Apologies for Cross-postings
Dear Colleagues,
There is still time to submit an abstract for the 10th IASTE Hyper-Traditions Conference as below:
Best wishes
Mike

Call for Papers
HYPER-TOURISM: RE-THINKING TRADITION IN TOURISM AND TRAVEL
Hyper-Traditions Conference
Tenth Conference of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE)
December 15 - 18, 2006
Thammasat University - Bangkok, Thailand
As part of this international conference, the Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change is, in association with IASTE, inviting
papers which address the way that the concept of tradition is being transformed in and by tourism and tourists, around the three
axes of the conference - From Simulated Space to "Real" Tradition, Hyper-Traditions and "Real" Places, and Identity, Heritage, and
Migration.
The concept of tradition is embedded in the very nature of travel and tourism. Long standing customs and patterns of behaviour,
together with tangible manifestations of continuity, consistency and inheritance, form an essential part of the tourist search for
difference and distinction dressed, to varying extents, in romanticised narratives. In this vein, tradition has become
strategically and tactically mobilised within the global political economy, circulating as images, imaginings and ideals that fuel
tourism development and touristic practice. Furthermore, over the years tourism itself as a product and project of modernity has
generated its own traditional practices which allows us to speak of 'tourist identity' and which feeds into conventional binaries
of tourists and the 'other' and, 'here' and 'there'. At the same time tourism constantly challenges and changes our received
notions of the traditional through its constant abstractions, reductions and packaging of social realities, and through their
consumption as experiences. What does the transformation of tradition mean for the tourist?  Do we have to re-configure tourism as
a way of experiencing hyper-traditions? 
We welcome perspectives on such questions from a wide range of disciplines including those of: anthropology, sociology, history,
folkloric studies, literature and critical theory, linguistics, human/cultural geography, psychology, and urban studies etc.
Indicative themes of interest include: 

*	The real, unreal and surreal tourist destination;
*	Touristic experiences of hyper-heritages;
*	Dislocation of tourists from the travel process;
*	Mindscapes and mediascapes - communicating hyper-traditions to tourists; 
*	Celebrating the changing of tradition - festivals, tourism and hyper-events; 
*	The new economies of hyper-tourism.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Interested colleagues are invited to submit a short, one-page abstract, not to exceed 500 words. Do not place your name on the
abstract, but rather submit an attached one-page curriculum vitae with your address and name. All authors must submit an
electronic copy of their abstract and short CV via e-mail. Abstracts and CVs must be placed within the body of the e-mail, and
also as attachments.
E-mail this material to Professor Mike Robinson - [log in to unmask] no later than February 17, 2006.
All papers must be written and presented in English.  Following a blind peer review, papers may be accepted for presentation in
the conference and/or publication in the conference Working Paper Series.
Contributors whose abstracts are accepted must preregister for the conference, pay registration fees of $375 (which includes a
special discounted $25 IASTE membership fee), and prepare a full-length paper of 20-25 double-spaced pages.  Registered students
may qualify for a reduced registration fee of $175 (which includes a special discounted $25 IASTE membership fee).  All
participants must be IASTE members.  Please note that expenses associated with hotel accommodations, travel, and additional
excursions are not covered by the registration fees and have to be paid directly to the designated travel agent.  Registration
fees cover the conference program, conference abstracts, and access to all conference activities including receptions, keynote
panels, and a short tour of nearby sites.  
For scholars and researchers interested in the study of traditional environments, the far-reaching transformations brought by
globalization require not only a recalibration of the idea of tradition but also a substantial repositioning within a shifting
intellectual environment.  While it is clear that contemporary forces of globalization have proven transformative, the
transformations have largely defied prediction.  Contrary to the expectations that globalization would act as a totalizing force,
somehow erasing "tradition" and challenging "cultural coherence," investigations reveal that globalization may more accurately be
said to have destabilized the idea of tradition as a repository of authentic ideas and customs.  In this way, it has intensified
the process of de-linking identity and place and, by extension, intensified the deterritorialization of tradition: a process that
has challenged the idea of tradition as an authentic expression of a geographically specific, culturally homogenous and coherent
group of people.  However, this process is not entirely new.  Prior moments of globalization, such as colonialism, have also
brought about the deterritorialization of tradition and provide useful points of comparison to the present moment.  Prior IASTE
conferences have explored the effects of globalization upon understandings of space and place; inquired into the post-traditional
condition; analyzed the implications of migration, diasporas, and emerging hybridities; and asked whether or nor the millennium
marked the "end of tradition."  For the 2006 International IASTE Conference, participants are invited to investigate a new
dimension of the transformation of tradition:  hyper-traditions.
For further details please visit the Conference website: http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/research/iaste/2006%20conference.htm


-----------------------------------------------

Professor Mike Robinson
Chair of Tourism Studies
Director, Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change (www.channelviewpublications.com)
Sheffield Hallam University
Howard Street
Sheffield
S1 1WB
UK

Tel.  +44 (0) 114 225 2928
Fax. +44 (0) 114 225 3343
www.tourism-culture.com