Dr Elisa Burrai

Volunteer tourism, because of its ambiguities and complexities, represents an interesting and controversial field of investigation. However, to date few empirical studies have been conducted on its transformative potential for the host populations. The literature on volunteer tourism focuses mainly on the volunteers, their motivations, expectations and the transformations they go through during volunteer tourism (Zahra and McGehee, 2013). This chapter aims at bridging the gap in the literature and addressing the potential of volunteer tourism to shape and transform host communities’ perceptions and behaviours. Through a comparative study of two popular volunteer tourism destinations in Peru and Thailand, the transformative process of the hosting population is investigated. It is argued that residents, in experiencing volunteer tourism and encountering volunteers, are active agents of change within the socio-cultural environments they inhabit. Further, in an attempt to understand hosts ‘as persons and how they encounter, receive, respond and react to the effective change in conditions which tourism ultimately entails’ (Robinson, 2012, p. 23), the authors reflect on the long-term social transformations that volunteer tourism brings to host communities. The concept of personal transformation and, in particular, hosts’ learning and personal development is explored.

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This section of the journal encourages discussion between several authors on a policy-related topic. The same question may, therefore, be addressed from different theoretical, cultural or spatial perspectives. Dialogues may be applied or highly abstract. This Dialogue starts with this contribution and is followed by four comments by Sharpley https://doi.org/10.1080/19407963.2017.1362798; Reid https://doi.org/10.1080/19407963.2017.1362799; Coghlan https://doi.org/10.1080/19407963.2017.1362800 and, finally, Burrai and Hannam’s reflections prompted by the observations of fellow contributors https://doi.org/10.1080/19407963.2017.1362810.

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This section of the journal encourages discussion between several authors on a policy related topic. The same question may, therefore, be addressed from different theoretical, cultural or spatial perspectives. Dialogues may be applied or highly abstract. This Dialogue starts with Burrai and Hannam’s original paper https://doi.org/10.1080/19407963.2017.1362810 and ends with theirs reflections below, prompted by the observations of fellow contributors.

Volunteer tourism is an increasingly popular form of travelling and a contested field of academic enquiry. In particular, recent studies started to explore the interconnectedness between volunteer tourism and poverty. If on the one hand some argued that volunteer tourism could alleviate the “material poverty of some groups in the society” (Wearing, 2001: 1), others believe that tourists mainly engage in volunteering practices “to observe, and even interact with, the phenomenon of ‘poverty’” (Simpson, 2005: 2010). This paper, in acknowledging the paucity of volunteer tourism studies on residents’ perceptions, builds an understanding of local reconsiderations of poverty within volunteer tourism encounters. The study, thus, expands and develops on the partial insights of volunteer tourism and focuses on the nexus between materialities and affection in local negotiations of volunteer tourism encounters. The ethnographic study involved six months fieldwork during which semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 residents directly involved in volunteer tourism and categorised as: projects’ directors, members of staff, beneficiaries and hosting families. Participant observation was undertaken at two different volunteer social projects. The findings reveal that the aspiration of residents to be in fair relationships brings them to negotiate both materially and emotionally their encounters with volunteers. Building on this, the findings disclose the relational dynamics between residents and volunteers within the context of poverty and need highlighting the themes of dependency and gratitude.

Forcibly displaced people like refugees and asylum-seekers can be socio-culturally integrated in receiving societies through tourism. Our poststructuralist approach to ethics explains this potential as we combine three concepts: Zygmunt Bauman’s “strangerhood”, Emmanuel Levinas’ “ethical responsibility”, and Jacques Derrida’s “hostipitality”. We draw on the initiative of a social enterprise in the English city of Leeds which encourages displaced people to contribute as tour-guides. During 2017 and 2019 we conducted in-depth individual and focus-group interviews with refugees, asylum-seekers, and public sector stakeholders to examine integration of displaced people via tourism. Findings highlight that contributing to the tourism sector, individual refugees and asylum-seekers are provided with a meaningful platform for self-representation moving beyond tokenistic notions of participation, and become co-creators of diverse and inclusive societies.

Forcibly displaced people like refugees and asylum-seekers can be socio-culturally integrated in receiving societies through tourism. Our poststructuralist approach to ethics explains this potential as we combine three concepts: Zygmunt Bauman’s “strangerhood”, Emmanuel Levinas’ “ethical responsibility”, and Jacques Derrida’s “hostipitality”. We draw on the initiative of a social enterprise in the English city of Leeds which encourages displaced people to contribute as tour-guides. During 2017 and 2019 we conducted in-depth individual and focus-group interviews with refugees, asylum-seekers, and public sector stakeholders to examine integration of displaced people via tourism. Findings highlight that contributing to the tourism sector, individual refugees and asylum-seekers are provided with a meaningful platform for self-representation moving beyond tokenistic notions of participation, and become co-creators of diverse and inclusive societies.

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. In this paper, we develop a conceptual approach from which to examine the moral landscape of volunteer tourism development in Cusco, Peru. Drawing from recent work on assemblage theory in geography and tourism studies, we explore how assemblage thinking can facilitate new understandings of volunteer tourism development. Using assemblage as an analytical framework allows us to understand volunteer tourism as a series of relational, processual, unequal and mobile practices. These practices, we argue, are constituted through a broader aggregation of human and non-human actors that co-construct moral landscapes of place. Thus, reconsidering volunteer tourism as assemblage allows for more inclusive and nuanced understandings of how geopolitical discourses as well as historical, political, economic and cultural conjunctures mediate volunteer tourism development, planning and policy. Finally, this paper calls for further research that integrates assemblage theory and tourism planning and development.

©.This article is about re-making the material fabric of the city and the role that space plays in this. There are many ways of understanding the remaking of the city, including a range of often diverse 'alternative' initiatives which are enacted by neighbourhood, voluntary and civil society groups. We address the construction of 'alternative' urban low carbon spaces and whether these result in transformation of or continuity with dominant ways of thinking about remaking the city. Drawing on examples in Greater Manchester, UK, the article argues that, often despite the intention to promote forms of localist values and strategies as alternatives to dominant accounts of remaking the city, the hand of dominant and particularly state interests is critical in shaping 'alternative' spaces and strategies. This tension - between dominant and alternative - is illustrated through a five-fold typology of the role of space in alternative strategies of remaking the city.

In this paper we focus on the relationship between justice and tourism and the tension between consumerism and citizenship within the context of small values-based tourism firms. We combine Foucault’s concept of parrhesia, the speaking of “truth to power”, with Latour’s Actor-Network Theory to show how those businesses are situated in an interconnected world, where the global/local distinction is flattened. This qualitative study adopts a narrative approach which consists of in-depth, unstructured interviews with owner-managers of small Italian tour operators. This research suggests that small firms largely make sense of themselves as global citizens; ‘truth-tellers’, pursuing justice in response to the 21

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Sustainable tourism has become, for many, a buzzword and a tool for greenwashing. Often its ethical principles are developed in institutional and commercial tourism outlets with insufficient efforts to meaningfully implement such principles. Within this context, our study examines the transition from sustainable tourism policies driven by economic growth to sustainability approaches embedded in regenerative, non-hierarchical ecologies. We analyse the potential for this shift as framed by Norwegian (national) and Sámi (indigenous) tourism stakeholders. To do so, we compare the official Norwegian tourism strategy, and the sub-strategy commissioned to the Sámi parliament. The study adopts a multi-method approach consisting of critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the Norwegian and Sámi tourism documents and semi-structured interviews with tourism policy-makers. This approach sheds light on the issue of power inherent in tourism discourses, particularly by examining how language sustains or exacerbates dominant political, economic, and social roles and relations. Findings highlight a significant gap between the sustainability discourses that inform the official tourism policy and the regenerative perspectives underpinning the indigenous approach to tourism. The study reveals that embracing Sámi insights, which embody regenerative principles through deep ecological connections and community-focused values, could offer a valuable, inclusive and meaningful path for Norway’s tourism development.

Volunteer tourism has long represented a fruitful realm for the application of geographic perspectives and has greatly benefitted from them. Yet, despite the progress made through multi-, inter-, and intra-disciplinary approaches to the field, its development has notably slowed down and reached a stagnation phase. This is because much scholarship on volunteer tourism has focused on rather dichotomic conceptualisations of the field, and because of a lack of engagement with the intertwined challenges of our times, whose combined effects characterise the current polycrisis. Hence, in this paper we provide an overview of how recent geographic approaches to volunteer tourism have shown ways towards less rigid conceptualisations that better capture its fluid processes and dynamics. Subsequently, we discuss how geographic perspectives can help us make sense of the challenges faced by volunteer tourism in the current polycrisis, including those related to socio-ecological justice, capitalist ideologies, technological advancements, and intersectional inequalities. After looking at the possibilities offered by the application of digital geographies and geohumanities to our understanding of current and future volunteer tourism scenarios, we advocate for a posthuman theoretical shift. In particular, we suggest how this can help us rethink roles, practices, meanings and justifications of volunteer tourism in a rapidly changing world. In raising questions about the future development of volunteer tourism, the paper aims at sparking debates and stimulating collaborative efforts to drive meaningful advancements of the field.

In this study, we discuss the intersection between tourism and migration. In doing so we interrogate how tourism and migration meet, interrelate, overlap and merge in multifaceted and fluid ways. We draw upon literature on transnational migration and on Sarah Ahmed’s work on the relationship between ‘strange encounters’ and home. These theoretical perspectives enable us to move away from an ‘ontology of the stranger’ and polarised views on migration and tourism. We investigate these issues through semi-structured interviews with people with different migration backgrounds and migration-related experiences who revolve around the Sardinia tourism industry. Our discussion unveils the entrenched inequalities and unexpected resources that people with different experiences of migration live and mobilise to reconfigure and expand notions of home through their involvement in the tourism industry. Our discussion underlines how processes of regrounding and the shaping of transnational ties between countries of origin and migration can exceed the remit and frameworks of initiatives to ‘integrate’ migrants through tourism. Drawing on the participants’ accounts and experiences of uprooting and regrounding, we contend that different identities and multiple notions of home can emerge from the uneven relationship between tourism and migration.

ATLAS Conference – September 2021 Special Track 2 – ATLAS SIG Climate Change and Tourism Engaging in meaningful research and action for climate change and tourism: the role of scholars Reflections Developing a Climate Change Adaptation Toolkit for Destination Stakeholders Climate change is a crucial topic of investigation in tourism. Tourism destinations are vulnerable to climate change. However, for countries whose destinations rely heavily on natural resources, the potential consequences caused by the disruptions from climate-driven change become serious concerns. In recent years, the focus of studies on climate change has placed relevance on adaptation and mitigation measures for which tourism stakeholders are made responsible. Indeed, meaningful adaptation and mitigation actions have the potential to reduce the risk of natural events caused by climate change and to deliver destination resilience. This highlights the need to collaboratively identify an innovative and impactful agenda for the development of effective destination climate adaptation strategies. In our study we focus upon how the complexities of climate change and the implications for destinations can be communicated to destination stakeholders to ensure their preparedness for future climate change. The research team comprises a range of skill sets from researchers in Croatia, Italy and the UK. As befits the complexities of climate change research, the team has a range of relevant skill sets from marketing, to communication, sustainability and climate science. Our approach considers adaptive pathways to climate change for tourism stakeholders using the case study of Gorski Kotar, Croatia. In doing so, we forecast climate change scenarios to 2050 for the development of a Climate Change Adaptation Toolkit accessible to destination stakeholders. The scenarios focus on low risk, whereby CO2 emissions drop to zero by 2100; medium risk whereby emissions peak around 2040, then decline to reach half of the levels of 2050 by 2100; and high risk whereby emissions continue to rise throughout the 21st century. We also employ the tourism climate index to take into account how different tourism and leisure activities popular in the region might develop in relation to each scenario. These activities include: recreation in nature, rivers, lakes and mountains; cycling; football; golf; hiking; kayak, canoeing; windsurfing; tennis and climbing. The development of the toolkit is informed by the inputs of a purposely selected sample of local stakeholders (comprising industry and government) who collectively discuss their potential adaptive approaches to climate change scenarios during two facilitated workshops. The facilitated workshops (one hosted in English and one in Croatian) encourage group discussion on climate change adaptation which helps to understand how individual businesses, and the wider region of Gorski Kotar, can adapt to predicted climactic change. Our study has the potential to bridge both methodologically and theoretically, the gaps between academic and industry practices. It does so by 1) identifying effective ways to communicate complex research results (i.e. climate change forecasting and adaptation) to a heterogeneous group of stakeholders; 2) enabling other destinations which share similar natural and tourism-related characteristics to adopt the same toolkit; 3) examining why diverse and individualistic positions about adaptive pathways develop and how these can be reconciled for collective benefits/the collective good.

© 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Disruption and creativity are the two ideas around which we challenge and contribute to dismantling white, ‘western’, neoliberal hegemonic social narratives and ideologies in qualitative tourism methodologies. In tourism studies in general, and tourism geography in particular, the last decade has witnessed an emphasis on qualitative methodological research, both in terms of the topics addressed and the types of methodological tools. In many ways, this legitimisation of qualitative work mirrors developments in other areas such as human geography, sociology and anthropology. Explorations in this Special Issue contribute critical understandings of the responsibility of tourism research to be disruptive first before it can engender progress and transformation within and outside of our field. Authors debate in more depth how tourism studies can offer multidimensional, multilogical and multiemotional, methodological approaches to tourism research. This Special Issue contributors tackle the ways in which research methodologies can be creative and disruptive to the seemingly prevalent narratives within tourism studies. To further expand tourism methodologies, authors have engaged in debates about deep reflexivity, subjectivities, and dreams; messy emotions in auto-ethnographic accounts of fieldwork; ‘motherhood capital’ accessing Inuit communities; collective memory work in tourism research and pedagogy; ethnodrama and creative non-fiction; linguistic narrative analysis, and serious gaming, amongst others.

This paper examines local perceptions of climate adaptation. We develop climate scenarios using the Tourism Climate Index (TCI) to determine the type of tourism that future climate resources will support. Using the case study of Croatia, our findings suggest the possibility of season extension, but also problematic snow cover for winter sports resorts. We design our study using assemblage theory, enabling us to examine local perceptions to climate change adaptation whilst unpacking the complex combination of (local) diverse, relational and processual approaches. Hence, through the lens of assemblage theory, we contend that participants’ perceptions are heterogenous, dependent on their socio-economic roles, agendas, and purposes. Participants’ narratives shape four different assemblages: tourism products, education, cooperation and transformation. Our informants highlight willingness to keep tourism as a main economic activity, in spite of negative links to climate change. Yet, assemblages on ecological education and cooperation address the importance of re-thinking how tourism can contribute to addressing climate change instead of focusing primarily and only on adaptation avenues.

ATLAS Conference – September 2022 Special Track 6 – ATLAS SIG Climate Change and Tourism Tourism in the new normal: accelerating climate change or embodying crisis? Proposed Title: Local responses to adaptation and communication of climate change: a Croatian case study This exploratory research focuses upon complexities of adapting to climate change and communicating climate issues with tourism destinations to ensure their preparedness for future climate change. Using the Croatian case study destinations of Mali Lošinj located on the Island of Lošinj and the inland mountainous region of Gorski Kotar, future climate scenarios were modelled for both destinations using the IPCC general circulation model. The tourism climate index was run through the scenarios to see which tourist activities future climates will support. The scenarios for Mali Lošinj were developed for the present day and for 2030. The findings demonstrated activities in 2030 could essentially remain the same as today, but as seasonality shifts, there will be more scope to extend the season into Spring. Further, over the course of two workshops held with the Island’s tourism stakeholders, a sophisticated understanding of climate change and potential impacts for tourism on the island were conveyed. For Gorski Kotar, the findings were somewhat different. The scenarios looked further into the future - to 2050, and showed that future climates within Gorski Kotar will not support winter sports tourism, meaning new products will be needed by 2050. During the summer months, the coast will be significantly hotter, displacing visitation into an ill-prepared interior region. New products such as rural, heritage, culinary and nature-based tourism will be required. Across the two workshops hosted with tourism stakeholders from Gorski Kotar, a vague understanding of climate change and its potential impact on the region was demonstrated. Bringing the findings of both climate forecasting studies together reflecting upon the outcomes of the two studies and the discussions in the workshops, we decided to focus upon how to communicate climate change to different groups of stakeholders. In consequence, a Delphi survey with 11 Croatian communication and media experts was employed to explore how best to frame the climate message for different segments of the tourism industry. The Delphi survey sought to explore who the messenger should be; how the climate message should be framed; what language, visuals and media should be used; and any mistakes and challenges that might be encountered. The Delphi survey found that climate change should be communicated using simple messages and terms, focusing on the local and sustainability. Positivity and optimism conveyed through both language and image are considered more effective than use of negative terms. Politicians and scientists are considered as preferential climate brokers, with social media and television the best media outlets to disseminate messages. Overall, the focus of climate change messages should be upon the individual to demonstrate specific and realistic narratives through communication. Standardisation of messages with a strong focus on awareness raising and education can also be effective routes to influencing change. The findings of our research have the potential to instigate and create real change within the tourism industry, not only within Croatia, but internationally. The findings seek to support tourism destinations (DMOs and stakeholders) in planning and successfully delivering tourism products in a future where climate change is inevitable.

There are only 14 peaks in the world (The 14) which rise above 8000 metres altitude into the so called ‘Death Zone’ where oxygen is 30% less than at sea-level. The race to conquer these mountains after WW2 by European powers was fueled by nationalistic, imperial, and colonial sentiments which saw The 14 as great symbols of racial, technological, and militaristic prowess. Themes of affective nationalism, including glorified sacrificial deaths, have been central to the high-altitude mountaineering tourism imaginary. Over the last century, hundreds of precarious local workers, as well as international tourists, have died chasing fame, glory, and transcendent experiences in the Death Zone. This thesis is saturated with visceral stories and themes of death – the deaths of workers and tourists, epistemological reflexivity in spaces of death, death-related personal traumas, and finally Death Zone imaginaries. From March until August, 2019, I conducted ethnographic field research at the Mount Everest and K2 basecamps in Nepal and Pakistan, going as high as Camp 2 on Mount Everest (6500 metres). Emic, corporeal, phenomenal, and emotionally reflexive approaches have been applied to gather embodied knowledges of the high-altitude phenomenon. Alongside this, I conducted 75 in-depth interviews with 92 participants, and recorded daily field notes and photographic observations. A key contribution of this research has been to engage in emotionalized epistemological reflexivity which reveals how a researcher’s emotions are integral to knowing spaces. This thesis’ contribution to tourism studies occurs through examining The 14, the Death Zone, mountaineering imaginaries, and high-altitude performances through a bricolage of philosophical approaches. The main thrust of analysis utilizes theories from the emotional geographies, but also pieces together psychoanalytic fantasy, draws on key existential theories (anxiety, authenticity, alienation), incorporates aspects of postmodern deconstruction and de-colonial trajectories. This bricolage approach sophisticates the analysis of emotions and affects, situating the emotionalized narratives of high-altitude climbers amongst the major philosophical canons. Tourism in the Death Zone examines the personal, subjective, emotionalized content of the attachment which leads the high-altitude climber into negotiations with the imagined, liminal spaces of high-altitude mountaineering. As such, tourists’ and workers’ emotionalized desires and fantasies of authentic being, attachments which compel the climber towards the summit, are explored throughout. The structure of the thesis utilizes the central metaphors of the stage, the performance, and the audience or ‘vicarious publics’; each has the capacity to affect and be affected, to compel participants towards action. This approach to the analysis of emotions and affects creates a complete loop between tourist/worker/actor/performances-to-stage/imaginary-to-audiences. Emotions and affects are explored relationally from different subject positions; workers feel the spaces and performances of high-altitude mountaineering differently than tourists, just as women do from men. Each participant subjectively appropriates their own meanings (attachments) which orient their doing of Everest or The 14; some seek to be liberated from the anxiety of historical traumas such as the death of a loved one, others view the ‘space’ of Himalayan mountaineering as a stage to exercise gendered agency as a form of resistance. These subjectively liberating interactions with the place and space of high-altitude mountaineering reveal how spatial interactions attach personal meanings while simultaneously acceding to concretized spatial representations – they both produce and consume spatial meanings. This research contributes to the emotional geographies in tourism studies for its depth of exploration into emotionalized journeys and lived realities of the tourism phenomenon.

This study explores destination stakeholders' perceptions of volunteer tourism (VT) using equity theory. In this paper, 26 semi-structured interviews were conducted to understand individuals' needs, motivations, expectations and their assessments of inputs and outcomes. Equity theory sheds light on the micro-level of interaction between residents and volunteers and demonstrates why and how residents of Cusco (Peru) with an active role in VT develop certain perceptions in direct encounters with volunteer tourists. The data reveal how perceptions differ according to the respondents' social roles within VT. Heterogeneity, dynamism and a fluctuation between materialities and affection are discussed as important outcomes of these interactions.

Drawing on the critique of ideology elaborated by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, in this conceptual paper we rethink responsible tourism. More specifically, in line with Žižek’s argument that ideology is closely linked to reality and not a dreamlike illusion, we reconceptualise the ideological character of responsible tourism. This ideological character, we propose, is fundamentally rooted in real global issues, and often inadvertently and implicitly sustains the mechanism of modern global capitalism. Although responsible tourism has been a powerful unifier among tourism stakeholders, we argue that its critical conceptual considerations have not yet been given sufficient robust reflection. Hence, in this conceptual paper, we rethink responsible tourism through the lens of ideology contributing to further knowledge about this topic. In doing so, we analyse two key policy documents: the Cape Town (2002) and Kerala (2008) Declarations from which the term of responsible tourism originated. Following Žižek’s critique of ideology, we aspire to shape more inclusive and effective sustainable and responsible development as advocated by the Sustainable Development Goals and responsible tourism stakeholders. Furthermore, the novel interjection of the Žižekian concept of ideology to the context of responsible tourism opens up new theoretical possibilities for critical tourism studies.

Our presentation reports on a Living Lab research project set up in 2022 by Leeds Beckett University and The Travel Foundation to explore the practical support needed by destinations to commit to and implement Climate Action under the Glasgow Climate Declaration (GCD). The aim being to understand the enablers and barriers to climate action for destinations. Principally the research sought to: •Examine the state of development of Climate Action Plans (CAPs) across a sample of signatory destinations; •Examine the issues involved, challenges and enablers in developing CAPs; and •Elicit the barriers to involvement in the GCD and CAPs amongst a sample of non- signatory destinations (primarily from the Global South). Desk research facilitated two subsequent rounds of data collection. First, one-to-one online interviews were held with 17 signatory destination management organisations (DMOs) comprising national, regional, and local (city/town) levels. The DMOs provided geographic representation from North America, Latin America, and Europe. Second, to understand the barriers and challenges to climate action planning, 7 online interviews/focus groups took place with 12 participants from a sample of non-signatories to the Glasgow Climate Declaration. Representation within this group was predominantly from national organisations and the geographic representation was from Africa and Latin America. The empirical research findings highlighted key barriers as (but not limited to) a lack of clear and relevant climate policies and regulation; lack of funds; poor understanding of the scope and sphere of the destination management organisation itself; literacy, and technical knowledge across the destination; and a lack of data sharing and user-friendly measurement tools. In contrast enablers included a clear mandate and resources available for the CAP; availability and use of funding; integrated, clear, and effective governance to mainstream climate action; strong partnerships and effective communication to engage all stakeholders; and climate literacy training; advocacy and capacity building across the destination. To this end our research identified several areas in which Climate Action Planning can be moved forward, namely via guidance on how to develop CAPs; clarity on climate action communication and terminology; knowledge exchange and transfer; and clarification of stakeholder roles and responsibilities.

In this paper we reflect on the challenges of ethnographic fieldwork in tourism research. Specifically, we discuss the intense, messy and complex dynamics of doing (tourism) ethnographic fieldwork, highlighting how key challenges have affected us as researchers, our practises, relationships, and experiences in the field. Our reflections are illustrated considering respectively our research experiences of mountaineering in the Himalayas, walking tourism in China, horse-riding tourism in the UK and volunteer tourism in Peru. Although these fields have very different social and geopolitical contexts, we experienced similar issues. Our most commonly experienced challenges include time limitations, having ‘enough data’, accessibility to the informants and rapport-building. Through the discussion of these challenges, we unpack the often conflicting emotional contours of fieldwork which are commonly experienced but rarely spoken of. With this paper, we seek to open critical debates on the emotional aspects of tourism research which may be particularly useful for novice ethnographers and scholars constrained by the institutionalised pressures of academia.