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2008 SELLING OR TELLING?:
Paradoxes in Tourism, Culture and Heritage

2nd - 4th July 2008
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CONTEXT

Numerous issues exist between the 'selling' and 'telling' of cultural heritage through tourism. The conflicts range from purely commercial (i.e. competition for space between residents and tourists) and the more esoteric aspects of how and who makes visual, political and cultural representation of local people.

The conference provides an intellectual space to explore these challenges with four interconnected streams providing a coherent logic to the proceedings yet diverse enough to allow for a wide range of multidisciplinary papers that will enable lively debate and provide new insights into this complex area.

1. Dynamic Heritage Impact: Measuring and changing impacts

  • Heritage-led development at the site, city and regional level
  • Changing impacts through strategy, marketing and policy
  • Analysis and critique of methodologies used to analyse impact and value at cultural heritage sites (such as metrics and measures)
  • Economic, social, technological, and environmental impact case studies

2. Diversification and Regeneration

  • Heritage landscapes, places and spaces (objects, buildings, sites, towns, regions) * Role of festivals and events
  • National, regional and local policies and practices
  • Marketing Heritage for tourism

3. Culture, Heritage and Representation

  • Heritage and identity
  • Sexuality and gender
  • Contested/ dissonant heritages
  • The role of heritage groups and organizations - international, regional, national, local * Coastal and seaside resort heritage
  • The experience of heritage - that of the researcher, the tourist or the heritage employee such as a tour guide.

4. Conflict

  • Given the conflicting needs of archaeology (preservation, conservation and knowledge) and tourism (gazing and corporate profit) can they work together to produce both good science and satisfying visitor experiences?
  • Given the role of tourism marketing and policy making in deterritorialising a region, how can residents reterritorialise and reject the subaltern role? Does tourism reconfigure power relations in specific ways in destinations?
  • Does ecotourism conflict with, or create a diversion against serious efforts at combating climate change/reducing carbon emissions?
  • To what extent can tourism be described as an agent of peace? Can war and conflict be reconciled through tourism?

 

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