Opinions and Controversies
HUANG Yan, LIU Yungang, WANG Tao, CAI Chaoming
With the rise of tourism geopolitics research,tourism territorialization studies have received increasing attention in recent years. However, existing studies largely rely on specific case analyses and lack systematic theoretical exploration of the mechanisms through which tourism influences territorial processes and produces territorial effects. To address this gap, this article draws on performativity theory to construct a mechanism-based explanatory framework of tourism-performativity-territory, clarifying how tourism affects territorial processes and generates territorial effects. The article de-essentializes territory and argues that tourism is an everyday performative force shaping territorialization.Repetition and citationality are the main mechanisms through which performances produce territorial effects. Diverse actors in complex territorial relational networks continuously cite dominant power norms, repeatedly implement exclusionary, bordering and differentiating performances in tourism practices, and sustainably accumulate facts of ownership and control over time and space, thereby gradually “doing” the power-space effect of territory through long-term accumulation. However, because the structure of territorial networks, multi-actor interactions, and the market logic of tourism affect the implementation and sustainability of specific territorial performances, tourism-induced territorial effects are dynamic and uncertain, requiring continuous maintenance after their generation. The theoretical discussion in this article contributes to research on tourism territorialization, tourism geopolitics, and performativity, and helps enrich academic explanations at the mechanistic level of territorialization.
