Greetings,

I am planning a session at the 2013 AAG meeting in Los Angeles with the working title of "Geographical Gaming: Landscape as Playing Surface". I am seeking perspectives on topics such as
orienteering, adventure racing, parkour, TSD road rallies, urban scavenger hunts, geocaching, the Degree Confluence Project, and GPS art. Aside from calling attention to some of these niche pursuits, I am interested in how they serve to blur boundaries between "work" and "play". Please respond to fboscoe@....

Sincerely,

Frank Boscoe
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
University at Albany

Dear RTS members (and other international colleagues):
Here is a proposed session for the AAG in Los Angeles. We are hoping we may be
able to organize more than one session on this topic so please contact me or one
of the other organizers so that we coordinate papers.

I'll be in touch with more RTS news regarding the LA meeting shortly.

Best wishes
Alison


Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, April 9th-13th 2013,
Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Tourism Geography and Evolutionary Research – 1st Call for Papers

Session sponsored by: Recreation, Tourism & Sport Speciality Group
Session organisers: Salvador Anton-Clavé, Rovira i Virgili University; Patrick
Brouder, UmeĂĄ University; Alison Gill, Simon Fraser University; Julie Wilson,
Rovira i Virgili University.

Recent developments in evolutionary economic geography (Boschma & Martin, 2010)
are receiving increasing interest from tourism geographers. Aspects of path
dependence, micro-firm survival, resort evolution, and regional development
policy have been addressed in empirical studies of the tourism economy, dating
back to the seminal concept of Richard Butler’s Tourism Area Life Cycle
(Brouder & Eriksson, 2012; Butler, 1980; Ivars Baidal, 2004; Papatheodorou,
2004). However, theoretical discussion on the principles of evolutionary notions
of economic change within tourism has been limited. Yet the possibility to
explain macro-level trends while allowing for micro-level agency resulting in
varying outcomes across the space economy is of central interest to the
theoretical development of tourism geography. This session highlights the
possibilities for tourism researchers to take on new perspectives to regional
restructuring and also opens space for evolutionary scholars interested in
low-technology, service sectors, with tourism being a pertinent case.

This call invites papers on evolutionary approaches within tourism geography.
Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
• role of policy in economic evolution
• regional branching and structural change
• path dependence and new path creation
• learning in networks and cluster development
• role of entrepreneurship in economic change

Submissions may be made via the AAG website (www.aag.org/annualmeeting) and
enquiries are welcome to:
Americas; Asia; & Oceania: agill@... or patrick.brouder@...
Africa; Europe; & Middle East: Salvador.anton@... or julie.wilson@...

References
Boschma, R., & Martin, R. (2010). The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic
Geography. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Brouder, P., & Eriksson, R. H. (2012). Staying Power: What Influences Micro-firm
Survival in Tourism? Tourism Geographies, 1–20.
doi:10.1080/14616688.2011.647326
Butler, R. W. (1980). The Concept of a Tourist Area Life Cycle of Evolution:
Implications for Management of Resources. The Canadian Geographer / Le
Géographe canadien, 24(1), 5–12. doi:10.1111/j.1541-0064.1980.tb00970.x
Ivars Baidal, J. A. (2004). REGIONAL TOURISM PLANNING IN SPAIN: Evolution and
Perspectives. Annals of Tourism Research, 31(2), 313–333.
doi:10.1016/j.annals.2003.12.001
Papatheodorou, A. (2004). Exploring the Evolution of Tourism Resorts. Annals of
Tourism Research, 31(1), 219–237. doi:10.1016/j.annals.2003.10.004

Dear RTS colleagues:

As summer seems to be drawing all too quickly to a close, I thought I would add
a few words of encouragement to you to think about organizing a session or
contributing a paper to the AAG meeting in Los Angeles next April (April 9-13).
You will have already seen calls for some RTS organized sessions in your email
recently. To summarize, four of the following session details are on the RTS
website <http://www.geog.nau.edu/rts/> that Alan Lew manages (thanks so much
Alan!). I have included in this email another co-sponsored session on
transportation that will be added to the website shortly.

I'm purposely not sending the details of the 4 sessions as I want you to go to
the website where there is all kinds of other information that is useful
concerning the Meeting and other RTS matters.

I am sure that there will be more RTS sessions announced once folk are back from
summer vacations and starting classes again - so I encourage you to think about
organizing a session - and/or presenting a paper. If you don't find sessions
that fit your research interests by the time you need to register don't worry -
while it's best to join an organized session in advance, last year we were able
to assemble and officially 'sponsor' quite a number of loose papers after the
deadline had passed - so be sure to include the words 'tourism' 'recreation' or
'sport' somewhere in the keywords to ensure we can find you.

For those of you who are teaching or are students, remember the RTS student
award - see the RTS website for details (http://www.geog.nau.edu/rts/). The
deadline dates are still to be announced (last year the AAG meeting was a lot
earlier).

Enjoy the remaining weeks of summer. I'll be in touch again before too long. If
you have any international (or other) colleagues who are not RTS members, please
forward this information to them and let me know their email addresses so that
we can keep in touch with them.  Please contact me if you have any queries.

Best wishes
Alison


Alison Gill
Chair, RTS Specialty Group
Professor, Simon Fraser University


PROPOSED RTS SESSIONS TO DATE (see website for details)

1) Geographical Gaming: Landscape as Playing Surface

(2) Lifestyle Migrants & Destination Communities

(3) Tourism Geography and Evolutionary Research

(4) Methodologies in Social Memory and Heritage Tourism Research

(5) (NEWLY announced session)

    Transportation and “America’s Best Idea”: Travel and Mobility in
National Parks and Protected Areas

Session sponsored by
The Transport Geography Specialty Group (TGSG) & The Recreation, Tourism, and
Sport Specialty Group (RTS)

National parks and other federal lands receive tremendous visitation, almost
exclusively by car. The �dual mandate’ under which national parks are
managed requires that providing access to the scenic and historic features of
America’s national parks must be balanced by environmental protections for
those features. Travel to and within national parks and similar lands has become
a matter of increasing concern for environmental, public health, and social
equity reasons. This session will examine such topics as recreational travel to
national parks and other protected public areas within cities or in wilderness.
Given the subject of the session(s), possible topics of interest might include,
but are not limited to:

Transportation equity and accessibility to public lands
Alternative transportation systems, issues, modeling and policy
Visitor movement, mobility, and travel experience within parks
Environmental consequences of roads and other transportation projects in
protected areas
Congestion, overcrowding, visitor impacts, and sustainability
Cultural landscapes of transportation and mobility
Geography of the Appalachian Trail and other recreational trails
Send an abstract of no more than 250 words and your personal identification
number (received from the AAG after applying online at www.aag.org) to one of
the organizers by October 19, 2012.

Organizers:
Joe Weber 		 Selima Sultana
Department of Geography 	 Department of Geography
University of Alabama 		 University of North Carolina - Greensboro
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 	 Greensboro, NC 27402
jweber2@... 	 s_sultan@...
phone: 205-348-0086 		 phone: 336-334-3895

RTS Session for the AAG, Los Angeles Meeting, April 2013

Tourism As Development in Asia

According to the UN World Tourism Organization (2012), the largest growth in tourism over the coming decade is expected to take place in the Asia-Pacific region, where arrivals are forecasted to increase from 204 million in 2010 to 535 million by 2030. As one of the world’s largest industries that generates millions of jobs globally, tourism is often heralded as a means for economic development and poverty alleviation. However, its influence on host destinations and their surrounding natural environment is complex and remains a subject of contentious and continuous debate. How can tourism positively impact the livelihoods of those who need it most? Does this booming sector offer hope or hindrance for marginalized peoples in Asian countries?

This session will examine tourism as a development strategy within the context of developing and developed nations in Asia. Possible topics of interest may include, but are not limited to:

·       Urban and rural economic development

·       Local development and community empowerment

·       Sustainable tourism (including responsible, pro-poor, and alternative tourism; ecotourism)

·       Sustainable livelihoods and wellbeing

·       Protected areas and resource management

·       Political economy of tourism development

·       Backpacker tourism

·       Entrepreneurship and regional development

·       Cultural and heritage tourism

·       Cross-cultural learning and education

Enquiries are welcome. Please submit abstracts (no more than 250 words) to the session organizers no later than October 15.

Session organizers:

Heidi Karst, University of Waterloo, hkarst@...

Li Yang, Western Michigan University, li.1.yang@...

Reference:

United Nations World Tourism Organization [UNWTO] (2012). Tourism Highlights. Madrid: UNWTO.

+ + + + + + + + +

please circulate CFP pasted below.

cheers, George

--
George F Roberson, PhD
Capitol Hill - Denver, Colorado  USA
c720.878.1698

Partners for International Collaboration and Education (PICE) -- Worldwide
Collaborative Media International (CMI) -- Denver, Amherst, Tangier
Annual International Conferences -- Tangier
Geography Human Dimensions Research Group -- University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Fulbright Scholar -- Morocco
Fulbright Association -- Colorado Board of Directors

Info: http://interactive-worlds.blogspot.com/2007/04/editor.html

/ / / / / / / / / / / /

RE: (ROBERSON) CFP: Performing the (Arab) public sphere | Tangier,
Morocco | June 2013

(kindly disseminate widely)

Call for Papers
Performing the (Arab) Public Sphere
9th Annual International Conference

Tangier - Tetouan, Morocco
1-2-3 June 2013

The conference aims at reframing the discussion on the public sphere
and questioning the performative articulations of political critique.
It is a continuation of our discussions in the “Performance and
Transformations” conference (2012).

The normative Habermasian model of the “public sphere” generates a
discursive arena of free flow of information and formation of public
opinion culminating at pragmatic consensus. However, the public sphere
is also an arena wherein pluralities of competing publics contest each
other. It is a “battleground” as Chantal Mouffe once put it. Some
activist performers bring into play the public sphere to call
attention to their political standpoints; they deploy the politics of
visibility to make statements in public without discussion. In this
context, “activist performance” is a “form of political action which
is located outside the political consensual realm of party politics as
it is not institutionally affiliated with parties, unions, or other
organizations…” (Pia Wiegmink, 2011: 31). Performance and theatre
function as constant players in a turbulent public sphere. For
example, the Seattle “giant puppets” march against the World Trade
Organization in 1999, the ongoing “Occupy Movements” and so-called
“Arab Spring” protests, community theatre forums, and even the
phenomenon of self-immolation in public… all share the politics of
impersonation as imitative political behaviors.

The Arab world “has long being characterized by its Orientalizers,
past and present, as not only lacking in civility but also in
public-ness and public-ity.”(Seteney Shami, 2009: 14). Is there an
“Arab Public Sphere”? Does it conform to the Habermasian model? Or
else, it is a post-Bourgeois model? Is it different from the public
sphere of the North? Or else, an exemplary instance of what Gayatri
Spivak calls the “Feudal North-in-the-South”? The aftermath of the
Arab Spring exposes conflicting “communities of interpretation” with
the rise of the Islamist tide in the region. The public articulation
of religion and particularly its relationship with the arts have
recently been subject to more thorough reflection in public debate.
Many Arabs today consider modernity a fortress to be defended against
religious extremism. Such reaction brings into play the risk of
another kind of fundamentalism, that of modernity itself –or at least,
the Arab version of modernity. “However, must we not look at a similar
impasse from the other side, too?” asks Habermas, “[i]s a learning
process only necessary on the side of religious traditionalism and not
on that of secularism, too?”

We invite scholars from around the world to join the debate and offer
elements of reflection on the various problematics related to the
following proposed panels:

- Theatre/performance studies and public sphere theories
- The role of theater and performance in the public sphere
- The Performance of protest in/and the “transnational public sphere”
- Shifting terms of public debates in post-Arab-Spring: morality,
community, and theatre
- Religion, spirituality, performance and/in the public sphere
- Religious mobilization and the “theatrical public sphere”

Arabic, English, French: simultaneous interpreting in all panel sessions

- Keynote presentations by leading practitioners and scholars
- Round tables with guest speakers from the fields of performance and academy
- Paper sessions for debate and dialogue
- Performances
- Creative installations
- Workshops
- Emerging scholars panel
- Public events
- Receptions and gala dinners
- Book launches
- Exhibitions
- Networking
- Granting opportunities
- Publication of select papers

Submission: a 250 word abstract (specific to the above issues) along
with a one paragraph curriculum vitae, should be submitted
electronically by 31 January 2013 to the scientific committee in care
of Professor Khalid Amine, Conference Convener (khamine55@...,
TĂ©l/Fax: (212) 5393330466, Portable: 0664596791)

View/download/print full CFP:
http://collaborativemedia.blogspot.com/2012/09/cfp-performing-tangier-2013.html

Conferences hosted by the International Centre for Performance Studies
(ICPS) – Tangier
http://icpsmorocco.org/new/

ICPS conferences/publishing founded by Fulbrighters and supported by
dozens of Fulbrighters (to Morocco and to USA)
http://interactive-worlds.blogspot.com/2012/08/affliated-fulbrighters.html

ICPS / CMI publishing program, featuring "No Man's Land" and "Moroccan Arabic"
http://collaborativemedia.blogspot.com/2009/03/welcome.html
http://icpsmorocco.org/new/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&page=shop.browse&cate\
gory_id=7&Itemid=81


Information:

George F Roberson, PhD
Capitol Hill - Denver, Colorado  USA
c720.878.1698

Geography Human Dimensions Research Group -- University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Fulbright Scholar -- Morocco

george.roberson@...
http://interactive-worlds.blogspot.com/2007/04/editor.html

--
Partners for International Collaboration and Education (PICE)
George F Roberson, Chair

----- Forwarded Message -----
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 11:46:08 AM

Apologies for cross-posting

Call for Papers

AAG 2013

April 9-13, Los Angeles

Leisure, Tourism, and Political Ecology

During the last decade there has been something of a surge in texts broadening the scope of tourism and leisure studies through engagements with tourism and political economy (Bianchi 2009, Mosedale 2011, Williams 2004), how exertions of power permeate tourism (MacLeod & Carrier 2010, Church & Coles 2007), and so forth. While these share some common influences with influential Political Ecology texts there has to date still been very few texts striving to engage with issues concerned with tourism and leisure explicitly in relation to this nowadays rather broad field. Though leisurely consumption plays a key role in today’s capitalist economy, and given the strategic and economic value of ecological discourses together with the increasing use of the concept of sustainability, many important issues remain surprisingly under-theorized. With some notable exceptions tourist and leisure scholars have neglected the vantage points that might open up through engagements with Political Ecology. Conversely, scholars working to develop our understanding of political ecologies have during the last decade engaged with issues ranging from forestry in the global south to cutting edge research on molecular biology, but have seldom considered the roles of various leisure activities in shaping socio-ecologies worldwide.

We do not in any way think this represents a tension or unbridgeable gap. Rather we see this as an opportunity to exchange key insights from two, heuristically and loosely defined, research fields to perhaps reach a fuller understanding of the socio-ecologies of leisure and tourism. Therefore we invite theoretically and empirically informed papers which strive to scrutinize aspects of leisure, tourism and political ecology. Examples of possible topics include but are certainly not limited to the following:

·    The ways analyzes of the political ecologies of various production processes can inform our understanding of touristic experiences as commodities and vice versa.

·         Discursive constructions of Nature, production of socio-natures, and tourism.

·         Nature and national identity in tourism planning.

·         (Biodiversity) conservation policy and tourism development.

·   Land degradation, socio-ecological transformation and the production of leisure landscapes.

·   The notion of hybridity in understanding various tourist practices and the political implications of shedding light on non-human nature.

If you are interested in presenting a paper in the session send an abstract of no more than 250 words to Erik Jönsson (erik.jonsson@...) and Linda Boukhris (lindaboukhris@...) no later than Friday, October 19, 2012.

This session is sponsored by the Recreation, Tourism, and Sport Specialty Group.  For additional sessions sponsored by RTS, please visit: http://www.geog.nau.edu/rts/sessions/2013.html

Call for Papers

AAG 2013

April 9-13, Los Angeles

Re-framing Sustainable Tourism

The term sustainable tourism has been in existence since the late 1980’s and since that time, debates in the field have been challenged by varying notions of what sustainable tourism is and to what purposes does it serve. In a world that is increasingly globalized and interconnected, contentious and complex, is sustainable tourism limited to small firms located in rural environments, or does the concept have broader applicability. Technology, environmental issues and global- local interactions have changed enormously in the last 25 years thus necessitating an evaluation of the concept as an organizing tool for research and practice. As such, academics and others continue to re-define and reframe issues of sustainable tourism in interesting and innovative ways. This session proposes to highlight some of those ways in which sustainable tourism is being re-framed to include among other things:

• Its place in complex social-ecological systems
• Challenges to assumptions treated as facts
• An increasing focus on justice and governance
• The relevancy of the notion of resiliency to sustainable tourism
• The politics of sustainable tourism
• More nuanced understandings of scale and sustainable tourism
• Managing and planning sustainable tourism

We invite both empirical research and critical essays on the idea of Reframing Sustainable Tourism. Authors of abstracts chosen for this session will be asked to develop a paper for possible inclusion in a special issue of the journal Sustainability and as a chapter in an upcoming edited volume on re-framing sustainable tourism.

Please send abstracts and PINs for inclusion in the session no later than October 24^th

Keith Bosak PhD
Associate Professor of Nature-Based Tourism
Department of Society and Conservation
College of Forestry and Conservation
32 Campus Drive
University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812
Ph: 406.243.6062
Fax: 406.243.6656