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sorry already boked in Goteborg then BUT can we not also have critical debate on landscape as subjective; in everyday politically; rather than `out there`, prefigured, etc? best D >>> Noel Healy <[log in to unmask]> 03/12/07 6:34 PM >>> SESSION REMINDER: Offers for papers are welcome for the following session at the Conference of Irish Geographers 2007 (11th-13th May) Dept of Geography, St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra. Session Organiser: Noel Healy, Dept. of Geography, NUI, Galway Session Chair: Dr. John McDonagh, Dept. of Geography, NUI, Galway Contested Landscapes in Tourism: Management, Culture, Conservation and Consumption Tourism constitutes one of the major contemporary forces of spatial transformation modifying and defining global landscapes. The tourist industry and tourists are increasingly using, consuming and changing landscapes. These changes are integrated into larger processes such as globalisation, discourses of development, identity politics, competition, consumption and nature conservation. This transformation of landscapes of ecological and cultural significance for tourism consumption creates conflicts between local communities, tourist developers, tourists and governing authorities. On the one hand tourism provides the instrument for the protection and conservation of various features of threatened environments and ecosystems, while concurrently it can be viewed as constituting a major contributing factor to the transformation of these very same features by turning them into commodified objects to be consumed by tourists. Indeed, in an attempt to provide new markets for tourism, tourist destinations become re-engineered (often by actors beyond the immediate local) as experiences for visitors to enjoy often leading to conflict between stakeholders. Consequently areas which appeal to us because of their uniqueness, isolation or beauty, are in danger of being spoilt, changed or becoming less distinctive, through tourist infrastructural and facility development. Maintaining the balance between attracting tourists to threatened environments while simultaneously conserving, protecting and implementing sustainable tourism practices has therefore proved extremely difficult. The purpose of this session is to explore contested landscapes in tourism (particularly National Parks and protected areas) and their connection to culture, conservation and consumption in tourism research and management. We invite papers that address (for example): Various and often competing social and physical ways of constructing, consuming and conserving landscapes i.e. the commodification of landscapes and the “framing of nature”; The role of landscapes in tourism consumption and production and the impacts of tourism in natural and cultural landscapes; Contemporary issues, practices and future changes and challenges in managing tourism landscapes; Benefits and costs of tourism development in landscapes for communities and nature conservation; National Parks and protected area tourism planning and impacts, landscape policy and planning; Please send expressions of interest by submission of a title and abstract (of no more than 200 words) to Noel Healy before Friday 16th March 2007 ([log in to unmask]). If I can provide any further information, please contact me at above address. Regards, Noel Healy -- Noel Healy PhD candidate Dept. of Geography NUI, Galway Galway,Ireland Tel: 00353 (0)91 493380 Mob 0879132669 Web: www.nuigalway.ie/geography/ ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________