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RESOURCES


RESOURCES: PAPERS & PRESENTATIONS

Author : Patricia Johnson
School/Work Place : University of Newcastle, Australia
Contact : Patricia.Johnson@newcastle.edu.au
Year : 2009

Introduction: Nurturing effective intercultural dialogue through tourism has been positioned to be an emergent challenge to tourism professionals working toward sustainability in a globalised world (Robinson and Picard 2006). This interdisciplinary study devises inroads into ways of addressing this challenge through ‘reading’ the language of cosmopolitanism as it appears in writings about tourism and travel. When one writes about travel a journey into the cosmos is documented which is a socio-cultural imagining of self and other. These writings can be highly influential on the reading (and potentially travelling) public and they are positioned as informing the development of global citizenry literacy. As cultural texts they recount an engagement in, and with, cosmopolitanism by way of a cosmopolitical gaze. This paper is drawn from a wider study which examines linkages between cosmopolitanism and cultural literacy by formulating a conceptual framework to ‘read’ cultural orientations through discourse and ideology. The study examines women’s travel writing to Iran in a specific time period: between 1979 (the Islamic Revolution) and 2002 (President Bush’s State of the Union address that positioned Iran in the ‘Axis of Evil’). This timeframe marks a period of uncertainty – a liminal period marred by crisis which gave rise to negative discursive frameworks that have been ‘normalised’ in Western cultural thought. Key discourses are identified by discerning patterns of convention in the ways the authors frame their narrative and position the foreign within this framework.

Method: This study adopts a poststructuralist, social constructivist research design which views travel and the travel text as sign, discourse and representation. The study draws from texts set within a chronological frame and uses the cultural studies lens of liminality to examine data. Liminality provides a way to explore the language of cosmopolitanism in that it has the potential to cast light on the cosmopolitical by revealing how the self and ‘other’ are imagined. This method positions ‘reality’ as socially constructed and studies discourse in historical and cosmopolitical contexts. Elements of a feminist paradigm are incorporated through its concern about relationships of gender and power. Scapes and scripts are used as conceptual tools to explore how imaginings of self and other are constructed in the travel text.

Findings: The findings identified key discourses by discerning patterns of convention in the various ways these authors frame themselves ‘in the world’ and how they position the foreign within this framework. These travellers were found to engage with place in ways that were oriented by Western viewing positions which form a rubric of discourses that positioned self, place and ‘other’. While all authors evoked values espoused in liberal democracy, these narratives are ethnocentric and reveal an element of rigidity in liberal democracy in that they cast judgement over the foreign from a position of ‘security’ and legitimate the voice through discourses of Western privilege and choice which appear as dimensions of Western internationalism as a narrow form of cosmopolitanism. Concerns are raised in relation to the rigidity of Western discourses because they impact on fostering improved intercultural relationships and, by extension, sustainable tourism practices.

Application of Results: This paper de-constructs the cosmopolitan gaze to forward a plan for revising a conceptual framework that can be used to ‘map’ culture by forwarding the idea that a cosmopolitical rubric (made up of discourses that commonly appear within cultural groups) would assist in defining the gaze from any cultural viewing position. The qualitative research method used in this study could also be applied to other forms of writings about travel and tourism to understand how other people and places are positioned to discern shifts in ways of thinking about authenticity of the foreign. This conceptual ‘tool’ could be useful to tourism planners, educators and other professionals as well as tourism media to understand how polemic positions are shaped and cultures are stigmatised through discourse. Awareness of how discourse operates in travel/tourism is crucial to understanding intercultural relationships as they impact on sustainable tourism practices.

Conclusion: These authors were found to mobilise notions of liminality and authenticity as discursive tools to provide authority to the voice, ground discourse and structure the gaze. The cosmopolitan gaze was found to be selective in its focus by drawing from widely held ‘legitimate’ Western discourse to construct ‘other’ by falling back on preconceived ideas of the foreign. The discussion raises timely and topical issues which address intercultural relationships between Western and Southwest Asian cultures in the context of tourism and travel. The paper addresses the scholarly conundrum of theorising cosmopolitanism and contributes in a useful way by forwarding a conceptual framework that can be applied to further understand the concept and the dynamics that characterise cultural exchange. In this way it contributes to tourism scholarship by focussing on issues which are immediate to questions which surround sustainable tourism.


List of Articles
No. Subject Viewssort Date
254 OPA award Active community participation in nature conservation ... file 3547 Jul 27, 2015

This paper provides a conceptual framework of community- based nature conservation and tourism (CBC-T). The following themes are guiding discussions in this study, i.e.: land rights of local communities in and around protected areas; communi...

Author: Jones Muzirambi & Kevin Mearns 

Year: 2015 

OPA: 2015 Outstanding Paper Award Winner 

253 Think Tank IV Environmental Attitudes of Tourism Activity Providers ... file 3567 Oct 13, 2013

This paper looks at the issue of environmental awareness and the related topic of 'ecolabels' in a New Zealand context, adopting a supplier's perspective to gain a greater insight into the attitudes of those managing and providing tourism pr...

Author: Christian Schott 

Year: 2004 

252 Think Tank XI Identifying Critical Issues in Designing Educational T... file 3570 Oct 14, 2013

Education is seen as an important way to contribute to development. The World Bank finances educational projects with large amounts of money every year because it is convinced that improving education can help alleviate poverty by raising i...

Author: Kerstin Freudenthaler & Anja Hergesell 

Year: 2011 

251 Think Tank XV The role of interpretation in mindfulness/mindlessness... file 3587 Jul 27, 2015

Cultural tourism is recently receiving increasing attention from southern African countries (The South African National Heritage and Cultural Tourism Strategy, 2012; Van Veuren, 2001). Cultural tourism is promoted as a local development stra...

Author: Haretsebe Manwa, Dudu Boemah & Emile Coetzee 

Year: 2015 

250 Think Tank XIV Influence of Assets and Capital Structure on the Perfo... file 3595 Jun 26, 2014

The global economic and financial crisis could be seen as old news according to the UNWTO’s data on international tourist arrivals. Europe recorded a solid 5% growth in 2013, and Mediterranean countries performed even better with 6% growth i...

Author: Kir Kuščer & Domen Trobec 

Year: 2014 

249 Think Tank VI National Park as a Social Corporation file 3634 Oct 13, 2013

The issue is discussed how authorities of National Parks that aim to preserve biosphere can enlarge income. A review indicates that many Parks generate high income from tourism. A Dutch case illustrates that one can find sustainable innovat...

Author: Yoram Krozer & Else Christensen-Redzepovic 

Year: 2006 

248 Think Tank XIV Hospitality of Sustainable Tourism Encounters: Experie... file 3634 Jun 26, 2014

Global tourism is, at least to some extent, based upon to the vast inequalities between wealthy and impoverished (Cole & Morgan 2010, xv). Neglecting, or actively forgetting, the legacy of colonialism and the modern forms of economic and...

Author: Emily Höckert 

Year: 2014 

247 Think Tank IX Achieving Sustainability in Business Events; Challengi... file 3654 Oct 13, 2013

Achieving sustainability is a challenge for all of society, but one that may prove especially problematic for the business events sector. Tourism in general and the business events industry in particular may be even more susceptible than oth...

Author: Judith Mair & Leo Jago 

Year: 2009 

246 Think Tank XII Unsustainable Travel Development: The Case of Aviation... file 3654 Nov 06, 2013

Considering the apparent importance of low-cost aviation, and its dramatic development, there is remarkably little research done about its consequences on European mobility. A few studies have mapped the development of networks (cf. Dobruszk...

Author: Jan Henrik Nilsson 

Year: 2012 

245 Think Tank IV Mass-ski Tourism in the Dolomites and Sustainability: ... file 3714 Oct 13, 2013

The aim of this paper is to highlight the impact of mass-ski tourism on the environment in the Dolomites (Italian Alps), where in winter the principal activities are snow sports. In implementing this development model the Dolomite region has...

Author: Mariangela Franch, Umberto Martini, Pier Luigi Novi Inverardi, Federica Buffa, Pietro Marzani & Maria Della Lucia 

Year: 2004 

OPA: 2004 Runner Up 

244 Think Tank VI Corporate Social Responsibility and Employees in Susta... file 3721 Oct 13, 2013

The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has developed significantly over the last decade and has taken on a myriad of meanings. For many companies, it is a philosophy that helps guide their actions in the external environment. E...

Author: Margaret Deery & Leo Jago 

Year: 2006 

243 Think Tank XVII Sustainable tourism certification in the hotel sector ... file 3722 Aug 17, 2017

This paper presents research commissioned by the African Development Bank (AfDB)’s African Natural Resources Center (ANRC), that aimed to to identify and summarise existing monitoring data being gathered by national tourism authorities and i...

Author: Anna Spenceley 

Year: 2017 

242 Think Tank IV A Framework for the Development of Social and Socio-Ec... file 3732 Oct 13, 2013

This paper presents the background thinking to a CRC for Sustainable Tourism project that develops social and socio-economic indicators for tourism communities. The project emanates from the Green Globe 21 Standard that incorporates indicato...

Author: Margaret Deery, Leo Jago & Liz Fredline 

Year: 2004 

241 Think Tank V Effects of SARS Crisis on the Economic Contribution of... file 3732 Oct 13, 2013

In a context of uncertainty over traveller security, tourism experienced two major crises in 2003- the Iraq War and SARS. While the relative impacts of a complex array of impacts on travel decisionmaking are almost impossible to dissect, thi...

Author: Larry Dwyer, Peter Forsyth & Ray Spurr 

Year: 2005 

240 Think Tank VI Family Businesses and Sustainable Tourism: the Role of... file 3773 Oct 13, 2013

Family businesses, that is, businesses owned and/or operated my members of a single family, are predominant in Western economies. This is also an important category of business within tourism hospitality, particularly in rural areas where r...

Author: Janne J. Liburd & Jack Carlsen 

Year: 2006 

239 Think Tank VIII An Assessment of Efforts to Enhance the Quality of Lif... file 3773 Oct 13, 2013

Quality of life studies are usually either objective or subjective in nature. Objective quality of life studies concentrate on social indicators whereas subjective quality of life studies attempt to assess the perceived satisfaction that in...

Author: Turgut Var, Erhan Ada, Gökce Ozdemir & Deniz Hasirci 

Year: 2008 

238 Think Tank XII The Way Forward: Event Management Education and the Fu... file 3778 Nov 06, 2013

The 2011 BESTEN Think Tank XI highlighted a number of issues and themes related to education and learning for sustainable tourism. The themes addressed issues such as learning tools for sustainability, sustainability courses and curricula an...

Author: Olga Junek, Leonie Lockstone-Binney & Martin Robertson 

Year: 2012 

237 Think Tank X Re-thinking Resort Growth and Governance: An Evolution... file 3780 Oct 13, 2013

Rapid growth in resort areas, combined with environmental and market stresses, has recently created concern amongst resort decision-makers about future paths of development. Growth models have operated effectively in maintaining resort comp...

Author: Alison M. Gill & Peter W. Williams 

Year: 2010 

236 Think Tank XIV Residents' Support for Tourism from the Standpoint of ... file 3789 Jun 26, 2014

Therefore, being of a different nature than sustainability pillars, political sustainability (Mihalic et al., 2012) is a requirement for sustainable tourism development (Edgell, DelMastro Allen, Smith & Swanson, 2008; UNWTO, 2004). This ...

Author: Tanja Mihalič, Tina Šegota, Ljubica Knežević Cvelbar, Kir Kuščer 

Year: 2014 

235 Think Tank VIII A Framework for Work-Life Balance Practices in the Tou... file 3848 Oct 13, 2013

This paper addresses the key issues surrounding the debate over work-life balance. It provides an overview of current thinking in the general work environment, with specific focus on the issue within the tourism industry. This paper present...

Author: Margaret Deery & Leo Jago 

Year: 2008 

OPA: 2008 Outstanding Paper Award Winner 

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