Discursive representations of difference and multilingualism in Himalaya with Michael Palin Bal Krishna Sharma AQ1 ¶ Department of English, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA ABSTRACT In this article, I discuss how mediatised tourism constructs various discourses of othering through representations of the ‘tourist self’ vis-à-vis the ‘local other’. In order to do so, I analyze a six-hour travelogue Himalaya with Michael Palin broadcast by the BBC in 2004. The analysis shows that despite the forces of globalisation that have made national and cultural boundaries more porous than ever before, common stereotypes about otherness continue to shape the experience of travel narratives at present. While the liberal discourses used in the travelogue appear to celebrate the linguistic and cultural diversity of the world, they simultaneously reproduce the moral superiority of the West when the traveller is presented as an authority to give the judgmental accounts of otherness under the guise of equality and tolerance. Himalaya with Michael Palin as a form of mediatised tourism does in fact invoke cultural stereotypes to commodify local authenticities, languages, and identities in order to make the travelogue a ‘good’ TV programme. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 1 June 2017 Accepted 18 January 2018 KEYWORDS Media; multilingualism; representation; stereotyping; tourism 1. Introduction Tourism is characterised by a massive mobility of people both within and across national borders (Urry, 2002) and, as a result, cross-cultural encounters are norms rather than exceptions (Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010). Although there is a hierarchy in such mobilities in terms of who has the privilege to move, the cultures and peoples that are considered static also experience mobility as they encounter differences. Tourism destinations show diversity and variability because of the presence of people from various localities and nationalities. In addition, it is not only people but buildings, artifacts, cultures and languages that are mobile (Hannam, Sheller, & Urry, 2006). These mobile resources travel through tourists’ memories, narratives, videos, and images. As these resources are created, circulated and consumed, they construct a particular representation of travelled destinations. Mass mediated products such as travel documentaries, travelogues, films and television programmes construct a ‘regime of truth’ (Foucault, 1980) about travel desti- nations, targeting potential tourists and armchair travellers as their principal audience (Diekmann & Hannam, 2012). © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group CONTACT Bal Krishna Sharma balsharma@uidaho.edu Department of English, University of Idaho, 875 Perimeter Drive, Moscow, ID, USA AQ2 ¶ INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUALISM, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2018.1431239 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 RMJM1431239 Techset Composition India (P) Ltd., Bangalore and Chennai, India 1/23/2018