[URBANTH-L]CFP: Diaspora Community Festivals, Cultural Events and Tourism (Journeys of Expressions VI)

Angela Jancius jancius at ohio.edu
Wed Dec 20 12:56:48 EST 2006


Journeys of Expressions VI: 
Diaspora community festivals, cultural events and tourism
 4-6 October 2007, York, United Kingdom

Organised by: 

Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change
Leeds Metropolitan University


Journeys of Expression VI will bring together researchers who share
interests in diaspora community cultures as expressed, translated and
consumed through festivals and cultural events. The conference
encourages contributions from contrasting but related theoretical and
conceptual approaches from Social Science and Humanities disciplinary
perspectives. The conference will also attract researchers from the
fields of tourism and festival studies.

The enforced, encouraged or voluntary movement, migration and dispersion
of people over centuries and in recent years is reflected in the family
backgrounds, life histories and cultural practices of communities in
many countries, regions and cities worldwide. Mobilities associated with
the processes of globalisation are demonstrably, if unevenly
contributing to an acceleration of migration for more or less permanent,
official and legal settlement of people beyond their 'homelands'. 

In many cases, diaspora communities have been subject to hostility and
discrimination in their adopted countries and some remain relatively
impoverished, marginalised and excluded from 'mainstream' society.
Others, in contrast have been more socially and economically successful
and have either retained distinct diaspora community identities or have
become more integrated with other communities over time. 

Tourism has also grown substantially and unevenly in recent years, with
tourists increasingly encouraged to attend and participate in 'exotic'
and 'characteristically authentic' displays of community life in
destinations visited. Such tourism typically features the packaging,
promotion and consumption of diaspora community neighbourhoods, food and
shopping and importantly festivals and cultural events.

The relationships between diaspora communities, festivity, cultural
events and tourism are therefore of considerable interest to academic
researchers, as well as for arts, social, cultural and tourism policy
makers and practitioners in many countries.

Theoretical issues and themes to be explored at this conference include:

* Defining and conceptualising diasporas in connection with
festivals and cultural events;
* Histories of diaspora communities' mobilities and the
transformation and adaptation of festivity and cultural events to new
community circumstances and settings;
* Relationships between diaspora communities and the 'homeland'
and expressions of collective memory through festivals and cultural
events;
* The distribution and circulation of globalised diaspora festival
forms - e.g. carnival, mela, Irish, Chinese, Jewish - religious and
secular, established, emerging and contested;
* The role of diaspora festivals and cultural events in policies
and programmes to promote community cohesion, crime reduction and
anti-racism;
* Festivals, cultural events and the identities of diaspora
community members -  inter-generational issues;
* Festivals, cultural events and the multi- (inter-) cultural
city;
* Settings and spaces for diaspora festivals and cultural events;
* Issues surrounding new and recently introduced diaspora
community festivals and cultural events;
* Performing diaspora community arts through festivals;
* Diaspora tourism markets.

In the tradition of the Journeys of Expressions conference series, we
wish to encourage an interdisciplinary debate on the suggested themes
and welcome paper proposals from academics from various disciplinary
backgrounds including: tourism studies, festival studies, sociology,
anthropology, cultural studies, cultural geography, politics, etc. If
you wish to submit a paper proposal, please send a 300-word abstract
with full address and institutional affiliation details as an electronic
file to Dr. Philip Long (p.e.long at leedsmet.ac.uk). The deadline for the
reception of abstracts is 16 April 2007. Please find regularly updated
information regarding this conference, registration procedures and (at a
later stage) a programme at our website www.tourism-culture.com.


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