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Chapter Two - Postmodernism, "Reality" and Material Culture.
Interpreting Things.

Wilt thou know what wonders strange be in that land that late was found (Cornelius Graphey to the Reader, More 1978:141)

There's a superabundance of explanations and purposes to suit any inquisition, any situation. (Boyle 1986)

In order to conceptualise questions of Surfers Paradise's position as a postmodern Utopia, it is necessary to explore the theoretical tenets of postmodernism and the methods available to interpret material culture. The desire to avoid the epistemological crutches of positivism, universalism and determinism impacts upon the methods available to the social researcher. This methodological challenge has been described ad hoc under the rubric - "the postmodern turn" (Brown, R. 1990:196). Although postmodernism has been posited as antithetical to the modernist project, the relationship is not simply a structuralist dichotomy (Lagopoulos 1993:256). Foster (1983) suggests that the task of postmodernism is to extend the project of modernism by opening "its closed systems to the heterogeneity of texts" (xi). Aspects of modernism, then, can be alternately accentuated, ignored or rejected in the various approaches which are, almost, arbitrarily described as postmodern (Huyssen 1992:371, Jencks 1992:6). Featherstone (1988) provides a nihilisti er, Klotz (1988), in his attempt at reaching a definition of architectural postmodernism - itself a potentially modernist task - provides the basic framework for critical social research. He cites ten defining characteristics of postmodernism ranging from geographic specificity and poetic cultural constructions to a need for relativism [footnote 2]. These traits of postmodernism all emphasise the irrevocably altered nature of social relations in advanced capitalism. Among other qualities found in Klotz's definition of postmodernism are the use of fiction in conjunction with function, the ironic "use" of history, the plurality of style, and a movement away from the perceived inevitability of technological progress. The critical air of postmodernism stands as a contemporary equivalent to earlier writings which used Utopia foremost as a device for comparative, social commentary. Mumford (1962) reaffirms this position by stating that "almost every utopia is an implicit criticism of the civilisation that served as its background" (2).

A more concise summary of postmodernism and its criticisms of social life, particularly in an architectural manifestation, has been employed by Venturi:

Housing for the elderly on the Oak Street Connector, if it had to be a monument, would have been more economical, socially responsible, and amenable, as a conventional apartment building, lost by the side of the expressway, with a big sign on top blinking, I AM A MONUMENT. (Venturi et al 1972:87)

Venturi's discussion of an emergent architectural postmodernism parallels later sociological interests. The urban form, the visual, a celebration of the mundane, the embodiment of readable messages within material culture items and, obliquely, the increasing importance of entertainment in daily life are all elements of a critical sociology which attempts to understand contemporary social life. The descent from high sociology and its quantifying concerns of class and status to a vulgar form has been paralleled with an interest in the study of the popular and - to its extreme manifestation - kitsch (Jameson 1983:112). What had been previously dismissed by sociology as not worthy of study or simply ugly have acquired undiscovered qualities bringing them, almost too conveniently, into the sociological oeuvre. The academic study of the products of advanced capitalist urban life, such as tourist's souvenirs, is one such example. This "museum" work has, however, been conducted by "ordinary" people through private collections and social clubs as long as objects of popular culture have existed. These non-utilitarian usages themselves make the items and social practices interesting as objects of consumption (Baudrillard 1990:44-5).

One modern-postmodern dichotomy that does hold a level of validity is the move from production-based analysis to more consumption-orientated approaches. This is a view which is confirmed by Shields (1992), who believes that "in general, the modernist separation of economy and culture has left little room for serious engagement with consumption practices" (2). Consumption-based methods provide a degree of flexibility and encompass a significant part of an individual's social life. Being "out" in the public sphere is to be consuming, not just foodstuffs and fuels but more intangible items of material culture such as spectacles and the objects of a gaze. This development has allowed consumption practices in advanced capitalist social life to become synonymous with social participation (Derrida 1978:235). One's ability to remain a participant in daily life is determined by their consumption practices. Aspects of one's hidden private life also holds many consumption opportunities - particularly with the advent of video/television systems and networked personal computers (McDonough 1994:75, Pfohl 1990:432). Viewing spectacle and gazing upon objects are important aspects of both contemporary lifestyles and those research methodologies orientated around postmodern concerns. This encompasses a significant proportion of social life when the supposedly "ordinary" can also be viewed both as spectacle and as the parody of spectacle - the unspectacular spectacle.

Representations that present images of "real" objects, including tourist destinations and objects advertised on television, then, are important components of this consumption lifestyle (Mullins 1991:326). The object as a consequence of being physically gazed upon completes the representation, not because it demolishes ideational preconceptions, but rather because it solidifies the imagery. Tourist destinations, if they are utopic for the tourist in the confines of their home, are confirmed as being so upon their arrival. Even the cynical - described by Urry (1990) as post-tourists - succumbs to this activity "almost [taking] delight in the [supposed] authenticity of the normal tourist experiences. They know there is no authentic tourist experience, that there are merely a series of games or texts that can be played" (11). The post-tourists' travels are part of a lifestyle orientated around the appreciation of the ironic. This irony is confirmed for the post-tourist by material culture that could be considered inappropriate. These items of kitsch include the plastic surf board rider ravaged by the torrents of a snowstorm in a perspex hemisphere or the souvenir teaspoon which is labelled, "Made in Singapore." This position, however, neglects the possibility that those post-tourists who actually make the effort to participate in the inauthentic tourist experience make it authentic by their attendance and consumption. The post-tourists define the site as being kitsch and, consequently, worthy of gazing upon. Similarly, window shoppers, while not making an economic contribution, still consume the same images and spectacle as the paying customers. The differing economic participation of the window "gazer" and the shopper may not, however, be of sufficient significance to demand differing approaches to the study of their consumption of the same images. Other, equally important circumstances, however, do impact upon the interpretation of images presented for consumption - such as the use of languages and social practices (Ricoeur 1981:44).

The researcher, in attempting to understand the consumption practices of Others, those people are not one's self, and the structure into which they will be conceptualised, must reconcile their own social baggage and preconceptions. The categorisation of Others, as Other, reflects the political and academic agendas of the researcher. The utility of this concept is its ability to mark the boundaries between the researcher and the subjects of their research. This approach can however, at an extreme, invoke an artificial dichotomisation of the social world. The researcher's interpretations of "reality" are read through numerous mediatories both before and after the act of creating the descriptive text (Lewanowski 1993:46). The positivist pretence of an objective gaze being maintained by the researcher has little relevance in a postmodern methodology (Smart 1990:398). Nietzsche's criticisms are explicit; "objectivity in the philosopher: moral indifference toward oneself, blindness toward good or ill consequences: lack of scruples about using dangerous means; perversity and multiplicity of character considered and exploited as an advantage" (1968:229). The reflexive and interactive researcher, however, places emphasis upon their role within the research (Lash 1990:258). This could be seen as a self-legitimating feature of postmodern research or, more idealistically, a form of warning to other readers of the text that nothing can be taken for granted.

Finding "Reality."

..."reality" is not so readily available. (Chambers 1990:2)

Besides, no one has ever been interested in the real. It is the place of disenchantment. (Baudrillard 1990:160)

I am conscious of the world as consisting of multiple realities. As I move from one reality to another, I experience the transition as a kind of shock. (Berger & Luckmann 1981:35)

Physical sites of settlement are mediated by humans through the construction of multiple representations. The city is understood by the individual because they hold an image, or images, which are necessarily a summary that stands for the whole. Each of these representations is dynamic and fluid, both influencing and being influenced by social, historic, economic and geographic interpretations, which are themselves representations (Brown, R. 1990:188). The construction of these representations are compon age which is advantageous for groups associated with Australian tourism but is actually perpetuated by the bronzed, and unbronzed, Aussies themselves. This is an image that coincidentally provides further confirmation for the international tourist that Australia and specifically its tourist destinations are utopic. Advertising that is specifically intended for the consumption of imminent tourists exploits these and other "urban myths" of Australian-ness. This manipulation of social life in an effort to entice tourists is transacted in a world almost totally removed from the actual place they promote. These representations are based upon the perceived ideational images of copywriters and promotions people effectively transcending the physical situation. The ability for ideational representations to exist as items of material culture detached from any direct reference to the physical allows for the possibility that "real" utopias do exist and can be perpetuated (Jameson 1981:287). The strength and promise of such ideational representations depreciate the geographic representation which exists in an, apparently, quantified "reality" making it neither the most privileged nor most legitimate (Jacobs 1993:831). Other more utopic representations, which rely heavily upon ideational perspectives, are made to stand for the total physical site through the presentation of a selective analogy (Arbib & Hesse 1986:61). These representations stress supposedly positive features and imply that they are homogeneously available throughout the physical site.

Crossing the boundaries created by these prior representations - in a movement from the ideational to the physical - is a component of a tourist's experience of a site (cf. Derrida 1978:246). This site has, itself, been influenced by previous ideational constructions of visitors and residents. This experience of "reality" does not necessarily alter an individual's perspective. Urry (1990) suggests a more subtle process which involves the reorganisation of "reality:"

What people "gaze upon" are ideal representations of the view in question that they internalise from postcards and guidebooks. And even when the object fails to live up to its representation it is the latter which will stay in people's minds, as what they have really "seen." (86)

Negotiation between representations and the physical urban site is not, however, a reiteration of the Hegelian dialectic. Multiple representations exist and their adoption or rejection is not deterministic. The manufacture and substance of each of these representations are similarly not determined by any single monolithic social apparatus such as the State or ubiquitous capitalism. The situation is a more flexible situation in which "the relation between [the] state and [the] economically dominant class...is neither linear nor simple" (Vacca 1982:57). This fluid situation permits potentially conflictual or antithetical representations to coexist. The ambiguity and juxtaposition of these plural cultural constructions reflect the postmodern environment in which they are made to interact. Each holds a level of social legitimacy which satisfies the demands of their creators and interpreters.

The utilisation and existence of multiple representations can only be considered within a changing and plural hegemonic framework in which social power is continually renegotiated and maintained by the social participants - both the controlled and the controllers. A society conceptualised in terms of rigid and hierarchical power structures would be incapable of maintaining more than two representations, one being the images asserted by those who rule while the ruled present a representation of resistance. In a society where power is considered to be hegemonic, each of the available representations reflects the competing interests of social groups who maintain, or attempt to maintain, forms of influence. The city, as a dense centre of human activity, contains large numbers of competing hegemenic groups and representations. However, hegemonic groups which make representative claims over an individual city can also exist beyond its physical limits. This is the case, for example, when Brisbane-based media, academics or tourist agencies claim to speak for regional Queensland cities. Hegemonic groups are self-interest groups and construct representations for various forms of self-benefit. Representations intended to encourage tourism may be constructed by the owners of business interests for economic gain. In a similar manner, historic-academic representations are developed by historians, or academics generally, as the foundation of knowledge orientated power bases (Ricoeur 1981:274).

Representations do not, however, remain static after their production. The ascription of meaning to each representation is undertaken at the point of consumption. The reader becomes the author of a new text as a result of a process in which "the act of reading...completes the work, transforming it into a guide for reading, with its zones of indeterminacy, its latent wealth of interpretation, its power of being reinterpreted in new ways in new historical contexts" (Ricoeur 1991:27). An individual's unique experience of "reality" creates new inter-subjective interpretations and mediates the "reading" of the available representations (Thiselton 1992:56). The constant construction and reconstruction of what is considered to be a single representation by the producing hegemonic group permits a contemporaneous existence with antithetical approaches. This fluidity also prohibits the permanent dominance of any single representation. Individual visions of "reality," while possibly varying only marginally, continually impact upon daily and inter-subjective life; ensuring that a plurality of images and representations are maintained. Berger and Luckmann (1981) recognise this level of human difference by resorting to the personal pronoun, "I...know, of course, that the others have a perspective on this common world that is not identical with mine" (37). This position allows Surfers Paradise to be perceived in a variety of degrees between the utopic and dystopic simultaneously. This mediated and unique relationship of the individual to the site suggests that, regardless of pre-existent representations, each person holds a disparate perception of Surfers Paradise. This perception is, when mapped against a bounding concept such as a personal model of Utopia, restrained to a continuum of feeling. These feelings, however, have no universal scale and remain irretrievably plural.

The underlying suggestion of this argument, that "reality" is socially constructed, is particularly relevant in an urban context. In this environment, each item of material culture has been thoroughly considered by humans and, consequently, interpreted (Ricoeur 1981:50). Each material item maintains a separate existence beyond the realm of the individual human imagination, however, they are only made "real" - to the human observer - by the interpretations, appellations and meanings applied to them (Said 1983:144). Some of these interpretations, especially those which utilise positivist epistemologies, are claimed to encompass a more accurate representation of "reality" (Jacobs 1993:828). In an urban context, the geographic representation is constructed and re-presented as the objective representation of the city. Chambers (1990), however, prefers a different perspective when he argues that "we can no longer hope to map the modern metropolis, for that implies that we know its extremes, its borders, confines, limits. It is no longer the actual city but an image of it that has taken over" (54). The redundancy of the positivist mapping of the city permits the development of alternate approaches which draw upon previous representations in the construction of new descriptions and, potentially, new-found understanding (cf. McDonough 1994:60). This approach leads to the assertion that "there are no facts, everything is in flux, incomprehensible, elusive; what is relatively most enduring [are] - our opinions [and interpretations]" (Nietzsche 1968:327). This project is not, however, undertaken in an attempt to perpetuate positivist privilege under a different veil as "the function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means" (Sontag 1966:14). The city as a consequence of its inability to be mapped is, then, unreadable in any singly objective form.

Chambers' unmappable city is both a postmodern city and a city considered in po all that has been received, if only yesterday must be suspected" (147). This reconsideration of the city, and all material culture, is a contribution to the postmodern impetus of changing the object of research itself. These practises of postmodern research reflect dynamic social and structural changes in advanced urban capitalism.

Societies of Others

Culture is no longer a unitary, fixed category, but a decentred, fragmentary assemblage of conflicting voices and institutions. (Collins 1989:2)

...the discovery of the plurality of cultures is never a harmless experience. (Ricoeur 1965:278)

So the whole island is as it were one family or household. (More 1978:76)

The social science concepts of culture and society tend to imply that there is a common human world of experience which exists homogeneously throughout an apparently lone social agglomeration (Smart 1990:406). Barth (1969) is critical of the practitioners of social science, rebuking their universalist perspective, "social anthropologists have largely avoided these problems by using a highly abstracted concept of 'society' to represent the encompassing social system within which smaller, concrete groups and units may be analysed" (9). This is a definition which presents an almost utopian concept of societal unity by subsuming and devaluing internal difference and conflict. Difference, in this perspective, defines the boundary of each society and can only be experienced as an interface between societies. Plural societies composed of different social subsets segregate sameness with artificial boundaries by typifying social and cultural categories (DeBord 1977:200).

If I typify my friend Henry as a member of category X (say, an Englishman), I ipso facto interpret at least certain aspects of his conduct as resulting from this typification - for instance, his tastes in food are typical of Englishmen, as are his manners, certain of his emotions, and so on. (Berger & Luckmann 1981:46)

Category X is, however, a divided body of people whose only raison d'etre is the continuity of the category itself. The category is divided by "classical" sociological gazes such as gender, status and class and more consumption-orientated differentiation, all of which are the foundations for dissimilar social experiences (Smart 1990:407). Society interpreted in this manner connects perceived difference with pre-existent ideational models.

A concept of society which has less dependence upon a priori assumptions of supposed universal human features provides a less fraught path in the understanding of social life. A generalised concept of society requires that the elements that compose each individual society are maintained universally. These components are then utilised in the definition of the boundaries for each different society. The absence of a feature across the boundary implies the outer limits of a particular society. However, difficulties arise with this position when boundaries bisect a single group, such as the practice of the male subincision rites in traditional Aboriginal Australia. Certain social groups were considered to be subdivided by this physically distinguishing practice, while remaining mapped as a single tribe. Other forms of difference, such as the dialectical language variation found in the Italian State, suggest that not all social phenomena and difference are considered in the definition of a society (Leach 1976:35). The collection of social components that are used to define a society remains an ad hoc selection from a broader range of available features of difference. The important feature in the bounding of a specific society as a society is not the set of differences seen by Others, but the selection of perceived differences by the members of the society themselves. Boundary marking, then, is a relative exercise. The ability to recognise this precedence allows a definition of boundaries to "give primary emphasis to the fact that ethnic groups are categories of ascription and identification by the actors themselves, and thus have the characteristics of organising interaction between people" (Barth 1969:10). The only valid generalised definition of society may be one which stresses self-ascription to a group that considers itself to have specific and identifiable - to the group themselves, at least - difference from Others.

More specific approaches to society are possible, but only at the expedient loss of universalist definitions. A concept of society which intends to specifically reflect advanced capitalist urban conditions may be reduced to a generalised descriptor for the physical and ideational realms of social interaction and lack any conceptual framework (Harvey 1989:271, McDonough 1994:66). This is a use of the term, "society," which itself raises further difficulties; the most significant of these being the need to "invent" a boundary for advanced capitalist urban conditions in light of Third World "development" (cf. Anderson 1985:15). At a national level, attempting to define the distinguishing features of Australian society necessitates a consideration of the difference between the social structures and conditions of its indigenous and White inhabitants. This divisibility of social experience is apparent even at the level of the urban settlement where "even the oldest resident and the best informed citizen can scarcely hope to know even a fair-sized city in all its rich and subtle detail" (Strauss 1961:8). Without immediate access to all the experiences of the city, its inhabitants pursue difference in both their physical and ideational lives. This social limitation was recognised in the earliest documented organisation of Utopia. Plato quantified the maximum population of his imagined community at 5,400; the largest group of people that could be addressed by a single speaker (Mumford 1962:39). The inhabitants of the contemporary city, however, potentially only share a proximity in time and space. The use of society as a delineating concept of sameness and otherness relies upon factors other than common experience. The belief that one is a member of a society may be the "glue" sufficient to bind such a disparate collection of individuals. The individual's consent to belong to a society is, however, complicated by more coercive social forces.

Ideas of advanced capitalist society tend to emphasise the role of the State - and other forms of control - and the apparatuses utilised in this maintenance of social order. The coercive forces of society are given an essential status while the seductive and consensual aspects of social interaction remain generally unstated. This, however, disregards the influence of all forms of media, or any form of broadcast message, upon a social being. Media, and particularly the visual forms, present idealised representations of social relations and material culture. The pastiche style of television also allows it to adopt the role of legitimatised arbitrator of style and taste by presenting one-way comment and opinion (Baudrillard 1990:66). Regardless of whether the presented opinion is that of the presenter - who enjoys a reified position in contemporary social life - or the owners of the broadcast station, the result is a powerful hegemonic institution. These institutions have acquired important roles in advanced capitalism with the "increasing understanding that the creation of any discourse, whether in speech, clothing or fine art is involved in power relations" (Hodder 1991:66). The influence that media exerts, however, is, arguably, not coercive. Television viewing and the purchase of a newspaper are not compulsory, although this is the impression promoted by the media. Methods of control such as the claimed panoptical design of shopping malls and urban streetscape also has little reliance upon State intervention or the active enforcement of ordinances to successfully maintain social "norms" (Miller 1990:471). The difference between social consent and social control in contemporary advanced capitalist social life, from this perspective, is blurred. Social beings, by transacting their lives in the social arena as consumers and participants, provide their own control - they are each other's prison wardens. Stressing the coercive forces of social life as the essential binding of a society ignores the hegemonic manipulation that is undertaken for the presentation of consensual aspects of social life (Pfohl 1990:431). The manner of control may differ, but the rationale remains the same - the construction of representations for hegemonic dominance with the tacit prize of legitimatation and privilege.

Concepts of society and culture that encourage the typification and emphasis of particular aspects of social life exist as specific representations of human understanding. These are representations created by hegemonic groups that benefit from presenting an overarching commonality of people as primary. Cooke extends this manipulative use of concepts beyond the realms of hegemonic gain with the suggestion that "spatial 'edges' and 'nodes' help link imagined and real conditions of existence in a manner...sensitive to the poststructuralist insight that there can be no true maps, no congruence between the fluidity of the world and the static system of concepts we lay over it" (Cooke 1988:480). This position, by eschewing epistemology other than immediate experience, would prohibit the "doing", or more specifically, the recounting of social research. This situation ultimately leads to charges of nihilism and inaction. Concepts such as society and culture, while arguably imperfect or unnecessary, provide a tool for inter-subjective communication. These tools provide clues which guide the reader towards comprehension, "to organise a text, its author has to rely upon a series of codes that assigns given contents to the expressions he [sic] uses. To make his [sic] text communicative, the author has to assume that the ensemble of codes he [sic] relies upon is the same as that shared by his [sic] possible reader" (Eco 1979:7). The social researcher, by acknowledging their boundedness to, at least, a basic set of concepts, can progress towards a position which limits the power of abstractions as tools of legitimation for social research or hegemonic groups and, rather, compel them to act as aids to description and inter-subjective understanding (Pfohl 1990:423, Rodman 1992:644).

The homogenising moniker - society - may be too broad for use as a tool of understanding (Nietzsche 1968:305). However, contrariwise, the individual uniqueness of humans is extreme and, in isolation, a project that has little relevance to social research (Arbib & Hesse 1986:4, Said 1979:23). The social researcher's task, from within the imprecise framework provided by such a job description, is to consider both social difference and sameness and the boundaries at which they occur in all aspects of social life (Jameson 1981:283). This sceptical, but socially coincident epistemology has a wide ranging provenance if it maintains a rationale based solely upon an interest in the connections between the physical and ideational worlds.

Encountering the Boundaries of Social Life.

...and partly for that his [sic] mind and affection was altogether set and fixed upon Utopia, they say that he [sic] hath taken his [sic] voyage thitherward again. (More 1978:138)

The researcher who chooses to use "boundaries" as a conceptual and defining tool is confronted by a variety of nebulous ideas and a methodology prone to adoption by structuralist epistemology. Boundaries, however, can be a useful tool in the discussion of difference (Foster 1983:xv). This utility is significant within the context of a postmodern methodology. Boundaries are the point beyond which everything is unknown to one's self. A reflexive and interpretative approach, then, provides an ontological starting point. This is a point defined by the political preoccupations of the researcher. Discussing the relationship or difference of the Other to the Self requires a priori the recognition of a form of delimiting boundary that distinguishes the within from the without. The process of denying the existence of boundaries similarly requires an acknowledgment and understanding of the modernist excesses of social cartography. Although the concept implies a division between two, or more, concepts or material items, care must be taken to avoid a representation which concretises a monolithic barrier between the objects of the researcher's attention. Social boundaries, like the social relations they delineate, are dynamic and fluid. The boundaries of the modernist mapping of social life are also apparent - lines on maps and directive and prohibitive signposts (McDonough 1994:65). These modernist boundaries are closed dichotomies and remain static despite surrounding social change. Consequently, the binocular sociological gaze constructs boundaries between, among others, the public and private, work and leisure, and consumption and production. The bipolar construction of the world restricts vision, "to argue that only certain stylistic features constitute real difference thereby rendering all else identical reveals a profound elitism that fails to acknowledge the diverse functions a narrative may have for various audiences" (Collins 1989:12).

To attempt to claim greater legitimacy for either dynamic or static boundaries may be a futile exercise. The social researcher is concerned with all aspects of social life and its constructions and, as a result, both types must be regarded. The choice of one form of social construction as the "correct" or better manifestation is a political act of the subjective researcher. Utilising both manifestations in a form of methodological egalitarianism must be contextualised. The physical manifestation of human boundaries are reflections of the ideational representation which has been given permanence by the coercive and consensual forces of social life. Dynamic social boundaries seem to rely more heavily upon consensual forces. This is a result of social affiliation being based upon self-ascription. This necessitates continuous "boundary maintenance...for the survival of the social order. Without clear definitions of the insides and outsides of groups, social interaction would be difficult" (La Gory & Pipkin 1981:195).

It is, however, possible to "see" both types of boundaries. Being a participant member of a delimited society necessarily involves the possession of a socialised gaze which shapes the surrounding world into accommodatible structures. It is the possession of this gaze that "ruins" a researcher's ability to complete objective work and part of the social baggage that a postmodern methodology acknowledges (Derrida 1978:159). Material culture items, including physical sites of settlement, are understood by their ideational relationship with other items, some of which are similar and others which are considered different. As Tilley (1991) suggests, "a sign considered in isolation would be meaningless" (186). Leach (1976) confirms this view, "a sign or symbol only acquires meaning when it is discriminated from some other contrary sign or symbol" (49). The methods of discrimination by which an individual item is understood will, however, vary as a result of cross-cultural and other social difference. The material world, then, is regulated by perceived differences, the boundaries of which are shaped by the individual's own social differences and bounded world.

A factor in this understanding of one's surrounding world is,

the idea of bounded rationality, which proposes that individuals are rational but within the bounds of their imperfect knowledge. For example, in seeking a new home they choose the best available but their set of known alternatives is a very small subset of the total existing set. (La Gory & Pipkin 1981:106)

The individual, as a member of a social grouping, can only differentiate new items and experiences with those items and concepts already encountered. One's bounded rationality is, however, extended by the crossing of ideational and physical boundaries. In a more philosophical vein, "a boundary is not that at which something stops, but, as the Greeks recognised, the boundary is that from which something begins its presencing" (Heidegger 1971:154).

The tourist is a useful but extreme example for the discussion of the interplay of boundaries in social life. The tourist is, as a consequence of their acts of tourism, an unrepentant boundary crosser. Tourism, regardless of its form, involves the crossing of boundaries. Boundaries which may exist only in the mind of the tourist are projected onto the world of social interaction by the tourist's actions. This definition of tourism broadly encompasses many acts of social life and makes it possible to become a tourist in a shopping mall or in a neighbour's backyard (Chaney 1990:53). The only requirement is the tourist's physical presence across a boundary (Craik 1991:25). The presumed and typified differences of a cultural group, such as the non-Anglo-phonic, appear with the advent of tourists from this cultural group as a newly proximal boundary of a previously distant, and unconsidered, Other (Said 1979:21). "Physical characteristics [then] serve as a badge of identity," which allows a set of social typifications to be applied to this group of Others (Isaacs 1975:39). Intra-national tourists, however, also cross boundaries, with the residents of resort cities often insisting that they can distinguish the locals from the tourists - in sometimes aggressive encounters. The actions of the tourist, including those of the intr-national and daytripping varieties, subsume many of the features of a postmodern methodology. The tourist is a spectator who seeks to collect objects of a specific gaze, a task achieved by crossing boundaries from the normality of a daily bounded rationality (Chaney, 1990:58). The movement asserts the tourist's presence in the visited site - reinforcing the boundaries of social life for both the guest and host.

It would, however, be incorrect ot assume that this boundary crossing is of a specific type. The international tourist experiences difference as a new physical site and altered social conditions. This difference may be mediated by a pre-prepared social familiarity such as guides who speak the tourist's language, signposts in their first language, or the host's adoption of the guest's cultural practices. The resultant amalgam of blurred social conditions may allow the only boundary the tourist crosses to be purely physical. This process creates a representational enclave within the host's society. However, as the guest's social conditions are the result of social, historic and economic developments within the guest's own nation, even a direct transplant invokes a re-presentation of social life which is "reality" for neither guest nor host, but familiar to both. Bachelard (1964) prosaically describes the encountering of tourist with host, "when two strange images meet, two images that are the works of two poets pursuing separate dreams, they apparently strengthen each other" (59). The boundaries created physically and ideationally are not necessarily crossed by either party - each perceiving the near-familiar representations as sameness. Not all tourists, however, attempt to minimise their boundary crossing. The tourist's inspired impetus to see and experience everything is perhaps the more common extreme. However, the experience of the enclaved tourist who, whether unknowingly or consciously, experiences their own culture in a mutated and spatially removed form is also true for the more adventurous. The tourist who attempts to experience the "reality" of their destination can still only receive a representation for their efforts. It is a representation that is created by their own physical imposition upon the site, their touristic intent - to experience Otherness, and their own socialised gaze. The personal imagery that is created is paralleled by similar processes of representation-making for the residents and daytrippers. The human process is similar but the resultant representations vary greatly. This allows the tourist to look at Surfers Paradise and see Utopia while the resident who shares the object of the gaze sees civic disaster.

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