VW campervan tourists' embodied sonic experiences

Wilson, Sharon, Chambers, Donna and Johnson, James (2019) VW campervan tourists' embodied sonic experiences. Annals of Tourism Research, 76. pp. 14-23. ISSN 0160-7383

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Abstract

In this paper we argue that sound and the aural senses are integral to tourists' experiences while in motion. Using a metaphorical lens and qualitative research, our inductive findings of VW Campervan tourism demonstrate that there is an embodied relationship between tourist/driver and machine, like that between a musician and her/his instrument, where, through sound, both become intertwined in the act of performance. Our findings suggest that these embodied sonic experiences of travel are psychological, emotional and physiological as the sounds of the van elicit feelings of well-being and stress or physical manifestations of (ill)health. Yet in a Deleuzian sense, we suggest that the human/machine assemblage thus created, through sound, is necessarily ephemeral and always in a state of becoming.

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