we were had the impression of “breaking and entering”, of unlawfully accessing areas that were not intended for us and which should have remained well off the standard tourist trails. And yet, in both cases we experienced something of this fantasy of tourism authenticity: entering totally uncharted territory, without mediator or staging, with a view to understanding what life there was really like and discovering this “behind-the-scenes” that is supposed to systematically guarantee “enchantment” with tourists. In this paper, we shall attempt to understand why the enchantment gave way to dysphoria in both of these cases, which we consider to have been “borderline”.
format Article
id doaj-art-2edb066121db4b15b4a719032968b6c2
institution Kabale University
issn 2259-924X
language deu
publishDate 2016-07-01
publisher Association Via@
record_format Article
series Via@
spelling doaj-art-2edb066121db4b15b4a719032968b6c22025-01-30T14:06:19ZdeuAssociation Via@Via@2259-924X2016-07-01910.4000/viatourism.393Breaking and entering, or a feeling of heterotopia in tourism situationsHécate VergopoulosThis paper is based on the following field research conducted in 2010: (i) a tourist accommodation experience in Chora, capital of the Greek island of Skyros, in a house that in all likelihood was never originally intended for tourists; and (ii) a visit of the Estonian city of Paldiski, an important military port under Soviet rule. These two cases, a priori very different, generated intense feelings of uneasiness similar to both guilt and voyeurism in the two groups of tourists involved, which included the author of this paper. For both of these experiences, the tourists we were had the impression of “breaking and entering”, of unlawfully accessing areas that were not intended for us and which should have remained well off the standard tourist trails. And yet, in both cases we experienced something of this fantasy of tourism authenticity: entering totally uncharted territory, without mediator or staging, with a view to understanding what life there was really like and discovering this “behind-the-scenes” that is supposed to systematically guarantee “enchantment” with tourists. In this paper, we shall attempt to understand why the enchantment gave way to dysphoria in both of these cases, which we consider to have been “borderline”.https://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/393dypshoriafieldwordheterotopiamethodologytourist intrusion
spellingShingle Hécate Vergopoulos
Breaking and entering, or a feeling of heterotopia in tourism situations
Via@
dypshoria
fieldword
heterotopia
methodology
tourist intrusion
title Breaking and entering, or a feeling of heterotopia in tourism situations
title_full Breaking and entering, or a feeling of heterotopia in tourism situations
title_fullStr Breaking and entering, or a feeling of heterotopia in tourism situations
title_full_unstemmed Breaking and entering, or a feeling of heterotopia in tourism situations
title_short Breaking and entering, or a feeling of heterotopia in tourism situations
title_sort breaking and entering or a feeling of heterotopia in tourism situations
topic dypshoria
fieldword
heterotopia
methodology
tourist intrusion
url https://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/393
work_keys_str_mv AT hecatevergopoulos breakingandenteringorafeelingofheterotopiaintourismsituations