Dear all,
please take note of our panel at the upcoming EASA conference in Ireland (see below). CfPapers is open now until the end of February.
EASA, 2010: EASA2010: Crisis and imagination
Maynooth, 24/08/2010 – 27/08/2010
Crises cruises: tourist encounters and imaginations in critical places (W031)
Location [TBD]
Date and Start Time [TBD] at [TBD]
Convenors
Judith Beyer (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology) email
Felix Girke (Fakultät für Soziologie, Universität Bielefeld) email
Mail All Convenors
Short Abstract
This panel addresses the role 'crisis' plays in tourist encounters, focusing on travel to authoritarian states which often specifically encourage tourism, and on tourism in (post)-disaster areas. We invite scholars to present empirical studies on crisis as a motivation or justification for travel, as a frame of tourist encounters, and as a commodity.
Long Abstract
This panel addresses the role 'crisis' plays in tourist encounters, focusing firstly on travel to authoritarian states which often specifically encourage tourism, and secondly on tourism in areas which are experiencing or recovering from disasters. Thus, we are interested in discussing how tourism is oriented to crisis.
The 'tourist' has been defined as a person free from social and cultural obligations (Nash 1981). In opposition to this, the 'new (moral) tourists' claim to be subject to obligations wherever they go (Butcher 2003). This contemporary trend is evidenced by ethical tourism schemes and advocacy groups which help travelers in making informed choices in their touristic consumption. People's felt cosmopolitan obligations seem particularly responsive to crises, both at home and abroad. Following the conference theme, we understand a 'crisis' as an imaginative construct which generally serves to explain and justify social action. Thus, a crisis need not entail large-scale effects, but always indicates a dramatization of circumstances, often facilitated by mass-media. Crises and their after-effects have become not only an inevitable aspect of travel today, but an explicit motivation for tourists, be it to provide relief and rebuild (e.g. 'voluntourism'), or to witness and consume (e.g. 'dark tourism'). Alternatively, travelers may cultivate an indifference to crises.
Taking note of these current phenomena in tourism, we invite scholars to present empirical studies on crisis as a motivation or justification for travel, as a frame of tourist encounters, and as a commodity. Papers can also discuss methodological difficulties in studying crisis, imagination, and tourism.
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2010/panels.php5?PanelID=609
Thank you.
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"Alle guten Dinge haben etwas Lässiges und liegen wie Kühe auf der Wiese." - (Friedrich Nietzsche)
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