TOURISM AND PERFORMANCE: SCRIPTS, STAGES AND STORIES

14-18 July 2005, Sheffield, United Kingdom

This is the second call for papers for TOURISM AND PERFORMANCE: SCRIPTS,
STAGES AND STORIES. This event is part of our ongoing conference series
focusing on tourism and tourism related practices, with the aim to test
and, where useful, to overcome traditional conceptual and disciplinary
boundaries. Previous events of this series include Tourism and Photography:
Still Visions - Changing Lives in Sheffield, in 2003, and Tourism and
Literature: Travel, Imagination and Myth in Harrogate, in 2004.

After last years conference in Harrogate, we would be pleased if you could
again contribute to this event. Paper presenters should send a 300 word
abstract of their suggested communication with full address details as an
electronic file to Prof. Mike Robinson and Dr. David Picard (send to
[log in to unmask] ) as soon as possible but by 15th April 2005 at the
latest.

CONTEXT
Performance has been theorised as a way by which human beings act in
society and organise their being in the world. In the context of tourism,
there is much debate regarding the idea of tourists as performers, 'acting
out' spaces, and enacting 'scripts', through which they organise and add
meaning to their experiences and journeys. Tourism in this sense can be
seen to be 'staged'. But such perspectives raise a number of questions
regarding the reflexivity, the hermeneutics, the sensual and aesthetic
modalities, the social interactions and the political economy of tourist
performance: How is individual tourist performance linked to socially
prescribed or learnt models regarding tourism behaviour and spaces? How are
spaces and material culture 'enacted' by and for tourists?  What are the
production and consumption modalities of in situ and in visu stages for
tourism performance? How is tourism performance linked to modes of
touristic social interaction during the journey? What roles do stories play
in generating performativity and in liberating tourists from the acts of
travel and tourism?

The aim of this conference is to explore such questions by drawing on the
methodological and conceptual knowledge of different disciplinary
perspectives including those of: anthropology, sociology, history, cultural
studies, folkloric studies, literature, critical theory, linguistics,
human/cultural geography, psychology, theatre studies and other relevant
approaches.

THEMES
Key themes of interest to the conference include:

- Who is cooking who? Tourism consumption, digestion, and excretion
- Hermeneutics, reflexivity and agency: Tourism as a parable of the social
world
- Eden, Sodom & Gomorrah, the Solitary Wanderer, the Golden Fleece:
Archaeologies of tourist imaginary and performance
- Odour, sound, vision, taste - making sense of the senses: cognitive
categories and perceptive processes in tourism experience
- Objects as props - objects as texts
- Staging, eroticising, and making visible: Translations, adaptations, and
variations of the 'cultural'
- Reconsidering the economic in tourism: Transnational spaces of encounter,
production and exchange
- Political and symbolic manipulation of tourism scripts
- 'Losing the plot': Tourism lost in translation

PROGRAMME
The conference is organised by Prof Mike Robinson and Dr David Picard, from
the Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change, Sheffield Hallam University. It
will accommodate key note presentations and a series of themed sessions.
Prof Edward Bruner from the University of Illinois, USA has just confirmed
his participation as a key note speaker. An informal welcome reception will
be organised in the early evening of 14 July 2005 and the conference will
officially open in the morning of 15 July.

VENUE AND REGISTRATION
The conference will take place in Sheffield, United Kingdom. Delegates will
benefit from excellent rates at the hotel / conference venue where 4* style
bed and breakfast accommodation is available. As in previous events, we
expect that the majority of delegates will stay on the conference site and
therefore urge early bookings to avoid pain, disappointment and depression.
A single B&B will be at £55, a double B&B at £80 per night. The
registration fee for the conference is £220 if paid before 1 June 2005 and
£250 if paid after this date. This includes the full conference
documentation, an ISBN referred proceedings CD-ROM, day-time conference
catering, a conference dinner and a field study. It does not include
accommodation, which can be booked directly with the venue (address to be
confirmed through our website). More information on the registration
procedures will be available at our website www.tourism-culture.com.

For any other or further enquiry regarding this conference or the Centre
for Tourism & Cultural Change, please visit www.tourism-culture.com or
contact us at: Dr David Picard, CTCC, Sheffield Hallam University, Howard
Street, Owen Building, Sheffield, S1 1WB, United Kingdom. Phone: +44 (0)
114 225 3973. Fax: +44 (0) 114 225 3343. Email: [log in to unmask]