Justice Matters in Authenticity
Authentication is the process by which ‘something – a role, product, site, object or event – is confirmed as original, genuine, real or trustworthy’ (Cohen and Cohen, 2012). The topic of authenticity in tourism has shifted from a concern over tourist experiences towards a more sociological problem of the ‘processes if authentication of tourist attractions’ (Cohen and Cohen, 2012, p. 1295). To fully understand authentication and its impacts, I suggests that the politics of authenticity needs to be studied through the power in the productions of tourism space is closely related to the existential authenticity.
Building on top of spatiality and authenticity, I would like to open a window to justice. Since the attitude towards second homes has departed from a mostly negative origin (Coppock, 1977b) towards a more liberal notion (Gallent, 2014), it is timely to inspect the concept of spatial justice in the context of second homes.
Previously, I took a stand to claim the issue of second homes needs to be understood further than the popular rural-out thesis. I agree that it is too simplistic to critique second homes as an elite landscape that the high or middle class buy in the rural areas, and as the source of economic, social and environmental issues that the rural areas are facing today (Gallent, 2007). Instead of adding new evidence to the debate about the impacts of second homes, I propose a linkage between existential authenticity and social justice as a framework to analyse the impacts. This idea is inspired by Edward Said’s observation of the struggle of geography that ‘is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings’ (Said, 1994, p. 7).
One of the most important issues associated with the existentialist thought clearly situates itself within the contradictions between authenticity and ethics (Shabot and Menschenfreund, 2008). For example, the less privileged communities are sometimes forced to stay poor so their lives can be a showcase to the authenticity seeking tourists (Harrison, 2008). Therefore, the discussion about spatial-existential authenticity is logic to link with the notion of justice.
Under current intensification of economic inequalities and social polarisation associated with neoliberal globalisation and the new economic restructuring, the concept of justice and its
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related ideas of democracy, equality, citizenship and civil rights has taken a quick and thorough development over the recent years (Soja, 2009). Soja (2010) argues that justice has a sense of spatiality and needs to be understood geographically. In the broadest sense, spatial justice seeks the equitable distribution of resources, services, and access to various user communities.
In relation to this thesis, Seeking Spatial Justice (Soja 2010) is an effective way to explore how these unjust geographies have changed through determined social and political actions in the context of the production of second homes in China. However, due to the limited scope and capabilities, the following section merely shows the basics of the concept, which requires further exploration.
Spatial Justice
Over the past decades, economic restructuring, neoliberal globalisation, and unregulated flexible capitalism have produced unprecedented levels of inequality and social polarisation (Peck et al., 2010). Meanwhile, both terms spatial and justice have obtained new meanings and significance in the contemporary world (Soja, 2010). Focusing on both the new meanings of spatial and justice can help unifying constituencies and promoting new forms of coalition building to struggle for increasing injustice (Soja, 2010). In relation to this thesis, Soja’s conceptualisation of spatial justice is useful in the sense that it is possible to establish some hypothesis in relation to second homes and spatial justice based on his original hypotheses foregrounding Los Angeles:
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The potential of thinking space offers the meaning of spatial justice in three layers: firstly, it recognises the multi-scalar of geographies that we live in as socially produced from local to global. Secondly, these geographies can have unjust effects that need to be recognised and changed. Thirdly, therefore, the struggles to achieve greater spatial justice provide a ‘unifying force’ as an umbrella to contain coalition building and linking social movements together, across all geographical scales. Soja’s logic is to provide a radical precedent that ensures that all public service plans meet the needs of the disadvantaged population, and in doing so, spatial justice can act as the means for protesting against the unjust effect of globalisation.
Through labour-community coalition building, Soja envisions the city of the future – just cities through spatial change (Soja, 2010).
Later in this thesis, I will represent a detailed analysis on the power relations that have shaped the Aqua into today’s format, which is led by a discussion on spatial justice. Here, I present the potential linkage between second homes, existential authenticity and spatial justice as a loose framework.
Soja’s (2010) hypothesis foregrounding spatial justice in Los Angeles
1. seeking spatial justice through labour-community coalition building has advanced further in LA than in other major metropolitan areas
2. The recent resurgence of labour and community organising arises in part from the unusually intensive and polarising effects of globalisation and economic restructuring
3. The uprisings and riots of 1992 (now often called the Justice Riots) marked a turning point for labour and the working poor in Los Angeles, stimulating a growing recognition that government was unlikely to respond effectively and that new methods and strategies were needed in the struggles for greater economic and social justice. New and innovative grass roots movements necessary.
4. Distinguishing these movements: they have tended to increasingly to realise the spatiality of government. Heightened awareness of the politics of space and the potential strategic importance of seeking spatial justice and the rights to the city
5. The higher spatial consciousness of local coalition building and the emergence of specifically spatial strategies of political activism derive in large part from linkages between activist groups and university students and faculties involved in urban planning and geography.
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Second Homes, Existential Authenticity and Spatial Justice
In the past forty years, the impact of second homes have been a key area of research (Müller and Hoogendoorn, 2013). However, the debate over the impacts have never been linked with authenticity and justice. Whilst authenticity has been widely studied in tourism, the social process of producing authenticity was scarcely examined until recently (Alexander, 2009, Noy, 2004). Xie (2011) urges a shift from tourism authenticity to the ways that tourism is authenticated. To authenticate a form of tourism is associated with the designated features and is bound up with the issue of power (Xie, 2011).
In the production of authenticity, several scholars have suggested frameworks to study the issue of power. In the realm of ethnic tourism, Xie (2011) identifies key stakeholders, including governments, tourism business participants, tourists and ethnic communities in the process of producing authentic tourism products. In a similar fashion, Ateljevic and Doorne (2005) suggest that the politics of authenticity can be viewed dialectically between producers (local tourism providers) and consumers (tourists). However, Cohen and Cohen (2012) believe that these approaches are limited because they fail to conceptualise different kinds of social processes that are authenticating tourism.
To fully understand the impacts of second homes, the activation of existential authenticity needs to be considered in relation to its ethical meaning in terms of social justice. Instead of a classic dualistic way of discussing the tension between the second homes community (urban) and the local community (rural), this thesis seeks out the power relations between different actor groups and their roles in the production of second home space.
Potentially, this thesis would discover the spatiality of second homes and its implications to different participant groups. For example, there might be similarities and tensions between second home owners and the local communities in terms of how they perceive, conceive, and live the space of second homes. Social justice can therefore be measured and justified between such comparisons. Owners might find their second homes in the rural setting the space where they discover their true identities while locals perceive the same space as an intrusion to their conceived authentic selves. Therefore, to understand spatial justice in second homes is to examine the power relations within the process of the production of the space.
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Instead of a singular analysis of how one community is affecting another in relation to second homes, the spatiality of social justice allows opportunities to explain the socio-spatial relationships in a more complex manner.
4.6 Chapter Conclusion
Inspired by the humanistic geographical spirit which ties places with sensations, geography with experiences, and lived with imagined environments (Tuan, 1977), this chapter further explored the possibilities of using some of the key theories in tourism and space to shed light on the epistemology of second homes. Interestingly, one of the struggles of the ontology of second homes – the tourism/housing divide — also brings opportunities to employ a safari-like journey to collect the useful theories to conceptualise second homes later in the next chapter. Following (Paris, 2014) and (Müller and Hoogendoorn, 2013) call for collaborating tourism theories and spatial theories on second homes, this chapter further explores three (initially isolated but then interconnected) concepts, namely authenticity, the Thirdspace and spatial justice.
Based on (Wang, 1999) critical examination of the authenticity theory, this chapter explored the legacies and limitations of the three different perspectives on the concept. Objective authenticity explains the basics of touristic activities (Boorstin, 2012), while constructive authenticity suggests that authenticity can be socially produced (MacCannell, 1976). As a radical rather than subtle development, existential authenticity offers greater explanatory power in explaining the contrast between the authentic self and authentic knowledge and experience (Wang, 1999). This chapter suggests that there might be a potential spot for spatial-existential authenticity.
Having analysed what Soja calls the trialectics of space, the theoretical linkages between authenticity and spatiality become clear. That is, authenticity should not only be activated by tourism or tourist experience or activity, it can also be activated by tourism space. Because both space and existential authenticity is socially produced, and all tourism experience take place in space and place, it is logical to use the new term spatial-existential authenticity as a potential framework to develop Wang’s (1999) work further. Still acknowledging the theoretical underpinnings of existential authenticity, this new entry of spatiality allows the following propositions:
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P1. Pre-occupied authenticity can be activated not only by tourism activities or experiences, but also by space and place.
The discussion of authenticity was purely based on tourist experiences and activities, therefore it is incomplete as all tourism experiences happen not just socially, but spatially as well. In the case of second homes, existential authenticity is limited because the experience is more complicated than those in ordinary forms of tourism. Because of its nature of privatised ownership, second homes can be purchased, decorated and maintained in favour of the owners and participants. In such way, they are not only the mere experiencers but also the actors and producers of their own experiences. In this scenario, the experience itself is outweighed by the extraordinary space that lies in contrast to the actor’s ordinary home in terms of activating their pre-occupied authentic knowledge or power. In other words, space can produce authenticity. This leads to the second proposition.
Whether or not second homes are harmful installations in the countryside relies on the power relations in spatial justice. Because the discussion of authenticity can never be set alone without thinking of ethics of tourism, it is logical to uncover the spatial justice with relations to spatial-existential authenticity:
P2. Spatial-existential authenticity matters not only to the second home owners, but also to other participant communities involved in the production process of the second homes. What is authentic to one community/individual might be unethical or unjust to another.
Insofar, the chosen site of study becomes even more interesting. Because my initial experience of the site was conducted without concrete knowledge of theory, the experience I had was raw and unanalytical. That also made me an explorer, not only to the site, but to the theoretical world as well. As I have identified the potential way to connect second homes, authenticity, and justice, and use it as the theoretical underpinning for this thesis, the third proposition follows logically:
The gap between theories and reality is almost always present. In fact, strategies and policies that are simply constructed upon theories tend to fail constantly (Parr, 1999a, Barca et al., 2012). This is because theories are often mistranslated into practice, or theories vannot be fully implemented in reality (Storper, 1997). Indeed, theories often require unrealistic
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preconditions or are unable to lead practitioners to a clear action plan (Porter, 2000). Both theory and practice need to be understood as evolving processes of learning.
Having said this, the gaps of existing theories and practices are expected to contain gaps and controversies. The purpose of the literature review is by no means to dismiss the contributions of existing research on second homes, authenticity or space. Rather, it is believed that a sophisticated literature review can be used as the foundation and inspiration for substantial and useful research (Boote and Beile, 2005). As such, there are other potential angles of existing literature that might be found equallyrelevant to this thesis, however, due to the length and scale of this research, it is not possible to fully expand in those directions.
Instead of drafting an end mark to the current position of the field, this literature review leaves it open for further explorations and refinements.
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