Tourism, nation, and the postage stamp: Examples from Finland

In the expanding visual paradigm of tourism studies postage stamps remain overlooked. This empirical study of Finnish stamps from 1917–2001 exemplifies the potential of this data, the methods of its interpretation, and connections to literature. The examination contributes to the study of tourism and national identity politics by offering one critical narrative of the changing relationship between tourism promotion, identity-building, and citizenship education. A basic quantitative and qualitative assessment reveals two major turning points in the data, both of which connect to geopolitics and the world economy. The easily reproducible examination shows how representative emphases and absences serve “banal nationalism” and the construction of an “imagined community” of ‘us.’