Overview of Travel Plans
Plans and Itinerary
In 2011, a series of popular protests against entrenched regimes substantially reconfigured political reality in the Middle-East and North Africa. The Jasmine Revolution(s) enlarged our understanding of the world, introducing places we want to visit and people we’d like to meet. But, the US State Department’s Travel Advisory page, widely known as the “No-Go’s list,” offers a word of caution to those preparing to pack their bags. Here, you will find a selection of nations considered dangerous, unstable or risky enough to merit official discouragement. From Mexico and Haiti, in America’s own backyard, to such closed and/or failed states as North Korea and Somalia, the No-Go’s list, is regrettably long and depressingly predictable. The threat of terrorism continues to be a major factor in the designation, but catastrophic natural disasters, rampant crime and corruption and violent civil insurrection are other qualifying concerns.
The No-Go List is not a prohibition, but ostensibly “prudent” advice to vacationers and sightseers about dangers, discomforts and inconveniences. For a different type of traveler, however, the list operates like an advertisement for adventure, a promise of experiences and insights you won’t get from a book or a broadcast. Dinner in the No- Go’s does not dispute the risks, but it does intend to examine the perception and probabilities behind them, as well as the larger question of fear, whose subjective experience and political uses constitute the central object of inquiry.
Itinerary #1
Over the next 6 months Marco and Bilal will visit predominantly Muslim countries listed on the US State Department’s NO-GO website.
Click here for dinner dates and locations
Itinerary #2 – No-Go’s of the Western World
After investigating conditions in the Middle East and North Africa, where Marco is the cultural outsider, Marco will conduct Bilal to places in North America which might qualify as No-Go zones for someone of Bilal’s background.
In 2011, a series of popular protests against entrenched regimes substantially reconfigured political reality in the Middle-East and North Africa. The Jasmine Revolution(s) enlarged our world, introducing places we might want to visit and people we might like to meet. But, the State Department’s Travel Advisory page, widely known as the “No-Go” list, offers a word of caution before you pack your bags. Here, you will find a selection of nations considered dangerous, unstable or risky enough to merit official discouragement. From Mexico and Haiti, in America’s own backyard, to such closed and/or failed states as North Korea and Somalia, the No-Go list,is regrettably long, if depressingly predictable.2 The threat of terrorism continues to be a major factor in the designation, but catastrophic natural disasters, rampant crime and corruption and violent civil insurrection are other qualifying concerns.
The No-Go List is not prohibition, but prudent advice to vacationers and sightseers about dangers, discomforts and inconveniences. For a different type of traveler, however, the list operates like an solicitation for adventure and insights you won’t get from a book or a broadcast. Dinner in the No- Go’s3 does not dispute the risks, but it does intend to examine the perception and probabilities behind them, as well as the larger question of fear, whose subjective experience and political uses constitute the central object of inquiry.
2 Where, indeed, is Cuba? Does the US State Department expect to prevent visits to Cuba by erasing it from the list?
3 Despite the title, dinner parties are only one aspect of Marco and Bilal’s investigation. Visits to markets and public squares, conversations with locals, expats, rich and poor, educated and otherwise, will furnish the anthropological “gist” of this survey.
View NO-GO’s in a larger map
