2017-2018 Colloquium Series


The Tourism Studies Working Group and the
Center for Chinese Studies are pleased to announce
 
ROADS TO OURSELVES:
Travel and the Making of the Chinese Nation

Greg Fayard
PhD Candidate, Sociology
University of California, Berkeley

&

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TOURISM PRACTICE:
Phenomenology on Tourism Practice

Fang Fang
PhD Candidate, Philosophy
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

Friday, May 4, 5:00pm
Gifford Room, 221 Kroeber Hall
University of California, Berkeley

 


ROADS TO OURSELVES: Travel and the Making of the Chinese Nation
by Greg Fayard

Abstract:
The creation of the nation-state system is one of the defining characteristics of the modern world. One of the great contributions to theories of the nation-state was Benedict Anderson's conception of a nation as an imagined community. Positing that nationalism was not so much a product of political action as cultural visualizations created by print media, museums, and maps, Anderson shows how common reading publics emerged with a solidified conception of "us". However, Anderson's analysis focuses only on discourse and omits contact with physical territory. While a member of a nation cannot meet every person, they can experience exemplary landscapes and excursions integral to national identification. Nationalism would be even more powerful if it could be experienced existentially.

One instrument of nation-building in the world, and especially in China, is automobile driving. China has now developed a rich road trip culture, often modeled on the United States, with one explicit goal being learning more about the country. Using travel diaries (both through China and abroad) and automobile advertisements from 2007 to the present, I will demonstrate 4 ways that national identity is woven into Chinese automobile travel: (1) as means of communion with disparate regions, allowing the mental union of various geographies and regional cultures; (2) as ideological projects, such as trips by car clubs modeled on the paths of the historic Silk Road; (3) as signage and myth-creation that pushes narratives of historical continuity onto landscapes, and (4) the automobile itself as national emblem, for example, consuming China-made products vis-a-vis Japanese ones.

Speaker Bio:
Greg Fayard is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology at UC-Berkeley. He has a B.A. in Environmental Studies and History from Tulane University and a Master's in Public Health from Emory University. His research interests include automobile travel, car culture, and tourism in China.

 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TOURISM STUDIES: Phenomenology on Tourism Studies
by Fang Fang

Abstract:
Due to the promotion of transportation and information technology, tourism has become daily practice. This research studies the significance of tourism practice using the method of phenomenology. The study is divided into three parts:

(1) Reviewing tourism "experience" research.
It claims that the most important contribution of phenomenology to tourism experience is that it distinguishes the two types of tourism experience, general experience and interest experience, by distinguishing between the daily concept of experience and phenomenological experience. This part will illustrate how tourism experience studies neither fully make use of phenomenological methods, nor find their way to reach the essence of tourism practice.

(2) Focusing on Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy to explain tourism practice.
Through the analysis of the bodily movement structure of tourism practice, travel-to and tour, I shall argue that the forming process of tourism practice is a new behavioral habit learning process. Restoring tourism practice into the living world will find its place in the structure of the living world (homeworld and alienworld). The description of tourism practice in the alienworld will show its significance.

(3) On the bases of the visual threshold that the second part opened up, this part will explore the direction and issues for tourism practice research.

Speaker Bio:
Fang Fang is a PhD Candidate in the Philosophy Department, School of Humanities, Zhejian University, Hangshou, China. Currently she is a visiting scholar in the Department of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. Fang's dissertation applies Phenomenology to the study of tourism.

 
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