The Worldmaking Role of Sri Lankan Travel Writers: Negotiating Structure and Agency in the Study of Travel Representations
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The Worldmaking Role of Sri Lankan Travel Writers: Negotiating Structure and Agency in the Study of Travel Representations Gauthami Kamalika Jayathilaka Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Sociology and Social Policy September 2019 i The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. Assertion of moral rights The right of Gauthami Kamalika Jayathilaka to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by Gauthami Kamalika Jayathilaka in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ii Acknowledgements Foremost, I extend my sincere gratitude to my two supervisors Dr Rodanthi Tzanelli and Prof Nick Emmel for their continued patience and unparalleled support throughout the three years leading up to the completion of this study. I thank you both for the inspiring stories, anecdotes and the humour that made an otherwise dreary process seem more exciting and enjoyable. Above all, I appreciate your guidance and encouragement from the incipient stages of this research to the very end. I am also grateful to the University of Leeds for granting me with the Leeds Anniversary Research Scholarship, the financial assistance without which this journey could not have been possible. This research project could also not have been conceivable if not for the interview participants who committed to supporting the process of data collection despite their busy schedules. I must particularly mention Prasadini Nanayakkara, Hansani Bandara and Nadeesha Paulis who went the extra mile to make this endeavour as productive as possible. I also extend my gratitude to numerous other individuals who provided me with support along the way including staff at the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds for advice and guidance, those at the Main Library, University of Peradeniya for the advice and direction on accessing specific information and sources on Sri Lanka. Finally, I extend my heartfelt thanks to extended family and friends for their continued love and encouragement throughout this entire process. Most of all, I express my deep and unwavering gratitude to my parents for their constant love and support and for raising me to be the person I am today with the strength and perseverance to have been able to reach this significant milestone in my life; and my husband Priyan, for the love, patience, guidance and above all for inspiring and uplifting me to be everything I am today. iii Abstract This study is a critical enquiry into the worldmaking agency of travel writers and the underlying social implications. It adds to knowledge on tourism as worldmaking in an understudied postcolonial context of Sri Lanka. Engaging in a scrutiny of the social role of an everyday activity associated with travel and tourism, this thesis addresses the following key questions: (1) Who are Sri Lankan travel writers? (2) How do they represent Sri Lanka through their writing? (3) What are the social mechanisms underlying these representations? Finally, (4) Why are these representations created the way they are? The study primarily presents three distinctive ways locally produced travel writing in English represents Sri Lanka within tourism promotion, journalism and finally through the perspective of independent local travellers. As such, it broadens insights on the tourist gaze through the examination of three distinctive gazes: the promotional gaze, the journalistic gaze and the activist gaze constructed by local writers. Upon presenting the three resultant versions of representations and their worldmaking power, the thesis then enquires critically into the social intricacies underlying this production process. This is built upon the premise that worldmaking representations are contingent not so much upon initiation or illusion but ‘inculcation’. This is undertaken using the Bourdieusian field of cultural production. It applies the conceptual triad habitus, capital and field whereby the cultural histories including education, lifestyles habits, interests and tastes of writers are examined combined with constraints imposed by various fields they are positioned within society. Consequently, the thesis demonstrates the interplay between external social pre-arrangements underlying the construction of travel representations and the subjectivity of writers, extending knowledge on the critical link between worldmaking agency, the English language and social class. In that, this thesis contributes to the critical tourism studies paradigm by affording a compelling alternative to negotiating the duality between structure and agency in the study of travel representations and their worldmaking power within the particular context of Sri Lanka. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements ...................................................................................... ii Abstract ........................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................ iv List of Figures ............................................................................................. vii Chapter 01 ..................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Background and Direction ........................................................................... 3 1.3. Significance and Objectives ........................................................................ 6 1.4. Conceptual Framework ................................................................................ 8 1.5. Conceptualising Travel Writing ................................................................. 11 1.6. Methods: A Brief Outline ........................................................................... 14 1.7. Structure of the Thesis and Chapter Summaries .................................... 15 Chapter 02 ................................................................................................... 20 Conceptualising Tourism, Travel and the Travel Writer ......................... 20 2.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 20 2.2. Unpacking the Social in Travel and Tourism ........................................... 21 2.3. The Declarative Value of Tourism: Representations of Place ................ 24 2.3.1. Tourism Representations and Postcolonialism .......................................... 25 2.3.2. Travel Writing as Representation of Place and Postcolonial Theory ...... 28 2.4. The Role of the Travel Writer: Tourist or Traveller? ............................... 31 2.4.1. The Traveller/tourist Dichotomy .................................................................... 33 2.4.2. Backpacker and Volunteer Tourist ............................................................... 40 2.5. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 41 Chapter 03 ................................................................................................... 43 Unpacking the Social in Travel Writing: Theoretical Premises ............. 43 3.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 43 3.2. The Tourist Gaze ........................................................................................ 44 3.3. Tourism ‘Worldmaking’ .............................................................................. 48 3.4. Conceptualising Worldmaking as Inculcation ......................................... 53 3.4.1. Field – Site or Context of Representations and Worldmaking ................. 54 3.4.2. Habitus – Socialised Subjectivity .................................................................. 56 3.4.3. Capital - Resources ........................................................................................ 59 3.5. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 60 v Chapter 04 ................................................................................................... 62 Methods ....................................................................................................... 62 4.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 62 4.2. Making the Methods Decisions ................................................................. 63 4.3. Sampling Writers and Travel Articles ....................................................... 67 4.3.1. The Writers ...................................................................................................... 68 4.3.2. Travel Literature .............................................................................................. 71 4.4. Fieldwork – Collection of Data .................................................................. 73 4.4.1. Interviews ........................................................................................................