Title: The effects of COVID-19 in the tourist society: an anthropological insight of the trivialisation of death and life

Authors: Raoni Borges Barbosa; Jean Henrique Costa; Bintang Handayani; Maximiliano E. Korstanje

Addresses: Department of Sociology, State University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, 59610210, Brazil ' Department of Tourism, State University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, 59610210, Brazil ' Faculty of Hospitality, Tourism and Wellness. University of Malasia Kelatan, Kelatan Malasia, 16100, Malaysia ' Department of Economics, University of Palermo, Buenos Aires, 1175, Argentina

Abstract: In the present essay review, we bring some sociological reflections about the durable effects of the lockdown not only in tourism behaviour but also in society. In so doing, we pose some central questions oriented to understand the sense of new normality, where the social distancing marks human relations. We coin the term trivialisation of death to discuss the ideological dispositions revolving around the domestication of death. In parallel, a new debate around the idea of the tourist-gaze is amounted in the section to follow. In the pre-pandemic world, tourists were valorised as ambassadors of the civilised order, but now they appear to be demonised as potential carriers of a lethal decease, if not potential terrorists who lurk to attack anytime. To some extent, COVID19 -far from being a foundational event- reaffirms a logic that starts with 9/11 and the so-called War on Terror.

Keywords: new normal; COVID-19; industrial genocide; trivialisation of life; naturalisation of death; risk; pandemic; globalisation; hospitality; fear.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTA.2021.116094

International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, 2021 Vol.8 No.2, pp.179 - 192

Received: 13 Jan 2021
Accepted: 02 Mar 2021
Published online: 09 Jul 2021 *