Tourist or traveller? A study on social categorisation among non-residents in Gothenburg

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine how non-residents in Gothenburg categorise themselves and why, relating to the concept of “a tourist”. The aim is thus to investigate the perception of being a tourist in a western city through how people define the concept and what social status it has today. To do this, theories based in psychology, philosophy and cultural studies are used. These are: the social identity theory, high and low culture-theory and Bourdieu’s symbolic capital, along with a philosophical perspective on role identification. Said theories are used to analyse the empirical material, which consists of several interviews with a group of respondents. The analysis indicates that, since none of the respondents would categorise themselves as a tourist, being a tourist is a low form of culture in the particular context that the respondents were in. Tourists as a group also have social power, since they are considered important and positive for a city. However, this only applies to the respondents’ definition of a tourist, which the researchers referred to in this paper and the tourism industry would only consider to be one of the many types of urban tourist. The perception of a tourist thus differs depending on whether you ask the respondents (here representing people in general) or professionals within the field.