The Traveller's Body

This collection of articles follows on from the research work regarding the body-the face, the reader’s body, the artist’s body-and is among the topics addressed by one of the teams of the ALTER laboratory at université de Pau et des pays de l’Adour. These topics center around the representations of the individual and their relationship with the world as they move and migrate. The contributors study different forms of embodiment and corporeality as experienced by travellers who have chosen to travel. They show how the process of discovery and the confrontation with the unknown lead the traveller’s body to be at odds with the Other and they also illustrate the physicality of the journey, rooted in its material nature, by examining the objects used and the clothes worn by the travellers. These appendages and extensions have a paradoxical function and turn out to be both impediments and sources of empowerment which come to define the self that carries them on their journey. This work also sheds light on individuals on the move, evolving among foreign landscapes : the interactions between their bodies and these new and often impressive surroundings are such a source of liberation that they generate a form of awakening and a reconstruction of sometimes fragmented identities.
This book results from the collaboration between academics working on travel and the body, and students of université de Pau et des pays de l’Adour who proposed their own artistic interpretation of the themes and issues connected with the traveller’s body.