Travel boycotts and symbolic rebordering: discursive and moral governance of tourism mobility

Borders in tourism are commonly understood through territorial control and state regulation, yet contemporary mobility is increasingly shaped through non-state forms of power. This paper develops a conceptual framework that explains how travel boycotts operate as practices of symbolic rebordering within tourism. Drawing on border studies, Foucauldian governmentality, and Bourdieu’s theory of practice and concept of symbolic power, the study shows how mobility is governed through discourse, moral evaluation, affect, and increasingly digitally mediated social regulation. The analysis conceptualizes travel boycotts as non-state governance mechanisms that construct ethical thresholds to movement even when formal borders remain open. The paper proposes four novel interrelated mechanisms through which symbolic borders are produced: discursive power and bordering, which classifies destinations as ethically legitimate or illegitimate; moral governance of mobility, which frames travel as a matter of responsibility and accountability; affective borders, where emotions such as shame, fear, and solidarity regulate embodied movement; and networked governmentality, through which digital publics stabilize norms via visibility, peer judgement, and platform mediation. These mechanisms together shape ethical traveler subjectivities and reorganize tourism mobility through symbolic rather than territorial means. By repositioning travel boycotts within debates on bordering, debordering, and rebordering, the study advances tourism geography scholarship and offers a framework for analyzing morally mediated mobility in an era of digital governance and geopolitical contestation.