ORIGINAL CALL

ISA RC50 Interim Conference 2025

Theme: HUMAN RIGHTS IN TOURISM:

Location & Dates: Fujisawa, Japan 19-22 June 2025

 

The Research Committee on International Tourism (RC50) of the International Sociological Association proposes an opportunity for those involved in the interdisciplinary social science of national/international tourism to engage with a plethora of salient human rights issues in tourism studies and thereby develop possible pathways for action and research on those subjects. The RC50 Team will organise a spectrum of sessions devoted to both empirical and conceptual studies on these subjects vis-à-vis travel, tourism, hospitality and events at the coming interim conference.

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The RC50 Team invites sessions which adopt or further a social/cultural studies orientation to tourism, hospitality and events in the following subfields:

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Authoritarian regimes

Gender and work in Asian economies

Discourse and power relations

Human rights and tourism education

“Truth” and power 

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Human rights issues in mega events

Labour and Employment

Matters of methods, identifying and assessing human rights risks

Decent work

Human and non-human welfare

Dignified work

Food, gastronomy

Fair work

Tourism with animals

The future of work

Volunteering

Migrant work

Rural revitalisation

Labour politics

Contribution to cultural practices

Informal labour

Media

Narratives of tourism employees

Art

Framing acts  

Heritage

(Post)disaster

Popular culture

Disasters and recovery

LGBTQ+ and non-binary identities

Language – lingua franca

Queering places

Freedom of travel and residence

Homonormativity

Mobility

Designing urban spaces

Accessible tourism

Gender and culture

Population movement

The women’s movement

Migration to rural areas

Feminism

Multi habitation

Feminist in the field

(Post)conflict

Performativity

Conflict-ridden destinations

Gender and political discourse

Silenced voices

Discourses of othering

Borderlands and walls

Tourism and the power of representations

Social (in)justice in tourism

Agency and authority in the representations of peoples, places, pasts and presents 

Recovery and resilience

The power of tourism: contested representations of people and places

Dark heritage

Settler-colonialism

Symbolic violence

Oppression in domination

Climate justice

A disciplinary, bio-power, and sovereign power

Inequality

Power of resistance & decolonisation of knowledge

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Practitioners and researchers from all countries and all faculties are cordially invited to submit proposals to organise sessions/workshops/panels under these particular (sub)headlines. Generally, the conference will carry on with the recent traditions of multi, trans-, and post-disciplinary avenues to national and international tourism. Besides these nominated topics, other topics that contribute to the sociology of tourism are also welcome. For each session, a chairperson is needed so that the Interim Conference Team appreciates it if the offered proposals are accompanied by an indication of who the chair for the session would be. 

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The deadline for session proposals is 4 JUNE 2024. Please send your proposals with a brief statement and preferably also a list of colleagues interested in the subject matter to:

 

Erdinç Çakmak Cakmak.e@buas.nl 

Rami K. Isaac Isaac.r@buas.nl.