The “Pattern of Remoteness” and Life on the Ruins: Everyday Life and Tourism in Tomsk Oblast
Abstract
In examining non-obvious mosaic of everyday life and tourism practices in remote areas of Tomsk region, I propose a revision of “pattern of remoteness” notion as interpreted by Caroline Humphrey (2015), which is formed precisely in the “provincial” postsocialist context in opposition to spatial forms dictated by the metropoly. A series of paradoxes surrounds the specific tourism industry: denying connectivity, easy access to territory and transparency, locals and entrepreneurs create a complex network in which ruins and memorialization of historical trauma are particularly attractive, and key experience offered to the traveler is one's own authenticity through trial. Another paradox is that the more destruction of infrastructural elements occurs, the brighter the potential of nature tourism in the region. This observation calls for a reconsideration of ethnographic studies of tourism practices beyond the concept of heritage conservation and sustainability of communities. In my article, based on a series of case studies, I offer an alternative perspective on the concept of 'resource' in the context of tourism and ask: What does the fact that the wildness of landscape and ruins come to the fore and turn out to be an attraction tell us? How can the ruinization and landscape wilderness' revitalization call into question the view of remoteness as inequality and infrastructural violence? This critical step offers a different way of looking at ruptures and inequalities of socio-political space, showing how autonomy is gained through what is usually considered as 'scarcity'. I also examine the relationship of remoteness to time and temporalities — firstly, by linking tourism and local forms of life to the tragic history of exile and resettlement, secondly, by challenging the view that remoteness means marginalization through exclusion from processes of modernity.
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