*CFP* "MEDIATING TRAVEL: DIGITAL MEDIA, TOURISM, AND THE COSMOPOLITAN SELF IN A HYPERCONNECTED WORLD", IUAES 2019 PANEL

We would like to invite paper submissions to the IUAES 2019 panel on "Mediating Travel: Digital Media, Tourism, and the Cosmopolitan Self in a Hyperconnected World", co-convened by Regev Nathansohn (Department of Communication, Sapir Academic College) and Christian Ritter (MEDIT, Tallinn University).

Panel title:

Mediating Travel: Digital Media, Tourism, and the Cosmopolitan Self in a Hyperconnected World [Commission on the Anthropology of Tourism]

Short abstract:

Digital media technologies have transformed the relationships between hosts and guests in tourist places. Inviting theoretical and empirical contributions from the global south and north, this panel seeks to gain new understandings of the mutual shaping of cosmopolitan selves and digital media.

Long abstract:

Digital media technologies have profoundly reshaped travel practices and tourist places. The Internet and digital platforms created a new realm of experience within the global tourism industry, transforming the complex relationships between hosts and guests. On the one hand, tourist blogs disseminate travel narratives and visual representations of tourism sites while reconfiguring the manifold tourism imaginaries. On the other hand, tourism organizations adapt to the ubiquitous use of mobile devices in everyday life by circulating more audio-visual content about tourist destinations. In addition to tourism agencies, mobile applications mediate among tourism actors at the global-local nexus. The authenticity of tourism actors, services and objects is increasingly staged on the screens of mobile devices, changing tourism culture in unprecedented ways. From Airbnb to augmented reality apps new possibilities for solidarity between hosts and guests and for the discovery of tourism sites are enabled, and sometimes prevented. 

Bringing together tourism scholars who ethnographically explore the digitalization of tourism, and digital ethnographers who study the field of tourism, this panel seeks to gain new understandings of the mutual shaping of cosmopolitan selves and digital media.

We invite theoretical contributions and empirical case studies on the different roles of digital media in contemporary tourism in the global south and north. In what ways does digitalization reshape cosmopolitan selves and solidarities between locals and tourists? How is the authenticity of subjectivities digitally mediated and interpreted in a context of widening dissemination of fake information? What are the epistemological consequences of studying digitized tourist places?

Paper Proposal Submission

Submission guidelines

Submission portal

Deadline: 15 February 2019