Abstract: The subject of this research is the peculiarities of use of the past as a symbolic resource in tourism industry. Based on the materials from social networks, thematic forums and travelers’ blogs, the author examines the tourists’ attitude towards their native country and vacation destination, evaluation of the past and history of tourist countries, emotional factors of perception of the past. It is underlined that the growth of commercialization of the past leads to escalation of identification risks – the desire to “sell” at profit the past of a country emphasizes such elements of its history that enjoy popularity among tourists. The theoretical-methodological foundation contains the works of contemporary theoreticians “memory studies”, ideas of Pierre Bourdieu, Bruno Latour, objectification concept of Karin Knorr-Cetina, as well as representation on the “culture industry” of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Leaning on the works of predecessors, the author proves that the “memory industry” manifests as a continuation of colonialism, turning the carriers of culture into the exhibits, and the historical experience into the likeness of shopping. In such context, the past becomes a commodity, narrative about it – a service, which can threaten with the loss of distinctness.

Abstract: The subject of the research is a comparison of actor-network theory with the theory of self-organized criticality. Despite the fact that the analyzed theories belong to different scientific fields (sociology and physics, respectively), they both represent a discourse of the non-linear world, and focus main attention not on the entities (objects), but interactions between them. The author turns attention to the individual components of the reviewed theories, as well as their function and heuristic potential as a whole. The author demonstrates that the actor-network theory alongside the theory of self-organized criticality manifest as a new language for describing the asymmetric universe, as well as underline the role of minimal impact that can lead to a maximal result. However, the self-organized criticality represents an explanatory meta-theory aimed at determination of the universal laws, which contradicts the principle of irreduction, insisted by the supporters of the actor-network theory. This article is first to pursue correlation between the two aforementioned theories.