A sense of tourism: new media and the dialectic of encapsulation/decapsulation

The efficiency and lightness of new media problematize the experiential division between being at home and going away. This article presents an approach for studying these conditions. The dialectic of encapsulation/decapsulation is introduced as a framework for understanding how the liminal (encapsulated) sense of tourism is always haunted by its double (decapsulation). It is also shown that the mediatized threat of decapsulation in itself generates certain ritual attitudes among tourists, as well as new strategies among travel organizers, for maintaining the sense of tourism. The article explores how technological potentials are either rejected or integrated among touristic practices as cultural forms.