Mobile Cultures? Hybridity, Tourism and Cultural Change

This paper addresses the problem of cultural change in relation to tourism. It will be argued that tourism research has tended to be theorised in terms of static models predicated on the assumptions of unilinear development, and cultural change being accounted for by a shift from one defined state into another. Beginning with a critique of the 'container model' of culture, this paper then draws on recent anthropological and sociological developments concerned with globalisation to critically examine the utility of the concept of hybridity. In conclusion, this paper will argue that what is required is a transformative and processual approach that is capable of accounting for the dynamic interplay of cultural change at both a micro and macro level.