Holidays in the Danger Zone: Entanglements of War and Tourism

403 Pages·2016·20.008 MB·English

by  Debbie Lisle

Holidays in tHe danger Zone
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Critical War studies
Tarak Barkawi and Shane Brighton, Editors
Holidays in the Danger Zone: Entanglements of War and Tourism
DEBBIE LISLE
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Holidays in

tHe danger
Zone
Entanglements of War
and Tourism
debbie lisle

CRITICAL WAR STUDIES
uniVersity oF Minnesota Press
Minneapolis • London
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Frontispiece: Members of the Fourth Marine Regiment, Sixth Marine Division
bathing in a bomb crater on Naha Airfield, June 1945. National Archives photo
127- GW- 128899. Courtesy of the Still Picture Branch, National Archives and
Records Administration.
Copyright 2016 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Printed in the United States of America on acid-f ree paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer.
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lisle, Debbie, author.
Title: Holidays in the danger zone : entanglements of war and tourism / Debbie Lisle.
Description: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2016. | Series: Critical war
studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016002832| ISBN 978-0-8166-9855-4 (hc) |
ISBN 978-0-8166-9856-1 (pb)
Subjects: LCSH: Tourism—Political aspects. | War and society. | Geopolitics. |
Dark tourism.
Classification: LCC G156 .L47 2016 | DDC 338.4/791—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/201600283
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Contents
Introduction: Entanglements of War and Tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1. The Double Vision of Empire: The Gordon Relief
Campaign, 1884– 85 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2. Tours of Duty, Tours of Pleasure: Battlefield Journeys and
the Rise of Militourism, 1914– 45 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3. Bipolar Travels: Tourism and Conflict at the Edges of
the Cold War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
4. Global Interventions: Contested History and the Rise of
Dark Tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
5. Connecting Tourism and Terrorism: Milblogs, Soft Targets,
and the Securitization of Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Conclusion. Touring Otherwise: The Ethical Possibilities
of Entanglement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
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introduCtion
entanglements of
War and tourism
In March 2009, Tourism Australia launched a multi- million- dollar adver-
tising campaign titled “No Leave, No Life” that aimed to unlock nearly
130 million days of annual stockpiled leave— the equivalent of 350,000
years of holidays—t o increase efficiency, productivity, and morale (Tour-
ism Australia 2009a; 2009b). Tourism Australia provided companies with
a range of training tools, resources, and advice on logistics that would
encourage workers to take their annual leave within Australia. As the then
minister of tourism explained, “by using their leave to take a holiday at
home, Australians are helping their mates who depend on tourism for
their livelihoods and achieving a better balance between their work and
personal lives” (Australasian Leisure Management 2009; Australian As-
sociated Press and Gallo 2011). “No Leave, No Life” warned companies
of the risks involved when workers did not take their annual leave, includ-
ing poor performance, decreased motivation, low morale, and reduced
productivity, and offered guidance on how to positively transform the “no
leave culture” in the workplace (Tourism Australia 2009c). This seem-
ingly innocuous advertising campaign tells us much about the increasingly
blurred lines between the public arena of work and the private pursuits of
leisure— especially how employers and state authorities are intervening
in and seeking to manage the nonwork time of citizens. Indeed, the “No
Leave, No Life” campaign is an expression of the increasing governance
of modern life—h ow our entire lives (including our pursuits of leisure and
travel) are subject to various political interventions aimed at reorienting
our dispositions, incentivizing our behaviors, and harnessing our aspira-
tions in ways that ultimately make us more governable (Burchell, Gordon,
and Miller 1991; Foucault 2010a; 2010b; 2011; Walters 2012). These
1
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2 introduction
interventions by a mixture of state, public, private, and commercial forces
are sometimes enthusiastically welcomed as helpful strategies to enhance
our well-b eing, happiness, and productivity and are sometimes fiercely
resisted as oppressive mechanisms of order, control, and surveillance.
What particularly interests me about the “No Leave, No Life” campaign
is the manner in which it stages such an intervention through the well-
established military practice of structured leave, also known as rest and
relaxation (R&R). As military leaders have always known, a well-r ested
workforce/fighting force is also more productive, more efficient, and less
likely to make mistakes. This militarized message was articulated most
clearly in the branding and promotional imagery of the “No Leave, No
Life” campaign: employees are like soldiers, and as such, they require
periodical vacations from battle to recharge their batteries and return to
the front line more rested, revitalized, and rejuvenated. Here the front line
is the “work– life battle,” where employees have to fight constantly against
the pressures of a career that threatens to swallow up their whole lives.
The message is simple: the only way to have a life worth living—a nd to
win the work– life battle— is to spend any stockpiled annual leave taking
regular vacations within Australia.
In direct mimicry of Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize– winning image
of American soldiers raising the flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, the main “No
Leave, No Life” advertisement (see Figure 1) replaces U.S. Marines with
a white nuclear family enjoying a beach holiday (Hariman and Lucaites
2007, 93– 136). Here, the detritus of Mount Suribachi, the unfurling of
the American flag, and the stark black-a nd- white palate of Rosenthal’s
image are replaced by a warm beach with gentle waves, a colorful sun
umbrella, and a lush summertime palate overlaid with a calming sunset.
This juxtaposition is effective in its simplicity: the familiarity and instant
recognition of the Iwo Jima icon makes audiences comfortable and there-
fore willing to uncritically accept the attached significations of leisure,
relaxation, and travel. It suggests that the feelings of togetherness, victory,
and patriotism unleashed by Rosenthal’s image can also be achieved by
ordinary men and women if they win the work–l ife battle by taking their
regular vacations in Australia. The reward for success in this battle is that
workers— like soldiers on leave from battle— rediscover their “real” selves,
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introduction 3
figure 1. “Win the Work Life Battle,” Tourism Australia, 2009.
reconnect with family and friends, recharge their batteries, and improve
their overall well- being. This image works like all successful advertise-
ments in that the clear central message is understood immediately by a
mass audience. However, to suggest that such instantaneity makes this
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