Tourism Representations of Chinese Cosmology: The Case of Feng Shui Tourism

This paper contributes to the ongoing dialogue on social spatialization by examining how the divinatory practice and philosophy of feng shui is articulated within tourism discourses; specifically, within brochures promoting feng shui tours for Western tourists. Utilizing content analysis, the findings indicate that feng shui tourism landscapes are depicted as exoteric spaces of consumption through which tourists are existentially transformed. Furthermore, feng shui tours are framed as pedagogic experiences in which the roles of the tourist and the guide are redefined as student and international pedagogue, respectively, to counteract perceptions of feng shui as irrational and/or superstitious. Such findings demonstrate ways in which this contested divinatory practice of the periphery is edged to the center vis-à-vis tourism discourses.

► Dialogue on the social spatialization of new age tourism landscapes. ► The discursive construction of feng shui tourism. ► The politics of mainstreaming indigenous beliefs through tourism representations.