About Tourists & Vagabonds

Tourists & Vagabonds explores current affairs and global challenges.

The site focuses on two things, primarily. The first is to cover the news, and the second to act as a point of departure for readers who wish to know more about the challenges, such as climate change, crime and inequality. Or maybe maybe important themes like The European Union (EU) or the Scandinavian welfare states. I.e. not necessarily problems that need to be solved but rather institutions or concept that are important to understand – and perhaps help solve – challenges like climate change or inequality.

We therefore have a section for news, which is the home page, a section for the particular challenges facing the world and finally a section for important themes.

In general you could say that Tourists & Vagabonds’ aim is to help us understand what globalisation is, whether it’s economic, cultural or political. For instance, to understand global industries it is important to know a little about how the global economy works. This plays an important part in how the challenge of economic inequality affects the world.

Bauman’s two categories: tourists and vagabonds

The title ‘Tourists & Vagabonds’ refers to the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s two categories of people today. Firstly, Tourists, who have the privilege to travel and work where-ever they wish. And, secondly, Vagabonds, who are forced to be on the move when they are no longer welcome (1996). Roughly, we can categorise the world’s population into these two groups. When studying economic inequality, for example, this way of viewing the world can be helpful. Indeed, when dealing current affairs and global challenges it may often be helpful to be able to use rough, or even crude, categorisations such as these to make sense of the world.

Relying on credible sources

We link to other sources that we deem trustworthy. It could be the OECD, the UN, think tanks, universities, renowned journals, respected news organisations, etc. Often, when covering a particular story, we link to several news sites for a fuller picture. Indeed, Tourists & Vagabonds provides a news summary, rather than the full story. The full story can therefore be found by following the link(s) in our summary.

Tourists & Vagabonds also links to courses online that deal with the issues. One of the platforms that offers MOOCS, i.e. ‘massive open online course’, is FutureLearn. FutureLearn is an affiliate partner that offers a wide range of courses. Among others, it offers course on the global economy (SOAS, University of London), the economics of crime (Hanyang University), climate change (University of Exeter), and inequality (Open University).

Readers are very welcome to propose interesting ideas, suggest changes, or in other ways offer their advice.