Call for Papers | Sociology of Tourism
Coordinators:
Natália Azevedo [FLUP/IS-UP]
Graça Joaquim, ESHTE/CIES.ISCTE.IUL
João Filipe Marques [FE/UALG]
The chaos we witnessed during the summer of 2022, in practically all western airports demonstrated that humanity was globally eager to travel. Neither the immeasurable lines for check-in, nor the nights spent in the airports, could stop those who wanted to travel during the summer holidays. The periods of confinement due to the pandemic seem to have fueled an unrestrained desire for tourist travel that most airlines and operators couldn’t anticipate. The impulses for tourism seem to be deeply and definitively rooted in the culture of this «late modernity. »
But even in the act of vacation traveling, the idea of the polarization of contemporary societies - the motto of the XII Portuguese Congress of Sociology - is present. While tourists, anguished with the delay or cancellation of their flights, crowded the airports of the global West, hundreds of migrants huddle in the fragile vessels that sail from South to North of the Mediterranean.
This polarization is also seen in the increase in the volume of urban tourism and the consequent tourism gentrification, catalysts of anti-tourism sentiments that are also fueled by the housing crisis that is currently being experienced in many Portuguese cities. In the lack of a model of sustainable tourism development, the Disneyfication of the historical centers of many towns in contexts of strong inequalities generates feelings of loss of identity and promotes the questioning of the benefits of tourism for the residents. The great diffusion of digital hosting platforms is not unrelated to these processes.
It's easy to see that these different forms of polarization of contemporary societies constitute important challenges for sociology. The fact that Portugal was distinguished, in 2022, for the 5th consecutive time, with the prize of best tourist destination in the world by the World Travel Awards increases the responsibility of Portuguese sociology.
The Thematic Section Sociology of Tourism invites all sociologists and other social scientists who have tourism phenomena as objects of study, reflection, or intervention to send their communication proposals and/or posters to the XII Portuguese Congress of Sociology. This invitation is addressed not only to academic colleagues who dedicate their research and teaching tasks to tourism but also to all those who have tourism as an element of their professional activity (e.g. at the municipal or business levels).
We are convinced that after the success of the I Conference on Sociology of Tourism that took place at the University of Algarve between the 7th and 9th of April 2022, organized by the Sociology of Tourism Thematic Section, the next Portuguese Congress of Sociology will also bring together a significant number of researchers and professionals in this area.
The rules and deadlines to consider for the submission of abstracts, as well as more information about the XII Portuguese Congress of Sociology, can be consulted on the APS website at http://www.aps.pt.
The Thematic Section's coordination will select the best communications to be proposed for publication in the journal SOCIOLOGIA ON LINE.
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