Back to Front: Erving Goffman’s Past and Future Impact on Tourism Research. An interview with Dean MacCannell

Abstract

Erving Goffman never wrote about tourism and it may, therefore, seem strange to reflect, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth, on his contribution to the study of a phenomenon that he never undertook to study directly. However, many lessons can be drawn from Goffman’s sociology towards an understanding of certain central issues in tourism. By the way he captured and analyzed society in the 1950s and 1960s, Goffman offers to all those who undertake to study tourism a fundamental basis for understanding its genesis. Much of what he taught us remains unexploited, and the links that can be established between Goffman and tourism are therefore mostly indirect. However, making Goffman’s sociology a source of inspiration for the study of tourism is not far-fetched. A pioneer of the anthropology of tourism was heavily indebted to Goffman. Indeed, the tour de force that Dean MacCannell achieved in 1976 with the publication of The Tourist was largely inspired by Goffman and his unique approach to sociology. By returning with its author to the Goffmanian part of The Tourist we pay homage to what tourist studies owe to the author of The Presentation of Self. As we continue the study of tourism, what, from Goffman’s sociology, opens up a new of set of problems? Not just those that, have already influenced our analyses through Dean MacCannell, but also some that remain, a source for new interrogations 40 years after Erving Goffman’s death.

Keywords

• Erving Goffman
• tourism studies
• sociology
• Dean MacCannell