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

In: Review of international studies: RIS, Band 38, Heft 3, S. 615-640

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines the tension between British and Egyptian counterterrorism discourses and Western tourism industry discourses. I analyse how guidebooks like theRough GuideandLonely Planetattract 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.