Final Call for Papers - sorry for cross posting…

 

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT

CFP ends 15 March 2004

Journeys of Expression III: Tourism and Festivals as Transnational Practice

 

3rd annual Tourism and Festival Research Conference

Innsbruck, Austria, 5-7 May 2004

 

Journeys of Expression III is a three day academic conference being held in Innsbruck, Austria from 5 to 7 May 2004. It is being co-organised by the Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change at Sheffield Hallam University (United Kingdom) and the Institute for European Ethnology and Folklore at Innsbruck University (Austria).

 

The aim of the conference is to present and discuss a selection of case studies and theoretical approaches focusing on the relation between tourism and festivals in the context of the contemporary world(s). Why do tourists go to festivals? How do they participate? What do they experience and through which forms of symbolic or semiotic frameworks do they make this experience meaningful? Do festivals become nodes of a transnational social system, of a 'global village'? What is the meaning of the economic and symbolic exchange processes involved? How are the touristic strangers 'domesticated'? Are there meta-narratives, and what is their ideological grounding, and their vision of the world?

 

The conference welcomes case studies and theoretical explorations that address such questions. Themes of interest to the conference include:

 

- tourism and festivals as transnational social phenomena;

- tourism, festivals and symbolic economy within global communities;

- hospitality, participation and transnational exchange;

- 'cultural' festivals as international institutions, utopias and doctrines;

- enacting symbolic continuities of social space, time and cosmos;

- festivals between the expression of power and the communication of experience;

- tourism as a global geographical extension of ritual processes;

- heritage, culture and nature as sacred spaces;

- the challenge of internationalisation to cultural values and organisation patterns;

- domesticating the alien: cooking, eating and digesting the stranger.

 

We welcome critical contestations and discussions of such themes. Please send a 250 word abstract to Dr David Picard ([log in to unmask]). The deadline to submit abstracts is the 15th of March 2004.

 

Conference convenors: Mike Robinson, David Picard, Oliver Haid

Executive producer: Frederic Revaz

 

Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change

Sheffield Hallam University

Howard Street - Owen Building

Sheffield S1 1WB, United Kingdom

 

Email [log in to unmask]

Website www.tourism-culture.com