APOLOGIES FOR CROSS-POSTING
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Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British
Geographers)
Manchester, 26–28 August 2009

Second call for papers

Researching beyond the tourist gaze: accessing and understanding embodied
performances in tourism

Sponsored by the Geography of Leisure and Tourism Research Group (GLTRG)

Following calls by authors such as Coleman & Crang (2002), Crang (1997,
1999, 2002, 2003), Crouch (2000a/b), Edensor, (2000, 2001), Franklin & Crang
(2001) and Rose & Gregson (2000) to address the embodied, performative
nature of tourism. Tourism and the tourist experience is no longer identified as a series of
linear, static and dislocated spaces made knowable through a series of
predetermined actions and behaviours (Franklin & Crang, 2001). Rather, it
emerges as a fusion of fluid and dynamic mobilities and materialities, embodied
and affectual encounters. Tourism becomes a series of rhythms, flows and
fluxes, in-between points and stages through which tourists move in and
around place as both imagined and experientially encountered. Therefore, new
methods are required that engage with research participants in ways that
move beyond the realms of representation to access the haptic, non-
representational spaces of encounter and experience. The session therefore
seeks papers that explore creative and innovative methodologies that offer
the possibility of unpacking the embodied, sensual and emotional experiences
of the tourists’ encounters with place. Possible themes may include but are
not limited to:
- Affect and emotion in tourism research
- Accessing embodied reflexive in tourism research
- Repositioning the researcher in research
- Participating in the field
- Visual methods in tourism research (e.g. photography, art, drawing, film, etc)
- Reflexive, performative and creative narrative
- Autoethnography in tourism research

Proposed papers in the form of a 200 word abstract should be submitted to
the session convenors by 31st January 2009.

For more details and to submit an abstract, please contact the session
convenors:

Dr Caroline Scarles
School of Management
University of Surrey
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Jo-Anne Lester
Centre for Tourism Policy Studies
University of Brighton
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