A narrative community : voices of Israeli backpackers / Chaim Noy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Noy, Chaim, 1968-

Series:

Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology

Raphael Patai series in Jewish folklore and anthropology

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Backpacking--Social aspects.

Backpacking.

Youth--Israel--Social life and customs.

Youth.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (252 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Detroit : Wayne State University Press, c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

An intertextual examination of the storytelling of Israeli backpackers that analyzes their unique patterns of communication to create a thorough picture of this "narrative community." Backpacking, or Tarmila'ut, has been a time-honored rite of passage for young Israelis for decades. Shortly after completing their mandatory military service, young people set off on extensive backpacking trips to "exotic" and "authentic" destinations in so-called Third World regions in India, Nepal, and Thailand in Asia, and also Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina in Central and South America. Chaim Noy collects the words and stories of Israeli backpackers to explore the lively interplay of quotations, constructed dialogues, and social voices in the backpackers' stories and examine the crucial role they play in creating a vibrant, voiced community. A Narrative Community illustrates how, against the peaks of Mt. Everest, avalanches, and Incan cities, the travelers' storytelling becomes an inherently social drama of shared knowledge, values, hierarchy, and aesthetics. Based on forty-five in-depth narrative interviews, the research in this book examines how identities and a sense of belonging emerge on different social levels-the individual, the group, and the collective-through voices that evoke both the familiar and the Other. In addition, A Narrative Community makes a significant contribution to modern tourism literature by exploring the sociolinguistic dimension related to tourists' accounts and particularly the transformation of self that occurs with the experience of travel. In particular, it addresses the interpersonal persuasion that travelers use in their stories to convince others to join in the ritual of backpacking by stressing the personal development that they have gained through their journeys. This volume is groundbreaking in its dialogical conceptualization of the interview as a site of cultural manifestation, innovation, and power relations. The methods employed, which include qualitative sampling and interviewing, clearly demonstrate ways of negotiating, manifesting, and embodying speech performances. Because of its unique interdisciplinary nature, A Narrative Community will be of interest to sociolinguists, folklore scholars, performance studies scholars, tourism scholars, and those interested in social discourses in Israel.

Contents:

Performing backpacking narratives. Arriving at the destination : no transcendence ; Persuasion. Intermezzo 1: from persuasion (in)to quotation

Quotations and voices. Quotations ; Performing the chorus and the (occasional) emergence of individual voices ; Performing others' voices : quoting native and tourist. A visit to the television station (September 22, 2003) ; The collective-canonic voice : quoting the norm (of quoting). Eih omrim "eih omrim"? Aunt Malka'le and the search for collective authority ; From oral authority to written canon : quoting travelers' books and trail stories. Thorong La Pass : at 5,416 meters ; From speech community to vocal identity : the sound of quotations. Intermezzo 2: From quotation to self-transformation

Conclusions. Self-transformation. "Garçon, get me someone who speaks Tibetan!"

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 215-229) and indexes.

ISBN:

9780814337585

0814337589

OCLC:

794443086