The death drive in tourism studies

The psychoanalytical concept of the death drive postulated by Freud and Lacan refers to a constant force at the junction between life and death, which is not understood in a biological sense of physical demise of the body, nor in opposition to life. Tourist experiences in conflict zones can be more critically understood through the lens of the death drive. Empirical data for this project draws on individual and group interviews undertaken with tourists and tourism industry representatives in Jordan. Findings suggest that by travelling in a conflict area some tourists negotiate embedded family memories and archaic traumas. Accessing the death drive, tourists also assert and disrupt binaries such as fun/fear and life/death.