Tourism, Nation-Building, and Magazines

Abstract

In two sections, this chapter examines, first, the correspondence between tourism and nation-building in conceptual and material terms and, second, the magazine as a paradigmatic expression in print culture of that concurrence. The first section, drawing on recent scholarship in tourism and Latin American studies, situates the book's focus on Mexico within the country's remarkable emergence from the Revolution during the 1920s and onwards, contextualizing that significant juncture within the history of organized tourism there since the late nineteenth century to the present day. The second section, drawing on examples from the book's corpus of magazines, elucidates the unparalleled properties of the periodical as an object of study within those contexts and considers ensuing methodological issues. Keywords Tourism • Revolution • Nation-building • Modernity • Mexico • Magazines • Consumerism • Archive • Methodology This chapter considers the cultural, historical, and methodological contexts that are at the heart of this book's enquiry. It provides an essential frame of reference for the chapters that follow and offers a timely intervention into current methodological debates in periodical studies. In two sections, the chapter examines, first, the correspondence between tourism and nation-building in conceptual and material terms and, second, CHAPTER 2 Tourism, Nation-Building, and Magazines