ETHICAL VIRTUES, CONTACT ZONES, AND REPRESENTATION IN TRAVEL WRITING: EXPLORATIONS PAST AND PRESENT

Abstract

The article focuses on the importance of placing our writing in the context of what Aristotle terms "ethical virtues." This is especially important when writing about different communities and peoples, their customs, religions, histories, and language. After showing Aristotle's approach to ethical virtues, I use as an example the travel writing of Harriet Martineau, a nineteenth century British woman writer who used nineteenth century philosophy, economy, and social thought to expressher views on the American women's movement and her aversion to slavery, and to express her attitudes toward colonialist behavior in her work on Eastern Life, Present and Past where she explores her views on Egypt, Palestine, Syria. I then show the importance of  engaging in representational travel writing and adapting ethical virtues to current-day century sensibilities so that we move away from the "genre of the empire" in current travel writing. I conclude by exposing assumptions in twentyfirst century travel writing and providing a theoretical framework for applying ethics in travel writing that allow us to see the connections to other people without assuming that we can achieve symmetrical reciprocity in our interactions with people in our own communities or
communities abroad.