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CFP: The geographies of 'Communist heritage tourism' Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Chicago, USA, 7th-11th March 2006 Sponsored by the AAG Russia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe Speciality Group and AAG Europe Speciality Group and the RGS-IBG Post-Socialist Geographies Research Group. Since the end of Communism in East and Central Europe (ECE) and the former Soviet Union (FSU) in 1989-1991 the region has opened up to international tourism while the citizens of the newly independent nations have experienced more personal freedom to engage in tourism. The tension between tourism as an economic resource but also as a means of creating new identities for the post-socialist nations links to important debates about dealing with the socialist past under post-socialism. Tourism promotion in these countries often emphasises the glories of the pre-Communist past or the natural environment as key place elements, frequently obscuring their Communist past. Such tourism discourses are linked to wider discourses about reimaging the post-socialist nations as modern, Western, democratic and sharing a common European heritage and future. However, the Communist past retains a presence in these tourism spaces in a way that often disrupts the new identities. In this way tourism spaces also link to internal dilemmas about coming to terms with the past. In some places it is impossible to avoid the physical legacies of the state-socialist era in the landscape, as large industrial complexes, huge socialist-era housing complexes, public art and even Communist kitsch sold in flea-markets and roadside stalls brings the Communist era to the tourists' minds in ways that disrupt and unsettle visions of the post-socialist nation. Increasingly there is also a more explicit use of, and tourist interest in, the heritage of Communism, for example through the museumisation of the Communist era, the commemoration of the victims of Communism, walking tours about the Communist era, themed consumption spaces or discussion of the Communist era and sites in guide books. This session aims to bring together a set of papers which explore the socio-cultural geographies of 'Communist heritage tourism'. We seek papers which consider how the Communist past is represented and performed, how domestic and international tourists relate to and consume such sites, the contested nature of representations of the past, how such narratives of the past relate to other narratives of reimaging the post-socialist nation, and the wider implications of 'Communist heritage tourism' for post-socialist transformation. Such papers can also link to and offer new perspectives on current geographical debates on heritage tourism and European and national identity, the tension between remembering and forgetting in post-socialist countries, visual culture, materiality, performativity and post-socialist and post-colonial change. Possible topics which papers may cover include: * Representing the Communist past through tourism sites, practices and performances * Studies of representing the Communist past in specific sites such as museums, sites of commemoration, the cultural landscape, exhibitions etc * Tourism encounters with the banal landscapes, visual culture and materialities of Communism eg. public buildings, public art, state-socialist era housing, industrial landscapes * Tourism associated with anti-Communist struggle and its commemoration * The heritage of the Cold War within ECE and FSU and elsewhere * The use of specific sites as tourist sites within ECE and FSU during the Communist era as an ideological tool * The interest of international and domestic tourists in Communist heritage; nostalgia and Communist heritage tourism * Tourists' consumption of tourism sites and Communist kitsch; what such tourism says about 'Western' tourists and how they find 'otherness' in the different pasts of socialist countries Please send a title, abstract of up to 250 words and your contact details to both of the session organisers Dr Craig Young , Manchester Metropolitan University, UK [log in to unmask] and Dr Duncan Light, Liverpool Hope University, UK [log in to unmask] Deadline for receipt of abstracts is 14th September, 2005. We will contact you after that date with details of the sessions and further action. Please see the instructions re abstract format for AAG at: http://www.aag.org/annualmeetings/Chicago2006/abstract.cfm On the conference itself see: http://www.aag.org/annualmeetings/Chicago2006/ Dr Craig Young Senior Lecturer in Human Geography Manchester Metropolitan University Environmental and Geographical Sciences John Dalton Building Chester St. Manchester M1 5GD 0161-247-6198/1601 Fax 0161-247-6318 Before acting on this email or opening any attachments you should read the Manchester Metropolitan University's email disclaimer available on its website http://www.mmu.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer