[URBANTH-L] CFP: SEA Meeting: Contested Economy: Global Tourism and Cultural Heritage

[Angela Jancius]

2010 SEA Annual Meeting

Contested Economies: Global Tourism and Cultural Heritage

April 8-10, 2010
Tampa, Florida

Co-Chairs: Sarah Lyon (University of Kentucky) and Christian Wells
(University of South Florida)

Call For Papers:
Global tourism is perhaps the largest scale movement of goods,
services and people that humanity has witnessed with the exponential
growth of international tourist arrivals, which in 2008 numbered over
900 million globally. Consequently, for anthropology
tourism has proven to be an ideal context for studying issues of
political economy, social change, development, natural resource
management, and cultural identity. And yet if tourism accounts for an
ever greater segment of national economies, it also challenges classic
theoretical descriptions of just what an economy is: What are the
commodities being consumed? What is the division of labor between
producers and clients in creating the value of tourist exchanges?

The 2010 SEA conference will bring together researchers to examine the
connections among economy, sustainability, heritage, and identity that
tourism makes explicit. Presentations and discussions will seek a new
synthesis for the anthropology of tourism. They will also aim to show
how new theories of the economics of tourism can lead to rethinking of
non-touristic enterprises-from farming to heavy industry to medical
occupations.

Paper and poster presentation topics might include, but are certainly
not limited to, the following:


* The intersection of tourism and the economy: the impact of
tourism on socioeconomic inequalities, development, wage labor, and
subsistence activities; the possibilities and limitations of
alternative and new forms of tourism


* Tourism's impact on the environment and the promise of
eco-tourism: whether negative in the form of environmental degradation
or positive through eco-tourism initiatives, protected areas, and
heightened environmental sustainability


* Theory: models and/or analytical frameworks that help us predict
the conditions under which local economies will be strengthened or
harmed, resources will be protected or degraded, and local
traditions/values will be strengthened or weakened


* Cultural heritage tourism and identity: the reification and/or
transformation of identities and cultural heritage as a result of
tourism and the commodification of culture, the dialectic between
governments and local populations over the control of tourism sites


* Economic crisis: the effects of the economic crisis on the
industry and attempts to overcome current challenges; the aftermath of
tourism and what happens when the flow of tourists is reduced in an
industry especially prone to boom and bust cycles


* Tourism and archaeology: the importance of tourism both for and
in archaeological research, interpretation and reconstruction

Poster presentations:
At the annual conference, the SEA always welcomes posters on any topic
in economic anthropology. Students and scholars whose work may not fit
the central theme of the meeting are encouraged to submit a poster.
The special poster session during the meeting is inclusive and a major
event of the SEA conference.

The SEA meetings provide a rare opportunity for a focused and coherent
program of presentation, with time for critical discussion in a
convivial intellectual setting. Papers are selected for a program that
allows 20 minutes for presentation and 20 minutes for discussion in a
single plenary session over two days; additional abstracts will be
selected for the poster session. Each SEA annual meeting also produces
a book on the conference theme. Submitting a paper for the plenary
session represents a commitment that you wish to be considered for
inclusion in this volume. We encourage archaeologists, cultural
anthropologists, economists, and scholars concerned with the tourism
and hospitality industry to submit abstracts. Please send a 300-500
word abstract for a paper or poster to Sarah Lyon at
sarah.lyon at uky.edu<mailto:sarah.lyon at uky.edu> or 202 Lafferty Hall,
Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
40506-0024 by November 15th, 2009.