Fishing for Tourists

Abstract

This chapter will outline an ethnography of tourism on fishing boats, providing also an additional link to an ethnographic film Fishing Tourists by Nataša Rogelja. With the ethnography we underpin the analysis of domestic tourism along the Slovenian coast, understanding it as a specific part of a broader tourist culture that has been on the one hand under-researched in the anthropology of tourism while on the other it forms a significant part of tourist culture within the NE Adriatic region. In that respect we will try to explain how in a given place a tourist culture comes to emerge and what is, or was, the role of domestic tourism. Furthermore, we argue that the type of fishing boat excursions as presented in the second part of this chapter are on one hand a modified form of syndicalist holidays developed within Yugoslav tourism and on the other they constitute fishermen’s innovative tactics and resilience developed in the period of the demise of Slovene fishing. It was precisely the promotion of authenticity, cohabitation with nature and genuineness that allowed, supported and rendered possible such innovations.