“Mapping Without Going”: Imagined/Imaginary Forms of Border Crossing and Cultural Exchange in the Age of Metaphorical Travel

Abstract

In an age of fluidity and relativity in the definition of concepts, the word travel has been subjected to various revisionist endeavors to accommodate its latent and intangible forms—metaphorical, symbolic, and virtual—which are now gaining considerable ground in academic discourse. Undeniably, these approaches provide novel perspectives and offer alternative perceptions of how travel is defined and lived transnationally and cross-culturally. Revisiting travel as a discursive practice cannot be seen in isolation from the concept of border crossing, which is no longer viewed as merely a mundane act of passing, moving, and crossing, but fundamentally as a reflection of a postmodern condition and a form of ideological praxis. Inspired by Edward Said and James Clifford`s theoretical insights, the valorization of the touring and traveling cultures helps take the debate beyond the boundaries of academia to embrace other equally important spheres of influence concerned with immigration, cultural policy, identity, and diasporic politics. This paper seeks to review and ultimately reposition the concept of travel by exploring how the imaged, imagined, and imaginary forms of travel and physical movement reshape the field of travel literature, accounting for its discursive peculiarities, theoretical and ideological presumptions.