ABSTRACT
Resorts share particular features that mark them as distinct kinds of urban milieux. This chapter focuses on commonalities related to the popular imaginaries and representations of resorts, which are strongly implicated in their dominant (meta)narratives of identity and their lived spatiality. In other words, how we think about resorts – about what kinds of places they are, what they look like, what goes on there, and who occupies them – plays a powerful role in determining how we act within them. Imaginaries and representations shape social and spatial practices, and these practices in turn shape imaginaries and representations, dynamically producing the lived spatiality of resorts. The chapter outlines how resorts are perceived as being ‘elsewhere’ from home, where tourists can temporarily escape the routines and responsibilities of their everyday lives. Resorts are, therefore, seen as liminal, carnivalesque spaces for expressions of liberation, hedonism, excessive consumption, sensuous (often sexualised) pleasures, transgression and risk. Towards the end of the chapter, the spatial manifestation of these imaginaries is explored through the example of youth tourism and nightlife in resorts.
