the role of tourism in natural resource management in the okavango ...

alienated from the means of production and social relations were mediated, in effect
disguised, through commodity forms (Craib, 1997; Meethan, 2001).
Modernity is naturally also associated with the concept of progress and change,
particularly the notion of a linear path to social development in which the pre-modern
is swept aside by the progressive march of modernity which, as Harvey (1989)
states, "...has no respect for its own past" (p. 226). The notion that modernity
constitutes a fundamental break with the past, not only of organisational forms but
also in conceptual terms, creates a distinction between the modern and the
traditional.
Another element to be viewed is the nation state. In simplest terms, nation states
can be viewed as 'natural' entities, which contain a certain set of essential
characteristics shared by its inhabitants that forms a distinct national culture.
However, such assessments themselves are products of modernity and tend to be
set in sharp contrast to the pre-modern or primitive. In this way both the 'primitive'
and the 'traditional' become seen as the antithesis of modernity, and this is a
fundamental categorisation that not only underpins many forms of tourism, but also
many forms of tourism analysis. Concepts of alienation, the division between the
past and the present, the modern and the primitive still influence the manner in
which many forms of tourism are considered and analysed. Despite the tendency to
think in terms of epochs, such as modernity or postmodernity, as with all broad
classifications of history, there is a danger of assuming that, for example, modernity
not only consisted of a set of definable characteristics, but more importantly, that the
application of these characteristics was both universal and simultaneous. The
spread of modernity, or even industrial capitalism, was an uneven process, which in
turn has consequences in terms of both globalisation and development (Meethan,
2001 ).
3.2.2 Tourist Spaces of Modernity
Even though it is possible to see the roots of modern tourism in the Grand Tours of
the eighteenth century, it was the creation of the European seaside resorts from the
early nineteenth century onwards that established the dominant pattern for mass
tourism (Walton, 1983; Walton, 1997; Urry, 1990). The first resorts became 'watering
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