Sociology of Tourism
We're all tourists now. The world's largest industry, tourism touches every part of the globe and every aspect of our lives. Tourism is a driving force of globalization, simultaneously a force of cultural differentiation and homogenization. As more and more places and people become economically dependent on tourism, tensions between tourists and locals increase, sparking protest and efforts to limit tourism in some area. In this course, we will use sociology to better understand tourism as well as using tourism to explore many different sociological theories. In this course we will critically study the social and cultural effects of tourism and tourists, with a focus on meaning making, tourist identities, inequalities and exploitation, the environmental effects, as well as reflecting our own, as well as Middlebury College's, place within tourism economies.