What might happen when Paddington Bear, Beegu, Beato, Hamish McHaggis, Maisie Mackenzie, and Bella and Harry—all cherished figures in children’s picture books—embark on a fictional journey together? This study examines the portrayal of children as tourists and travellers in children’s literature, drawing from the foundational concepts of the "tourist gaze" (Urry, 2011) and "tourism imaginaries" (Salazar & Graburn 2014). Through these lenses, I examine how picture books both reinforce and subvert conventional travel narratives, simultaneously embedding specific ideologies about place and cultural experience.
Employing a semiotic-discursive analysis, this exploratory research suggests that picture books often present simplified and stereotyped portrayals of cultural spaces, romanticized versions of innocent, unencumbered tourism, and consumerist undertones that omit authentic local perspectives. While such depictions may align with the genre’s child-friendly format, they risk representing travel as an escape to a static, idyllic world, ignoring the complex realities and challenges of the destinations. These narratives can perpetuate limiting tropes, emphasizing superficial exploration, consumerism, cultural essentialism, and exoticism—tendencies that prior research links to the shaping of young readers' initial cultural perceptions (Nodelman, 1988).
This analysis extends beyond children’s literature to explore the embedded values in early representations of tourism within travel destinations. A potential theoretical contribution is the concept of the "proxy tourist gaze," which I (provisionally) define as the interpretive lens through which adult authors—drawing from their own childhood experiences and worldviews—construct an imagined child’s perspective on travel and cultural difference. This gaze is complexly layered; while it reflects an adult's attempt to simulate childlike curiosity and wonder, it is inevitably imbued with retrospective imaginaries that shape these narratives through adult knowledge, experiences and assumptions about the world. Thus, children’s literature does not convey a purely child-centred view of tourism; rather, it mediates adult perceptions of childhood innocence and cultural exploration within a globalized framework. This proxy gaze is further mediated by external factors such as the publisher, the illustrator, and most importantly, the context of production and the Zeitgeist.
Through this study, I attempt to contribute to tourism and intercultural communication scholarship by inviting reflection on the role of children’s literature in fostering culturally sensitive and responsible future travellers, engaging them with the complexities and ethical dimensions of global tourism from an early age.
References
Nodelman, P. (1988). Words about pictures : the narrative art of children’s picture books.University of Georgia Press.
Salazar, N. B., & Graburn, N. H. (2014). Tourism imaginaries: Anthropological approaches.
Urry, J., Larsen, J., Urry, J., SAGE Knowledge., & SAGE Knowledge. (2011). The tourist
gaze 3.0. ([3rd ed.] / John Urry and Jonas Larsen.). SAGE.
Citation
Victoria, M. (2024, December). Constructing Childhood Tourism: The Proxy Gaze and Cultural Imaginaries in Picturebooks. Presented at Tourism and IBC Research Seminar, Edinburgh Napier University
