Orientalism, Balkanism and Europe's Ottoman heritage

Bryce, Derek; Causevic, Senija

Abstract

‘Orientalism’ has been used as a lens to understand consumption of heritage sites in non-Western contexts. Through the supplementary lens of ‘Balkanism’, we examine a European region with a significant heritage reflecting the c.500 year rule of the Ottoman Empire. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of North Macedonia and Albania are selected for study given their concentration of Ottoman heritage sites. We note first that these countries' heritage tourism sectors anticipate and modify interpretation to accommodate ‘Western’ tourists' affectation of ‘surprise’ and ‘delight’ at a ‘remarkable’ crossroads between ‘West/East’ or ‘Christendom/Islam’. To understand why Ottoman heritage is often understood to be in but not of Europe, our analysis draws on scholarship interrogating ‘Europe's’ longstanding discursive erasure of its Ottoman-Islamic-Oriental ‘self’ and Tourism's role in this.

Citation

Bryce, D., & Causevic, S. (2019). Orientalism, Balkanism and Europe's Ottoman heritage. Annals of Tourism Research, 77, 92-105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2019.06.002

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 23, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jun 15, 2019
• Publication Date: Jun 15, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jun 17, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 17, 2019
• Journal: Annals of Tourism Research
• Print ISSN: 0160-7383
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-7722
• Publisher: Elsevier Masson
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 77
• Pages: 92-105
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2019.06.002
• Keywords: Ottoman, Heritage tourism, Balkanism, Orientalism, Tourist-subjectivity, European identity