Cultural Studies Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Travel has a long association with the idea of transformation, both in terms of the self and social collectives. Some of the earliest surviving works of literature, such as The Epic of Gilgamesh ([eighteenth-tenth century BCE] 1972) and Homer's The Odyssey ([eighth century BCE] 2004), tell tales of individuals heading off on 'heroic' quests that would strip them of their worldly possessions, status and relationships, bringing them to the bare essentials of being and, consequently, transforming their thinking and behaviours. One need only scan the back-cover blurbs of the travel books at their local book store to see that this trope is still alive and well. Even if we consider pre-recorded history, archaeology and genetic science locate the origin of the human species in East Africa, our ancestors rising to their feet, spreading across the globe and forming diverse social structures and cultures in relationship with the unique contexts in which they found themselves. Physical mobility enabled these social groups to move, and interact, in various ways around the world -to varying degrees of distance, through different modes of travel and with divergent intentionsexploring, '(to name only a few limited and vague labels) across, and between, continents in processes that were undeniably transformative for both 'visitor' and 'visited'. Beyond individuals, these collective movements acted to alter and mark spaces, places, landscapes and ecosystems. And of course these places, in all their various stages of alteration, acted upon the individuals, collectives, minds, bodies, life-forms and objects moving through, engaging with and relocating to them, along with those inhabiting (whether 'temporarily' or 'permanently'), in varying ways. As such, our present selves, and social, cultural and ecological landscapes, are indelibly marked by, and entwined in, this complex history of human mobility.