Backpacker enclaves research: achievements, critique and alternative approaches

Abstract

This article has three interrelated aims: first, to examine the achievements of the study of the phenomenon of backpacker congregations as 'enclaves', and present the principal historical trajectory of those enclaves in terms of a sequence of transitions: from inception and enclavisation, to conventionalisation and eventual medialisation. Second, to offer a critique of the prevailing approach to backpacker enclaves and dwell upon its inherent deficiencies. Finally, to suggest an alternative approach to backpacker congregations, based on the concept of 'assemblages', for a more adequate and nuanced representation of the spatial and virtual processes, by which backpacker enclaves are constituted, and to explicate their multiple enmeshments in their proximal and distal environment.