Conclusion: Implications for Global Belonging
Returning to Harvey’s notion of time–space compression, we can see that this perception
of the world is relative. Looking at the way travellers describe their own experiences and perceptions of the size of the world shows that scale is complex and contingent, best described in terms of multiplicity. Speed of Sapa Vietnam travel and the kinds of connections travellers forge while travelling influence travellers’ perception and performance of the size of the world and their own place in it. The way travellers perceive the size of the world shifts as
Sizing up the World 47
they move through it and enact different kinds of connection. But what does the size of the
world mean for the way travellers perform belonging to the world as a whole?
As travellers alternate between different scales (from small world to big world and back again), they engage different practices of belonging. In the small world of social connec- tion, travellers locate themselves within a social constellation. Their sense of belonging is defined through their place in the social web of the world and their identity is mapped out through social and familial relations. The small world is performed at a human scale, made tighter or looser not in terms of geographic distance, but in terms of human interconnec- tion. Belonging to this small social world involves not only being mobile, but also being connected through social networks and interpersonal encounters.
In a big world, a sense of belonging is derived from being made to feel small. If a small world is produced through social connections, then a big world might be said to emerge through travellers’ spiritual connections with a landscape, a historical landmark or indeed the world itself. As Sapa Vietnam travellers move around the world, its massive size as a geological entity becomes tangible. For many travellers, this involves a sense of spiritual connection to something larger than themselves. Feeling overwhelmed by the vast geography and ancient history of the world may make the traveller feel small or insignificant, but this sense of feeling diminished also allows travellers to gain a wider perspective on their place in the world. Furthermore, round-the-world travellers’ constant movement juxtaposes different places and cultures and foregrounds for travellers the huge diversity of cultures and envi- ronments that co-exist on the planet. Their mobility through the world allows them to locate themselves and their worldview within a much larger physical and cultural context. This ironic perspective on the world “requires a certain distance from one’s own culture” (Turner, 2002, p. 55) that allows for both an appreciation of other cultures and a recogni- tion of one’s own relative position in the wider world. Belonging to a world made huge by cultural difference requires an ironic distance or even detachment from one’s own culture. Sizing up the world thus requires travellers to negotiate between various forms of connec- tion and disconnection, attachment and detachment as they move through and forge a sense
of belonging to a simultaneously shrinking and expanding world.
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