Tourist agency

Abstract

The concept of ‘the gaze’ brings a philosophical concern for the human subject and human ‘agency’ to tourism studies. Foucault’s concept of the gaze, advocated by Urry, presupposes a narcissistic subject within which there is a deterministic fit between self and society. This article proposes for tourism studies an alternative to the Foucault/Urry idea of the gaze. The second version of the gaze is structured by its understanding, conscious or not, that visibility presupposes invisibility; that in every seeing there is an unseen; a backside, a dark side. I reject Urry’s notion that the motive for tourism is simply to take leave of ordinary, everyday life. I argue that the basis for specifically tourist desire is in the structure of the second gaze as always suggesting something that is missing from it.