A Sociological Guide to the Beaten Tracks of Backpacking in The
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
In the Middle of Nowhere? A Sociological Guide to the Beaten Tracks of Backpacking in the Former British Empire by William Flynn A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Sociology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) July 2011 © William Flynn 2011 i Abstract Since the 1970s backpacking travel has become an increasingly popular and desirable pursuit among young people from western countries. Guidebooks such as Lonely Planet sold young people the practical know-how that would allow them to travel ‗off-the-beaten-track‘. The off-the-beaten-track travel experiences of present-day backpackers‘ are one way in which youth lifestyle, geography and identity are consumed and produced away from home and apart from the everyday world. This thesis provides an historical, textual and ethnographic analysis of the practices and discourses which distinguish travel from tourism, and it examines how particular destinations and experiences are considered more challenging, and therefore more valuable, than others. In particular it seeks to answer the question of what makes India such a ‗special place‘ in the world of backpacking as a ‗litmus test‘ for off-the-beaten-track travel. It begins by analyzing the historical precursors and ideological antecedents of the discourses and practices of independent travel and tourism in 19th Europe, with a focus on England and the role played by independent guidebooks in that period. The textual strategies employed in the most popular guidebooks today, those published by Lonely Planet, are then analyzed in connection with the production and consumption of particular backpacking enclaves in Canada, Ireland, and India, where the promise of travel as a self-cultivating, authentic, and valuable activity is realized. Finally, through a combination of detailed, in-depth, qualitative interviews with 24 backpackers in Canada, India and Ireland, historical and contemporary analyses of the Lonely Planet brand and guidebooks, as well as a multi-sited ethnography in three popular backpacker destinations of Vancouver, Delhi, and Cork, the thesis analyzes how the ideological codes of travel and tourism are historically produced, textually and orally mediated, and geographically circulated in the field of backpacking travel. ii Preface The ethics review for this research was approved by the Behavioural Research Ethics Board, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Certificate Number H07-01329. iii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................. ii Preface ............................................................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................. iv List of Figures ................................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements......................................................................................................................... viii Dedication ......................................................................................................................................... x Introduction: The World and Work of Backpacking, Guidebooks, and Travel ........................................1 Why A Sociological Study of Backpacking? ............................................................................................... 2 Central Questions and Approach .............................................................................................................. 6 Understanding Backpacking as a Form of ‘Travel’ ................................................................................ 9 Methodology: Backpackers, Ethnographic Practice, and Guidebooks ................................................... 17 Backpackers and Fieldwork ................................................................................................................. 19 Guidebooks Past and Present ............................................................................................................. 24 Tourism and Travel in Theory and Practice ............................................................................................ 28 Chapter Outline: A Guided Tour ............................................................................................................. 39 Chapter 1 The Historical Genesis of the Tourist/Traveler Distinction .................................................. 45 A Genealogy of the Traveler Self: ‘Travel’ and the Genesis of the Anti-Tourist Discourse .................... 47 From Bacon to Byron on the Grand Tour of Europe ........................................................................... 53 Romanticism and the Genesis of the Anti-Tourist Discourse ............................................................. 59 Blackwood’s Magazine and ‘The Tourist’ ................................................................................................ 70 Simmel, Romanticism and the ‘Work of Travel’ ..................................................................................... 76 ‘Enlightened’ Travel Guidebooks and the Salvation of ‘The Tourist’ ...................................................... 82 Murray, Baedeker and the Genesis of the Modern Travel Guidebook .................................................. 89 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 96 Chapter 2 Legends of Lonely Planet .................................................................................................. 98 The Changing Culture of Travel: Experiential Learning ........................................................................... 99 Geographies of Repulsion and Desire: The Beaten Track and its Discontents ..................................... 105 Off The Beaten Track: The Lonely Planet Guidebook as a Cartographic Legend .................................. 108 In Loco Parentis ..................................................................................................................................... 110 iv Lonely Planet’s Mythologies of Travel .................................................................................................. 114 ‘Seeing Through’ Lonely Planet Guidebooks ........................................................................................ 118 Subjects and Objects of Lonely Planet Photographs ............................................................................ 126 Authorial Legends: The Lonely Planet Story, A ‘Legend’ from the Past................................................ 134 Authorial Legends: Contemporary Lonely Planet Writers and Readers ............................................... 137 Strategy 1: Keeping the voice pure: the author’s moral code .......................................................... 138 Strategy 2: Keeping the voice local ................................................................................................... 141 Strategy 3: ‘You write the script’: or the auto-productive legends of Lonely Planet ....................... 147 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 150 Chapter 3 The Beaten Track: Moving Between Texts and the ‘Real World’ ....................................... 156 Canada, India and Ireland: Travelling Through the Ethnographic Field ................................................ 159 Vancouver, Canada ........................................................................................................................... 160 Paharganj, Delhi and Leh, Ladakh in India ........................................................................................ 161 Cork City, Ireland ............................................................................................................................... 164 Negotiating Local Legends: Lonely Planet Guidebooks in the Ethnographic Field ............................... 165 The Holiday of Tourism: Traveling Distinctions in the Field ................................................................. 181 Threatening ‘Travel’ in India: The Touristic Destruction of Local Authenticity .................................... 203 Disciplining the Threat of Tourism: Haggling and Budget Travel .......................................................... 210 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 215 Chapter 4 Off the Beaten Track: The Utopian Promises of Travel ..................................................... 218 Backpackers and Off-The-Beaten-Track Stories .................................................................................... 223 Legends of Lonely Planet Revisited ....................................................................................................... 226 The Work of Travel ................................................................................................................................ 235 The Embodied Traveler ........................................................................................................................