SOCI 3330 Notes (Final)

10.8.14
The Social Construction of Structure and Space
MacCannell: The same expansion of alternatives to reality we see in tourism, we also find in other
areas of sociology, such as deviance and crime, and social-psychology. What is deviant and criminal
when we are constantly rewriting the rules of differentiation between normal and deviant? Smoking
marijuana e.g.: criminal in some areas, legal in others. Social class differences are blurring as well,
particularly in the quest for authentic experience. “In sightseeing, all men are equal before the sight.”
He is particularly critical of Social Conflict theorists and researchers, arguing they have devolved into
virtual nihilism (nothing in the world is real, the individual is powerless, life is meaningless) in their
quest to dismiss everything as being too “racist, complicated, competitive, hegemonic, exploitative,
superficial and corrupt.”
They “believe interpersonal relationships are temporary, authoritarian and restrictive, and that we
should all revel in our alienation.” They are like the Nihilists in the Big Lebowski (“That must be
exhausting,” – The Dude).
We increasingly shape the structures of our lives via micro-spurious structures such as mementos,
souvenirs, identity badges, and various rites of passage. We collect knick knacks from the places we
visit (the casino matchbook, the ticket stub from a concert, “Hi My Name Is” badges, wedding
announcements) as proof of where we were and who we are.
“Heightened moments of an individual’s life and social reality are combined in a representation
resembling a collage.” Dish towels, calendars, tie clips, earrings, stick pins, kitchen aprons,
sweatshirts…the list is endless. As MacCannell writes, “I think both Durkheim and the Australian people
he studied would be astounded by the lengths to which we have carried our totemic symbolism.”
Macro-spurious structures are found in entire touristic communities and regions which are built up
from spurious elements. Epcot’s “World Showcase” at Disney World is an absolutely spurious attraction
with its “international” cafes, restaurants and themes.
Certain attractions in Vegas, such as New York New York, Paris, the Venetian, etc. are completely
spurious attractions. Being in these macro-spurious structures is all-encompassing. Often, both the
tourist and the attraction are spurious and out of place. “No matter how hard he tries to overcome it, he
remains trapped in a spurious world.”
MacCannell argues this makes sense since the tourist’s everyday life in the modern world is itself
spurious. This is redoubled when details of other cultures are intermixed into the reality of modern life.
Drive-in restaurants and suburban subdivisions are often decorated with elements of other cultures
or time periods (“Vintage” road side drive ins; Celebration, Florida is a planned residential community
run by Disney). Less extreme versions exist throughout the U.S. (Peachtree City) and Europe. In
Celebration, Florida “one doesn’t need to leave home to be a tourist. You can buy a house and live in a
nostalgic reproduction of America’s mythical past.”
“Puritans, liberals and snobs call (these communities) tacky when anyone can afford it, and
pretentious when it is dear. They are dismissed as phony, pseudo, tawdry and gaudy. Pretension and
tackiness generate the belief that somewhere there exists a genuine society.”
Genuine structure exists, but is often made up of spurious elements as well. The main difference,
according to MacCannell, is the degree of commercialization. “The line is the same as the one between
furniture and priceless antique; or between prostitution and true love which is supposed to be beyond
price.”
Basically, it boils down to money. You don’t have to pay money to the Golden Gate Bridge, the
Grand Canyon, the U.S. Capitol or the White House, but you do to get into Disney or Six Flags. There
are fees associated with the former (hotels in D.C. or campsites at the Grand Canyon) but you are not
paying for seeing the sight, per se. True attractions are simply not for sale.
In your research, you should be looking at both the micro and macro structures of the attraction you
choose to visit. How is the attraction more authentic? What memories and souvenirs are important to
the tourists? What will they post to Instagram or Facebook or Twitter about their experience? Is it the
true identity of the travel or just so much social fiction?

The Landscape of the Tourist Space

Tourism is about travel through space to space. MacCannell: “the best indication of the final victory
of modernity over other sociocultural arrangements is not the disappearance of the non-modern world,
but its artificial preservation and reconstruction in modern society…efforts to museumize the
premodern.

10.10.14
In modern societies, there is much angst over the authenticity of touristic sights and attractions.
Tourists want to see the very place where Kennedy was shot, the actual pen used to sign the
Emancipation Proclamation, the original manuscript of “Gone with the Wind,” or “On the Road,” a real
piece of the Titanic. These are minimal expectations.
Some tourist attractions are sub-minimal or generally regarded as “pseudo” or “tacky” (e.g. the
Noah’s Ark theme park “Ark Experience” being built in Kentucky, or the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas).
Mix patriotism, religious fervor and sightseeing, and you get an explosion of sub-minimal attractions.
This should not be taken to imply that this kind of sightseeing is without importance to the individuals
who go there.
MacCannell: A tourist attraction is the empirical relationship between the Tourist, a Sight and a
Marker. Grant’s Tomb, e.g. without proper markings (tour guides, signs, etc.) the sight itself would go
unrecognized and therefore not serve as an attraction. Flintstones go to Grand Canyon.

Sightseeing as Ritual
MacCannell: “Modern sightseeing possesses its own moral structure, a collective sense that certain
sights must be seen. He argues “the position of the person who stays at home is morally inferior to
that of a person who gets out often.” Vicarious travel is freely permitted only to children and old folks.”
Anyone else should be posting their every movement via social media. “Authentic experiences are
believed to be available only to people who break the bonds of their everyday existence and begin to
live.”
Using Goffman’s “ceremonial agendas and obligatory rights,” if one goes to Europe one “must see”
Paris, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and so on. The only persons not obligated to see attractions are the
locals.
How does a sigh become an attraction? Sacralization (to make sacred). Five steps:
1. Naming phase: the sight is marked off from similar objects as worthy of preservation (“9/11
Memorial”).
 2. Framing and Elevation phase: the placement of an official boundary around the object, and
putting the object itself on display (art objects).
3. Enshrinement: the object is enshrined via special lighting (U.S. Constitution)
4. Mechanical Reproduction: prints, photographs, models or clothing related to the object are
created and put on display (hawked) near the attraction (museum stores).
5. Social Reproduction: groups, cities or entire regions name themselves after famous
attractions. In Las Vegas you can visit New York City and its attractions, Paris and its
attractions, Roman Coliseums, and an Egyptian Pyramid, to name but a few.

10.13.14
Sightseeing as Ritual Continued
Tourist attractions and the behavior surrounding them are almost universal throughout the world. It
is society that produces the importance of a tourist attraction. As MacCannell explains regarding art,
only an artist can produce art, not societies. But society produces the importance of the art by piling
up representations alongside it. The tourist attraction is no different.
Today we “visit” the New York Stock Exchange and buy coffee mugs with NYSE on them. Mental
hospitals, army bases, and grade schools stage periodic open houses.
Jails and Prisons offer tours, with correctional staff functioning as tour guides, and inmates as
objects of the tourist gaze. Sometimes inmates interact with the tourists (“Scared Straight”) as well.
Construction companies will cup peepholes into fencing so we can gaze at the building going up. We
increasingly put restaurant chefs on display in windows (pizza dough tossing; flames) to draw a crowd.

Semiotics (the science of signs or symbols) of Attraction

A sign or symbol represents something to someone. MacCannell argues that tourist attractions are
signs, and that the first contact a sightseer or tourist has with a sight is not the sight itself, but with
some representation of it.
The information about a specific sight is usually conveyed with a Marker a plaque of some sort that
stands next to or before the sight is an on-sight marker; Markers can also include travel brochures and
books, museum guides, lectures, dissertations, websites etc., thus off-sight.
Generally, we see Markers of sights, not actual sight itself. You don’t “see” San Francisco, you see
the Golden Gate, Alcatraz and Fisherman’s Warf. Interacting sight and marker can often leave a sense of
disappointment in the tourist.
Marker involvement (reading the card/explanation of the painting you are looking at) often
prevents tourists from realizing that the sight they see may not even be worth seeing (this painting
sucks).
Sometimes the Marker itself serves as enough (when marking, for example, an actual sight that is
no longer there; e.g. Battlefield markers such as Gettysburg, Normandy, Verdun), and sometimes the
Marker is better than the attraction (then the Marker has become a sight or symbol). E.g., the Statue of
Liberty means more than the concept of liberty and/or Ellis Island immigration. Or, “the information
about this tree is more interesting than the tree itself.”
Souvenirs function as both Marker and Sight. Souvenirs tend to be replicas or effigies of the sight
they mark, serving simultaneously as a marker and “little sight” in their own right. Souvenir sales are
difficult to calculate, but suffice it to say billions of dollars are generated every year in the tourism
industry via souvenir sales.
 In some tourist attractions, the tourists themselves become Markers or attractions. “People
watching” in places like Las Vegas, New York, London occurs when the areas are not filled with local
residents, but instead students, visitor and travelers.
Wearing et al distinguish two main types of tourist landscapes: the city and the natural
environment. The environment can be viewed as ripe for exploitation or intrinsic and central to the
travel experience. Touring cities is also challenging. On the one hand they are vast, impersonal,
inanimate objects; on the other life and culture abound in city life which the tourist experience offers a
chance to sample.
Touring Nature: Wearing argues the environment is part of the self; touring nature (or natural
attractions) is touring ourselves. We have a dialectic between ourselves and nature: we interact with it
and are in turn influenced by it.

10.15.14
Encounters at the End of the World Documentary

10.17.14
Semiotics of Attraction Continued
1. By protecting nature, we are protecting ourselves
2. By attributing moral significance to nature and animals, we stretch our concept of self (and life)
beyond merely the body.
3. Deep ecology says nature itself has rights. Humans and non-human life have intrinsic, inherent
value.

Ecotourism has its origins in the 1908’s and is built around the idea that through travel we reach
more of “oneness” with nature. Hunting, fishing, kayaking, white-water rafting, camping, jeep off-
roading, rock and mountain climbing, are just a few of the ways we make nature part of our trips. Parks
serve as a fast getaway from modernity and work.

10.20.14
Semiotics of Attraction Continued
The Nature Conservancy adopts the definition articulated by the World Conservation Union (IUCN):
“Environmentally responsible travel to natural areas, in order to enjoy and appreciate nature
(and accompanying cultural features, both past and present) that promote conservation, have a low
visitor impact and provide for beneficially active socio-economic involvement of local peoples.”

Most tourism in natural areas today is not ecotourism and is not, therefore, sustainable. Ecotourism
is distinguished by its emphasis on conservation, education, traveler responsibility and active community
participation. Specifically, ecotourism possesses the following characteristics:
 Conscientious, low-impact visitor behavior
 Sensitivity towards, and appreciation of, local cultures and biodiversity
 Support for local conservation efforts
 Sustainable benefits to local communities
  Local participation in decision-making
 Educational components for both the traveler and local communities

Cons: Increased tourism to sensitive natural areas without appropriate planning and management
can threaten the integrity of ecosystems and local cultures. The increase of visitors to ecologically
sensitive areas can lead to significant environmental degradation.
Likewise, local communities and indigenous cultures can be harmed in numerous ways by an influx
of foreign visitors and wealth. Additionally, fluctuations in climate, currency exchange rates, and
political and social conditions can make over-dependence upon tourism a risky business.
Pros: However, this same growth creates significant opportunities for both conservation and local
communities. Ecotourism can provide much-needed revenues for the protection of national parks and
other natural areas—revenues that might not be available from other sources.
Additionally, ecotourism can provide a viable economic development alternative for local
communities with few other income-generating options. Moreover, ecotourism can increase the level of
education and activism among travelers, making them more enthusiastic and affect agents of
conservation.
Agritourism (touring agricultural artifacts or sites) is also popular. Visiting farms or ranches, dairies,
or seeing how cheese is made.
Enotourism (Vinitourism, or Winery Tourism): has become huge in the U.S. in the past 20 years.
Most visits to wineries take place at or near the site where the wine is produced. Visitors typically learn
the history of the winery, see how the wine is made, and then taste the wines. At some wineries, staying
in a small guest house at the winery is also offered. Many visitors buy the wines made by the winery at
the premises, account for up to 33% of their annual sales. Originating in the U.S. in the Napa Valley
region of California, wineries are a growing industry in rural parts of the U.S. and other European
outback. Increasingly, it’s becoming a staple of Georgia tourism.
In Georgia the total economic impact of agriculture and nature-based tourism is $223 million,
creating 3,138 jobs, and generating approximately $13 million in sales tax revenue; and the agritourism
industry continues to grow in Georgia with more than 600 diverse agritourism/nature-based enterprises
currently operating in the state.
Pumpkin patches this time of year are big agri-tourist destinations (Washington Farms in Oconee
County). You can even visit a dude ranch and see livestock being fed and herded (though tours of
slaughterhouses seem to be nonexistent).
The modern touristic version of nature, according to MacCannell, treats it not as a force opposing
human nature, but as a common source of thrills and something that must be preserved.
In that sense, parks and museums serve the same function: to preserve the past in the present, and
at the same time separate it from modernity and modern life (symbols of the past that are small enough
are kept in museums; when they are too large they are left outside in parks and called “monuments”).
Travel in nature or to natural attractions offers the traveler a respite from the alienation and anomie
of modern (city) life.