Dwelling and tourism: embracing the non-representational in the tourist landscape

ABSTRACT

The dwelling perspective outlines that landscapes are the product of embodied actions and practices. Landscape scholars studying tourism and tourism scholars studying landscapes have neglected to apply this perspective to local realities. Tourism most often represents an activity to integrate to the landscape, rather than a complex socio-spatial phenomenon. When embodiments are studied, it is generally to speak of the tourist experience. I propose using the dwelling perspective to infuse tourist landscapes with the non-representational ethos of materiality and embodiment. My proposition acknowledges the socio-cultural complexities that the tourist system imposes on local people, and addresses landscape as a material realm where there is constant interplay between localised practices and tourism dynamics. This perspective centres scientific conversations on the complex, yet mundane, experience of inhabiting tourist landscapes. Scholars should consider the impacts of tourism on living spaces as they contribute to the formation of language influencing planners and politicians.

KEYWORDS:

• The dwelling perspective
• tourist landscape
• materiality
• non-representational theories
• discursive anchor

1. Introduction

Over 20 years ago, anthropologist Tim Ingold (1993) proposed what he called a dwelling perspective to outline the active involvement of humans within their simultaneously social and physical world. Under this light, landscapes are the product of the actions and practices of humans who constantly make and re-make the world around them, building themselves a place within it they can call home (Casey, 1993; Ingold, 2011; Olwig, 1996; Wylie, 2013). One way through which humans are involved in their world nowadays is through tourism. It is undeniable that the emergence of tourism within communities, villages, natural environments, heritage sites, homes and workplaces of all sorts has led to the major rearrangement of local practices, social identities and developmental strategies worldwide. Tourism scholars assert that these rearrangements have come to the point where tourism can be said to manifest itself in every aspect of contemporary life (see Darbellay & Stock, 2012; Franklin, 2004; Hall, 2013). As tourism is combined with new natural and cultural landscapes, it engulfs the inhabitants of those landscapes into a complex system where they continuously have to re-negotiate and re-affirm their position in the world.

Though tourism has become a significant element influencing how people inhabit their world, the dwelling perspective as a conceptual tool has generated little interest amongst scholars studying these toured landscapes from a local perspective (Prince, 2018). In this article, I present this conceptual omission as leading to a major shortcoming in the scholarly exploration of tourist landscapes, namely, the common dismissal of local experiences in the study of tourism as a socio-spatial phenomenon and development strategy. Both landscape scholars exploring tourism generally and tourism scholars exploring modes of dwelling in the landscape have made this omission. Firstly, within landscape research, tourism is not usually conceived as a powerful force ordering spaces and people. Generally, scholars in the field of landscape research conceptualise tourism as a phenomenon to integrate to a landscape in order to take advantage of the latter as a developmental tool (see, for instance, Saxena & Ilbery, 2010; Stenseke, 2016; Stephenson, 2008). As Stoffelen and Vanneste (2015) warn, this disposition disregards the dynamics of the tourist system and their deep-seated impacts on local lives and landscapes. Secondly, in tourism research, non-representational thinking associated with the tenants of the dwelling perspective has gained popularity, but mostly to define sensuous tourists using props and their performative bodies to engage with the spaces and people they encounter (see, for instance, Edensor, 2001; Obrador-Pons, 2007; Waitt & Cook, 2007; Walsh & Tucker, 2009). The materiality of the landscape with which residents make sense of tourism remains mostly unexplored, making the study of tourist landscapes as inhabited realms mostly tourist-centric.

In light of these conceptual shortcomings, I want to propose a particular notion of dwelling in the tourist landscape. This proposition bridges tourism scholarship with landscape scholarship by effectively infusing cross-disciplinary conversations about the tourist landscape with the non-representational ethos of materiality and embodied practices that makes lived experiences matter in social sciences (Ingold, 2011; Lorimer, 2005; Thrift, 2008). On the one hand, this proposition acknowledges the socio-cultural complexities that the tourist system imposes on local people, which landscape scholars have neglected. On the other hand, it addresses landscape as a material realm where there is constant interplay between localised practices and tourism dynamics. I follow Palmer (2018, p. 21) and contend that thinking about tourism through the dwelling perspective enables researchers to ‘locate tourism within the totality of life and of living’. Tourist landscapes are home to people who have to handle tourism in the wake of various other aspirations related to their position in a complex system (Milne & Ateljevic, 2001; Prince, 2017). It is thus important to make these actors’ embodied actions and material world matter in tourism development schemes and landscape research.

I ultimately seek to contribute a perspective to the study of the tourist landscape that centres scientific conversations on the complex, yet very mundane, realities faced by those inhabiting toured spaces. I begin this article defining the tourist landscape from the perspective of landscape scholarship, pointing out the shortcomings of this approach. I turn to non-representational theory to highlight how tourism scholars have made lived experiences and particular modes of inhabiting space matter in their disciplinary field. Their theoretical developments have however centred mostly on the tourist. I argue, through the help of a case I already published (Prince, 2018), that the non-representational ethos of the dwelling perspective has the potential to make the experiences of those who inhabit tourist landscapes matter to the conceptualisation of the latter. Finally, I frame my notion of dwelling in the tourist landscape as a discursive anchor (see Belhassen & Caton, 2009). A discursive anchor does not define a truth in itself; it is an expression or term used to open up intellectual discussions around a topic. Such conceptual advancement is important as scholars interested in the study and practice of tourism development cannot ignore the impacts the latter has on living spaces as they contribute to the formation of the language that influences planners and politicians.

2. Tourist landscapes in landscape research

Landscapes, with their scenic natural and cultural attributes, are fundamental aspects of tourist destinations, and of the way tourists experience them (Stoffelen & Vanneste, 2015; Terkenli, 2005). Tourist landscapes cannot be separated from the cultural activities and social lives of the people who inhabit them (Cunningham, 2009; Daugstad, 2008). Landscape usually implies the holistic interrelation of humans with a natural and physical realm (Higgins, Mahon, & McDonagh, 2012; Ingold, 2011; Stenseke, 2016; Stephenson, 2008; Stoffelen & Vanneste, 2015). The cultural landscape is often used as a term to reflect the value of a given place from the perceptions of those who know it through their local knowledge. These cultural traits, blended to a natural environment, give landscapes their unique character, attracting tourists to places of high aesthetic value such as, for example, mountain areas, the coast, the countryside, and island destinations.

The transformation of cultural landscape into tourist landscape implies a fundamental symbolic and physical re-ordering of the former. The tourist’s interest in visually pleasing sights such as forests, beaches, coastlines, cosy islands and quaint villages, is often addressed critically in academia as a social construction laden with power relations (Salazar, 2012). Travel narratives and imageries, constructed and diffused through the authority of travelling eyes, attribute symbolic value to a destination such as that of paradise, wilderness and rural idyll (see, for instance, D’Hauteserre, 2011; Nelson, 2010; Nost, 2013). As Nelson (2010) argues, the landscapes presented through mediums such as guidebooks, literary work and advertisement material, are merely reproducing the experience of those gazing at a landscape as outsiders.

Accordingly, landscape scholars mostly identify conflicts between local and extra-local stakeholders in tourism development as occurring over the meaning of place and the management of local resources. There is a sharp contrast between the landscape experienced by the insider and the one experienced by the outsider (Cunningham, 2009; Daugstad, 2008; Isachenko, 2009). While sight guides the experience of the outsider, the insider is guided by the practice of daily activities and the development of social bonds in her perception of the landscape with which she is involved daily (Ingold, 2011; Olwig, 1996). Researchers interested in tourist landscapes thus usually position localised perspectives as critical to integrate to landscape management and cultural and natural preservation schemes (Cunningham, 2009; Stenseke, 2016; Stephenson, 2008).

The focus on the integration of localised perspectives by researchers and practitioners to promote a holistic conceptualisation of the tourist landscape has however led to the reduction of the role of tourism in re-ordering spaces and livelihoods. As tourism is seen as an activity juxtaposed to the cultural landscape, the latter has become foremost an asset to tourism development, where its potential to attract and entertain tourists is to be strategically maximised (Stoffelen & Vanneste, 2015; Terkenli, 2005; Thompson & Prideaux, 2010, 2009; Thompson et al., 2016). Such concerns over the meaning and preservation of landscape during tourism development generally frame tourism as something to manage in ways sensitive to local cultures and natures. In this sense, tourism should serve to preserve the traditional and physical elements of the landscape, while providing socio-economic benefits to its inhabitants.

The analysis of landscape as a local asset is popular with tourist landscapes of high natural and cultural value. For example, rural landscapes have seen significant levels of rearrangement in the light of economic restructuring, where spaces once arenas of agricultural production and resource extraction have become realms of consumption (Woods, 2011). Local producers and entrepreneurs now use traditional symbols to entice tourist consumption of place-based goods and experiences related to local everyday lives (Daugstad, 2008; Everett, 2012; Sims, 2009). Correspondingly, Oliver and Jenkins (2003, p. 296) write: ‘Tourism can permeate, and be integrated with, local and regional economies in a complex manner, which leads to direct income benefits for localities and to wider developmental benefits based on association, synergy and participation’. This is a common belief that tourism can enable local actors to use their resources as tourist consumer goods for socio-economic and environmental development (Saxena, Clark, & Oliver, 2007; Saxena & Ilbery, 2010; Stenseke, 2016).

Stoffelen and Vanneste (2015) label this type of conceptualisation a landscape-centric approach to tourist landscapes. They find that this approach disregards the complexity of tourism as a global phenomenon. This omission is particularly problematic as tourism can be said to manifests itself in every aspect of contemporary life (Darbellay & Stock, 2012; Franklin, 2004; Hall, 2013). Tourism is not part of a clearly defined bounded system, and rather evolves in relation with multiple local and extra-local phenomena (Britton, 1991; Chen & Chen, 2017). Examples of these interrelations in terms of their impact on landscape involve phenomena such as the development of transport and service infrastructure, the delimitation of wildlife and heritage conservation areas, responses to rural structural changes, and urban planning schemes to attract the creative class (Gibson, 2009).

Local responses and conditions are important to consider in the study of tourism as it is factors such as the political atmosphere, administrative structures and environmental amenities, that by and large legitimise the type of tourism that flourishes at a destination (Douglas, 2014; Gordon & Goodall, 2000; Hultman & Hall, 2012; Lew, 2017). As Simonsen (2012) contends, the political becomes part of the everyday as humans embody and perform its rules and discourses. Important to keep in mind is as Chen and Chen (2017, p. 23) argue: ‘The meanings of tourist places are created in relation with a variety of social, cultural, economic and political practices and events beyond tourism, and should be understood in relation with wider social contexts’. Talk of integrating tourism to the landscape generally omits to consider that tourism shapes local practices to the point of reinventing social and material relations, becoming a part of the everyday lives of those who live within its landscapes, for better or for worse.

It becomes irrelevant to see tourism as an activity to juxtapose to a landscape, rather than a significant element behind the evolution of new social and spatial interrelations, re-shaping and re-formulating everyday actions. Rather, the focus should be on identifying the conceptual frameworks that will frame tourism as an activity that directly affects how local lives are lived in relation to a toured landscape. I turn to the dwelling perspective, as proposed by Ingold (2011), to suggest this possibility. This proposition leads me to visit the tenets of non-representational theory, and present how scholars have applied them to tourism research. However, these applications are mostly insightful to understand tourism as a social phenomenon, not as a spatial phenomenon that takes the material world of those inhabiting tourist landscapes seriously. The dwelling perspective is useful to correct shortcomings over materiality and local practice in tourism research, and the shortcomings over complexity and the mundane faced by landscape scholarship.

3. Turning to a non-representational landscape

In social sciences, there has been increasing attention dedicated to the human individual as productive in everyday life (see, for instance, Casey, 1993; Crouch, 2003, 2000; Lorimer, 2005; McCormack, 2008; Simonsen, 2012; Thrift, 2008; Wylie, 2006, 2003). A shift towards a more performative notion of space developed as a critique of deeply intellectual ways of thinking about the world in terms of signs, structures and symbols (Thrift & Dewsbury, 2000; Wylie, 2013). These responses came in contrast to notions of landscape as a way of seeing adopted by scholars such as Cosgrove (1985, 1984) in landscape research. Instead, many researchers who responded were saying that landscapes are the product of the actions and practices of humans who constantly make and re-make the world around them, building themselves a place within it they can call home (Casey, 1993; Ingold, 2011; Olwig, 1996; Wylie, 2013).

Tourism scholars have challenged the hegemony of vision and binaries in their conceptualisation of tourism, making way for a more subjective, relational and negotiated notion of tourist landscapes and spaces. Scholars interested in the study of tourism have early on been caught up in dichotomies between the authentic and the modern, and the exotic and the ordinary to define tourism as a global phenomenon, linking travel to a search for the pre-modern and extraordinary (MacCannell, 1976; Urry, 1990). It is now well established that tourism scholars see tourism as a mundane activity due to its practical and performative character (Edensor, 2007; Franklin, 2004; Larsen, 2008, 2005).

Increasingly, various forms of non-representational theories have been adopted in tourism scholarship, making embodied practices, non-human interactions and everyday life matter in the socio-spatial conception of tourism (see, for instance, Giovanni et al., 2014; Jóhannesson & Lund, 2017; Obrador-Pons, 2007; Walsh & Tucker, 2009; Zara, 2015). Geographer Nigel Thrift (2008, 2001, 2000, 1996) was seeking a deeper re-conceptualisation of space in geographic theory when he proposed what he called non-representational theory as an umbrella term for those theories that diverge from the traditional representational frame. Instead of seeing space as a mere container for social action, Thrift (2008) contends space emerges from performative moments. Non-representational theory is an effective critique to the primacy of text and discourse, which disregards that the world is in a constant state of becoming, filled with moments of creativity and liveliness (Thrift, 2008).

This is not to say that representation can be completely dismissed from social analysis. It is impossible not to give names and form categories as we express ourselves through language. The difference is that the researcher now seeks to give meaning to performance and practice: ‘The focus falls on how life takes shape and gains expression in shared experiences, everyday routines, fleeting encounters, embodied movements, precognitive triggers, practical skills, affective intensities, enduring urges, unexceptional interactions and sensuous dispositions’ (Lorimer, 2005, p. 84). Instead of uncovering meaning and assigning value to human action, the researcher focuses on material compositions and social conducts (Dewsbury, Harrison, Rose, & Wylie, 2002). There are activities that find their significance in the tangible corporeality of individual expression, and thus the researcher cannot explain them through a conventional representational frame (McCormack, 2008). It is important to go beyond what the discursive cannot explain to shed light on the complexities of human existence and its bodily responses (Radley, 1995). With non-representational theory, the aim is thus to imagine new frames of reference to speak of people’s involvement in the world (Lorimer, 2005).

The espousal of the performance turn in tourism scholarship ultimately implies a recognition that tourism emerges from corporeal and relational performances, and not merely by its imposition on a mere scenic backdrop (Edensor, 2001, 1998; Larsen, 2012). Non-representational theories have enabled researchers to look more closely at the various types of actions and movements occurring during the host and guest encounter in tourism, for instance during guided tours (see, for instance, Chronis, 2015; Jóhannesson & Lund, 2017; Tucker, 2007) and at cultural and natural sites (see, for instance, Edensor, 1998; Knox, 2001; Waitt & Cook, 2007). This approach places the focus on what those involved in tourism commonly do and how they make sense of their practices, rather than seeing tourism as a placeless phenomenon disconnected from localised realities and/or existing only through exotic representations. However, these studies often portray tourism as a one-off performance between a host and a guest on some sort of theatrical stage or apply non-representational theories to the fleeting movements of the host.

Ingold’s (2011) dwelling perspective exemplifies the formation of embodied subjectivity and its relation to landscape. Merleau-Ponty’s (1945–1962) notion of a body that inhabits space and time, rather than merely finds itself in space and time, is central to the dwelling perspective (Ingold, 2011). Opposing the mind and body dichotomy, Merleau-Ponty (1945–1962) affirms that the body is more than a mere object; it is the condition and context which warrants one a relation with the entities of the world (Crossley, 1995). People inhabit space by means of their body, through which they orient themselves in different directions and dimensions (Casey, 1993; Malpas, 2008). As Casey (1993, p. 22) argues, one is not in space as ‘a puppet stuffed in a box’, but as living in it, through our bodily implacement in it.

Human actions and practices ultimately contain transformative elements fashioning space. Ingold (2011) was highly inspired by Heidegger’s (1971) phenomenological notion of dwelling, where humans inhabit their world through their continual practices. According to Heidegger (1971), it is by inhabiting space that humans make the latter meaningful, making it a realm of daily involvement, where they simultaneously find their way and feel at home (Malpas, 2008; Simonsen, 2012). Heidegger (1971) is a controversial figure of conservatism to say the least and, as such, it is important to outline that it is particular aspects of his philosophy that are of interest. As Palmer (2018) holds, interesting to current anthropology and other social sciences is his explanation of how people are involved in the world, not his romanticised localism. Dwelling is not about the organic presence of humans in a natural world, it is about the many things that these humans do to make themselves at home (Cresswell, 2013). Relevant conceptualisations of dwelling will make intelligible the complex routes, relations, contexts, networks, practices and assemblages at the heart of modern living spaces, rather than rely on meta-narratives of being (Cloke & Jones, 2001; Obrador-Pons, 2003; Wylie, 2013).

Ingold’s (2011) dwelling perspective sees a temporality in the landscape. It implies that human activities weave themselves in the environment: ‘[…] the landscape is constituted as an enduring record of—and testimony to—the lives and works of past generations who have dwelt within it, and in so doing, have left there something of themselves’ (Ingold, 2011, p.189). Individuals foster relations of different nature and strength with their environment and its other inhabitants (Ingold, 2011). This process of incorporation is what Ingold (2011) considers as embodiment. Incorporation is unlike inscription where a cultural frame of reference serves to attribute significance to a landscape. Human knowledge comes from the inhabitation of space as bodies orient themselves by responding to the cues and objects of their physical world, not by learning about it through text or imagery (Casey, 1993; Malpas, 2008). From Heidegger (1971), Ingold (2011) explores dwelling as the building of place. Dwelling means that people derive resources, build physical structures, and form social institutions from their landscape through their various practices over time. Casey (1993, p.112) writes: ‘dwelling places offer not just bare shelter but the possibility of sojourns of upbringing, of education, of contemplation, of conviviality, lingerings of many kinds and durations’. These moments are possible through the interrelation of a social and material world.

Ingold (2011) presents the dwelling perspective to make meaningful to landscape research the daily activities of human beings as they live in close relation to a physical landscape. Humans gather together materials and things to form a world in which they experience being human (Casey, 1993; Malpas, 2008). Inspired by Thrift (1996) and Ingold (2011), Whatmore (2006, 2002) claims that the substance of human and non-human bodies are more than receptacle of social discourse; they grant place a practical form in their performance of the social ordering. Non-representational theories outline the importance of the objects that make mundane tasks possible. Objects have a form of agency that entangles them in the realm of the social (Latour, 2005; Whatmore, 2006, 2002). Mundane objects, technologies, plants and animals arbitrate the practices connecting the body to its surroundings beyond mere gazing (Crouch, 2003; Graves-Brown, 2000; Michael, 2000). Whatmore (2006, 2002) explains that materials have their own agency, which affords humans bodily capabilities. It is through the presence of a desk, books, classroom space and whiteboard that someone comes into being as a teacher. The different configurations will lead to the creation of not only different places, but also different spatial identities and practices.

Tourism scholars have extensively studied tourism as a social assemblage where material interrelations and mundane embodied movements of doing, touching and being generate dynamic spaces (see, for instance, Chronis, 2015; Edensor, 2007; Obrador-Pons, 2007, 2003). Common equipment and tools, such as soil and shoes involve the human subject directly in the world by affording practices such as gardening and hiking (Crouch, 2003; Michael, 2000). With tourism, objects such as cameras, guidebooks, scuba gear, and rental cars involve the body at the destination (Bell & Lyall, 2002; Crouch, 2000; Haldrup & Larsen, 2006; Walsh & Tucker, 2009). However, such studies usually apply non-representational theories to the material encounters and interrelations of the host. This use of non-representational theories does not reflect the humanist ethos that non-representational scholars sought when they established the theories to give primacy to mundane movement and embodiments. When it comes to tourist landscapes, those affected the most by the misrepresentation and scientific detachment of representational approaches are ultimately those who live at a destination.

3.1. Bridging theory through dwelling

The celebration of the tourist’s material and social embodiments risks leading to the other problematic binary outlined by Stoffelen and Vanneste (2015); that of a tourist-centric approach. In this case, the social relations, embodiments, objects and activities of tourists take analytical precedence over the formation of a space of everyday living. Under this approach, the tourist landscape risks remaining a mere backdrop for tourist activity, rather than become the complex social and material realm of daily involvement of its residents. What is largely missing in tourism landscape scholarship is a conceptualisation of the materiality of the lingerings and convivialities of those who call the tourist landscape home to an everyday life. The dwelling perspective has this potential when used as Ingold (2011) intended it for the study of the temporality of landscape. I will demonstrate the utility of the dwelling perspective to tourism landscape scholarship through a case study I published (see Prince, 2018).

I have demonstrated how the tourist landscape on the rural island of Bornholm, Denmark stemmed in part from the embodied practices of professional craft-artists. Bornholm is home to a cluster of craft-artists working mostly with ceramics and glass design in small private and shared workshops around the island. These craft-artists are not tourism entrepreneurs per se, but their clustering activities have become a part of the island’s idyllic rural tourist brand. These craft-artists are active at selling their crafts during their island’s intense summer tourist season, some enjoy performing their art in front of tourists and others prefer not to. These craft-artists have built different types of workshops, boutiques and venues to take advantage of the tourist season, and these structures have become a part of Bornholm’s cultural and touristic landscape.

The appealing landscape of arts and crafts on Bornholm stems from the materials the craft-artists work with as professionals. For instance, the fact that clay sticks on fingers forces ceramists to separate the production and the sales process during the tourist season, as they cannot make transactions with dirty fingers. This material interrelation serves to create different types of creative places than those created by the glass blowers. Glass-blowers are more prone to welcome clients in their work spaces because, not only do they not get in sticky contact with their material as they fashion it, their material goes through a flamboyant production process that entertains viewers. Materiality is not only a significant element dictating the types of venues that will surface in a toured landscape. In the case of Bornholm, the materiality of ceramics and glass influences the type of relations the craft-artists entertain with tourists. Yet, tourism also influences the relationship the craft-artists entertain with their materials. As tourists flood the island as potential customers, the craft-artists must manage their involvement with their beloved clay and glass. For the craft-artists of Bornholm, the tourist season means timing their production as there can be no deep creative involvement during that period. As these craft-artists dwell on Bornholm, they make themselves at home within a tourist landscape.

Seeing the tourist landscape through the dwelling perspective implies two significant conceptual propositions. Firstly, tourism is not an element to integrate to a cultural landscape, it is an intrinsic part of how this landscape is lived and fashioned. The materials, techniques and creative spaces used by the craft-artists of Bornholm to practice their profession mediate their interactions with tourists to whom they sell their crafts and show their skills, but also, these encounters during the tourist season mediate the craft-artists’ interactions with entities that are significant parts of their everyday lives. This interrelation exemplifies the way that the landscape of mundane embodied practices cannot be detached from the landscape that the tourists encounter. The introduction of tourism to Bornholm makes complex the relations these craft-artists entertain with their crafts’ materiality, while this materiality simultaneously makes complex their interrelation with tourists. Yet, all these movements and practices become a very mundane aspect of living on Bornholm-the-tourist-destination as a professional craft-artist. The tourist landscape is not exotic under these terms since it cannot be disconnected from bodily responses to wider socio-economic processes, in this case the attraction of urban consumers to the idyllic countryside. Tourism is rather a part of the everyday lives of those involved in the formation of a tourist landscape.

Secondly, using the dwelling perspective locates the residents of the tourist landscape within the totality of the production of a landscape through their assimilation of tourism to their everyday lives. This means that they are not passive agents incurring the effects of tourism, but that they are individuals involved in the relations, networks and assemblages of their toured world. Palmer (2018, p. 21) says that thinking about tourism through the dwelling perspective enables researchers to ‘locate tourism within the totality of life and of living’. By embracing such totality, the physical world and strategic embodiments of the inhabitants of a landscape become meaningful, and as such can offer a frame to anchor those dwelling in a tourist landscape as relevant agents to its formation. A conceptualisation of the tourist landscape through the dwelling perspective goes beyond the notion of the local as a guide on a stage or as a provider of props. Importantly, it would highlight the limits and possibilities found in the landscape that representational theories and most development strategies do not fathom as humans makes sense of their world. For instance, as clay dries slowly, making ceramics is a slow process. This material property means that ceramists cannot make their practices fit in categories predetermined by theories related to the spectacle of the experience economy.

4. Conclusion

The purpose of this article is to contribute a perspective to the study of the tourist landscape that centres scientific conversations of tourism on the complex, yet very mundane, material and practical world of those residents inhabiting toured spaces. Tourist landscapes are home to people who negotiate and affirm their positions in the wake of an array of aspirations related to their position in a complex system (Milne & Ateljevic, 2001; Prince, 2017). It is thus important to make these actors’ mundane embodied actions and their material world matter in tourism development schemes and landscape research. In her account of tourism and dwelling, Palmer (2018) encourages researchers to ask how places are experienced through tourism. I want to take the matter further and add these questions for future research specifically centred on tourist landscapes: what materials are central to the way people make themselves at home in their world as it becomes a tourist landscape? What can these materials tell about the experience of using tourism as a development or lifestyle strategy? How is the everyday practiced and experienced by the inhabitants of the tourist landscape? A focus on the non-representational elements of the landscape sheds light on the complexities of the existence of those who dwell within the temporality of tourism impacts and development. Focusing on the elements of dwelling outlines the multitude of compromises, practices, reactions and encounters that turn cultural landscapes into tourist landscapes, and tourist landscapes into living spaces.

Lastly, as non-representational theories cannot avoid categories and themes, but rather should give meaning to performance and practice, I want to ponder on language. Belhassen and Caton (2009) call discursive anchors words around which academic discussion can progress in meaningful and critical ways. The authors name authenticity and community as such terms, stating these words do not have a single definition, but rather serve to fuel conversation amongst scholars of different disciplines around their various meanings and implications in social life (Belhassen & Caton, 2009). Such conversations are conducive to healthy debates and the democratic exchange of ideas. I want to propose a notion of dwelling in the tourist landscape as a discursive anchor in order to infuse conversations about the tourist landscape with the ethos of materiality and embodied practices that make lived experiences matter in social sciences. I wish to present a discursive anchor, rather than a conceptual model, because, as the spirit of non-representationality goes: ‘[…] reducing local involvement to behavioural models, scientific theories and intellectual critique risks severing science from the world of the living by disembedding its subjects from their realities’ (Prince, 2018, p. 79, see also Ingold, 2011; Lorimer, 2005; Thrift, 2008). It becomes more meaningful and ethical to cooperate to find the words to express the different ways that people interact with each other and other non-humans within their realm of practical involvement (Popke, 2009).

Proposing a discursive anchor sensitive to local social and practical experiences of tourism is one attempt to contribute to the formation of language sensitive to human realities. I argue that considering tourist landscapes as realms of dwelling recognises the presence and influence of those who dwell therein in forming, and being formed by, spaces consumed and enjoyed by tourists. Policy-makers often uncritically pinpoint tourism as the ultimate strategy to improve socio-economic development (Mair, 2006), and this occurs generally without any consideration to the way tourism pervasively re-arranges everyday lives and local landscapes. Managerial plans and policies are closely linked to the language used by researchers and practitioners as they promote tourism development and outline the benchmarks for its success (Belhassen & Caton, 2009). Landscape scholars seem to have accepted this rhetoric in their analysis of tourist landscapes as they advocate spatial integration and material preservation to conceptualise the tourist landscape, consequently making their scientific aim the support of the sustained growth of tourism. New discursive anchors to speak of tourism are important to enable researchers and practitioners to retain a conceptual ability to imagine and apply new worldviews that would make local experiences matter. As Gibson-Graham (2004, 2003) advance, it is by identifying and naming the overwhelming effects of globalisation at the performative and contextual level that we avoid continuously promoting the same discourses uncritically. A notion of dwelling in the tourist landscape denotes that there is a practical and mundane side to the spaces tourists, producers, residents and other stakeholders engage with, which is highly connected to both local and extra-local social and material realities. Researchers should consider these elements to propose development policies and strategies anchored in social experience, rather than ascribe predefined structures and vague discourses onto living spaces. Importantly, with the dwelling perspective, the focus lies on local experiences, rather than on tourism itself as the main object of societal interest.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.