Stellenbosch University
Welcome to Stellenbosch University
Department of Geography & Environmental Studies Seminar - Presenter: Associate Professor Gijsbert Hoogendoorn
Start: 06/03/2020, 13:00
End: 06/03/2020, 14:00
Contact:Prof G Visser - 021-808 3103
Location: Chamber of Mines building, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Room 2004

Seminar Presentation: 6 March 2020, Room 2004, 13:00-14:00

Department of Geography and Environmental Studies

Chamber of Mine Building

 

I live here but have never seen what happens on the street!": Reflections on 'resident tourists' in the Johannesburg inner city

 

Presenter: Associate Professor Gijsbert Hoogendoorn, Department of Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies, University of Johannesburg

 

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed growing numbers of residents exploring their own cities as tourist destinations. This phenomenon challenges academic understandings and definitions of who is defined as a tourist, and what differentiates tourists from residents when both display the same behaviours linked with spectacle and consumption. Of particular interest in these developments are situations where the emergence of 'resident tourists' involves residents transgressing boundaries of territorial stigma and fear to visit previously-avoided urban areas. Safety and security concerns and continued territorial stigma towards the Johannesburg inner city has isolated a generation of suburbanites from this urban space. Recent years have witnessed the emergence of various – often online – social media-(particularly Instagram)driven initiatives to bring these suburbanites into the inner city as resident tourists. Drawing survey data from 200 such visitors to Johannesburg's inner city, this paper reflects on the implications for defining (proximate) tourism in terms of social or psychological rather than spatial (Euclidian) distance/proximity. In so doing, we reflect upon the role of new touristic gaze practices, inspired not only by curiosity but by a concern with self-promotion and social media self-branding. Our argument is that by rethinking emergent practices of collective consumption (facilitated in this instance by social media), we can understand how new forms of tourism occur within the locale of residence. These challenge trends towards the enclaving of daily life and mediated tourist consumption.

 

Keywords: South Africa, resident tourism, branding, poverty, social media, walking tour, tourist gaze