Uncertain Rural Landscapes of Leisure
RGS-IBG 2018 Annual International Conference Session co-sponsored by the Rural Geography Research Group and Geographies of Leisure and Tourism Research Group
Alison Caffyn, Cardiff University
Dear All
I am keen to hear from anyone interested in contributing to this session which is being co-sponsored by the Geographies of Leisure and Tourism and Rural Geography Research Groups.
Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words for the conference being held in Cardiff, 29 -31 August 2018.
Deadline for abstracts 6 February 2018.
Uncertain rural landscapes of leisure
Rural landscapes are under pressure from increasing global demands for energy, intensively grown produce and meat and other industrial processes. Local actors often contest the relative benefits and impacts from such developments such as jobs and income versus visual intrusion, noise, traffic, smell and loss of natural spaces or farmland. They express concerns over potential hazards and uncertainties such as accidents, leaks and pollution (Beck 1986; Callon et al. 2001).
Tourism and leisure are becoming entangled in the rhetoric; deployed by communities as a rationale for fighting perceived dissonant development. Examples include windfarms (Rudolph 2014), polytunnels (Evans 2013), fish farms (Nimmo et al. 2011) and pollution from industrial agriculture (Diaz et al. 2013). Such intrusive developments have been claimed to threaten rural visitor economies, yet evidence is scarce.
This session will explore contestations between post-industrial and newly industrialising rural land uses; how these issues are framed and what discourses and narratives are deployed by the actors. Might we be seeing a polarisation between play grounds such as protected landscapes and dumping grounds?
Papers are welcomed on questions including (but not exclusive to):
• How are every-day rural leisure landscapes changing?
• How do people materially experience industrialising rural landscapes?
• How are power and conflict performed in rural landscapes?
• How are rural leisure and tourism valued and represented in contested landscapes?
• Do tourism and leisure have a role to play in sustaining natural and rural spaces?
• Can intensive agri-food co-exist with agri-tourism?
• Is a multifunctional countryside delivering on food and energy as well as leisure achievable?
• What role do rural planning and policy play?
Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to [log in to unmask] by Tuesday 6 February.
Alison Caffyn
PhD Researcher
School of Geography and Planning
Cardiff University.
References
Beck, U. 1986. Risk Society: towards a new modernity. London: Sage.
Callon, M. et al. 2001. Acting in an uncertain world: an essay on technical democracy. Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Diaz, M. et al. 2013. Green tides in Brittany: What can we learn about niche-regime interactions? Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 8, pp. 62–75.
Evans, N. 2013. Strawberry fields forever? Conflict over neo-productivist Spanish polytunnel technology in British agriculture. Land Use Policy 35, pp. 61–72.
Nimmo, F. et al. 2011. Does fish farming impact on tourism in Scotland? Aquaculture Research 42(SUPPL. 1), pp. 132–141.
Rudolph, D. 2014. The Resurgent Conflict Between Offshore Wind Farms and Tourism: Underlying Storylines. Scottish Geographical Journal 130(3), pp. 168–187.
Smetacek, V. and Zingone, A. 2013. Green and golden seaweed tides on the rise. Nature 504(7478), pp. 84–8.
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