Affective Tourism©

The feelings, emotions and affects transacted in tourist places — especially in regions of ongoing socio-political turmoil and conflict.

Research from Jerusalem, Jordan and the Palestinian West Bank to eastern Europe, on how emotion shapes the way we travel through troubled places.

The concept

What is affective tourism?

Affective Tourism is a concept proposed by Dorina-Maria Buda in her book of the same title — the ways in which affects, emotions and feelings are accessed, felt, experienced and performed in encounters between touring bodies and places.

Drawing on emotional and psychoanalytic geographies, the work asks how tourists are moved by, and move through, places of turmoil — and how those encounters can contribute to understanding, negotiation and peace.

“In-depth understandings of the role of emotions in such places can contribute to conflict negotiation and peace building.”

Separation wall marked with the word TOURISTS, Palestinian West Bank

Fieldwork, the West Bank — tourism at the separation wall.

Research

Emotion, affect and place in regions of turmoil

Ethnographic research across destinations in ongoing socio-political conflict — North Korea, Iran, Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian West Bank and eastern Europe.

Prof. Dorina-Maria Buda

About

Prof. Dorina-Maria Buda

Professor of Tourism and Hospitality at Edge Hotel School and Dean Research for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Essex. A TEDx speaker, her work examines the interconnections between affect, emotion and psychoanalysis in the geographies of tourism.

€585k
Rosalind Franklin Fellowship, 2013–2017
€250k
Dutch Research Council (NWO) Veni grant
8+
countries of ethnographic fieldwork

Publications

Books & major works

Monograph

Affective Tourism: Dark Routes in Conflict

Routledge. The founding study of affective tourism, bringing together affective and emotional geographies, psychoanalytic geographies and dark tourism.

View at Routledge →
Edited volume

Affect and Emotion in Tourism

Special issue / edited work with Prof. Jennie Germann Molz — consolidating affective approaches in tourism studies.

View the special issue →
Forthcoming

Affective Hospitality

Research monograph with Dr Guy Lincoln, extending affective approaches into hospitality studies.

Latest & ongoing

Teaching, fieldwork and public engagement

Student fieldwork in Jordan and the Netherlands, doctoral supervision, museums for peace, media interviews and outreach. For current activity and reflections, follow along on LinkedIn.