Tourism and Occultism in New Orleans's Jackson Square

Contentious and Cooperative Publics

Dados Bibliográficos

ID5762272
AutoresRebecca Sheehan (0000-0003-2818-1563, Oklahoma State University, autor correspondente)
Ano2012
Volume14
Fascículo1
Páginas73-97
Data de publicação2012-02-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoTourism Geographies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1461-6688 • E-ISSN: 1470-1340
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14616688.2011.610349
OpenAlexW2073667894
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas45

Though tourism performances usually promote dominant representations of iconic places like New Orleans's Jackson Square, I argue that some performances also disrupt those representations as well as support challenges to particular normative ideals. Using ideas of performativity and threshold space, I examine just one facet, tourism and Tarot card and palm reading, in Jackson Square's dynamic landscape. I discuss how tourism performances materialized and intertwined with a variety of occultist practices. Both historical and more contemporary interactions reveal racialized discourses and practices which contribute to deep socio-cultural divisions between groups in New Orleans and Jackson Square. On the one hand, these divisions expose predominant ideas of a homogenized, white middle class as 'the public'. On the other hand, as I show, these divisions reveal in the public sphere the functioning of a disparate, though contentious, public. In this respect, 'the public' is not necessarily in the moment, in place, or embodied. Yet, as I also argue, more recent day-to-day (occultist) tourist performances situated in Jackson Square may concurrently render a less discordant and more cooperative heterogeneous public. I conclude by commenting on some possible socio-cultural and political-economic implications of a cooperative heterogeneous public. Key Words: Tourismoccultismthe publicpublicsracializationNew OrleansJackson Squareperformancethreshold space Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Alyson Greiner, Beth Caniglia and three anonymous reviewers' thoughtful suggestions and comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Additionally, this research was funded in part by the Deep South Regional Humanities Center at Tulane University, the American Association of Geographers' Cultural Geography Specialty Group Dissertation Grant, the American Association of Geographers' Historical Geography Specialty Group Dissertation Research Award, and the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University Robert C. West Field Research Grant

Aesthetics · Art · Media studies · Normative · Performative utterance · Performativity · Political science · Politics · Public space · Public sphere · Situated · Sociology · Square (algebra · Tourism · Gender Studies · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Public Spaces through Art · Religious Tourism and Spaces