Abstract
ABSTRACTThis paper analyses feelings of socio-cultural proximity and distance with a specific focus on the tourist experience in cross-border shopping and everyday life practices in border regions. We examined shopping practices of Dutch border crossers who visit the German town Kleve in the Dutch–German border region. This particular border context has allowed us not only to reflect on a multidimensional approach towards socio-cultural proximity and distance, but also to examine how these different dimensions express themselves in the tourist experience when it comes to people and places that are geographically ‘close’ but assumingly socially and culturally ‘distant’ from home. Although some differences prompted feelings of discomfort, in particular, differences in social engagement, feelings of comfort stand out in our analysis of cross-border shopping tourism. Furthermore, our study shows that shopping tourism and exoticism, on the one hand, and everyday routines and the mundane, on the other hand, are closely intertwined in the lives of people living in a border region, resulting in a fluid interpretation of the exotic and the mundane in the cross-border context.
Highlights
Nowadays, more and more people travel around the world and engage in a variety of tourist activities, experiencing many places different from home
Our analysis revealed multiple expressions of feelings of proximity and distance in relation to everyday life and shopping tourism in Kleve
Our findings reveal interesting insights for understanding socio-cultural proximity and distance with regard to cross-border shopping tourism and encounters with differences in daily life practices
Summary
When speaking to the respondents, they associated old German programmes with positive memories – even nostalgia – and realised that these programmes had contributed to their language skills and maybe even to their interest and feelings of affective proximity regarding the German culture These notions with regard to language reflect a general sense of comfort in the border region, where state borders do not necessarily matter: You know it is a bit different, but at the same time it is so well-known and familiar, not because you go there that often, but just because... Differences in social rules, habits and traditions, were noticed, and contributed to self-awareness and differentiation between the self and the other, varying feelings of normative and affective proximity and distance At times, these different rules of engagement were recognised as positive, for instance, when considering the strict work ethics which people associated with Germany, whereas other perceived rules of engagement felt constrictive, prompting some discomfort. This can, subsequently, influence the way encounters with differences are perceived and experienced
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