Pop Culture L5

Question 1

Going away - new activity:

Answer 1

• 19th century - industrial revolution paved the way for workers to have holidays. Wasn’t even a weekend until 19th century.
• Bank Holidays Act 1871.
• Holiday with Pay Act 1938 - guarantees certain provision of paid holiday.
• growing middle class.
• philanthropists and major companies pioneers of holiday taking - e.g., Cadburys - subsided work and steam trains to seaside resorts.
• holidays - wider understanding of social history and class dynamics in the UK.

Question 2

Advent of mass tourism:

Answer 2

• post WW2.
• people travelled away/abroad more.
• common destinations = Plymouth, Weston-Super-Mare and Skegness.

Question 3

Cheap holidays:

Answer 3

• changing due to changing economic circumstances.
• generational shifts.
• package holidays - e.g. TUI.
• white middle class xenophobia.
• imaginative geographies.
• different price brackets - e.g., Antigua/Benidorm.

Question 4

Ethical holidays:

Answer 4

• some have greater access to resources than others - e.g., intercontinental travel
• global climate crisis.
• world is unequal - western white most powerful due to colonialism?

Question 5

Embodied experiences:

Answer 5

• sensory experience - e.g., sand or sun on skin.
• class distinctions
• Obrador Pons 2007

Question 6

tourist gaze:

Answer 6

• Lots of consumption practices and sites:
• E.g., visiting a tourist attraction or landscape, paying admission for a place or viewpoint, choosing a place to holiday, buying gifts and souvenirs, etc.
• ‘the actual purchases in tourism … are often incidental to the gaze’ (Urry 1995)

Question 7

Scenography:

Answer 7

• differs depending on budget - e.g., Benidorm/Antigua.
• through online/TV adverts: way we consume places.
• often look the same - e.g. palm trees are ubiquitous.
• luxury resorts = infinity pools.
• Tim Edensor 2001: ‘linked thematically and spatially, these theatres produce glamour, fame and beauty’.
• blurring of activities - shoppertainment, eatertainment and infotainment.

Question 8

Stage management:

Answer 8

• ‘Careful stage management to create and control both a cultural and physical environment’ (Freitag, 1994)
• e.g. Caribbean holidays resorts marketed at wealthy couples. Ideal for honeymoons/couple getaways.
• unequal region - the poor are hidden away so experience isn’t ‘ruined’.

Question 9

Refracted enchantment:

Answer 9

• Ramsey 2009 - ways in which we capture something of a holiday through a souvenir, etc.
• momentary and lasting attachment to a place through objects.
• habitual routines - e.g. cutlery used in everyday use.

Question 10

Construction of the gaze:

Answer 10

• tourist gazes are constructed by gender, race, ethnicity and class.
• Urry and Larson 2011: ‘to consider how a social group constructs their gaze is a good way of getting at what is happening in a ‘normal’ society.
• class distinctions being reproduced and reformed.
• we distinguish ourselves from others based on holidays we choose
• class imaginations - e.g., gap year middle class student and Benidorm.
• othering - e.g., some perspectives on southeast Asia.

Question 11

Norms:

Answer 11

• ways in which we understand ourselves, each other and holidays are through norms.
• norms: ways in which class distinctions are segmented as it is normal to act a certain way in a particular group.
• Tim Edensor 2001 ‘shared norms instantiate being a backpacker, a participant on a tourist bus or a member of Club 18-30’
• Munt 1994: ‘whole regions have become travel circuits, e.g., Central America and Southeast Asia.
• white saviour - building orphanages, etc.