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ABSTRACT
Literature and geography are closely related in the worlds of consumption and mobility, and literature is often used as a resource for the tourism industry. The reading and consumption of literature, therefore, are related to visitation of a real place, and the roles of readers and tourists merge. The case of one literary tourism site, the San Mao Teahouse in the ancient town of Zhouzhuang in China, is selected to explain the complexity of reading and geography consumption in literary tourism. Observations and in-depth interviews were used to collect the data, and then the thematic analysis method was used. The study finds that tourists can also actively participate in the construction of literary places at destinations where relevant texts do not exist. In this kind of literary place, consumption occurs in multiple spaces as a result of tourists’ reading combined with geographical consumption. This study proposes a conceptual framework to analyze the geography consumption of literature in tourist destinations. The results show that the main geography consumption is reflected in three aspects, namely text, reality, and imagination. Based on their previous reading experiences, readers explore both the literary text and the reality. In this process, their imaginations always have an effect. Two distinguishing features have been found: first, through actively reading and decoding literary geography, the readers recreate a new fictionalized reality based on their imaginations. Second, the readers pursue the imaginative process from the real Zhouzhuang back to an imagined place that San Mao wrote about. The study contributes to the current literary geography research field, especially from the perspective of consumption. The study also provides a new perspective on literature in the modern world and practical implications for the design of literary tourist products and literary heritage conservation.
摘要
文学与地理有着紧密的关系, 进入消费社会以来, 文学被视为一项经济持久的旅游资源得到广泛开发和利用, 文学阅读激发了人们去文学来源地消费的欲望, 读者因此成为潜在的文学旅游者, 其地位和价值受到越来越多的重视。本文以读者 (游客) 为研究对象, 选择文学场所周庄古镇三毛茶楼为案例地, 采用参与观察法和深度访谈法, 对文学旅游中的阅读和地理消费进行主题分析。研究发现༚游客在文学旅游中的地理消费主要围绕以下三条脉络展开༚(1)作品中的地理消费, (2)现实地理消费, (3)想象地理消费。在以往阅读经验的基础上, 沿着文本和现实两条路径进行地理阅读, 由作者贯穿其中展开地理学想象, 将现实、虚构和想象合三为一, 再生产出新的虚构实体。游客的文学地理消费表现为两个显著的特征: 第一, 对文学地理信息的主动阅读与解码, 并以想象的方式再生产出一个新的虚构实体; 第二, 追求从真实到虚构的想象过程。本研究有助于完善文学地理的研究体系, 尤其是从消费视角扩展文学地理的研究内容。从实践上看, 对文学旅游产品的设计和文学遗产传承提供参考。
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thanks the editor and the referees for their valuable suggestions.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Notes on contributors
Liao Jiang
Liao Jiang is a lecturer in the Shenzhen Tourism College at Jinan University, Shenzhen, China. He is particularly intrigued by the interaction between tourism and literary places in modern China, and he is more generally interested in culture tourism and tourism impact. He has previously published papers on literary geography as well as ancient town tourism in Zhouzhuang, China.
Honggang Xu
Hong-Gang Xu is a professor of the School of Tourism Management at Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China. She has been teaching, researching, and writing about tourism geography and planning for years and has published more than 80 journal articles and book chapters. She has served as principal government adviser to many administrative departments of tourism in China and has rich experience in practices of tourism planning. His recent research focus includes tourism geography in China, culture tourism, and system dynamics.