Introduction: Vocabularies of Travel and Tourism in the 'Holy Lands,' 1870–1950

• Published in: Mashriq & mahjar Vol. 10; no. 2; pp. 1 - 7
• Main Authors: Irving, Sarah, Sanchez Summerer, Karène, Zananiri, Sary
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Raleigh Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies 08.08.2023; North Carolina State University, Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies; North Carolina State University, Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
• Subjects: 20th century; Archives & records; Christians; Colonialism; Culture; Modernity; Palestine; Palestine Mandate; Palestinian people; Passports & visas; Pilgrims; Religion; Tourism; Transnationalism; Travel; Jerusalem Israel; Israel; India
• ISSN: 2169-4435; 2169-4435
• DOI: 10.24847/v10i22023.314

[...]it challenges the implicit or explicit focus of many existing works on mainly Christian tourists from Northwestern Europe and North America, considering in addition the presence and experience of travelers from Russia (the source of most Christian pilgrims, at least until the Bolshevik Revolution), and from India. [...]it seeks to interrogate the distinction between tourists and pilgrims-with the underlying implications of modernity versus premodernity with which these terms are often used - and stresses the presence of Muslim as well as Christian travelers in Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century. Facets of this approach include studies of how Palestinians (including Ashkenazim who became integrated into Ottoman society) in this period reacted to and interacted with travelers by producing tourist guides and language manuals; how the production of souvenirs for tourists and pilgrims entailed international networks and cultural change; and the changing meaning and prachces of visits to Jerusalem by Muslims from Britishruled India. The present day also brings its challenges to this research; the events which spurred the development of the workshop leading to this special issue included the shuttering of the Thomas Cook archives in Peterborough in 2019 when the famed travel company went into receivership and the sudden closure of the newly opened Vatican archives of Pope Pius XXII in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.7 Cook's Tours was the first package tour company to bring travelers to Ottoman Palestine,8 while the period of Pius XXITs papacy (1939-1958) was formative for various types of group tourism, and for protonational (and later national) rhetoric around tourism, with new transnational secular and religious touristic agendas.