1.

4 The social relevance of the factual literature on otherness and reasons for studying it By the turn of the millennium, the English-speaking world TW had been booming, with good sales figures and a few best-sellers (Korte, !!!" #$ %&&ording to 'ussell ( !!!#, there has been in re&ent years a re(i(al of the genre, as seen in new tra(el series by ma)or publishing houses, numerous tra(el literature anthologies, best-sellers and prominent displays in bookstores*+ , and the phenomenon is not limited to the English-speaking world$*%lthough the diffusion and a&&eptan&e by readers of TW and, more generally, ./0 may (ary from &ountry to &ountry, one &an use Thomas theorem*1 (Thomas and Thomas, *2 3# to suppose they produ&e effe&ts in at least two dimensions" *# nationalism(s# 4 representations of groups of people and (so&ial# representations of geographi&al entities su&h as &ountries5 and # tourist demand (in part &onse6uen&e of or intermingled with *##$ 7pe&ifi&ally, the perspe&ti(e that identities (at national le(el or other le(els# are so&ially &onstru&ted is largely taken for granted in so&ial s&ien&e (8osta, !! " 9#$ %mongst the so-&alled mythologist (iew of nationalism, so&ial &onstru&ti(ists &onsider (8lan&y, !!3"1#*9 that, gi(en nations are made, not gi(en, and their making is produ&ed by ideas, national identity does not ne&essarily ha(e mu&h in &ommon with a&tual history, whi&h is fre6uently in(ented$*: ;oole (*222#*3 holds that national identity rea&hes people through literature, musi&, language, history and other &ultural resour&es5 8orse (*22:# *2 argues that reading &anoni&al no(els helps to &onstru&t national identities and feelings of solidarity among disparate readers5 while <riswold (*22 # ! found that the (illage no(el establishes a powerful yet histori&ally suspe&t sense of =igerian identity$ 0n&e the si>e of a &ommunity makes personal a&6uaintan&e among its members impossible, the &ommunity must to some degree be imagined (%nderson, *23+#5 therefore, if ?so&ial theory@ has real &onse6uen&es, be&ause indi(iduals &annot do without some kind of &on&eption of the type of so&iety in whi&h ?they@ li(e, as Blo&k (*22!" # * holds, one &an eApe&t that ./0 plays an important role in the &onstru&tion of su&h type of &ommunity$ Bf teAts re&ei(ed as fi&tion produ&e su&h effe&ts, one may a fortiori eApe&t works re&ei(ed as fa&tual to take a part in the formation of ideas of nations and, more broadly, of &ultures or models of so&ieties, espe&ially when &onta&t with the differen&e or the other is in(ol(ed$