Ning Wang's Rethinking Authenticity in Tourism

Here at the Sociology of Everything podcast, we acknowledge the people of Ghana Yarta, whose land this episode was mainly produced on and whose past and present elders repair respects to. Hi, I'm Eric Sue. And I'm Louis Efritz. And we're Lou and the Sue, and this is the Sociology of Everything podcast, the podcast that does a terrible job of self-coblicity. Yeah, I think I've done maybe one Facebook post. See all these other podcasts, Louis, and they've got like Instagram pages, they've got newsletters. We do none of that. We're not on any of their platform like YouTube or TikTok. And yet, people still listen to us. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Pretty amazing. It is amazing. I mean, what would we even put on an Instagram page? Well, I don't know, like photos of us or something, doing this recording. I must say, we did a YouTube episode on someone else's show, and it's got one comment, and that comment was, "It's nice to finally see what my favorite podcaster look like." It must be in for a shock then when they see me, especially, right, Louis? Yo, because how many Asian Americans are doing Trump impressions? Probably not many in the world of sociology at least. That's true. All right, Louis, let's talk about where you've been these last few months. You were in Kyoto, Japan not so long ago for like a month at Ritsumekan University. And shout out to them. And that's where you found the idea and the text that we're going to talk about today in this episode. That is exactly right. I was very lucky to spend a month, like you said, at Ritsumekan University. I was invited over by Endo Sensei, so big shout out to Endo Sensei. And it was a wonderful time. But as often happens when you're at different universities and working on different things, you sometimes get asked to either discuss or respond to something. And it covers an area that you're not necessarily an expert on. And so the night before, you do a bit of panic reading. And sort of get across whatever topic it is. And one of the things I was doing over there was responding to a paper that dealt a lot with this idea of authenticity around travel and tourism. And it's not something I knew a huge amount about. So I went and I found a pretty formative, a key piece, a key text that discussed it. And as I read it, I just really loved it. I thought it was just fascinating. The text itself is written by an author, Ning Wang. And it's called Rethinking Authenticity in Tourism Experience. It's got crazy numbers of citations, right? Yeah, it's the piece. If you look up any study of authenticity in tourism, this one will be referenced. It's published in the Annals of Tourism Research, which is the biggest tourism journal there is. And so it's a really important formative piece. And the reason I liked it was, firstly, authenticity is a really interesting concept. It is. And so I just enjoyed reading about it. And secondly, it is a great piece because it covers a lot of different ideas and philosophical concepts that we've looked at in this podcast and applies them all to this notion of authenticity. So it shows how some of the different concepts and ideas we've thought about can be used to explain the same thing in very different ways, which I really liked. Authenticity is also something like we talk about in our everyday lives, especially in the context of tourism, right? Is this an authentic experience or not? Or when you do something, you're like, oh, how authentic? Some tourist sites even market themselves as being really authentic. So I think this piece helps us to better understand what's going on here. So what is going on? Well, I think you're exactly right. The starting point for this piece is a look back at the history of the use of this concept of authenticity in tourism research and in understanding of tourism. And long story short, authenticity is a core concept for tourism research. Primarily because traditionally it was thought of as one of the key motivators of tourism. Why do people bother leaving their home and going somewhere else? And it's to experience something that's original and real and historic in another location. It's a search for authenticity. And that was kind of pretty generally accepted as one of the main motivators of travel. But what this article is dealing with is the fact that that doesn't actually explain quite a lot of tourism. There's lots of forms of tourism that have nothing to do with seeing authentic, original, historical things they just have to do of laying on a beach. Yeah, absolutely. So I guess what Wong is trying to question here is, well, what do we do then? Do we abandon the concept of authenticity? Do we just say, hey, it doesn't really say that much. All right, that's it. Or do we maybe think of authenticity in a different way, in a new way? That's exactly right. And this whole article is using different philosophical positions to think about the different ways we can understand authenticity. And then Wong builds towards his unique contribution, which is this notion of existential authenticity that we'll get to. And what Wong thinks is really important about this journey he takes us on is that the way he ends up defining authenticity does apply to laying on a beach and does apply to all other forms of travel. So what is the dominant understanding of authenticity that Wong is really trying to question? Well, I think the first or the most kind of traditional understanding of authenticity would be the form of authenticity. Wong describes it as a sort of museum-esque form of authenticity. It's the notion that there's real historic objects, and authenticity is an object being real and historic and all that, like the objects that are displayed in a museum. Yeah, you presume when you go to a museum, all of the items are authentic, right? If you went to go see the Mona Lisa and it was just like photocopied, I think people would feel cheated because it's supposed to be inauthentic, right? If that were to happen. Mind you, if you see the Mona Lisa, it's not as big as you think it's going to be, and the crowns are often so packed that it's kind of hard to get to it. So if there was a massive-- You're like squinting at you, or you see it? Yeah, if there was a huge high-definition photocopy on the other wall. I mean, I'd have a squeeze at it as I walked past. But to go back to your point, you're right. And this form of authenticity, one connects to the philosophical position of objectivism, which is this notion that there's an objective reality in the world, and humans can discover that objective reality through logical thought, through science, through empirical study. So we can objectively determine whether or not the Mona Lisa painting is authentic or not. Exactly, that is spot on. And if you did look at the recreation of the Mona Lisa, you're not having an authentic experience. To have an authentic experience, you have to actually be viewing and interacting with authentic objects. And because of that, Wang describes this objective or museum style version of authenticity as object-oriented. It's all about experiencing and seeing real, authentic things, objects, places, people. But Wang actually has something else to add about this form of authenticity. Yeah, I mean, this form of authenticity has been applied in quite a few different ways. So for instance, there's been quite a few articles that have been critical of forms of tourism that fail to provide authenticity. So, I mean, one aspect of tourism is that as tourists visit an area, that area starts to be designed for tourists. I mean, this is part of one of the other big ideas in tourism studies, staged authenticity. Yeah, staged authenticity. And it also relates to John R. E.'s Tourist Gaze as well, which is another big concept that gets drawn upon. But yeah, staged authenticity, that's exactly right. And there's a great article from, I think it's 1973, Dean McConnell. If I've gotten that wrong, forgive me once again, this is an area that I have to wrap my head around late at night while I was preparing for. And a greeting. Both on a greeting in Japan. But this article is all about how tourists are searching for authentic places and people and things. But the sites they're going to visit are increasingly being staged for them and becoming inauthentic. And so it's sort of this process now. I mean, if you think about it, when you have a tourist site, people flock to it as it becomes more popular, but then it kind of ruins its quote-quote "authentic quality," right? Like the people there get pushed out. And obviously, an example they give is Venice. So many tourists that go to Venice. It's like, well, where are the locals? They're here kind of, but they're here sometimes in a staged way. Yeah, just hating the tourists. It's true. And the interesting thing about this article by McConnell is that they use Goffman's frontstage backstage to say there's actually kind of like a gradient of the authenticity of places. So there's like the ultra inauthentic, the one that's completely designed for tourists. And tourists try and kind of get pass out to find authentic places. But then they just get to another place that's a little bit more backstage, but it's still kind of designed for them. And it takes, it's quite hard to really find the backstage areas of a place you're visiting, where the real people do their shopping, where the real people go about their daily lives. And reading this, it sort of made me think about those times you're eating a restaurant and they're seating in the kitchen. You haven't done that? No, I've walked by on the way to the toilets. When reading this, it made me think of those middle areas that they're kind of marketed as the real authentic thing. You know, you're watching the chefs that work and stuff. But if there wasn't seating in the kitchen, the chefs would be swearing a lot more. They're kind of behaving themselves and the place is cleaned up because there are people there viewing it. There's a type of theater to it, isn't there? Yeah, there is. So it's kind of like a semi-stage. It's on the gradient here. But the important point is that this whole discussion is still drawing on an objectivist form of authenticity. It presumes that we can find it. We can understand what the objective form of authenticity is. Yeah. And the thing is that one has a big problem with this, or a lot of people have had a big problem with this. And that's really, well, why does it matter? Why does it matter if something's actually authentic? If a tourist thinks it's authentic and loves seeing it and has a great experience, then who cares if it's not authentic? And relatedly, in what ways is authenticity constructed, socially constructed? Exactly. So this leads us to the second form of authenticity that he mentions. Yes, and that's constructive authenticity. And the key point here is that what makes an object authentic isn't the truth of it being authentic. It's not that it's an original. It's that it's represented as being authentic. It's the social construction of it as authentic. So let's just presume there's this weird photo copy of the monolith in Paris. And I don't know if there is. There probably might be. And it's in some now iconic spot. It's like it's in a hip bookstore. And then the authentic thing to do when you go to Paris is to visit this place, to view it. So it doesn't really matter at all that it's not objectively authentic. It's not the original Mona Lisa. But it's authentic in a different way. Exactly. Exactly right. When I was reading this, it made me think of watching Antiques Roadshow, which I do a fair bit, actually. I'm quite a fan of Antiques Roadshow. And when you're watching, someone brings in an old coin they found in the back of their house and it's getting appraised. And the exciting part of watching this occur, the appraisal and everything, it's not actually viewing the coin. I don't know what a real Roman coin looks like. It means nothing to me. The exciting part is when the person who's appraising it says, you've got a real coin. It's worth thousands and thousands of pounds and blah, blah, blah. It's the moment it's represented as being authentic. It's constructed as authentic. That's when everyone's like, oh, that's amazing. Now I can see why that coin is so precious. If the person said, oh, it's worth nothing, then so what? I mean, another good example of this is Hondorf. So for our non-Australian listeners, our non-South Australian listeners, Hondorf is like the small German touristy town in the hills of Adelaide, the city of South Australia. And it is known for exhibiting German culture, German settlement. And what's interesting about it, if you go there, is that it features all these Bavarian artifacts and Bavarian practices. People drink beer, wear linerhosen, and do Bavarian stuff. But if you look at the history of that area, it has nothing to do with Bavaria at all, really, because the settlers to that area weren't from that part of Germany. They're from northern parts of Germany. Now come to Germany. I didn't know that. I've lived in the city my whole life. But when you go there, you go to Hondorf and you have these experiences, there's a sense in which they're still authentic, even if they're divorced from the history. Yeah. I love her. Everything up there is called ye olde. It could be like a petrol station. It's like ye olde petrol station. It's excellent. Well, it's true. I've got to say, you know what else I was thinking about when I was reading this area? Gone. I was thinking about traveling a view, in fact. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay, excited about it. Because with constructive authenticity, what's important isn't the object. It's the representation. Yeah. So you could be standing in front of a castle. And the castle is, you know, it is what it is. But if there's a plaque there that says, "This castle is a World Heritage Site," that's what makes it an authentic thing. But when I was traveling with you once, Go on. We'd be at some site and I'd be like, "Wow, this is amazing, Chateau or something." And you'd be like, "Oh, yeah, that's fake." Or, "That was built quite recently." And you were constantly telling me about things that weren't authentic. And it was ruining it. Because you were ruining the representation. You don't think it was me just trying to test out my Trump impression. "You know, that door, very fake. This thing, that's not real. It's very sad." It could have been. Could have been. This might even be pre-Trump. It's pre-Trump. I was like, "Wow, okay. Can we imagine such a time? It's difficult." Must have been very relaxing. But the final thing I should point out about this is that obviously this is connecting to the philosophical tradition of constructivism. Yes. And the notion that humans interpret the world around them. They can never really understand the truth of the world. They can only interpret it using their own symbolic. I mean, we haven't done an episode on social constructivism yet. No. We might do that one day. But essentially, the reality that we live in, that we experience, has a socially constructed element. And obviously, that applies to tourism. Yes. It applies to our authentic experiences, quote-unquote, in tourism. Yes. But Wang goes a step further and starts to talk about postmodernism. What's going on there? This article covers a lot of ground. It does. It does. It does. Well, the next form of authenticity, like you said that Wang refers to, is a form of authenticity that's influenced by postmodern theory. Okay. And we have covered a little bit of postmodern theory in an episode. Have we not? Kind of. But let's just review it for the listeners. Essentially, postmodern theory shares some things with social constructivism in that it sees the world as being constructed by the way humans interpret it and the way they talk about it and represent it to one another. But postmodernism, in my mind, is a bit more radical. It says the way we represent, construct, and understand the world is influenced by power and it's influenced by control. And there are these kind of grand stories, these meta-narratives about the world that shape what we think is truthful and not truthful. And so what some postmodernists, like Jean-François Leotard says is once you realize that, once you realize what's told to you as truth is actually just stories and these meta-narratives, then it puts you in a position where you can start to reject things and play with things and come up with your own ways of understanding the world. You don't need to assume that what someone tells you as truthful is actually truthful. It's a very complicated set of ideas and I've covered it very quickly there, but there are some key points, I think. I mean, Wong focuses on how it has actually a lot to say about authenticity. Yes. Okay, because it's also very much looking at what is real and what isn't and whether or not we can even make that distinction. So it really hits at the core of objectivity. And so one of the things I found very interesting about his discussion is he talks about these ideas that sound kind of out there, but have something to say about the authentic experiences people have in tourism. Like, for example, Emberto Eco's idea of hyper-reality. Yes. And he also talks about John Baudrillard's idea of simulacrum. What's he trying to get at when he's looking at these concepts? When he's looking at these concepts, he's essentially saying that everything in the tourist experience is constructed and is inauthentic in some sense. And I think the key point for his application of post-modern theory of tourism is that what the constructivists got wrong was that they continued to maintain that authenticity was important and something that was sought after by tourists. And what he says is, "No, the post-modern tourists doesn't care about authenticity. The post-modern tourists might want to go to Disneyland or the post-modern tourists might want to sit on a beach or maybe the post-modern tourists will wake up in the morning and care about authenticity and want to go and see a historic location. And then in the afternoon, they want to go to a disco or eat food from their home country and they stop caring about authenticity." A good example of this in terms of Disneyland is what it looks to represent. So Disneyland isn't just partly imaginative, but it is drawn from Walt Disney's childhood, in some respects. So there's a street that was supposed to resemble a town in the US called Marcellini. And what's interesting about this particular street is that it presents an idealized version, but interestingly enough, the town itself has shifted and changed because when people go to that town, they go, "Oh, this doesn't look like Walt Disney. This is the vision of this place." So in some respects, it's kind of like, "What's the thing being copied and what's not? What's the real thing?" And it's hard then to distinguish. And of course, this also applies a whole variety of different things. And I don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole. But we can also think of things like pornography. I mean, Budgerigar talked about this. And he's like, "Well, pornography, is it a representation of sex?" It's not, actually, according to him. He's like, "Because what people try to do now in sex is to recreate pornography." So where do we draw the line? It's very difficult. So maybe authenticity isn't so clear-cut at all. Yeah. I think there's a nice quote here that sums that up nicely and also sums up the point that why do we even talk about it and care about it anymore. When Wang says, "If the cultural sanction of modern tourists has been the quest for authenticity, then the cultural sanction of the post-modern tourists is that of a playful search for enjoyment or an aesthetic enjoyment of surfaces." The post-modern tourists is just looking for experiences, flashy lights, fun things. Authenticity just does not matter unless that's something that's going to give them short-term enjoyment, then maybe it matters for a period. And then it's gone. And the mere fact that Disneyland doesn't just exist in one place in the world, but across the world kind of is evident of that, right? So what does Disneyland have to do with Japan or Paris? That's a good point, actually. But people still enjoy it nonetheless. They go, "Wow, this is amazing. I'm having the Disneyland experience." I think the thing I find most interesting about this part of the article is it's the only one that starts to really explore the benefits of inauthenticity. I mean, in Japan it was nice having English menus at places, I've got to say, because it was just easier. And I'm not a big fast food person, but I know a lot of people who like to have fast food when they're traveling, that sort of stuff. And one point that Wang makes here, which I think is really interesting, is actually inauthenticity and tourism can be beneficial for locals and for the environment. So for instance, if you can keep all your tourists in a tour group and lock them into stage scenes, then it stops them harassing you when you're trying to do your shopping and go about your normal life. And I like a bit of bushwalking and boardwalks and paths. What is bushwalking, by the way, for again, for non-Austrian listeners? Bushwalk is where you do multiple days of camping in a row and you carry everything in a big old pack and you walk around for lots of days exploring scenery. Sounds horrifying. Well, actually, Wang talks about it apart from this article and this form of tourism, because it's a form of tourism when you can go and discover yourself and that sort of stuff. I know you well enough to know this is actually your nightmare. Because my first question is, where do you go poop? You carry a shovel with you or there's dropped toilets. You know what, that's actually a good example of what I'm talking about right now, because if you're going to have an authentic experience doing that form of tourism and travel, then you've got to be walking on the ground, forging your own path, going to the toilet wherever you need to go to the toilet. But that is terrible for the environment. Terrible for the environment. So most areas, like in Tasmania and Australia, there's lots of bushwalking. They've built boardwalks. They've built drop toilets. They've built cabins. These things take the authenticity out of the experience. Sign me up. But they are better for the environment. They stop everyone tramping everywhere and ruining beautiful cushion plants that take a long time to recover when you step on them. But that's a side note. So let me see if I now understand where we've gotten to. So Wong, in talking about postmodernity and its relationship to authenticity, kind of leads us to think that maybe we should just kind of like move away from authenticity. But he says something that makes us think differently about authenticity and why we should pay attention to it in tourism research. Exactly. And I think the key point is that even the postmodernist ideas around authenticity, which Wong largely agrees with and think were important, are still object focused. They're still focused on whether we can classify things or places as real and authentic. But Wong says now, maybe we've been looking at this all wrong. Tourism isn't about trying to find authentic places and things. Tourism is about having authentic experiences. You could be going to Disneyland or McDonald's or whatever and still have an authentic experience. Maybe that's what tourists are searching for. So there's like an experiential form of authenticity. And I think it's a pretty interesting point, right? He says like forget what's actually being seen or interacted with. Just think about what it's like to be a tourist. Yes. What is the experience of tourism? And to what extent does that actually have an experientially authentic quality to it? Or we think, you know what, the experience that I'm having is authentic to myself. Yes. And this is the last form of authenticity that Wong develops. It's referred to as existential authenticity. And it draws on a whole nother selection of philosophies and theories, existential philosophy. And this article just references so many huge names and these different traditions that we're skimming over. So I'd recommend going to the article if you want to know any more about each of these traditions. But in a very, very short way, we can describe existential philosophy as a study of existence and being. What does it mean to be and live and think and interact? It's a very, very concise. It's like one of those questions you have. When I don't know, maybe you're questioning life. You're at a crossroads. And you go, I remember actually having these thoughts at university. I'm not sure I'm telling you this, Louis. But when I went to Wesleyan, shout out to all my friends at Wesleyan, and my instructors there as well, I remember asking myself, and I said this out loud and I'm telling my class, what does "is" mean? And then I'm pretty sure my instructor, it might have been Charles Lemert, who we had on a different episode, then quietly just put in front of me the work of Martin Heidegger. And he's like, you might want to check this workout for the time being. So, but it's interesting that he comes up with this idea of existential authenticity, because it captures something about what it's like to be a tourist. So can you say more? This is all sounding very abstract. So let's try to root it in something more grounded. Well, I'll give you a quote that is used to summarize it in the piece. In common sense terms, existential authenticity denotes a special state of being in which one is true to oneself and acts as a counter-dose to the loss of true self in public roles and public spheres in modern western society. Now, there are two key parts to this quote, I think. Okay, got it. By the way, this isn't our say what, it's just a cheeky quote before the say what. But the first part is that it suggests that you can act in a way that's more authentic or less authentic. And that involves being true to yourself. So, doing what you want to do, doing what feels good, acting in a way that's meaningful. And the second part of the quote, which is really interesting, is that there's an implication that in everyday life, we can't necessarily act in this true authentic way, that there are parts of everyday life that restrict us and stop us being authentic. Yeah, I mean, we covered this in other episodes. Think here to the episode we did about vapor and bureaucracy. Yeah. You're just meant to fill roles irrespective in some respects of your wants and desires. You're just meant to plug yourself in. You follow rules. Right, and do you want fries with that? Can I take your coat? And our episode in Marx and Alienation as well. When we're at work, we don't get to control how we use our bodies, what we're building, what the outcomes of our labor are going to be. Everything's restricted and controlled. So when we feel most like ourselves, it might be when we go on holiday. Exactly. When we become a tourist. Exactly. And in fact, one talks about this because one says that in life, and this is a common idea that Goffman and others have developed, we're always performing roles. We're always in a role. And in normal life, those roles constrict us. Those roles, like we've been talking about, you know, control what we're doing, but tourism has a role too. And what Wong says about the role of the tourist is that it embraces authenticity. The role of the tourist says you should search pleasure. You should do what you want to do. You should go after freedom. He says there's something really romantic and nostalgic about the tourist role. When we're performing the role of the tourist, it reminds us what it was like before we had a nine to five job. Before we had a family. All these obligations and responsibilities. Yes, it reminds us of those things. It reminds us of this romantic, natural state of being a human where you can satisfy your desires. And he breaks down this form of authenticity even further. So there's two types of existential authenticity. What are they? So the first type is intrapersonal authenticity. And what this means is it's our relationship with ourselves. Intrapersonal. And in fact, he says there's a few different aspects to this. One of these aspects to this is a bodily form of intrapersonal authenticity. That's quite a mouthful. But essentially it means that, like we said, in ordinary life, we control what we do with our bodies. And there's two parts to that because we control how we move them and, you know, that sort of stuff. But there's also a feeling part because we are embodied. It's how we experience the world. So when you're at work, you're often having to sit in a bad posture or you're having to wear uncomfortable clothing. And what do you do when you get home? You strip off and put on your trackies and lounge around, you know? And that's because you're now free to use your body the way you want to use it. Well, when you're a tourist, you can use your body the whole time. And in this article, Wang refers to people on the beach. It's like they strip down to pretty much nothing. Can you give us an example of when this is happening? I can. Well, actually, maybe this would be a good time to introduce our... Say what? Which is when we look at a quote in need of further explanation. And this quote is all about how tourists are more free to use their bodies. So Wang states, "In tourism, sensual pleasures, feelings and other bodily impulses are to a relatively large extent released and consumed, and the bodily desires for natural amenities, sexual freedom and spontaneity are gratified intensively." I feel like we crossed a line here. This has got us into PG-13 territory. Things just go sexy. What's an example, though? Can you give us an example of this form? Well, I must say, as I was reading about this, part of me was thinking about a good friend of mine. Who will remain nameless? Yeah, he will know who he is. And he loves to go to Italy or go to places with beautiful beaches on holiday. And what he loves to do on his holiday is to get into... He calls them skimpies, and they're just these hideous, tiny little bathers. Like Budgie Smugglers look like this. They're not quite Budgie Smugglers, they're like a tiny short. And he's got lots of different pairs of his skimpies, and he oils himself up with coconut oil. And he sits on the beach and he reads, and that's his holiday. It's like, if you give this guy the freedom to use his body to satisfy his desires, what he wants to do is oil up. Get in his skimpies and get on the beach in the sun and just relax and drink some lovely cocktails. Presumably, in his everyday life in Australia, he doesn't do this. Well, it doesn't occasionally. But normally he does. No, no. It's hard to take your skimpies into work and have a little break. And if someone went into the lunch room and he was there oiling up in his skimpies. Do you have any examples of this, Lily? One of you like indulge. You know, one of you said, you know what? I don't normally do this in my everyday life, but I'm going to do that now. Well, I think when I travel, definitely it's food. I just eat huge amounts of food. If I'm ordering at a restaurant when I'm traveling, I'll always order something that I wouldn't normally order at home. I'm just going to satisfy a desire. You know, Louis, sometimes when you and I travel together for work, it's a bit strange because on the one hand, it's still kind of work. But at the same time, we're still somewhere else. We're kind of tourists. So I remember one time we went to a sushi place and you like were very restrained. I later learned. And I think maybe it was because your work rolls, right? Like made you not indulge as much as you would have. Because I'm sure by yourself, you're having crazy numbers of plates of sushi, right? Well, that's actually a really interesting point that Wang talks about in this. Because Wang says, hang on a second. We're saying the tourist role is this freedom. And it's a distinguished from everyday life. But what about schedules? What about plans? What about all the structures of tourism? Yeah, 100%. Well, Wang says that actually we interpret them in a way that sort of makes them meaningful. They're part of the fun. They're kind of part of the process. And a good example of this is the distinction between work travel and tourism travel. When I get on a plane to go on a tourism based trip, I enjoy the plane ride. I enjoy sitting in the chair. I enjoy watching the movies. It's so exciting because that plane ride is symbolic to me of going somewhere, of a journey, of freedom, of getting away from the structures of everyday life. But for work travel, it's a bit miserable. Because you're like typing away on a lap, panic reading an article. Like the one where we're doing an episode on. My body is being controlled in the same way. But one gives me a sense of existential authenticity. And one doesn't. But this isn't the only type of authenticity, is there? No, the other type or the other way that Wang describes existential authenticity is in terms of an interpersonal form. So we've got the interpersonal, which is all about our relationship to ourselves. And now there's the interpersonal, our relationship to others. And what Wang says is when you're on holiday, there's something special and unique about you, how you interact with others. And it's once again to do with being away from that oppressive environment of home. And in fact, another concept that's touched upon in this article that we don't have time to deal with is how travel and tourism is a liminal state. To move from the structures of life and all sorts of temporary state. It doesn't last forever, which is important. And when we interact with other people in this state, the hierarchies, the prejudices, all the things of everyday life kind of fall away. Wang can't refers to this as being an almost a kind of pilgrimage style interaction. When you're sitting at the hotel bar and a random person rolls up next to you, you're sort of equal to one another in some sense. It doesn't matter what you were in everyday life. You're having a shared experience. You're having a shared moment. You're both on holiday. And that means you can actually interact with one another as real human beings. And this really makes me think once again of Marx and alienation. Because we remember with alienation, Marx said, we're not just alienated from ourselves, we're alienated from one another. Because if we're just cogs in a machine, if we don't have our own species being, then we see other humans as just cogs in a machine as well. They're also this alienated product. But on holiday, when we're being proper, full, rich human beings, we can actually interact with one another. Yeah. And that makes sense to me. And also, it allows us to interact with the people around us. Yes. And it even transforms our relationships in some ways, right? Why do people go on holiday with their families? They get to see them every day at home presumably, right? That's very true. And Wang says, when breaking down forms of interpersonal authenticity, the family ties is a big part of that. People have to go and do tourism to have a proper relationship with their family members. It probably shows how dated this is a bit as well. Because I'm thinking this is pre-smartphone era discussion, isn't it? So let's actually talk about that, Louie. Like, what has happened to this text in the intervening years? Because it was published in 1999 before Y2P. So it's gotten loads of citations, but how have people taken it? How it's been received? Well, it's done very well. It's picked up, like you said, so many citations. Within tourism studies, it's become probably the most significant piece on the notion of authenticity. And authenticity is a central concept of tourism studies. And on top of that, because it does this process of breaking down authenticity from all these different philosophical perspectives, it gets cited outside of tourism studies as well. It's become a real formative piece. And the actual arguments that Wang developed have held up pretty well, actually. In a more recent article from 2022 in the same journal, which did a summary of where the concept of authenticity stands now, Gillian Rickley largely says that Wang's different theorizations of authenticity have been adopted and expanded upon. And they haven't really been critiqued and torn down very much. What has happened is a whole range of new conceptualizations of authenticity have developed. A phenomenological one, a psychoanalytic one, pretty much every theoretical tradition has been used to re-describe authenticity in some ways. It's like the Oprah form of authenticity. You get authenticity. You get authenticity. Everyone gets authenticity. Under your car is authenticity. Under your car. Under your chair, I should have said that. That's fine. Well, leave that in. Leave that in. Leave that in. That's authentic. But that actually has led to a criticism. Wang's maybe partly to blame for this, but all the people who have expanded on it, is that the concepts now stretch pretty thin. If you think about all the different ways you can approach authenticity, you're sort of getting to a point where everything can be described as authentic. And when the concepts stretch that thin doesn't really mean very much anymore. But hey, don't take our word for it. I mean, the purpose of these episodes is just to start a conversation about an interesting idea. And indeed, if you want to see how it's been taken up and how it might influence your work, read it yourself and engage with it. And indeed, that's kind of where Wang actually leads us in the conclusion of his piece. He's like, "Hey, these are just some starting ideas. I'm trying to begin a dialogue rather than just to finish a conversation." So I think, Louis, then, that this is a pretty authentic place to stop this episode, to finish it. What do you think? Yeah, definitely. Well, was that an objectivist or a constructivist or a postmodernist? I don't know. I feel like we've got a good tour of the concept, an idea. Oh, God. Been a real journey. It has. It has. So thank you very much for listening. We'll catch you the next episode. Thank you. The Sociology of Everything podcast is created and hosted by Eric Su and Louis Evers. It's produced and edited by Eric Su. To learn more about studying sociology and other exciting programs online or in person at the University of South Australia, visit unia.edu.au where you can search for more details. The Sociology of Everything podcast is primarily produced on the lands of the Ghana people. The hosts of the podcast would like to pay their respects to elders past, present, and emerging. The opinions expressed in the Sociology of Everything podcast are that of the hosts and guest speakers. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of anyone at UniSA or the institution at large. If you'd like to get in touch or learn more about the podcast, then visit our website at sociologypodcast.com. Thanks for listening.