ABSTRACT
John Urry’s focus on the tourist gaze marks a momentous shift away from singular, functionalist and extraordinarily ethnocentric theories about what tourists do, understand and feel. A key suggestion was that contemporary tourists typically anticipate visual encounters with cultural and natural sites upon which they subsequently gaze. This epitomizes a historically distinctive way of seeing, embedded within a particularly ocularcentric culture in which images proliferate. A more sustained immersion in sensual otherness is also exemplified by forms of space in which backpackers temporarily dwell. Movement through the sensually rich, socially diverse, cluttered materialities of such ‘heterogeneous’ honeypots solicits encounters with rough textures, undulating pavements and dust. In addition to the familiar, reliable sensory realms, numerous other tourist practices seem to strive to escape highly ordered space, seeking out visceral, enlivening pursuits in which sensory apprehension is challenged or intensified.
