ABSTRACT
This chapter presents historical sources and ethnographic studies to present certain historical and anthropological perspectives on travel and tourism in Greece, focusing primarily on representations of—and interactions with—the “other” and on the symbolic construction of boundaries. It focuses on the issue of classification and boundaries to ideology and politics—particularly, to the national Greek identity and its ambiguities—and traces Western classical representations and images of the country and its people in the texts of travelers who visited the country from the eighteenth century until the closing of the twentieth. The connection between travel and writing—between home and away, self and other—can ultimately be summed up as reimagining the world through its representation. The dominant theme of representations of classical antiquities, which informs tourist discourse, has been deeply rooted in the ways the modern Greek nation state constructed itself and became recognized. The chapter highlights the dynamics of identity construction and negotiation through the lens of intercultural encounters.
