ABSTRACT
Mythic place and myths of the self This chapter focuses on the phenomenon of travel to find, create and remake western selves. The relationship between tourism, subjectivity and self will be discussed by exploring the North Cape place myths. There are close relations between tourism and constructions of self. Sociologist Dean MacCannell has argued that the tourist is one of the best models that exists of the modern self, and that the most typical experience of the modern and western self happens through tourist experiences (MacCannell 1976). With reference to Claude Lévi-Strauss and Emile Durkheim, MacCannell has analyzed the structural similarities between religious and touristic symbols. MacCannell shows that the deep structure of modern society consists of one common theme, precondition or experience: selfdiscovery through a search for an absolute other. The deep structure of modern society consists of a self constructed in relation to its other: one’s own past and pre-modern societies. Sightseeing is particularly important in the modern experience, according to MacCannell, because the tourist attempts to integrate unconnected experiences into wholeness. The value of sightseeing represents a ceremonial legitimation of the sighted, namely the self. The cultural elite in modern society reproduces this distinction between self and other through travel for the sake of cultural pursuits, but never for pleasure and never admitting to buying a package trip to a tourist destination. The paradox comprises, MacCannell argues, the tourist denying being a tourist. The tourist is always the other one, which means that the tourist nevertheless is fixed in a paradoxical bond to its other.
