The capitalist voyeur: commodification, consumption and the spectacle of the cruise

ABSTRACT

This article explores the pervasive forms of consumerism which underpin the cruise experience. Drawing upon Baudrillard, among others, we examine the process of ‘magical thinking’ utilised by passengers to mask the hidden social, economic, environmental, and cultural harms that surround the international cruise industry and which in turn serves to reinforce inequalities and structural harms between the Global North and South, particularly in developing and ‘exotic’ destinations. In doing so we aim to unpack the construction of leisure cruising in contemporary western society, arguing that it has become the epitome of the normalisation of banal capitalist consumption which underpins the current global neoliberal capitalist system.

KEYWORDS:

• Baudrillard
• capitalism
• commodification
• cruising
• global inequalities
• ‘magical thinking’

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviews and journal editors for their helpful comments on previous versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed by the researchers

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Ian Mahoney

Ian Mahoney is a lecturer/senior lecturer in Criminology at Nottingham Trent University. He holds a PhD in Criminology from Keele University and his research interests are focused around critical criminology, marginalisation and social exclusion. His recent publications include an analysis of the working-class Brexit vote in Britain, and a critique of the disciplinary and regulatory frameworks applied to people living in homeless hostels.

Victoria E. Collins

Victoria E. Collins is an Associate Professor in the School of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University. Victoria received her PhD in criminology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Victoria’s research and teaching interests include state-perpetrated violence, gender-based violence, victimology, white collar crime, and transnational crime. Victoria is the author of State Crime, Women and Gender (Routledge, Taylor & Francis) a book that explores the role of women as victims and perpetrators of state violence. More of Victoria’s work can be found in recent publications that have appeared in journals such as Critical Sociology, Critical Criminology, Social Justice, Contemporary Justice Review, and The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology.