'Who would go to Egypt?' How tourism accounts for 'terrorism'

Wynne-Hughes, Elisa ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2250-7710 2012. 'Who would go to Egypt?' How tourism accounts for 'terrorism'. Review of International Studies 38 (3) , pp. 615-640. 10.1017/S0260210511000805

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Abstract

This article examines the tension between British and Egyptian counterterrorism discourses and Western tourism industry discourses. I analyse how guidebooks like the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet attract tourists by representing Egypt as an appealing tourist destination in a way that accounts for its positioning, in counterterrorism discourses, as a location and source of terrorism. They do so by producing ‘risk’ in a very specific way. Guidebook representations construct one extreme of Egyptian society as ‘bad’ Muslims who pose an essential threat to Western tourists and their inherently progressive liberal democratic values. Having defined risk in this way, guidebooks justify the production of ‘states of exception’ and ‘exceptional states’ that exclude ‘bad’ Muslims and protect Western tourists. These strategies function together to construct Egypt as non-threatening and appealing to tourists. I argue that guidebooks not only account for terrorism but represent Egypt in a way that largely reinforces British and Egyptian ‘war on terror’ strategies. These strategies similarly protect subjects and spaces that uphold Western liberal democratic values. This article highlights the constitutive role of tourism in international politics and simultaneously helps us better understand the complex and mundane means by which the current Western liberal order is (re)produced.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Department of Politics and International Relations (POLIR)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor J Political Science > JC Political theory J Political Science > JZ International relations
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	0260-2105
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	04 May 2023 16:14
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/56851

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