[URBANTH-L]CFP: Tourism in Transitional Societies

Angela Jancius jancius at ohio.edu
Mon Jan 1 20:41:16 EST 2007


From:  "legrand caroline" <carolinelegrand2000 at yahoo.fr>  

Just to remind you that you have 10 days left for answering ASA calls 
for paper, including calls for joining this panel.

Caroline Legrand, Anthropologue
Affiliée au Laboratoire d'Anthropologie sociale
52 rue du Cardinal Lemoine, 75005 Paris - France.
Tel: 06.25.44.54.77 / Fax: 01.44.27.17.66
Blog: http://carolinelegrand2000.hautetfort.com/
Tourism and politics in transitional societies        (B1)
Location 
Date and Time TBA

Convenor(s)
Saskia Cousin (CNRS / EHESS et Université de Tours (IUT)) 
saskia.cousin at wanadoo.fr
Caroline Legrand (Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale) 
carolinelegrand2000 at yahoo.fr
Mail All Convenors

Short abstract
This panel questions the political frames of tourism in transitional 
societies, including post-conflict and post-socialists countries. It 
explores the way classifications, agendas and guidelines of politics and 
institutions both shape and meet tourists' expectations and concrete 
activities. 


Long abstract
What is anthropology of tourism all about? Formerly, anthropologists 
used to focus on the impact of tourism activities on geographical and 
cultural landscapes. Today's major trend is to questioning the 
relationship between tourism and the construction of identities. Tourism
policies are usually pushed into the background or relegated to other
disciplines. Yet, we believe that there is a need, first, to question the
political frames of tourism (i.e. ways whereby governments, institutions
and public agencies act towards tourism industry), and second, to explore
the way their classifications, agendas and guidelines both shape and meet
tourists' expectations and concrete activities. 

The politics of tourism are particularly interesting to study in 
transitional societies (including post-conflict or post-socialist
societies), where mass tourism is currently emerging. The commonplace view
of such societies is that of a global (Western) wave of tourism sweeping
through the local landscape and leaving standardised resorts and cultural
accommodation/resistance in its way. But in fact, national institutions,
state and market actors, and domestic tourists have their own agendas and
preferred practices, often in the pursuit of particular agendas of
modernisation and/or nation-building, that engage global institutions and
practices with differing results. 

We invite papers that analyse the way economic and political 
institutions think about, label and classify tourist activities (sex
tourism, roots tourism, cultural tourism, .) in these specific societies.
We are also interested in how institutions (private or public, local,
national or transnational) try to regulate and control both the market of 
tourism industry and its participants (holidaymakers, professionals of 
tourism, and host population). We also welcome papers that question the
way local pedagogical agendas (including ideas of national heritage and 
modernization) have interacted, in transitional places, with the agendas
of international organisations (such as UNESCO, WTO, European Union).
Chair: Caroline Legrand / Yves Wikin
Discussant: Pal Nyiri


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