Transmodernity changing our (tourism and hospitality) world?

1. Transmodernity changing our (tourism and hospitality) world? Dr Irena Ateljevic Socio-Spatial Analysis Group, Wageningen University The Netherlands (presentation based on the forthcoming chapter Ateljevic, I. Transmodernity- remaking our (tourism) world? in J. Tribe (2009) (ed) Philosophical Issues in Tourism: Truth, Beauty and Virtue. Clevedon: Channel View .

2. ‘Synchronicity’ phenomena (Jarowski, 1996) (emerging collective consciousness)

3. Prologue • Nordic Tourism Studies conference 2006: • ‘Visions of Transmodern Tourism ….At this point of the postmodern era, a debate has started on transmodernism, the return of values and critical analysis after a period of technology-driven developments. Information society has not delivered the quality of life many expected to see. The advancing climate change paints a rather bleak picture of future. In the center of the ‘silent revolution’ is the human experience; consumption and growth through learning and self-discovery rather than meritocratic performance, long-term solutions instead of the insecurity of quartal life.’

4. Synchronicity • Transmodernity: the paradigm shift (Ghisi, 2006, 2007) • Critical economics, management, cultural studies, sociology, social anthropology and psychology, political science, ethnic and racial studies; subaltern studies; feminist writers....(different theoretical debates depending on their (post)disciplinary and political agendas) • MANY NAMES/TERMS – FOR THE SAME ARGUMENT OF SOCIO-CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION • Philosophical shift • Political-economic • Socio-cultural • no global awareness of this world-wide movement for the reason of lacking an unifying name (Eisler, 2007)

5. The postmodern rubble • Necessary yet endless deconstructions of Eurocentric discourses and ideological walls of modernity • We have become existential nomads in a chaotic and fragmented world (Rifkin, 2005) • THE NEED FOR A NEW RECONSTRUCTED VISION

6. The new transmodern world? • “We are living through one of the most fundamental shifts in history: a change in the actual belief structure of Western Society. No economics, political or military power can compare with the power of a change of mind. By deliberately changing their images of reality, people are changing the world.” • (Willis HARMAN Stanford Research Institute, Founder of the “World Business Academy” and a key player behind Silicon Valley) • “Every few hundred years in Western History there occurs a sharp transformation. Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself : its worldview (paradigm), its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions. Fifty years later there is a new world.” • (Peter Drucker (1993:1) : “Post Capitalist Society”).

7. The end of this one? • Warning to humanity by over 1600 scientists (1992) • Humanity is in danger of a collective suicide (e.g. Brown, 2006; Ghisi, 2006; Rooney, Hearney and Ninan, 2005)

8. MY ARGUMENT • Tourism is one of key manifestations of the human need for the shift • The tourist as a metaphor of the social world (Dann, 2002) • BUT moving away from dominant tourisms of fear and despair (Franklin, 2007) • To possibilities of hope for tourism and hospitality (studies) to be remade and help to re-make the emerging transmodern world

9. The mad ‘rat race’ Developed and VERY TIRED world of capitalism - money, commuting, rush, deadlines, consumption, stress, illnesses, alienation, insecurities, divorces, loneliness, unhappiness....

10. Consumption and stuff • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P56-zWupDcI • Story of stuff.com

11. Consequences • In the past 30 years, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed • Behind 1 average bin of a house garbage there are 70 waste bins in the production chain • In the USA, there is less than 4% of the original forests left • In the Bangladesh capital Dhaka more than 10 million plastic bags are dumped every day • China produces and discards more than 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks every year and cuts down 25 million trees to do it • In Britain there are around 20 years of landfill left; 30% increase of rats between 1998-2001 (60mn)........ World Watch Institute annual reports.

12. Are people more happy?? • The longitudinal surveys in developed countries show national happiness peaked sometime in the 1950s (before the consumption boom) – BBC series • In the past 45 years suicide rates have grown by 60 percent worldwide (WHO, 2005) • It is now the 3rd biggest cause of death among people aged 15-34 worldwide • Increasing rates of depression and cancer disease – one of the key factors behind suicide • While 1 in 5 of the world’s population (800mn) go hungry every day more than 300 mn people are obese (becoming an epidemic)

13. Or engaged with life? • TIME POVERTY – e.g. working Americans having an average 2 weeks of vacation per year; • Spend average 30years in front of TV • See more advertisements in one year than people 50 years ago saw in a lifetime • Western professionals having an average 50-60hrs working week • Job insecurities – increasing pressure and competition

15. The new planetary vision • We are all connected into one system which makes us all interdependent, vulnerable and responsible for the Earth as the indivisible community (Gaia thesis) • Consensual politics - actively tolerant and genuinely democratic by definition as the awareness of mutual interdependency grows and the hierarchies between different cultures dismantle - biosphere politics (Rifkin, 2005) • Taking the best of modernity and transcending into the new level of human interactions • It is essentially re-enchanting - the questions of human soul (Ghisi, 2006)

16. Post-Patriarchy • Post patriarchal values: • respect for the environment, • Importance of human relations • Fostering the joy of creation, • contact with nature, link with the cosmos, • Interiority, spiritual dimension • a joint effort of both women and men to fight for the better world of tomorrow by rejecting values of control and domination Ghisi, 2006.

17. Leap in Consciousness NOT a new feminism wave • The interdependence/collaboration between women and men, West and East, North and South, humans and nature, the mind, body, and soul; • nurturing the life-force within us and findingour authentic inner self; • enhancing our capacity to engage in communion with the world around us; • recognising that our lives and our fate is intimately connected to those of everyone else on the planet; • balancing our inner lives with our passion to contribute to the world; • tuning into our own powerful voices as the source for envisioning and actualizing a power paradigm shift • (Al Gore, 2007; Diamant, 2005; Ensler, 2004; Fonda, 2004; Fox, 2004;Steinem, 2004; Swimme, 1996, Tacey, 2004).

18. Different terms, but the same message • Reflective-living system paradigm (Elgin, 1997) • Integral culture and the spiral values (philosopher Ken Wilber) • Circularity paradigm (Gloria Steinem, 1993; 2004) • Biosphere politics and the global relational consciousness (Rifkin, 2005) • the same intuitive aspirations for inclusivity, diversity, partnership, sacredness and quality of life, deep play, sustainability, universal human rights, the rights of nature and peace on Earth

19. Integral culture • ‘As we develop our capacity for reflective consciousness and knowing connection, we can achieve a higher level of integration and balance among the polarities that pull at our lives - inner and outer, masculine and feminine, collective and individual, and so on. With its inclusive and reconciling nature, an integral perspective offers the hope that the human family will overcome its many differences and work together to build a sustainable, satisfying, and soulful future....In shifting paradigms, we shift from feelings of existential isolation in a lifeless cosmos, to experiencing profound connections in a living universe (Elgin, 1997:21).’

20. Caring economics/society • The real wealth of nations (RianeEisler, 2007) • From the DOMINATION system of Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand of the market’ to new caring economics of the PARTNERSHIP model • To include economic activities that go beyond buying and selling – life enriching activities of caregivers, households and communities gaining the operational primacy • Politically - from the power to kill and dominate to the sacred power of giving and nurturing life

21. The philosophical origins • Transmodernity as a philosophical concept coined by the Spanish philosopher and feminist Rosa Maria Rodriguez Magdain in 1989 in her essay La Sonrisa de Saturno: Haciaunateoriatransmoderna • Using the Hegelian logic whereby modernity; postmodernity and transmodernity form the dialectic triad that completes a process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis (Magda Rodriguez, 2007) • ‘the third tends to preserve the defining impetus of the first yet is devoid of its underlying base: by integrating its negation the third moment reaches a type of specular closure’ (Rodriguez, 2007:13)

22. Politically – subaltern studies • Enrique Dussel (also a Marxist philosopher), Argentinean, and one of the most respected Latin American visiting scholars at Harvard University • the limitations of post-modernity as an Euro-centric critique of Eurocentricism (and its inherent Othering) - notion of transmodernity as a vision of transculturality – creation from ‘ex nihilo’ politics • His political philosophy of liberation - to articulate a critical cosmopolitanism beyond nationalism and colonialism; to produce knowledges beyond third world and Eurocentric fundamentalisms; to produce radical post-capitalist politics beyond identity politics;

23. ‘Silent revolution’ • Research in late 1990s on the “cultural creatives” - 25% of the US citizens are already in another paradigm, in another set of values (Ray and Anderson 2000) . • 66% in this group are women • EC invited Paul Ray in Brussels to do the same kind of research in Europe • quarter of EU citizens are also in the same values transformation, with the same ratio of women (Ghisi, 2005; http://www.culturalcreatives.org/bigpicture.html • World Value Surveys in over 80 countries since 1980s (Ronald Inglehart, 1997; 2004). • Saturation with excessive materialism and the search for the meaning of life

24. Cultural creatives – A historical phenomenon • Historian Arnold Toynbee • the rise and fall of 23 civilisations of the world history, claiming that when a culture shift occurs, usually 5% of ‘creative marginals’ are preparing the shift in silence

25. POPULAR CULTURE • Deep economy (McKibben,2003) • Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw it Coming (Hawken, 2007) • Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad (Lappe 2007) • The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, (Korten 2006)

26. WHERE ARE THEY? - ‘Suppressed’ simply as ‘new agers’!!! • Deeply care about ecology and saving the planet • Consume organic and locally produced foods • Relationships, peace, social justice, spirituality and ethics • Activists, volunteers and contributors to good causes • Search for spirituality and ask for meaning of life beyond any strict religions • Like to travel, search for the harmony of the body, mind and spirit; educational, spiritual and active trips (e.g., retreats, events, workshops, trekking, camping, etc.)

29. And what we do? • We do the same – market reasoning • ‘New age’ tourism • Wellness tourism • Special interest tourism • Backpacker tourism • Volunteer tourism......

30. Synchronicity again....... • Circularity paradigm, the love ethics, the critical turn in tourism studies and our academy of hope

31. ‘If we think of ourselves as circles, our goal is completion — not defeating others. Progress lies in the direction we haven’t been. . . .Progress is appreciation. If we think of work structures as circles, excellence and cooperation are the goal — not competition. Progress becomes mutual support and connectedness. If we think of nature as a circle, then we are part of its reciprocity. Progress means interdependence. If we respect nature and each living thing as a microcosm of nature — then we respect the unique miracle of ourselves. And so we have come full circle (Steinem, 1993: 189-90, quoted by Ateljevic, Pritchard and Morgan, 2007).’

32. Lifting our discourses to another level • 1) Contemporary tourism phenomenon indicates the new step in development of human global consciousness • 2) If governments, civil society, tourism producers and consumers begin to recognise such deeper meanings of tourism potentialities, tourism can become a leader ‘industry’ in the emerging concept of caring/spiritual global economy

33. Transmodern tourism? • ‘To travel is to discover that human beings in other lands and cultures are also people with whom we can share our laughter and our tears, and that what we have in common is a great deal more than the sum of all our differences’ (Margaret Silf 2006: 178: Ways of Wisdom).

34. Theodore Zeldin, Oxford Professor, historian, a researcher on the art of living, a regular BBC speaker Books: History of French Passions (1979-1986), in five volumes: Ambition and Love, Intellect and Pride, Taste and Corruption, Anxiety and Hypocrisy, Politics and Anger, won Britain's top historical award, the Wolfson Prize. Happiness (1990), Intimate History of Humanity (1995) and Conversation (2000) (also BBC lectures) The Future of Work (EU commissioned project)

35. THE ART OF LIVING ....’nothing can be done without encouragement. What we are concerned about now is how to stimulate the amount of encouragement in the world because all our institutions so far have been discouraging. You go to school and you're told that you're not very good. You go to university and you're given a second-class degree, not first. And then you're given a job which is not quite the top one, only a few people get to the top, so everything tells you are not very good. We've got to move to a stage where life is more of an adventure of which one is not afraid’ (Zeldin for the BBC Back to the future series).

36. Creativity in connecting the human community • Oxford Muse Foundation – challenging traditional notions of work, human encounters, etc. • The Renaissance man and the modern women are ready for a change • the potentiality of tourism to help more open human dialogue at the global scale • MUSE HOTELS in order to redesign the very idea of a hotel, and create a model for how any business can rethink from scratch what it is doing

37. Zeldin argues that hotels (like corporations) have not changed their basic goals since the late nineteenth century, when César Ritz said that the purpose of his hotel was to "teach you how to live". • For him, that meant to be able to enjoy luxury and to live like royalty, with servants ministering to your every whim. But where can they go next, after they have fitted every kind of gold tap, electronic gadget and leisure facility?

38. HOTELS can become important cultural institutions, playing a significant part in the dialogue of civilizations, giving tourists a chance to do what conventional ambassadors cannot’. • A number of hotels in Britain, France, Spain and the USA have expressed an interest in using some of the ideas of the Muse to enrich the experience of their guests and to make their hotels into a new sort of cultural centers (http://www.oxfordmuse.com/projects/projects.htm)

39. Not possible? • Contrast the life of medieval man and woman with their modern heirs….Spiritual values had been largely replaced by material values. Theology gave way to ideology, and faith was dethroned and replaced by reason. Salvation became less important than progress. Tasks and daily rounds were replaced by jobs, and generativity became less important than productivity. Place was downgraded to location. Cyclical time, kept track of by the changing seasons, was marginalized, and linear time measured in hours, minutes, and seconds marked off lived experience. Personal relationships were no longer bound by fealty, but rather by contracts. Good works metamorphosed into the work ethic. The sacred lost ground to the utilitarian. Mythology was reduced to entertainment, while historical consciousness gained sway…Caste was eclipsed by class, revelation by discovery, and prophesy by the scientific method…possessing, not belonging, dictated the terms of human intercourse’ (Rifkin, 2005: 120-121).