CONTRAST AND ALTERITY IN CONTEMPORARY TRAVEL

Abstract

In today’s globalised world, essentially defined by its fluid and unstable quality, the distinctive character of travel seems to be dissolved in consequence of the planet’s contraction, the economy of “symbolic exchanges” and the alleged process of dilution of differences and cultural homogenization. In fact, contemporary highly mediatised society and iconic proliferation produce an apparent saturation of the real geography and the multiplication of places as images and representations. This allows for the questioning of the very need and urgency to travel, as well as for the abolition of places’ “special status” and the definite destruction of the aura around holiday and travel experiences, which are traditionally based on crucial antinomies between the ordinary/familiar and the different/extraordinary.
The present article aims at approaching the paradigm of contemporary mobility, namely the traumatic annihilation of space and time and its strongly disruptive impact on the ontological dimension of a cultural practice whose auratic power is traditionally related to a conquest of distances, the perception of differences and the experience of alterity. The article intends to refute the postmodern declaration that the familiarization with the other leads to a diminished potential of cultural shocks in contemporary tourism, and it discusses the prevailing relevance of the search for contrasts and forms of alterity experience within the complex cluster of current tourist motivations.