Naslov
Nostalgia tourism: ‘Croatia. The Mediterranean as it once was’

Autori
Krce-Ivančić, Matko

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, neobjavljeni rad, znanstveni

Skup
Interdisciplinary Conference Nostalgia Movements

Mjesto i datum
Multimedia Institute, Zagreb, Hrvatska, 15-16.12.2022

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
authenticity ; contemporaneity ; mimeticism ; nostalgia ; tourism

Sažetak
For over a decade, the Croatian National Tourist Board (CNTB) had been using the slogan ‘Croatia. The Mediterranean as it once was.’ In the CNTB’s catalogue, tourists were attracted by the following image: ‘Washed by the precious salt waters of the Adriatic, roused by the intoxicating fragrances of pines, lavender and sage, caressed by the sun and gentle breezes, Croatia’s shores are the real hidden garden of Mediterranean beauty.’ This paper examines discursive strategies that were deployed under the slogan ‘Croatia. The Mediterranean as it once was.’ Drawing on postcolonial theory and Rey Chow’s notion of ‘coercive mimeticism’, the process ‘in which those who are marginal to mainstream Western culture are expected [...] to objectify themselves in accordance with the already seen and thus to authenticate the familiar imagings of them as ethnics’, I demonstrate how nostalgia tourism fosters a mode of self-representative agency that exceeds coercive mimeticism. The CNTB enthusiastically promoted Croatia as a country that is relieved of any contemporaneity, thereby engaging in a rather complaisant mimeticism by inviting tourists to visit Croatia just as they would visit a museum, or a zoo, and experience those ‘lost’ times and ‘authentic’ passions. The paper shows how the idea of Croatia as a tourist destination that is arrested in premodernity and self-incurred immaturity taps into the Enlightenment ideology which, in turn, allows nostalgia tourism to sell a self-congratulatory experience of visiting Croatia.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Sociologija

POVEZANOST RADA