Contemporary Travel Writing about Mongolia : Imaginative Geographies and Cosmopolitan Visions

Abstract

Western travel writing about Mongolia after the 1990 Democratic Revolution has proliferated, consisting of a diverse group of authors writing for niche presses, fragmented audiences, and different media. This chapter explores two imaginative geographies, the “travelers’ frontier” (Tavares and Brosseau 2006) and “pure nomadism” (Myadar 2021). These imaginative geographies constrain how Western travelers experience and represent Mongolia, reinforcing assumptions that Mongolians are limited to rural pastoral identities and stuck in the past or trapped in an ahistorical present. By reading these imaginative geographies through Debbie Lisle’s (2006) “colonial vision” and “cosmopolitan vision,” this chapter shows how contemporary travel writing blends nostalgia, colonizing moves, and reflections about Western privilege and Mongolian identity.