Extreme Pursuits: travel/writing in an age of globalization

Huggan, G. (2009). Extreme pursuits: travel/writing in an age of globalization. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Graham Huggan, professor of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Leeds, takes a political approach to his critique of travel writing as he addresses the issues that arise out of the shifting global climate.  He defines the globalist age of tourism as having two main headings: “the economization of culture” and “the indigenization of modernity.”  These two headings return throughout the text as foundational issues that impact the ways in which writers’ depict travel.  In a turbulent time of travel since 9/11, Huggan observes the changes in attitudes and paranoia of travelers, not only due to ethnic and identity issues, but also due to global social and economic instability.  Huggan’s observation of the effects of this climate on travel writing highlights the importance of hyper-awareness on the part of the travel writer as to the realities of globalization.  He differentiates between the conscientious writer and the contentious writer, and he addresses the sociological connotations of writing on the subject of travel especially in light of new dangers of tourism.  This text is seminal in that it links travel writing to tourism, and challenges the attitudes of travel writing critics that there can be no distinction in the current age. 

This text not only provides actual cultural examinations of travel writing, but also its real-world application.  The analysis of travel blogs would also necessitate such awareness of the global climate if I am to locate and identify the social implications of their rhetoric.  Huggan does not spend the majority of his book discussing travel writing; in fact, he weaves travel writing throughout his discussion of tourism and globalization.  However, his criticism of what makes effective travel writing in this modern age will provide very helpful measurement of the composition of the blogs I am investigating.  All in all, this book has given me broader perspective as to the issues of modernity in terms of travel and writing about it.