ABSTRACT
Both description of an outside world and occasion for inner refl ections, both representation of an “other” and articulation of notions of the self, travel narratives o er a unique insight into conceptualizations of communities and cultures. Through their depiction of sites and societies of “otherness” for audiences “back home,” and through their referring back and forth between the two locations and communities of their concern, travelogues have been particularly formative in constructing notions of ethnic and national identities. Such texts have often partaken in a “civilizing mission” of (post)colonial subjects that seek to legitimize their political or cultural domination by means of asserting especially the national or ethnic di erences among visitors and the peoples they visited.
