CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland
The 'Things' of Tourism Cultures
Organisers: Chris Wilbert and David Crouch
Wilbert, Chris (Anglia University, United Kingdom)
TOURISM, MEMORIES, AND HYBRIDITY
Tourism
is coming to be recognised as a field full of hybrids - where the human, the
technological and the natural are complexly mixed together. Moreover, tourist
experiences are also increasingly viewed as decentred in time and place, many
tourist activities occurring far from resorts or the holiday period. Many of
these activities involve memories and objects of memories. Similarly, mass media
technologies are also powerfully involved in making attractions and producing
ever more memories / history for consumption. In this paper we discuss tourism
in relation to contemporary memory culture in terms of how aspects of memory
making in tourism practices may act as a bulwark to shrinking horizons of
time/space, just as tourism in general is part of that wider increasing speed of
change.
Crouch, David
(University of Derby, United Kingdom) TOURISM PRACTICES AND GEOGRAPHICAL
KNOWLEDGES
Donaldson, Andrew (University of Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom) WHOSE
LANDSCAPE IS IT ANYWAY? 'OPERATION CHOUGH' AND THE TOURIST PRODUCT IN CORNWALL
This paper considers some aspects of the links between the Cornish landscape and
tourism. Cornish language place-names directly describe the landscape; coupled
with the remnants of traditional industry and Celtic heritage they create a
hybrid identity, a sense of difference that is played on in tourist marketing.
However, ownership of Cornish 'things' in the landscape is contested: they are
part of the lived experiential networks of Cornish people as well part of a
tourist product. This is highlighted by examination of a recent campaign by the
activist group, the Cornish Stannary Parliament ('Operation Chough') which
involved the removal of English Heritage signs throughout Cornwall. The signs
were vital elements of a tourism network to some and symbols of oppression to
others.
Martinsson, Tyrone (Hogskolan Skovde, Sweden) BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME
Cultural history in the far north has lately seen an increasing interest in the
market of adventurism and travel opportunities. When entering the north we
expect what has been promised in travel commercials, nature programs, books and
magazines. Memory recordings through photography is a practice. But sometimes
there is an almost emotional process of gaining "relics" from remains
left and scattered in the landscape. Obviously photographs are not enough but
collecting items as part of private travel collections and authentication or
emotional memory value of "I have been there" seem important. And
after all collecting when travelling is part of a long history of our culture
defined through displays in museums and collections. But what is collected and
why? How is the insight provided that a place is always better left as it was
found and that image technology of today is more than enough when creating
private memory collections?
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