Paper short abstract:

This paper is a discussion of the concept of experience (as Erlebnis) in tourism. Central to the debate is how far tourism can be seen as a disruption of habitus that constitutes Erlebnise and thus a 'Moment of Being' leading to a heightened sense of selfhood and identity.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I shall examine the nature of tourists' experiences in the Mallorcan charter tourism resorts of Magaluf and Palmanova. Drawing on the existential anthropology of Michael Jackson (2005) I shall critically examine the notion of the tourist experience as something that happens to someone and argue that the touristic event provides 'a moment of being' (that is a discreet instance) which allows elucidation on the various elements that give rise to a particular sense of self hood and (especially national) identity.

To achieve this I shall utilise Bourdieu's concepts of field and habitus and argue that the tourists enter a particular field of action which appeals to, and thus feeds off and into, their habitus. At the same time the touristic event is presented as different enough by the mediators of the event to occasion a disruption to the habitus and give rise to moments of being. As such I shall illuminate the social structures underpinning the tourists' experience developed by the tourism industry as well as the actions and dispositions of the tourists principally embodied and symbolised by their bodies which serve to both confirm and resist hegemonic market forces.

I shall demonstrate that contrary to established understandings of tourism as a search for difference (MacCannell, 1976; Urry, 1990) this form of tourism serves as an expression of self identify, and, that, further, both market forces and the tourism industry rely on the myth of freedom for self perpetuation.

E-paper: this Paper will not be presented, but read in advance and discussed