Liminality in nature-based tourism experiences as mediated through social media

Abstract

The intersection between social media, liminality and naturebased tourism experiences hasn't been the focus of previous tourism research. Such intersection, on the other hand, is illustrative of how social media relate to the constitution and performance of tourism spatialities, tourist identities, storytelling and placemaking, and can lead to relevant theoretical contributes. We aim to investigate how liminality is expressed in relation to naturebased experiences by tourists on social media, and what role social media plays in mediating liminality during nature-based tourism experiences. The analysis is based on a participatory netnography of images and text posts, as well as online interviews with users of the popular social media Instagram. Findings show that the expression of tourism experiences in nature is closely related to specific notions of liminal otherness as opposed to the urban life and the everyday, where nature and wilderness are expressed as related to the genuine, the authentic and a true inner self. Creative combinations of pictures, captions and hashtags make it easier for tourists to express the contrast between the natural landscape and the everyday landscape once they returned home. These combinations also relate closely to performances of resistant and alternative selves and communities. At the same time, such performances are mediated and contested between freedom of self-expression, surveillance and social norms, an aspect that makes their liminal nature ambiguous. 摘要 社交媒体、阈限性与自然旅游体验之间的交叉领域, 尚未成为旅 游研究的焦点。另一方面, 这个交叉领域说明了社交媒体与旅游 空间的构成和展示、游客身份、叙事和地方营造之间的关系, 并 可以产生相关的理论贡献。我们的目的是研究游客在社交媒体上 如何表达自然体验方面的阈限, 以及社交媒体在自然旅游体验中 对阈限的调节作用。这一分析基于对图片和文本帖子的参与式网 络民族志研究, 以及对流行社交媒体Instagram(即时照片墙)用 户的在线访谈。研究结果表明, 旅游体验在自然中的表达与特定 的、迥异于城市生活和日常体验的阈限差异性概念密切相关, 自 ARTICLE HISTORY

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