Liminal landscapes: re-mapping the field
Symposium
Liverpool John Moores University
1st July 2010
Convenors
Dr Hazel Andrews, (Tourism, Consumer and Food Studies, LJMU)
Dr Kevin Meethan, (Department of Sociology, University of Plymouth)
Dr Les Roberts (School of Architecture, University of Liverpool)
Ideas and concepts of liminality have long shaped debates around the
uses and practices of space in tourism. Victor Turner's writings on
ritual and communitas, Graburn's theory of tourism as a sacred journey,
or Shield's discussion of 'places on the margin' have secured a
well-established foothold in the theoretical landscapes of travel and
mobility. The unique qualities of liminal landscapes, as developed by
these and other writers on the subject, are generally held to be those
which play host to ideas of the ludic, consumption, carnivalesque,
inversion or suspension of normative social and moral structures of
everyday life, deterritorialisation and 'becoming', and so on. While
these arguments and tropes remain pertinent, and their metaphorical
appeal evermore attractive, the extent to which these spaces provoke
counter ideas of social control, terror, surveillance, production and
territorialisation, invites an urgent call to re-evaluate the meanings
attached to ideas of the 'liminal' in tourism studies. The deaths of 21
Chinese migrant workers in Morecambe Bay in 2004 has prompted a sobering
re-assessment of the coastal resort as a site of tourism, leisure and
consumption. The shifting social geographies associated with these
landscapes has meant that the example of the beach may equally be looked
upon as a space of transnational labour, migrancy, racial tension,
death, fear, uncertainty and disorientation. In this instance, the
precarious and unnavigable natural landscape of Morecambe sands becomes
a metonym for the increasingly de-stabilising landscapes of trans- or
post-national capitalist mobility. Moreover, the settlement of asylum
seekers and refugees in UK coastal resorts such as Margate has exposed
the underlying tensions and social divisions between representations
that play on the ludic, touristic heritage of these resorts and those
which address the marginality and exclusion that characterises the other
set of mobilities and meanings evoked by these spaces. In addition, the
appropriation of liminal landscapes by, for example, local authorities,
commercial bodies and marketeers constructs an increasingly mediated or
textualised space of performance that re-fashions the embodied (and
embedded) spaces as lived by those who make up their diverse social
fabric.
We invite contributions from across a broad interdisciplinary field,
including scholars and practitioners working in tourism and mobility
studies, anthropology, geography, film and cultural studies. We also
invite multimedia submissions on the topic of liminal landscapes.
For enquiries and further details contact Dr Hazel Andrews
(H.J.Andrews /at/ ljmu.ac.uk).
Please submit proposals for papers (300 words maximum) by e-mail to
(H.J.Andrews /at/ ljmu.ac.uk). We also welcome proposals for panels and
exhibits.
Deadline for proposals: 30 September 2009
Notification of acceptance: November 2009
Date for Registration: March 2010
Deadline for submission of papers: 30 April 2010
Papers selected from the conference proceedings will be published in
Journal of Tourism Consumption and Practice
(www.tourismconsumption.org.).
--
Dr Les Roberts
Research Associate
School of Architecture
University of Liverpool
Leverhulme Building
Abercromby Square
Liverpool
L69 3BX
T: +44 (0)151 794 2631
F: +44 (0)151 794 2605
(les.roberts /at/ liverpool.ac.uk)
http://www.liv.ac.uk/lsa/cityinfilm/
