[csaa-forum] Call for Papers – Travel and Transformation

[Garth Lean]

***** Apologies for cross posting *****

Travel and Transformation•

Edited by: Garth Lean, Russell Staiff and Emma Waterton (University of Western Sydney, Australia)

Travel and tourism have a long association with the notion of transformation, both in terms of self and social collectives. As Bruner (1991) pointed out some two decades ago, this is not all too surprising, given the ubiquity of quips such as ‘a trip to remember’ or ‘a trip of a lifetime’ within the marketing material that accompanies the tourism industry. What is surprising, however, is that this association has, on the whole, remained relatively underexplored and unchallenged, with little in the way of a balanced corpus of academic literature surrounding these themes. Instead, much of the literature remains focused upon describing and categorising tourism and travel experiences from a supply-side perspective and taxonomising travellers on the basis of their level of involvement and interest. Occasional forays into theory have generated some important milestone contributions but there have been few new attempts at a rigorous re-theorisation of the issues. Thus, while threads of research have emerged that take ‘transformation’ seriously, these have tended to focus upon particular niches – study abroad, backpacking, volunteer tourism, nature-based recreation and so forth. The opportunity to explore the general socio-cultural phenomenon of transformation through travel has thus far been missed (Lean 2009).

This Call for Papers aims to attend to this lacuna in the literature, reflecting upon what it means to transform through travel in a modern, mobile world. We seek contributions from a multidisciplinary cohort (including, but certainly not limited to: geographers, sociologists, cultural researchers, philosophers, anthropologists, visual researchers, historians and literary scholars), who are researching and considering notions of experience, mobility and affect, all of which seem central to the idea of ‘transformation’. As a catalyst for ideas, but in no way a restrictive list, possible themes might include:


·         Travel as an agent of personal, social and/or cultural transformation, in both modern and historical contexts;

·         Representations of transformation through travel in movies, literature, art, performances, photographs, family histories…;

·         Travel and transformation from non-western perspectives;

·         Transformation through non-physical travel – imaginary, virtual, communicative, …;

·         The role of the senses in transformation – sight, sound, taste, smell and touch;

·         Transformation through travel in relation to gender, race, class, …;

·         Non-transformative travel and critiques of the promotion of travel as an agent of transformation;

The volume seeks contributions from a variety of physical and non-physical travel perspectives (such as migration, refugees, military service, virtual travel, imaginative travel, pilgrimage and so forth). We would also like to see proposals that reach beyond Western and textual representations, and that examine new methods for the investigation, analysis and presentation of travel and its impact upon travellers, societies and cultures. Travel and transformation can be defined as contributors wish, and may remain undefined. While the book will incorporate chapters from established figures, we also encourage submissions from postgraduate students too. A word limit of 6–7,000 is proposed for each chapter (including references).

Writing Schedule:
Please submit chapter proposals (abstracts of up to 500 words) to the volume’s editors at g.lean at uws.edu.au<mailto:g.lean at uws.edu.au> by 9th March 2012, with decisions by the editors communicated by the early of April 2012. First drafts of accepted contributions will be due by the end of August 2012, with the full manuscript deliverable by the end of April 2013.

See attached for details on editors and references.

* This book proposal will be submitted as part of Current Developments in the Geographies of Leisure and Tourism, a book series of the Geographies of Leisure and Tourism Research Group with the Royal Geographical Society and the Institute of British Geographers (GLTRG) (Series Editors: Jan Mosedale and Caroline Scarles).

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Dr Garth Lean
Postdoctoral Fellow
School of Social Sciences (P.G.02, Kingswood Campus)
University of Western Sydney

Mail: Locked Bag 1791, Penrith NSW 2751, Australia

Phone: (+61) 02 4736 0350 (x2350) – Mobile: (+61) 0421 326 406 – Email: g.lean at uws.edu.au<mailto:g.lean at uws.edu.au> – Website: www.transformativetravel.com


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• This book proposal will be submitted as part of Current Developments in the Geographies of Leisure and Tourism, a book series of the Geographies of Leisure and Tourism Research Group with the Royal Geographical Society and the Institute of British Geographers (GLTRG) (Series Editors: Jan Mosedale and Caroline Scarles).
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