This conference intends to meet and discuss new research ideas on the tourism impacts in the Global South, focusing namely on the construction and transformation of landscapes through tourism, on issues of identity friction and cultural change, and on the responsibility of tourism on poverty reduction and sustainable development.
Tourism can be seen as a consumer of places but also as a dynamic force that creates places (Crang). Its power resides in its capacity to transform landscapes, economies, peoples’ lifestyle and cultures, and in shaping identities, ideas, behaviors, by establishing new networks of power, forging new ideas and representations, and creating discourses of place and difference. Above all tourism is about encounters: encounters between people and places, and between people (Crouch). Often these encounters are unbalanced, uneven, destabilizing, resulting in exploitation and abuse. But at times they are productive, creating wealth, and forging alliances between distant people. Although nothing of this is new, it seems that in the last decades tourism is everywhere and its force in landscape, in identity and development is escalating.
When we think of these issues in the context of the Global South, many discussions emerge. In the Global South, encounters between tourists and hosts seem more problematic and complex because tourism puts together people from different economic and cultural contexts, and people who frequently share pasts of atrocity and colonial domination. Here, we understand the Global South not as a strict geographical categorisation of the world, but one which is based on economic inequalities and power imbalances having a certain cartographic continuity. Thus, the Global South includes Africa, Central and Latin America, and most of Asia, mainly regions of the world where poverty, environmental crisis, human and civil rights abuses, and ethnic intolerance are dramatic issues. How tourism faces these questions deserves some reflection. Finally, the use of the Global South concept highlights the fact that both North and South are strained into global processes, and that problems in the Global South are enmeshed and also present in other regions of the world.
Tourism can be seen as a consumer of places but also as a dynamic force that creates places (Crang). Its power resides in its capacity to transform landscapes, economies, peoples’ lifestyle and cultures, and in shaping identities, ideas, behaviors, by establishing new networks of power, forging new ideas and representations, and creating discourses of place and difference. Above all tourism is about encounters: encounters between people and places, and between people (Crouch). Often these encounters are unbalanced, uneven, destabilizing, resulting in exploitation and abuse. But at times they are productive, creating wealth, and forging alliances between distant people. Although nothing of this is new, it seems that in the last decades tourism is everywhere and its force in landscape, in identity and development is escalating.
When we think of these issues in the context of the Global South, many discussions emerge. In the Global South, encounters between tourists and hosts seem more problematic and complex because tourism puts together people from different economic and cultural contexts, and people who frequently share pasts of atrocity and colonial domination. Here, we understand the Global South not as a strict geographical categorisation of the world, but one which is based on economic inequalities and power imbalances having a certain cartographic continuity. Thus, the Global South includes Africa, Central and Latin America, and most of Asia, mainly regions of the world where poverty, environmental crisis, human and civil rights abuses, and ethnic intolerance are dramatic issues. How tourism faces these questions deserves some reflection. Finally, the use of the Global South concept highlights the fact that both North and South are strained into global processes, and that problems in the Global South are enmeshed and also present in other regions of the world.
When we think of these issues in the context of the Global South, many discussions emerge. In the Global South, encounters between tourists and hosts seem more problematic and complex because tourism puts together people from different economic and cultural contexts, and people who frequently share pasts of atrocity and colonial domination. Here, we understand the Global South not as a strict geographical categorisation of the world, but one which is based on economic inequalities and power imbalances having a certain cartographic continuity. Thus, the Global South includes Africa, Central and Latin America, and most of Asia, mainly regions of the world where poverty, environmental crisis, human and civil rights abuses, and ethnic intolerance are dramatic issues. How tourism faces these questions deserves some reflection. Finally, the use of the Global South concept highlights the fact that both North and South are strained into global processes, and that problems in the Global South are enmeshed and also present in other regions of the world.
A proper analysis of tourism impacts always needs an interdisciplinary approach. Geography can conduct a stimulating job since it relates culture and nature, society and environment, space, economy and politics, but a single discipline cannot push our understanding very far without intersecting it with other realms of knowledge. So, this is a conference that aims at a multidisciplinary debate, which may include people with a range of different backgrounds such as Geography, History, Anthropology, Literary Studies, Sociology, Economics, Spatial Planning, Political Science, and Urbanism.
Tourism can be seen as a consumer of places but also as a dynamic force that creates places (Crang). Its power resides in its capacity to transform landscapes, economies, peoples’ lifestyle and cultures, and in shaping identities, ideas, behaviors, by establishing new networks of power, forging new ideas and representations, and creating discourses of place and difference. Above all tourism is about encounters: encounters between people and places, and between people (Crouch). Often these encounters are unbalanced, uneven, destabilizing, resulting in exploitation and abuse. But at times they are productive, creating wealth, and forging alliances between distant people. Although nothing of this is new, it seems that in the last decades tourism is everywhere and its force in landscape, in identity and development is escalating.
When we think of these issues in the context of the Global South, many discussions emerge. In the Global South, encounters between tourists and hosts seem more problematic and complex because tourism puts together people from different economic and cultural contexts, and people who frequently share pasts of atrocity and colonial domination. Here, we understand the Global South not as a strict geographical categorisation of the world, but one which is based on economic inequalities and power imbalances having a certain cartographic continuity. Thus, the Global South includes Africa, Central and Latin America, and most of Asia, mainly regions of the world where poverty, environmental crisis, human and civil rights abuses, and ethnic intolerance are dramatic issues. How tourism faces these questions deserves some reflection. Finally, the use of the Global South concept highlights the fact that both North and South are strained into global processes, and that problems in the Global South are enmeshed and also present in other regions of the world.
Tourism can be seen as a consumer of places but also as a dynamic force that creates places (Crang). Its power resides in its capacity to transform landscapes, economies, peoples’ lifestyle and cultures, and in shaping identities, ideas, behaviors, by establishing new networks of power, forging new ideas and representations, and creating discourses of place and difference. Above all tourism is about encounters: encounters between people and places, and between people (Crouch). Often these encounters are unbalanced, uneven, destabilizing, resulting in exploitation and abuse. But at times they are productive, creating wealth, and forging alliances between distant people. Although nothing of this is new, it seems that in the last decades tourism is everywhere and its force in landscape, in identity and development is escalating.
When we think of these issues in the context of the Global South, many discussions emerge. In the Global South, encounters between tourists and hosts seem more problematic and complex because tourism puts together people from different economic and cultural contexts, and people who frequently share pasts of atrocity and colonial domination. Here, we understand the Global South not as a strict geographical categorisation of the world, but one which is based on economic inequalities and power imbalances having a certain cartographic continuity. Thus, the Global South includes Africa, Central and Latin America, and most of Asia, mainly regions of the world where poverty, environmental crisis, human and civil rights abuses, and ethnic intolerance are dramatic issues. How tourism faces these questions deserves some reflection. Finally, the use of the Global South concept highlights the fact that both North and South are strained into global processes, and that problems in the Global South are enmeshed and also present in other regions of the world.
When we think of these issues in the context of the Global South, many discussions emerge. In the Global South, encounters between tourists and hosts seem more problematic and complex because tourism puts together people from different economic and cultural contexts, and people who frequently share pasts of atrocity and colonial domination. Here, we understand the Global South not as a strict geographical categorisation of the world, but one which is based on economic inequalities and power imbalances having a certain cartographic continuity. Thus, the Global South includes Africa, Central and Latin America, and most of Asia, mainly regions of the world where poverty, environmental crisis, human and civil rights abuses, and ethnic intolerance are dramatic issues. How tourism faces these questions deserves some reflection. Finally, the use of the Global South concept highlights the fact that both North and South are strained into global processes, and that problems in the Global South are enmeshed and also present in other regions of the world.
A proper analysis of tourism impacts always needs an interdisciplinary approach. Geography can conduct a stimulating job since it relates culture and nature, society and environment, space, economy and politics, but a single discipline cannot push our understanding very far without intersecting it with other realms of knowledge. So, this is a conference that aims at a multidisciplinary debate, which may include people with a range of different backgrounds such as Geography, History, Anthropology, Literary Studies, Sociology, Economics, Spatial Planning, Political Science, and Urbanism.
