4-6 October 2007, York, United Kingdom

Organised by: Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change

Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, United Kingdom

The enforced, encouraged or voluntary movement, migration and dispersion of people over centuries and in recent years is reflected in the family backgrounds, life histories and cultural practices of communities in many countries, regions and cities worldwide. Mobilities associated with the processes of globalisation are demonstrably, if unevenly contributing to an acceleration of migration for more or less permanent, official and legal settlement of people beyond their ‘homelands’.

In many cases, diaspora communities have been subject to hostility and discrimination in their adopted countries and some remain relatively impoverished, marginalised and excluded >from ‘mainstream’ society. Others, in contrast have been more socially and economically successful and have either retained distinct diaspora community identities or have become more integrated with other communities over time.

Tourism has also grown substantially and unevenly in recent years, with tourists increasingly encouraged to attend and participate in ‘exotic’ and ‘characteristically authentic’ displays of community life in destinations visited. Such tourism typically features the packaging, promotion and consumption of diaspora community neighbourhoods, food and shopping and importantly festivals and cultural events.

The relationships between diaspora communities, festivity, cultural events and tourism are therefore of considerable interest to academic researchers, as well as for arts, social, cultural and tourism policy makers and practitioners in many countries.

Theoretical issues and themes to be explored at this conference include:

• Defining and conceptualising diasporas in connection with festivals and cultural events;

• Histories of diaspora communities’ mobilities and the transformation and adaptation of festivity and cultural events to new community circumstances and settings;

• Relationships between diaspora communities and the ‘homeland’ and expressions of collective memory through festivals and cultural events;

• The distribution and circulation of globalised diaspora festival forms – e.g. carnival, mela, Irish, Chinese, Jewish – religious and secular, established, emerging and contested;

• The role of diaspora festivals and cultural events in policies and programmes to promote community cohesion, crime reduction and anti-racism;

• Festivals, cultural events and the identities of diaspora community members -  inter-generational issues;

• Festivals, cultural events and the multi- (inter-) cultural city;

• Settings and spaces for diaspora festivals and cultural events;

• Issues surrounding new and recently introduced diaspora community festivals and cultural events;

• Performing diaspora community arts through festivals;

• Diaspora tourism markets.
  

In the tradition of the Journeys of Expressions conference series, we wish to encourage an interdisciplinary debate on the suggested themes and welcome paper proposals >from academics from various disciplinary backgrounds including: tourism studies, festival studies, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, cultural geography, politics, etc.

If you wish to submit a paper proposal, please send a 300-word abstract with full address and institutional affiliation details as an electronic file to Dr. Philip Long ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

The deadline for the reception of abstracts is 16 April 2007. Please find regularly updated information regarding this conference, registration procedures and (at a later stage) a programme at our website www.tourism-culture.com.