RGS-IBG Annual Conference: ‘Global social justice and environmental 
sustainability’, 30 August – 1 September 2006, at the Royal Geographical 
Society with IBG, London

Call for papers:

Tourism, Inequality and Social Justice

A session sponsored by the Geography of Leisure and Tourism Research Group 
(GLTRG)

There is a well developed discourse of inequality and social justice within 
many of tourism studies’ underpinning disciplines, most notably geography 
and sociology. Similarly, tourism studies’ sister subject field of leisure 
studies pioneered research into inequality and exclusion in leisure 
provision and participation. Such research has addressed spatial, social, 
cultural and economic inequalities, the mutually informing nature of such 
inequalities and the ways in which inequality is experienced differently in 
relation to social class, gender, ethnicity, age and disability. This 
session seeks to extend such debates and discourses to tourism geographies 
where research on inequality and social justice has lacked the visibility 
seen in other disciplines and subject fields. 

Theoretical and empirical papers that engage critically with issues of 
inequality and social justice are invited for this session which seeks to 
provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of research addressing 
the following issues:

* the impact of the cultural turn in tourism studies and its relevance to 
the study of inequality and social justice;
* the emergence of the discourse of critical tourism studies and its 
application to debates relating to inequality and social justice;
* the place of social class, gender, ethnicity, age and disability in 
constructing and contesting inequality in tourism;
* the tourism-related experience of inequality and injustice in different 
societies, destinations and communities;
* policy attempts to develop and deliver social justice in and through 
tourism; and
* the role of tourism discourses and practices in relation to human rights.

Please note that Elsevier are interested in publishing good quality papers 
submitted to this session as an edited volume.

Draft proposals of papers in the form of a 200 word abstract should be 
submitted to all three session convenors (email [log in to unmask], 
[log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask]) by 23 January 2006. 
Final proposals will need to be submitted to the RGS-IBG by 31 January 
2006, using the standard proforma (see http://www.rgs.org/category.php?
page=AC2006 for details).

Session convenors: Prof Cara Aitchison and Dr Fiona Jordan (School of 
Geography and Environmental Management, University of the West of England, 
Bristol), and Prof Andrew Church (School of the Environment, University of 
Brighton).