Original scientific paper
Travel and distinction: The cultural currency of mobility in post-egalitarian context
Andreja Trdina
; Faculty of Tourism, University of Maribor, Brežice, Slovenia
Dejan Jontes
; Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Abstract
The article focuses on tourist practices in the context of social differentiation and distinction. It examines the cultural significance of travel as classification practice and thereby its role in constituting and reproducing class hierarchies in contemporary globalized (or de-territorialized) world, characterized with increasing transnational patterns of communication and mobility. Using the case of Slovenia, characterized by post-egalitarian sentiment, it argues that class today is constituted also through class-specific and intersecting modes of travelling and dwelling. The results show that in post-egalitarian Slovenia social groups reproduce their status also by monopolizing distinct travel practices and travel aspirations, while on the other hand many are limited or constrained in such (voluntary) mobilities. We thus demonstrate that class matters for how people orient themselves as regards travel and (physical/geographical) mobility, although in the results only the fundamental tension between the (global) mobility of the advantaged and the (local) fixedness of the non-privileged that is structured by cultural capital/class position is recognized, along with the highest travel aspirations of those in the middle of social structure. In general, the paper calls for accounts on mobility in relation to class identity formation to be sensitive to both its symbolic and material aspects.
Keywords
tourism; travel; social class; cultural capital; distinction; post-egalitarian; Slovenia
Hrčak ID:
221589
URI
Publication date:
28.6.2019.
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