High Life or the Symbolic Reward of Mass Tourism

The Symbolic Order
France: 1945 – 1980s
By Sylvain Pattieu
English

The development of popular tourism was one of the key components in the development of a wagebased society in France during the postwar boom.Analysing the recreational goals of Tourisme & Travail (“Tourism and Labour”), a tourism association with ties to the CGT union confederation, makes for a better understanding of its contribution to the production of working-class culture and the construction of social identities. By allowing access to prestigious venues as well as settings for “togetherness”,it aimed at using tourism to provide working-class holidaymakers with positive group representations. Accumulating a capital of holiday experience helped working-class people to consider themselves equal to other social groups and, through activities long restricted to the wealthy, such as skiing, to reduce the effect of economic and cultural domination, without canceling it completely. Thus, the case of Tourisme & Travail provides insight into how tourism, through the discourse on tourism produced by activist elites trained in the union movement, who promoted a mythified representation of the people, can be integrated in a broader social and political project.

Keywords

  • France
  • XX th century
  • tourism
  • union movement
  • associations
  • working-class culture
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