I finished my dissertation this September. In the first part of the dissertation I ended up looking at the socio-economic history and current situation in relation to tourism at this particular location. The second part deals with the tourist motivations and conditions of travelling to this site. The paper aslo takes up issues of media, representation and consumption, and engages critically with the anthropology of imagination.
The dissertation traces the overlaps and developments of the very multiple touristic spaces of the Dukha summer camp. The journeys which either include or destinate at the Dukha summer camp to be highly contextualised and individual. It looks into the motivations of the visitors suggesting a search for an extreme and authentic ‘other’.
Such encounters with the unfamiliar are to impact the ‘self’ of the traveller by expanding the horizons of the imaginary. I suggested the ‘imaginary’ to open many analytical paths to studying tourism(s).
I moved quite far from my initial research topic that was looking at the movement of the reindeer herders in relation to the Reindeer Festival in the beginning of July. All in all, it was a great experience of adjusting the topic while doing fieldwork.
