Vocabularies of travel and tourism in the ‘Holy Lands,’ 1870-1950

This special issue considers differing types of mobility to, from and within Late Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine. It considers the issue of tourism and travel in the broadest possible senses, looking not only at the practices and writings of tourists and travellers which often form the focus of tourism studies of the ‘Holy Land,’ but at travel as a social phenomenon entangled with the society, culture and economy of Palestine and the wider Levant. Facets of this include studies of how Palestinians in this period reacted to and interacted with travellers by producing tourist guides and language manuals; how the production of souvenirs for tourists and pilgrims entailed international networks and cultural change; and the changing meaning and practices of visits to Jerusalem by Muslims from British-ruled India.
Although there is a growing body of literature on travel and tourism in Late Ottoman and Mandate Palestine, and its growth in the wake of technological developments such as railways and steamships, much of this still focuses on the experiences of those visiting the region, and particularly those coming from Europe. This collection of articles expands the field to look at how the existing population in Palestine viewed and responded to these developments – discursively, economically, creatively or politically. It also highlights the involvement of actors and networks in Palestinian travel other than those coming from Europe and the Americas, especially those engaging with Palestine as an Islamic rather than a Christian holy place, and as a site of political as well as religious significance. In broader terms, this collection of articles also shows how the biblical overtones of ‘Holy Land’ tourism are both a product of modernity (especially the technological infrastructures that enabled it), but also a projection into an ancient past that undermines such modernity.