Cannibal Gazes: the Colonised Subject as a Touristic Attraction #1012032

This excerpt is part of the volume Visual Narratives, Aesthetics and Decoloniality: Imagery and the Construction of the ‘Other’. Vol. 1 – Decolonial Aesthetics, Ontologies and Epistemologies, edited by Tomás Cajueiro and Estevão Bosco, published by Ventura Edizioni.


Mass tourism has been one of the main dispositifs for the formation of modern Western subjectivity and, converse- ly, non-Western – exotic or barbaric, fascinating or repul- sive – otherness. This form of tourism originated in the mid-19th century, more precisely in 1841, when Thomas Cook decided to create a travel package that included a return train journey from Leicester to Loughborough, as well as all the services necessary for the trip to be en- joyable. Given the excellent response to the project, Cook then organised several short trips, before venturing into the planning of a long-distance trip in 1845, from Leices- ter to Liverpool. From there, he went on to organise ac- tual tours, first in Scotland and then in various other Eu- ropean and non-European countries. From this moment on, opportunities to encounter non-Western people be- gan to proliferate, first among the wealthy classes alone, then gradually among the working and less well-off class- es too, thanks in particular to new means of transport and new working configurations (Urry, 1990, pp. 16-37).