Workshop and panel brings experts to King's to rethink tourism

From July 29-31, 2024, King’s hosted “(Re)Theorising Touristic Governance in the Shadow of Empire,” an international, interdisciplinary workshop co-organized by Dr. Kristin Lozanski, an Associate Professor of Sociology.

“We were able to bring together people not only from a range of disciplines but also from around the world and from different stages in their careers. This incredible diversity of intellectual perspectives and research experiences resulted in rich discussions and created a platform from which to think about tourism in more critical ways,” says Dr. Lozanski.

Scholars from Canada, Brazil, China, Germany, Costa Rica, the United Kingdom, and the United States attended the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-funded workshop on the impact of tourism as a political force. Dr. Lozanski organized the workshop along with Dr. Elisa Wynne-Hughes (University of Cardiff), and Dr. Sarah Becklake (Leibniz University Hannover).

“Tourism is something that we do not typically associate with power. Yet tourism happens across international borders and people are not equally able to cross those borders. For instance, it is easy for a Canadian to travel to Jamaica as a tourist, but not so easy for a Jamaican to travel to Canada. Considering tourism through lenses of power and inequality will give people another way to think about what it means to be a tourist,” says Dr. Lozanski.

As part of the workshop, a public panel, titled “The Global Politics of Tourism,” was held on July 29, 2024. The panel brought together international scholars, including Jaquie Jamieson (Six Nations Tourism of the Grand River), Jennifer Devine (Texas State University), Biance Freire-Medeiros (University of São Paolo), Waleed Hazbun (University of Alabama), and Dominic Lapointe (Université du Québec) to discuss how tourism shapes our daily lives, has transformed our world, and has become a globally powerful phenomenon. Sharlene Mollett (University of Toronto) served as moderator.

Dr. Lozanski hopes the discussion will help people understand the ways in which tourism impacts host communities. “While we often think of tourism as a leisure activity that contributes economically to a country or a region, that financial benefit comes at a cost. We hope that our panel provided a forum to discuss the complexities and contradictions associated with tourism.”

The panel took place in Darryl J. King Student Life Centre and was live-streamed via Zoom.

In addition to the panel, closed workshops were held to discuss papers prepared by participants as well as to lay the foundation for a global network of critical tourism scholars.