Thanatourism and Cinematic Representations of Risk: Screening the End of Tourism

by Rodanthi Tzanelli

Overview

In today’s world, the need to eliminate natural and human-made disasters has been at the forefront of national and international socio-political agendas. The management of risks such as terrorism, labour strikes, protests and environmental degradation has become pivotal for countries that depend on their economy’s tourist sector. Indeed, there is fear that that ‘the end of tourism’ might be nigh due to inadequate institutional foresight. Yet, in designing relevant policies to tackle this, arts such as that of filmmaking have yet to receive due consideration.

This book adopts an unorthodox approach to debates about ‘the end of tourism’. Through twenty-first century cinematic narratives of symbolically interconnected ‘risks’ it considers how art envisages the future of humanity’s well-being. These ‘risks’ include: migration as an infectious disease; alien incursions as racialized labour mobilities; cyborg rebellion as the fear of post-colonial otherness; and zombie anthropophagy as the replacement of rooted identities by nomadic lifestyles.

Such filmic scenarios articulate the futuristic survival of community as the triumph of the technological human over otherness, and provide a means to debate societal risks that weave identity politics into unequal mobilities. This book will appeal to researchers and students interested in mobilities theory, tourism and travel theory, film studies and aesthetics, globalisation studies, race, labour and migration.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367877583
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/12/2019
Series:	Routledge Advances in Sociology
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	214
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Rodanthi Tzanelli is Associate Professor of Cultural Sociology at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research interests include globalisation, cosmopolitanism and mobility, with emphasis on tourism, migration, social movements and art theory. She is author of over 60 articles and another eight monographs, including 'Mobility, Modernity and the Slum: The Real and Virtual Journeys of Slumdog Millionaire' (2015).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Outline of the book 1. Governmobility, risk and cine-tourism: Looking back, looking forward 2. Heritage entropy and dark pilgrimage: Production-as-consumption fields and multiple temporalities 3. Escape from Johannesburg and return to dark roots 4. Humorous tonality, dark heart: From District 9’s zombies to African aesthetics 5. Contested realities: Implementing technologies of darkest tourism on virtual post-colonies 6. Conclusion: Who speaks of darkness in futurist design?