Paper short abstract:

This contribution engages 'new cosmopolitan' approaches in anthropology to the 'global political economy of tourism' and explores the contextual circumstances of the social sciences and humanities claim to 'tourism' as an area of specialisation in relationship to the thought of Immanuel Kant (1795).

Paper long abstract:

This contribution (1) outlines a framework for understanding some of the reasons for growing interest in 'new cosmopolitan' approaches in anthropology to the 'global political economy of tourism', and (2) considers the implications for several aims of the session of comparing the contextual circumstances of Kant's (1795) arguments for anthropological approaches to 'publicity', 'public grounds of truth' and 'perpetuating peace', with those under which social sciences and humanities have come to include 'tourism' (and the 'global tourism political economy' among their key areas of specialisation. I will conclude with suggestions about how some of the most controversial aspects of anthropological research and teaching on tourism relate to images of "living your own life in a runaway world' or "age of risk" (Beck 1995, 2001, 2004) and problems with arguments that the most promising proposals of solutions to conflict over 'global justice, human rights and governmentality' lie in 'new cosmopolitan' notions of 'alternative realities' (Latour 2004; Koerner 2006; (ASA 2006 Conference Programme: 6).