Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
tourists (Fleischer and Felsenstein, 2000; Snepenger
et al.
, 2004). Also, the sector has continued
to remain fragile largely because of getting caught in the excitement of novel labels without
understanding and defi ning what is entailed in developing 'softer' tourism products. Authors
have proposed new ways of conducting tourism to reform the industry of its ills using avenues
such as alternative tourism (Weaver, 1991), sustainable tourism (R. Butler, 1990), volunteer
tourism (Sin, 2009) and responsible tourism (Frey and George, 2010).
Furthermore, a number of researchers have postulated that increasing tourist fl ows between
destinations in countries involved in some form of hostility or between partitioned countries
may be a positive force and help to normalise relationships (Butler and Mao, 1996; Kim and
Prideaux, 2003; Jafari, 1989). However, this is not without problems. Authors cite the case of
Palestine, where tourism is deployed as a means to resist the curtailment of mobility and
appropriation of land which lies at the heart of the economic injustice of the Israeli occupa-
tion, whilst simultaneously constituting part of the wider struggle among Palestinians for
politico-cultural recognition (Bianchi, 2009; Kassis, 2005).
Studies focusing on retirement migration to rural areas (King
et al.
, 2000; Casado-Diaz,
Chapter 15
of this volume), second home ownership (Müller, 2006a), labour migration
(Aitken and Hall, 2000), models of tourist space (Baerenholdt
et al.
, 2004) and global-local
interface (Chang and Yeoh, 1999; Teo and Li, 2003) are helping to shed new light on spatial,
temporal, socio-economic and emotional bonds between people and rural places. Within this
discourse, rurality is constructed as 'a multiple space, embracing geographical territor y, social
relations and general (cultural) links; a space, rather than a dot in the map' (Shubin, 2006:
422). These new challenges of transition bring to the fore the need for more creative theo-
retical approaches to examine the differential constructions of rurality. The proposed change
in focus, described as the 'cultural turn', is best understood by 'new' economic and cultural
geographies of tourism which examine the 'complexity' of post-industrial tourism with a
view to challenging the dominant, industry-focused, positivist analytical frameworks in
tourism research and developing a strong critique of existing hegemonic discourses (Bianchi,
2009 and
Chapter 5
of this volume; Milne and Ateljevic, 2001). Such conceptualisations are
important in beginning to think through the complex politics of negotiation and confi gura-
tion of contested 'creative' rural spaces and practices (Woods, 2007; Richards and Wilson,
2007a). Thus the idea that tourism ventures can and should bring about positive impacts to
locals in host-destinations is gaining ground (Scheyvens, 2007a, 2007b; Sin, 2009).
Moreover, the infusion of postmodern perspectives has stimulated geographers to incor-
porate historical and local specifi city of rural destinations within broader theoretical frame-
works to examine the local-global nexus (Birtwistle, 2005; Johnson, 1999; Urry, 2000). This
has helped to uncover the perceived contradiction between the local - defi ned by stability or
continuity - and tourism (a global force) which involves change, when in fact it is tourism
that is being adapted by communities in their symbolic constructions of culture, tradition and
identity (Salazar, 2005; Wood, 1993). Does this then imply that the notion of 'rural' has
increasingly come to symbolise not just a spatially limited locality, but a space inhabited by
people who have a particular sense of place, a specifi c way of life and a certain ethos and world
view? This is reasonable to ask given that rurality has moved from:
a
functional
perspective that sought to fi x rural space through the identifi cation of
its distinctive functional characteristics; to a
political-economic
perspective that
attempted to position the rural as the product of broader social, economic and
political processes; to a perspective in which rurality is understood as
socially
constructed
, such that the importance of the 'rural' lies in the fascinating world of
