Red Tourism: Rethinking Propaganda as a Social Space

Abstract

This article examines Red Tourism through a case study of Yan’an, China. Drawing upon social/critical scholarship on media and space, the author argues that Red Tourism is better conceived as a social space, both produced and productive. Specifically, from the qualitative data derived from this study and through a spatial analysis of architecture, urban planning, and the museum of Yan’an, the author argues that Red Tourism was created by the state to xuanchuan/propagandize its revolutionary past and attached politico-ideological legitimacy by catering to the postsocialist nostalgia on the one hand, and is producing a dynamic “Red” economy through the commodification of the space on the other. Departing from Henri Lefebvre's powerful thinking around the production of space, this article sheds additional light on the close ties between propaganda and space that have been largely invisible in the field.