Tourism and Embodiment

Book excerpt: The role of the body and the concept of embodiment have largely been neglected in anthropological studies of tourism. This book explores the notion of the tourist body and develops understanding of how touristic practice is embodied practice, not only for tourists but also for those who work in tourism. This book provides a more holistic understanding of the role of the body in making and re-making self and world by engaging with tourism. This collection brings together scholars whose work intersects with the anthropology of tourism who each draw upon ethnographically informed research based on international case studies that include India, Turkey, Australia and Tasmania, Denmark, the United States, Nepal, France, Italy, South Africa and Spain. The case studies focus on a variety of themes including human and nonhuman ‘bodies’. The range of case studies gives the book an international appeal that makes it valuable to academic researchers and students in the disciplines of social anthropology, cultural geography, sociology, philosophy and the field of tourism studies itself.