The tourist syndrome

An interview with Zygmunt Bauman

University of Bristol
www.sagepublications.com

This interview with one of the world s leading sociologists, Zygmunt Bauman, e!plores how his work on li"uid modernity, consumerism, space, hospitality, the #full planet and e!tra territoriality impact on tourism theory. This interview launches perhaps a new concept, that of #the tourist syndrome and e!amines the importance of tourism in providing a platform for the e!ploration of difference and otherness. As with all of his work Bauman is keen to identify the ethical nature of social activities such as tourism. keywords difference and otherness extra-territoriality globalization hospitality liquid modernity the tourist syndrome tourism and ethics tourism and space tourism theory

The interview took place in Zygmunt Bauman s home in Leeds, $%, on &' August ())*. +t is perhaps a measure of a person s impact on the world when a ta!i driver, randomly hailed from a provincial railway station, knows who you are intending to visit simply from the address you give. But when on the return ,ourney, another, e"ually randomly booked ta!i driver asks straight out- #.ow was Zygmunt today/ one begins to catch a whiff of celebrity in the air. $nlike so many celebrities today, Bauman s fame is not based on a lucky break or the thinnest achievement, but on solid achievement over a lifetime. .is books, too numerous to mention in an introductory paragraph, have come at us in rapid 0re over the years with a series of da11ling, sparkling works over the past () years or so. .e is certainly one of the most important and in2uential sociologists of our times but he also has the distinction of being one of our best public intellectuals. Fortunately for us he is also an e!tremely generous man and he made room for this interview in an otherwise packed diary of lectures all around the world. 3y main ob,ective in seeking an interview with Zygmunt Bauman for Tourist Studies was to introduce him to scholars of tourism who have not read him, or read him widely, in order to inspire a more re2e!ive Tourist Studies, one based on a better grasp of how tourism con0gures with contemporary societies, especially in the touristic heartlands of the 4est. Bauman is the so called ()5 #prophet of postmodernity and more latterly of li"uid modernity but, more signi0cantly, he is one of the best analysts of the contemporary human condition. Tourist studies need to address and be inspired by such analyses for many of the reasons + outlined in the essay + co6wrote with 3ike 7rang in the 0rst issue of Tourist Studies 8 which Zygmunt read as part of his preparation for the interview. The ma,ority of tourist writers + read still cleave centrally to certain of the rather outdated ideas of $rry s Tourist Gaze 9&::); and 3ac7annell s The Tourist 9&:<=;.This is a problem, not least because these books were set in two types of #solid modernity 8 the &:=)s and &:<)s8>)s, and because their notion of tourism was based on distinctions 9home?away@ everyday?holiday@ real?fake@ work?leisure; that no longer apply in the way they once did@ and also on the centrality of production 8 which has now given way to consumerism and on a transformation of space that makes the notion of tourism as they had it seriously problematic. Bauman has written e!tensively on these transformations but there is a poor grasp of them in the tourism literature. +t is surely ironic that Bauman s li"uid modernity, which gives rise to the sorts of mobilities, 2e!ibilities and freedoms that fuel the dramatic growth of tourism, if not the touristi0cation of everyday life, has not been drawn on or made much use of by recent writers in tourist studies. Li"uid modernity differs from traditional society which was an in2e!ible, hierarchical social order and

solid modernity which cast aside traditional society in favour of what it imagined could be a better egalitarian blueprint for human society.4hat characteri1es li"uid modernity by contrast is the abandonment of the search for a blueprint, to search out and impose a newer, better solid form of social order. +nstead, we have slowly but surely undermined and undone all forms of in2e!ibility and restraint, most dramatically perhaps with nation state borders and the freedom to travel 8 whether the cargo is trade goods, information or human travellers. +t is precisely this world that we need to grasp, yet, like all li"uids it does not hold its shape for long.Transformation and states of becom ing are the social realities we have to deal with and Bauman has characteri1ed our central roles as consumers in li"uid modernity as rather like tourists. +mportantly, Bauman tends to use tourism as a metaphor for contemporary life in 4estern societies. .e has also written interestingly about the post6Aeptember && world as the symbolic end of the era of space but clearly those essays in his Society under Siege 9Bauman, ())(; de0ne a world where the anthropology of frontier6lands takes over from the safe hinterlands of secure nation states.4e have entered a darker world and a full planet and it will be interesting to know his views on whether or not, and if so how, tourism might 0gure in this new and challenging world. Ao + began by asking him for his views on contemporary tourism in relation to his understanding of contemporary society. +n thinking about this, it was not long before a new term was coined,#the tourist syndrome . Zygmunt Bauman- + would like to separate tourism as a metaphor for contemporary living from the tourism as a body of speci0c persons and a sum total of certain activities. There are "uestions such as why large numbers of people are shuttled about on speci0c days to speci0c places with speci0c itineraries. And other important "uestions 8 above all why they go, what sort of impact it has on their lives, and what sort of impact it has on the natives living in the destination/ This is what tourist studies are about, + think.These phenomena, growing phenomena, are very important politically and economically 8 above all, economically, but in the long run also socially, because of the impact on the structure of living in the places where the tourists start, the places they arrive, and all along their way. The world is divided up into those places where tourists are carefully ushered into and through, and those places they are prevented from seeing.Tourists only 2ow into certain places. Bur everyday worlds are similarly divided 8 an effect of tourism or the realities tourism re2ects/ + remember being met at an +talian airport by a young academic from a local af2uent family@ she apologi1ed for a long, winding, traf0c6clogged route she took to the conference where + was speaking. +ndeed, it took her two hours to arrive . . . A ta!i driver, though, who drove me back to the airport needed but ten minutes to pass through the dilapidated, slum6like, poverty6stricken streets she probably knew nothing about, and tourists never visited . . . 4hen speaking of the #tourists or #tourism as metaphors of contemporary life, + have in mind certain aspects of the tourist condition and?or e!perience 8 like being in a place temporarily and knowing it, not belonging to the place, not locked into the local life #for better or worse .That condition is shared with the modality of ordinary daily life, with the way we are all #inserted in the company of others everywhere 8 in places where we live or work@ not only during the summer holidays, but seven days a week, all year round, year by year. +t is that characteristic of contemporary life to which + primarily refer when speaking of the tourist syndrome. 3uch follows, of course, from that characteristic. First of all, and perhaps the most important, is the looseness of ties with the place 9physical, geographic, social;-There is no 0rm commitment, no 0!ed date of staying@ it s all #until further notice . Cresumption of temporariness is built into the way of being and behaving.This is very different from one very important e!pectation which was so typical of solid modernity and the foremost feature of a #Fordist factory or more generally of panoptical power- The assumption that #we will meet again 8 tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, ne!t year, ne!t decade perhaps . . . +f people know?believe that they are going to meet again and again and again, they strive to work out a certain modus co6vivendi, elaborate certain ways of living together, compose rules 9norms; by which, as they assume, all of them

will abide by. Bn the way to such an agreement and even after the deal has been struck there is a lot of con2ict, there are e!plosive skirmishes and protracted battles 8 but people, like the workers of a #Fordist factory 9once a Ford s employee, forever a Ford s employee;, 0ght because they know that happen what might they are bound to live together and in each other s company for a long time to come@ otherwise, the struggle would be hardly worth the sweat and the painD Bn the other hand, people who are hired for a particular 0!ed6term pro,ect and know that they will be kicked out ne!t year if not before, or people who work on a day6to6day basis, have no reason to strike. 4hat for/ Atriking is important to elaborate the rules. But rules are necessary only when the relation is durable. +f it is not durable nor assumed to be you ,ust stumble from one episode to another and you make the rules as you go, always ad hoc, local rules with but a butter2y life 8 like the tourists do . . . Auch looseness of attachment 8 being in but not of the place 8 makes tourism a well6aimed and pertinent metaphor for contemporary life. Another feature of the tourist syndrome is #gra1ing behaviour . A 2ock of sheep gra1e on one meadow, and when the grass is all eaten up they have no reason to stay and move, or are moved, to another. Eon t take here the metaphor literally 8 the tourists don t eat up everything they 0nd in the place and empty the shop shelves 8 but as they eat what they came for they 0nd the supply of tasty titbits fast running dry. 4hat they were seeking were, in the 0rst place, e!periences 8 unlike the e!periences they lived through before, unlike everything else they knew@ untried tastes, un6 e!perienced sensations. But sensations are un6e!perienced and tastes are untried only once.Tourists have by de0nition #pure relationship to the place they visit 8 #pure meaning that it has no other purpose than the consumption of pleasurable sensation and that once the satisfaction wanes, it wilts and fades as well 8 and so you move to another relationship, hopefully as #pure as the last one.The world of pure relationships is a huge collection of gra1ing grounds, and living in such a world is shaped after the pattern of wandering from one succulent and fragrant meadow to another.This is a valid reason for a sociologist, whatever 0eld of human life s?he focuses on, to study the #tourist e!perience - +t grasps in a puri0ed form what in ordinary life is mi!ed and obscured. And then let us not forget the frailty of relationships which tourists enter into wherever they go.This feature of the #tourist syndrome is intimately connected to what we ve discussed before- As they are a priori temporary and reduced to the consumption of 9limited and fast shrinking; sensations, the effort to construct a hard and tough frame of mutual rights and obligations and mutually binding rules of conduct is completely redundant 8 a waste of time and energy. 4e don t trust the relationships to last, we have no idea how long we 9tourists, workers, partners; will stay there. Eaniel 7ohen, the very perceptive clever economist from the Aorbonne, pointed out that a young person who ,oined the staff of Fenault or Ford could be pretty sure that he will retire from the same place at the end of his working life 8 but the young person who ,oins Bill Gates s 3icrosoft or another Ailicon Halley company has no idea what will happen to him in a few months time 9Fichard Aennett calculated that the average length of employment in Ailicon Halley is eight months;.To be on the move before the ground moves under feet, to be always ready for another run 8 this is the name of the game. And so, ,ust like during a tourist trip, you can cut out all the worries about the long term, far6reaching conse"uences of what you are doing at the moment. +n all probability, there will be no such conse"uences 8 not for you at any rate.There is no lifelong identity that could be selected at the beginning of life and pursued from then on, no #training for life , no #whole life skills that can be ac"uired once and for all and won t re"uire revision 8 or forgetting . . . Living from one moment to another, living for the moment, is a crucial trait of the #tourist syndrome .4hen you ,u!tapose the #tourist syndrome with a #pilgrim syndrome 8 with the modality of the pilgrim s travels, where the signi0cance of every stage is derived fully from the diminishing distance separating the traveller from the previously selected destination 8 you can see clearly how different the contemporary life is. drian !ran"lin- Ies, you also compare the tourist to the vagabond, another travelling

phenomenon of recent years, your point being that although we are all now in a mobile world these two groups travel in vastly different ways-The former celebrating their success and desirability as consumers, the latter admitting their condition of desperation, consumer failure and undesirability. ZB- Ies, there is this alter ego of the tourist, this dark side to the otherwise ,oyful escapades full of adventure and seeing new sights@ the broken6mirror re2ection, the caricatured lookalike of tourist ventures-Hagabondage.Hagabonds do not travel by choice 9they may only dream of tourist s #+ pay, + demand freedom;@ most of them would probably like very much to stay put in the place where they are rather than move on. Alas, they have to move, since they are either e!pelled from there or cannot make a living. As a rule, vagabonds can t and don t stay in a place as long as they #ant, they stay in the place only as long as they are #anted.They don t break relationships because the company of their partners no longer satis0es them. +t is their relationships that keep being broken because their own company is no longer desired. Bne more essential peculiarity needs to be mentioned.Iou ve to decide 9and to pay; to seek the wonders and the bliss that the tourist s life may offer, but in our li"uid6modern world you need not move an inch to turn into a vagabond. Iou are still in the same place, but the place is no longer what it was . . . The company you worked for disappeared, the partner of life 9though emphatically not for life; has moved out and away, the rules of the game have changed without notice. And you know, even if it did not happen to you yet and you suppress the awareness of its possibility as keenly as you can, that happen to you it may 8 and at any moment. Eark premonitions blight each moment of ,oy . . . The 0gures of #tourist and #vagabond mark the two poles of a continuum along which our life and our e!pectations are plotted. !- The power of the tourism metaphor works with consumerism ,ust as well as it does with what you have to say about work, workplace politics and so on. +n your writings on consumerism you talk about the transition from need through desire to wish. Eo you suppose that we can trace changes in tourism along those lines/ Ao for instance in the old days people used to say you needed to get away from your toils in a society of producers, but + m not "uite sure about how desire in tourism differs from wish. ZB- Basically + think the difference between desire and wish 9+ owe that e!tremely pertinent distinction to .arvie Ferguson, 9&::=; is that desire needs to be planted and cultivated, tended to, groomed@ it takes time and effort to tune and hone it . . . Acting on wish does not re"uire such a costly groundwork. Aeduction is instantaneous, wish descends from the here and now. 7onsumers are overwhelmed by the allure and act, so to speak, #on impulse . . . There are permanent tourists, people who are in general on the move, people for whom travelling is a way of life.Iou meet them in any airport 8 seasoned travellers who in the #nowherevilles of which the airports are the most conspicuous e!amples feel fully and truly #at home and behave accordingly. But there are clearly also crowds waiting for charter planes to, say,Tenerife, 3a,orca, 7osta Brava, the Algarve or wherever 8 visibly tired, feeling a bit lost and certainly unsure of every step they take. +t would not be correct, though, to view the opposition between such two categories of tourists and that between #acting on desire and #on wish as overlapping. First there is, elaborated and conducted over a long period of time, the cult of certain places as harbours of particularly en,oyable tourist e!periences and a ritual of attending such places at speci0c points of the annual cycle. At a certain time of year bodies should be transported from here to there . . . France is probably an e!treme case- Bn )& August each year almost the whole population of Caris ,ump into cars and head for the 7Jotes d A1ure . . . This is desire at work 8 carefully and lovingly cultivated over many years until its absence, rather than its presence, looks like norm6breaking. At the same time, there is a relatively new, more ef0cient and in total account cheaper technology of triggering consumer e!penditure- 7on,uring up wishes and prompting to act on impulse. This has been

acutely spotted and described by Kaomi %lein 9()));- The technology of branding.Iou are alerted and right away seduced whenever you see the logo . . . 4ell, everything can in principle be branded and become thereby effective bait. Erinking water has been already branded, and an unheard6of habit to carry a bottle with you whenever you go and take a few gulps every once in a while immediately followed. Air can be branded, the sand of the beach may be branded. Lverything can be made a wish6 prompting ob,ect, and once the initial investment has been made, a lot of money can be made out of it with little further prompting. + believe that tourism may be promoted, and will be increasingly promoted, deploying such technology in one form or another. Brands are catching because people, bewildered and confused amidst the 2ood of contradictory peddling calls, crave for con0dence and security of choice. Aelecting a branded ob,ects carrying a famous logo known and coveted by many, offers such a con0dence and certainty without the awkward need of testing, trying, researching information, collecting evidence . . .Iou may breath a sigh of relief when you see a familiar logo, on whichever ob,ect or place it has been stamped, whatever your current purposes and preoccupations may be and however the ob,ect in "uestion is related to them. +n your book 9Franklin, ())*; you asked a very interesting "uestion-4hy did people suddenly get interested in the old bread ovens in Lancashire/ 4ell, anything could be branded, at least carry a brand of #tourist attraction 9are not the brown boards near the motorway e!its a sort of #logo for the tourist industry/;, and being branded means to be made into an interesting e!perience. Aomething unusual, something you haven t seen before, promising an e!perience you ve not had yet, worth making a ,ourney for . . . Kever before you worried and lost sleep at night, to be sure, because you had not seen old bread6baking ovens.Iou did not develop that sort of desire, you had not been overwhelmed by it 8 no compulsion, no addiction . . . But now, if advertising has done its ,ob well, you haveD At least you may. . .Alongside ordinary signposts showing directions brown billboards 9you already know what the brown colour means; are dug in at the motorway e!its which beckon to your generali1ed, diffused desire for attractions. Iou didn t plan to visit this particular #you must see place, perhaps you were not aware that it e!isted, but suddenly you see those strange names on the brown billboards.4hy not stop for a moment, interrupt the ,ourney and drive those () e!tra miles/ This is what you #ish.Iou had no idea that you #needed to see the Lancashire bread ovens an hour ago, 0ve minutes ago, now you know 8 and you turn your car and go. That s a growing business. 3any places try hard to 0nd something that would make them into a #must see tourist attraction, and most will, with due imagination, 0nd that something. $ntil recently Bradford was a very ugly and dull city 8 old, abandoned factories, gaping windows without glass, nothing to admire, nothing to put it on the map, the very opposite of the idea of a tourist haunt. 4ell, the city elders managed to rebrand Bradford itself. +f you drive through Bradford, you d be informed of another unheard6of, unlike6any6other attraction on every crossing and corner. !- Ao wish is replacing desire/ ZB- Kot replacing, complementing. Aideways of wishes branch from the beaten tracks of desires . . . There are plenty of people saying #+ must go to the Algarve or #to 7orfu or #to 3arbella 8 places to which every decent person, every family of Moneses, every neighbour along the street went at least once.Iou have to take some snapshots or a few videotapes to show that you have been there. But the tourist industry can t settle for that. +t is too limited, it leaves no room for e!pansion. Leaving things were they are, counting on well6groomed desires alone, wouldn t make good business. Kew business must be created, and be created daily. And the sky is the limit once wish takes over. As you know, the6state6of6art shopping malls are aimed at #accidental buyers 8 people who go there ,ust for a spot of entertainment without the intention to buy anything speci0c 8 pushed not by a need clamouring to be satis0ed but pulled by a diffuse longing for recreation. Ceople who stroll through the shopping mall with that sweet music in the background, this enchanting and

into!icating array of colours and smells 8 are not seeking ob,ects, but sensations-They are pining for an adventure, they covet to be seduced 8 they are waiting for a wish to arrive like the scribes suffering of #writer s block wait for the moment of inspiration. And the wish would surely oblige 8 courtesy of shopping mall designers and managers, eager to take the waiting out of wanting. !- + want to go back to your point about the social rami0cations of tourism. Bbviously one is the way in which it has transformed localities but + would be interested in your thoughts on its wider structuring or ordering effects. Lspecially, for e!ample, on globali1ation. +n your book on globali1ation 9Bauman, &::>; you include an intriguing chapter on tourists and vagabonds and clearly tourism and vagabondism are social aspects of globali1ation and also your notion of a #full planet . But do you think tourism was a necessary ordering of globali1ation/ Ao, for e!ample, Mohn $rry and Acott Lash 9Lash and $rry, &::'; made the case that innovators like Thomas 7ook were as important as .enry Ford as key authors of modernity. Getting the world moving was a pro found thing to do in many ways because it created markets where there were none, it created a world that could be known in advance before you travelled. 4ith Thomas 7ook you could get the guidebook before you travelled, you could get the money arranged, the tickets arranged. +t created the demand to travel widely and freely 8 for women alone and safely for the 0rst time for e!ample. +t is the sort of model, not ,ust of people travelling but a kind of global organi1ation or ordering. Aurely the world became more systematically and routinely connected and perhaps establishing norms of connectivity/ ZB- Ko doubt the point is valid and grave, but + wonder to what e!tent the pioneers of #standardi1ed tourism may be charged of the advent of e!traterritoriality 8 but particularly of promoting intra6 planetary connections. Atandardi1ation stamps uniformity where connections would be, sameness over differences, uniformity over e!change.The annual 2ood of German tourists to Fimini, +taly, could add a few German6language advertisements to the Fimini streets 8 but it hardly affects German8+talian #connections . By design or by default,Thomas 7ook taught and trained his clients to e!pect the same kind of service, hotel rooms, facilities, gadgets wherever they go, and everything else on top in a thoroughly saniti1ed and #deto!icated form.Travelling businessmen and globetrotting academics proved to be diligent pupils and trainees. Clanet6wide chains of .oliday +nns or Aheratons are there not to bring the far away life closer, but to supply an e!traterritorial enclave, the reassuring sameness amidst variety 8 impermeable and invulnerable, immune to the local idiosyncrasies or allowing its strictly measured volume 8 only as much of 9tamed; idiosyncrasy as is un6intimidating, comfortable. This is hardly a ful0lment of the nineteenth century ambition to travel to learn, travel to understand, travel to get in touch with alien people and to embrace and imbibe and assimilate the untold riches stored in their heads, in their timeless cultural lore . . . Father, the opposite, really. Bne meets the natives in the shops at the other side of the counter, in the restaurants bringing dishes from the kitchen. Br you watch the natives as a spectacle 8 selling their #otherness to tourists, making their living by selling their culture as spectacle. .ardly a #contact between civili1ations , let alone an e!change between cultures. Iou may go hundreds and thousands of miles, in order to 0nd yourself in cosily familiar surroundings, comfortably secure because familiar, with a few #local touches sprinkled over it to ,ustify the e!penditure. Cowerful minds are working on that, trying to strike the right balance between security of the familiar and adventure of the strange. Auccess or failure of the tourist industry hangs on that balance. The right proportion of genuine or pretended #otherness , source of pleasurable e!perience of novelty, challenge and adventure, and reassuring familiarity, source of the security feeling, that s the name of the tourist game these days.That s what + suspect most of the FNE money in the tourist establishment is invested in. 3yself, + happen to travel a lot, lecturing in all sorts of universities, in all sorts of countries. Apart from Albania + have been to universities in all the Luropean countries. But wherever + go, whenever + give a lecture, the "uestions are always the same. + don t feel like really being in a different country . . . + meet each time, + suppose, an audience as #e!traterritorial as myself, the guest.And + believe that the feeling is reciprocated. + guess that people who ask the "uestions probably 0nd it

easier to communicate with me than with their ne!t6door neighbour. 4e all, complete with the language we use, the topics we debate, the style of e!pression, the fashion of narrating the world, formulating problems, constitute a world in its own right, but loosely tied to our respective physical environments. + think this applies also to travelling businessmen in no small measure. 4herever they go they discuss e!actly the same problems in similar terms 9banks that want to show themselves to be indispensable to travelling businessmen because of their knowledge of #local speci0city can 0nd little to emphasi1e in their commercials e!cept the different depth of bowing practised in different lands;. Languages may be different, but then there are translators. !- 4hen + was reading your essay on tourism + got the feeling that you saw it as a rather dismal or disappointing leisure. And today you ve contrasted the traveller as being a more heroic character, trying to make contacts, connections, learn. +n Globalisation 9Bauman, &::>; you contrast the consumerist world of tourists in their e!traterritorial spaces with the unwanted and shunted6about shadow lands of global vagabonds 8 refugees, dissidents, illegal immigrants and so on with their heavy ties to territory. But in your later book Society Under Siege 9Bauman, ())(; you begin to talk of the need for a global political order in which modes of travel and hospitality may become recon0gured. +s there a better world than the world of tourism and vagabonds/ ZB- + wouldn t personally use the term #dismal . + don t think the way people live today is dismal . . . Ceople are doing their best, to the best of their abilities and the resources at their disposal 9however meagre;, to make a decent living, to live with dignity. And + don t hold a grudge against people wanting to satisfy their curiosity of the world, for e!ample, in tourismD 4hat + am afraid of, what + am wary of and of which + am suspicious, are the substitutes, that mislead, misdirect and mis6channel the potentially creative impulses into a sideway or downright blind alley. +n my little book about community 9Bauman, ())&; + discuss the dangerous phenomenon of fraudulent substitutes for the absent real thing 9substitutes that in fact make the real thing yet more absent; a bit more widely.There are #substitute communities which + call #cloakroom , or #peg communities. + call them that because they remind one of the kind of two6hour community that is cre6 ated in cloakrooms of, say, theatres@ people come to the theatre, all go to the cloakroom, all hang their overcoats or anoraks on pegs, go to performance, and when the performance is over they pick up their coats, each one hereafter going in his?her own direction. They would probably never come together again. There are such #cloakroom communities wrapped around celebrities or celebrity events, around a paedophile freshly released from prison 8 any #event with a short attention6life e!pectation will do.The need they answer is genuine. Ceople do long for communities they miss.They want the real stuff, but real stuff being unavailable, they settle for substitutes 8 frail, fragile, 0ssiparous formations that would fall apart tomorrow once new headlines appear in the newspapers and everybody is ca,oled, forced to forget yesterday s passions to make room for new ones. Aubstitutes mitigate, attenuate the pain, the suffering caused by the absence of the real stuff. +f bread is missing, you would chew grass to calm the pangs of hunger . . . Aubstitutes are instant cures. They do not treat, but e!acerbate the disease and make it more dif0cult to cure, as the energy which could be chan nelled into therapy is diverted. Tourism is such a substitute, a substitute satisfaction of a genuine need 8 that could otherwise prove creative and deeply ethical-The need to top up the pro!imity of otherness with recognition of shared humanity and enrichment of its contents. The other, to use one of %ant s e!pressions is #sublime 8 facing the other is a sublime e!perience, a mi!ture of fear and awe. 4e tend to be afraid of the strange and unfamiliar while being attracted to it 8 a very ambiguous and ambivalent feeling, a combination of mixophobia and mixophilia which + described in the book mentioned earlier 9Bauman, ())&;. Colitically, ethically, socially it s a very, very important e!perience 8 to be attracted by otherness, to be inclined in some sense to get to know something you didn t know before, to go where you were not before, and so on. +n our times particularly, crowded together on a full

planet, we face the need to rise to that challenge more than ever before. A couple of hundred years ago we had reason to rise from the level of local community to the then not6yet6imagined community of the state, of the nation. Kow, we have to make another step, a giant leap as a matter of fact 8 to rise to the level of humanity as such$ Atrangers, aliens, #foreigners , people of different forms of life, are nowadays the one case in which you can say that we are going to meet tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, ne!t year and as far in the future as our fantasy may reach. And so, as always in such situations, we have to work out the ways of reconciling natural attraction with natural repulsion 8 the mode of coe!isting. 7uriosity of the #otherness could be a very helpful motive, an e!cellent springboard to gather momentum in that long and arduous venture. +t is, though, diverted sideways 8 capitali1ed upon in the service of commercial goals and used up, e!hausted in the process. Iou spend the whole supply of curiosity in the trip to Algarve, where you drink the same beer you drink at home 9and even meet the same neighbours because you probably travelled on a charter plane;. There is something you can write home about 8 cars, for instance, are driven on the right 9that means wrong; side of the road. Aubstitutes create an illusion that certain impulses are satis0ed while they are being wasted.The impulse which could be used for other, imperative purposes is frittered and e!hausted.The impulse however is pro0table enough for the tourist industry to be up in arms to prevent us from using these impulses for non6tourist purposes 8 which from the point of view of that industry would be a real waste. Ao the impulse is genuine and so is, as + would say 8 + would risk this old6fashioned word 8 the #need . + think there is a genuine need inscribed in the evolution of the human species evolved, or arising from the way in which humanity made itself. 4e are #transcending beings which constantly look forward beyond the border they have drawn, beyond the limits they set, and we need this propensity of transcending today because we are facing a truly life and death challenge. Lither we all teach each other and learn from each other, or we will live unhappily ever after, if we stay alive, that is. 7uriosity of the other and the impulse to transcend our reciprocal otherness comes handy under those circumstances. But it keeps being used up, diverted, channelled away s"uandered by the commerciali1ed pseudo6multiculturalism which boils down to the wait6er s different skin colour and different spices in the food 8 in lieu of genuine conversation or a real attempt to get an insight into the other s life and thought. !- Ao if we were to produce a global politics, you know the global will, and hospitality in the world of human beings and humanity, and providing the tourist industry couldn t stop it, or undermine it by distracting us, + mean what would travel, how do you suppose people s curiosity would be satis0ed/ ZB% & #onder #hether the 'humanity building( cause could be promoted bet ter by staying in your own urban environment . . .4henever you travel tourist6mode today, the odds are that you ll land in that e!traterritorial #nowhereville . As far as really getting to know the other is concerned you gain little or nothing at all and your time and money are wasted. Bn the other hand 8 if you venture to Leeds city centre . . . + happen to live in a sedate, conservative and middle class or lower6middle class area where people take care to observe the norm and be seen as observing it. They beware the alien ways . . . But in other places of Leeds people, ethnics, religions, life styles mi! daily and happily and do it matter6of6factly, as part of their daily routine. The areas where the university students live are thoroughly mi!ed, you know, and mi!ed in a genuine way 8 not ,ust statistically, but socially- Ceople meet in the same shops, in the same cinemas, on the same street, in the same discothe"ue 8 at work and at leisure, in the public realm and privately.They talk to each other, e!change views, they get to know each other and respect each other s otherness. Aoon they stop noticing the colour of skin. +t doesn t matter any more. Let me repeat 8 the city environment continuously generates a curious blend of mi!ophilia and mi!ophobia. There is mi!ophobia 8 the fear of the rough areas, of no go areas, of pro!imity of alien characters, obtrusiveness of alien cus6toms.And there is mi!ophilia 8 sincere curiosity of the fascinating secrets which all otherness holds and the desire to learn them, to know and to see at close "uarters how other people live, what they think. Carado!ically, the chance of meeting the other 9+

mean genuinely meeting, not mis6meeting; may be greater when you stay at home in the big cities than when you go a thousand miles away in order to land up in a .oliday +nn. 4hen + ponder the prospects of humanity, + derive more hope in this #globali1ation coming home to roost . . . !- Ao it s the young who will pioneer it/ They re the ones who will make the change, they re the ones who will dare to go and dare to transgress. ZB- Bh yeah. And they behave differently when they walk the streets. + see very many groups of young people which are of mi!ed race 8 mi!ed everything, as a matter of fact. But + seldom see groups of older people of the same mi!ture, you don t 0nd it. All these American 0lms which are politically correct you always see . . . whenever a group of people is shown there are bound to be one or two blacks, a couple of .ispanics, perhaps a sample of #native nations thrown into the bargain 8 depending on the current balance of forces. The #really e!isting street looks different. Bn the other hand, however, it s very seldom that you 0nd a group of young people which is uniform. Kot in places like Leeds at any rate. + think that by design and more yet by default our cities, particularly our big cities, are schools or training grounds of living with strangers 8 living with difference. Atrangers that you routinely meet and mi! with stop being samples of civili1ations at war and turn into individual human beings with their individual charms, vices or oddities. Fubbing each other s elbows inside the city crowd seems to be a most promising way to #achieving humanity . !- There s a challenging thought to bring us to a close. Zygmunt, thank you very much. ZB- 4hat s your drink/ Iou are not in a car/ !- + d love a drink. ZB- Gin and tonic/ !- FantasticD
references Bauman, Z. 9&::>; Globalisation%The )uman *onsequences. 7ambridge- Colity. Bauman, Z. 9())); +iquid ,odernity. 7ambridge- Colity. Bauman, Z. 9())(; Society Under Siege. 7ambridge- Colity. Bauman, Z. 9())&; *ommunity - See"ing Safety in an &nsecure .orld. 7ambridge- Colity. Ferguson, .. 9&::=; The +ure of /reams% Sigmund !reud and the *onstruction of ,odernity. London- Foutledge. Franklin, A. A. 9())*; Tourism% n &ntroduction. London- Aage. Franklin, A. A. and 3. 7rang 9())&; #The Trouble with Tourism and Travel Theory/ , Tourist Studies &9&;- 58((. %lein, K. 9())); 0o +ogo. London- Flamingo. 3ac7annell, E. 9&:<=; The Tourist% 0e# Theory of the +eisure *lass. Kew IorkAchocken Books. Lash, A. and M. $rry 9&::'; 1conomies of Signs and Spaces. London- Aage. $rry, M. 9&::); The Tourist Gaze. London- Aage. 1ygmunt bauman is Lmeritus Crofessor of Aociology at the $niversity of Leeds and the $niversity of 4arsaw. .e is the author of many books including &ntimations of 2ostmodernity 9&::(;, .or"3 *onsumerism and the 0e# 2oor 9&::>;, +iquid ,odernity 9()));, The &ndividualized Society 9())&;, Society Under Siege 9())(; and +iquid +ove 9())*;.

adrian franklin is Crofessor of $rban Atudies at the $niversity of Bristol. .is books include nimals and ,odern *ultures 9&:::;, 0ature and Social Theory 9())&;, Society Under Siege 9())(; and +iquid +ove 9())*;. ddress- Achool of Colicy Atudies, $niversity of Bristol, > Criory Foad, 7lifton, Bristol BA> &TZ, $%. Oemail- adrian.franklinPbristol.ac.ukQ