Mundus Corpus: Rethinking Tourism Worldmaking Through the World of Bodies

Worldmaking theories often emphasize the possibility that world(s) can be multiple and plural. The call for papers of this conference also accentuates the idea that by bringing tourism scholars together “the conference will be a place of opening possible World(s), as pluriversalism.” But what/where/how is this place that the opening of worlds becomes possible, as pluriversalism? Inspired by Jean-Luc Nancy’s (2008) book Corpus, this presentation offers a philosophical reflection on such questions, bringing contemporary discussions of worldmaking (Hollinshead, 2009) into conversation with “the body”, or “the world of bodies”. Nancy’s relational ontology challenges the understanding that (tourism) worlds come into being only when represented, named or negotiated (Doering & Zhang, 2018). Rather, Nancy’s “world” is a world of bodies [mundus corpus], where the body is the place that opens, touches and spaces world(s); “the world as a proliferating peopling of (the) body(’s) places (2008, p. 39). To give texture to these philosophical reflections a series of examples of traveling, friendship and walking the Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage Trail (Japan) in January 2023 are explored. (T)here, the touring/toured body, and the world of bodies, are reconsidered through three themes: place, touch and departure. First, Corpus challenges us to rethink the body as the place of existence, opening new understandings of what it means to visit somebody. We then explore how bodies take-place through touch, but a touch that opens/exposes/extends bodies. The body, as extension, is therefore always about to depart. A departing body carries with it its spacing, including its taking-place. Philosophizing these three themes alongside Nancy’s Corpus, we hope to open new ways to think about how the plurality of world(s) are made and un-made through mundus corpus: the world of bodies.