Call for Papers
Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting 29 March – 2 April 2016, San Francisco
Session Conveners: Mary Mostafanezhad (Hawaii) and Roger Norum (Leeds)
Tourism, Political Ecology and the Anthropocenic Imaginary
Papers in this panel session build on emerging scholarship that links assemblages of political ecological action with global imaginaries of tourism. As an experience-oriented economy, tourism is driven by the semiotic production of imaginaries of place, often mediated by planetary environmental logics that drive tourism planning, development and conservation agendas. While considerations of political ecology across spheres such as fair trade (Goodman 2004), agriculture (Guthman 2007) and conservation (West 2006) have been substantively addressed by interdisciplinary scholars, how these engagements play out in the global-local context of the experience-oriented economy of tourism has yet to be significantly investigated. Like fair trade, tourism development in the name of conservation and/or social and economic development often works both “in and against the market” (Goodman 2004), frequently with the explicit goal of preserving or sustaining the environment, or improving local ecologies. Governments, businesses and NGOs routinely articulate the relationship between environmental conservation in and through tourism development, just as they appropriate tourism as a strategy for responsible, pro-poor or ethical ecological stewardship. These interactions are only made more poignant as political ecological concern surrounding the Anthropocene becomes more popular and widespread. As local and global political communities bear witness to the materialization of anthropogenic climate change, these movements mobilize both “hosts” and “guests” into political and environmental action, at times collaboratively.
This panel seeks to push forward thinking that considers such interconnections and the concomitant turn towards a political ecology of tourism. The dual purpose of this session is to 1) theoretically and empirically integrate linkages between tourism practice and political ecological responses to tourism through the lens of the Anthropocene; 2) identify and problematize core themes, concepts and issues for engaged political ecology-focused tourism research. While deliberately geographically broad in scope, the papers in this panel will illustrate the ways in which local tourism-related environmental and political challenges can be productively considered through political ecology analyses. We seek papers that address the multiple and sometimes contradictory global imaginaries implicit in both tourist practices and environmental subjectivities through a range of core themes that might, for example, include identity politics, the aid and humanitarian industries, environmental subjectivities, ecological degradation, land and resources conflict, parks and protected areas and indigenous ecologies, among other areas of concern.
Abstracts of max. 200 words should be submitted by latest Thursday, 22 October to both [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> and [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>. All accepted participants will be required to prepare and submit a written draft of their paper (normally 3,000-4,000 words) by 1 March, 2016.
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Roger Norum
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
School of English
University of Leeds
(+44) 7525 006 807
Arctic Encounters: Contemporary Travel/Writing in the European High North
http://www.arcticencounters.net
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