Tourism and citizenship: time to readjust the focus?

Abstract

This chapter examines citizenship as a lens through which to view the social impact of tourism. As a way of framing and negotiating social identity, citizenship is often associated with an understanding of the rights and responsbilities bestowed on an individual by state membership. Beyond this basic -and many would argue, unduly limiting- approach, these days citizenship refers to the membership of, shared social identity among, and sense of belonging to, a much wider range of social groups, often multiply and at different geographical scales. Although well established in the conceptual canon of the social sciences, in comparison citizenship has not been widely or always overtly utilised as a foundational element in, or central design feature of, tourism research. As this chapter argues, this continues to be a missed opportunity for the current and future tourism research agenda, particularly but not exclusively in the context of COVID-19.