** Apologies for Cross Posting **

First CALL FOR PAPERS

WORKSHOP ON 'OF ASIAN ORIGIN': RETHINKING TOURISM IN CONTEMPORARY ASIA
07-09th September 2006

organised by Asia Research Institute, Singapore
http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/conf2006/tourism.htm 

Recent years have witnessed a seemingly relentless surge in the 
movement of tourists `of Asian origin'. Indeed, bodies such as the 
World Tourism Organisation (WTO), confidently predict that over the 
coming decades Asia will have the fastest growing population of 
tourists on the move in the world. Despite such predictions, very 
little attention has been given to the social, cultural and political 
implications of Asia's transformation from mere host destination into 
a region of mobile consumers. Hosted by the Asia Research Institute, 
this workshop sets out to address this gap by offering the first 
sustained examination of tourism in Asia by Asian tourists. 

To date the majority of academic studies on tourism have focused on 
east/west, north/south encounters between westerners, often seen as 
white, male and travelling alone, and their host destinations. These 
ideas have been forged through a dialogue with a global tourism 
industry principally oriented towards the more affluent tourist of 
post-industrial western societies. The rapid growth of Asians 
travelling for leisure and recreation today however demands a re-
appraisal of how tourism in the region is analysed and understood. 
Indeed, it appears tourism `of Asian origin' requires an analysis 
which moves beyond certain themes - such as the traditional & modern, 
hegemony & resistance, local & global - which have often dominated 
the tourism literature in recent years.

Ranging from Singapore to Halong Bay, Angkor to Macau, locations are 
being re-packaged and re-scripted to meet the preferences, desires 
and aspirations of the Asian tourist. The ongoing rise of 
tourists `of Asian origin' promises to redefine the political 
terrains of place, culture and memory, demanding fresh approaches to 
questions of governance, sovereignty and the ties between traditions, 
identity and modernity. Tourism is providing Asians with new forms of 
national and post-national citizenship. Does the consumption of 
futurity or the pre-modern across multiple places constitute an 
emergent cosmopolitanism?

Hall & Tucker's call for a greater understanding of the relationship 
between tourism and the post-colonial theory is particularly 
pertinent for Asia today. Critiques of nostalgia or heritage also 
need to examine how colonial pasts are becoming re-valued and 
circulated for Asian consumption. Does Asian tourism threaten to 
inflict further representational violence on the already sensitive 
and complex issues of memory, identity and the performance of place? 
Or does it present a new social space for the emergence of previously 
hidden, counter-narratives? To what degree does Asian tourism 
challenge the validity and practices of globally roaming 
organisations like UNESCO, the WTO and ICOMOS, which often deploy 
Western conceptions of culture and authenticity within frameworks of 
multi-culturalism and local heterogeneity. It also demands new 
approaches to understanding how tourism acts as an agent for 
development or social change. Does tourism of Asian origin offer new 
opportunities for socio-economic parity within and across communities 
or will it further promote the already expanding wealth inequalities 
within the region? What role should the state play in promoting 
people, places and pasts for touristic consumption?

With so much tourism theory predicated on so many universalisms, 
there are indications that key threads of the literature are 
critically challenged by the praxis of Asian tourists. Is a different 
theoretical vocabulary required to interpret the socio-cultural 
dynamics arising from their consumption of beaches, nature reserves, 
religious sites and ethnically diverse destinations? While tourism in 
Asia by Asian tourists has begun to receive some academic interest in 
recent years, studies remain isolated and limited in scope. There has 
yet to be a consolidated, sustained examination of an area that 
promises to have profound societal implications across the region 
over the coming decades.

In response, this workshop seeks to move beyond current western-
centric orthodoxies of tourism to add fresh approaches for 
understanding the changing nature of tourism in Asia. We strongly 
welcome contributions which consider the validity of current tourism 
theory for understanding contemporary Asia, and where appropriate, 
offer new conceptual and analytical directions. We are also very 
interested in receiving abstracts from researchers who might not have 
worked directly on tourism before but whose research offers insights 
into the ways in which tourism connects with areas such as gender, 
social development, migration/diaspora, trans-national capitalism, or 
popular culture. 

Thoroughly interdisciplinary in nature, this workshop promises to 
explore the broader implications arising from tourism `of Asian 
origin'; and, in so doing, provide rich, and highly innovative, 
insights into the rapidly changing socio-cultural landscape of 
contemporary Asia. 

Call For Papers

Paper proposals including 250-word abstracts and 5-line biography 
should be submitted on the attached form, and sent to Dr Tim Winter 
by 1st December 2005. Successful applicants will be advised by 1st 
February and will be urged to send in a completed paper by August 1st 
2006. Some funding will be available for those in the Asian Region, 
post-graduate students, and others unable to fund themselves. It is 
hoped that the workshop will lead to a publication path-breaking in 
both Tourism and Asian Studies. 

Proposed Themes include:

•	Media, Popular Culture and the Packaging of Place
•	From Tourism to Migration to Expatriation; Identities on the 
move 
•	Heritage Politics and `Re-Orienting' the Past
•	Visions of the Exotic and the lure of Paradise
•	Tourism and the Urban 
•	The State, Community and Minority; the Role of Tourism for 
Development
•	Body Economics; from Health Tourism to Contagious Diseases  
•	Sensing the local; the Spiritual and the Corporeal

Further enquiries should be directed to Dr Tim Winter, email: 
[log in to unmask]  or Dr Nir Avieli email: [log in to unmask] 

Literature Cited 

Hall, M. and Tucker, H. (2004)  Tourism and Postcolonialism: 
contested discourses, identities and representations, London:  
Routledge.

These details, along with a registration form, are available at:
http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/conf2006/tourism.htm