Flights of fantasy: A reformulation of the flyers' dilemma. (September 2015)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Flights of fantasy: A reformulation of the flyers' dilemma. (September 2015)
- Main Title:
- Flights of fantasy: A reformulation of the flyers' dilemma
- Authors:
- Young, Martin
Markham, Francis
Reis, Arianne C.
Higham, James E.S. - Abstract:
- Highlights: Flying anxiety and climate change are dialectically-related symptoms of the risk society. Risk-free flying via commodity fetishism is not yet technologically feasible. Alternative futures are themselves science-fiction-based cultural productions. We are unable to imagine emancipatory futures due to our ideological subjectification. We are obliged to attempt a philosophical resolution to this 'dilemma of ahistoricity'. Abstract: We position pleasure travel within Beck's risk society as a contradictory form of consumption that simultaneously produces individual pleasure and global environmental risk. We examine the paradoxical emergence of the 'anxious traveler' from this contradiction, arguing that this social category is necessary to individualize and apportion the global, environmental risk associated with frequent flying, and hence legitimate the reproduction of unsustainable travel practices. We identify several future scenarios that may synthesize this frequent-flying dialectic. On reflection, these scenarios themselves appear as cultural productions, suggesting that our attempts to imagine the future are crippled by the hegemonic ahistoricism associated with contemporary capitalism.
- Is Part Of:
- Annals of tourism research. Volume 54(2015)
- Journal:
- Annals of tourism research
- Issue:
- Volume 54(2015)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 54, Issue 2015 (2015)
- Year:
- 2015
- Volume:
- 54
- Issue:
- 2015
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2015-0054-2015-0000
- Page Start:
- 1
- Page End:
- 15
- Publication Date:
- 2015-09
- Subjects:
- Frequent flying -- Risk society -- Consumer capitalism -- Ideology -- Culture industries -- Climate change
Tourism -- Periodicals - Journal URLs:
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01607383 ↗
http://www.elsevier.com/journals ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1016/j.annals.2015.05.015 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0160-7383
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 1044.800000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 8682.xml