Economic transactions between characters: Representations of tourism practices in contemporary Croatian literature and culture

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the complex relational dynamics between tourism (both as a global phenomenon and a set of specific practices), space and economy in selected literary texts whose narratives are set in two different economic and political periods: Socialism, and capitalism and democracy. Since these concepts cannot be easily understood through disciplinary knowledge, this paper will view the chosen literary texts as pre-disciplinary cultural products that generate specific “social knowledge” (Felski) which presents the fullness of the social world more successfully than other forms of culture or knowledge. The authors whose literary texts were included in this analysis are contemporary Croatian writers: Antun Šoljan, Zoran Ferić, Boris Dežulović and Jurica Pavičić. The first two authors wrote texts in which the relationships between tourists and locals are prevalently of symbolic and exchange value, and they mostly belong to the sphere of libidinal economy. Dežulović and Pavičić deal with contemporary tourism practices which change the identity of towns and people forever. In conclusion, these two accounts from different socioeconomic and political chronotopes are compared through the importance of space as a powerful resource in economic transactions between characters.