Browsing by Subject "Tourism"

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African diaspora in reverse : the Tabom people in Ghana, 1820s-2009
(2010-05) Essien, Kwame; Falola, Toyin
The early 1800s witnessed the exodus of former slaves from Brazil to Africa. A number of slaves migrated after gaining manumission. Others were deported after they were accused of committing various “crimes” and after slave rebellions. These returnees established various communities and identities along the coastline of West Africa, but Historians often limit the scope to communities that developed in Benin, Togo and Nigeria. My dissertation fills in this gap by highlighting the obscured history of the Tabom people—the descendants of Afro-Brazilian returnees in Ghana. The study examines the history of the Tabom people to show the various ways they are constructing their identities and how their leaders are forging ties with the Brazilian government, the Ghanaian government, and institutions such as UNESCO. The main goal of the Tabom people is to preserve their history, to underscore the significance of sites of memories, and to restore various historical monuments within their communities for tourism. The economic consciousness contributed to the restoration of the “Brazil House” in Accra which was opened for tourism on November 15, 2007, after a year of repairs through the support of the Brazilian Embassy and various institutions in Ghana. This watershed moment not only marked an important historical event and the birth of tourism within the Tabom community, but epitomized decades of attempts to showcase the history of the Afro-Brazilian community which has been obscured in Ghanaian school curriculum and African diaspora history. My central thesis is that the initiatives by the Tabom people are not only influenced by economic interests, but also by the need to express the “dual” identities that underlie what it means to the “Ghanaian-Brazilian.” The efforts by the Tabom leaders to project their dual heritage, led to the visit by Brazilian President Luiz Inácios Lula da Silva “Lula” in April 2005, who also graciously supported the restoration of the “Brazil House.” Through these interactions Lula extended an invitation to the Tabom chief and members of the community to visit Brazil for the first time. This dissertation posits that Lula’s invitation highlight notions that the African Diaspora is an unending journey.
Architectural Design and Urban Planning
(1988-10-03) Duany, Andres
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A behavioral framework for tourism travel time use and activity patterns
(2010-08) Lamondia, Jeffrey; Bhat, Chandra R. (Chandrasekhar R.), 1964-; Walton, Michael; Machemehl, Randy; Abrevaya, Jason; McCray, Talia
American households spend over $30 billion on tourism and take over 177 million long-distance leisure trips each year. These trips, and the subsequent vehicle miles traveled, have a significant impact on the transportation systems at major destinations across the country, especially those destinations that are still improving their transportation systems. Surprisingly, not much is known related to this type of travel. This dissertation expands the current knowledge of tourism travel behavior, in terms of how people make decisions regarding long-distance leisure activities and time use. Specifically, this dissertation develops and comprehensively examines a behavioral framework for household tourism time use and activity patterns. This framework combines (and builds upon) theory and methods from both transportation and tourism research fields such that it can be used to improve tourism demand modeling. This framework takes an interdisciplinary approach to describe how long distance leisure travelers allocate and maximize their time use across various types of activities. It also considers the many levels of tourism time use and activity patterns, including the structuring the broad annual leisure activity and time budget, forming individual tourism trips within the defined budget, and selecting specific activities and timing during each distinct tourism trip. Subsequently, this dissertation will additionally apply the time use and activity participation behavioral framework to four critical tourism research topics to demonstrate how the tourism behavioral framework can effectively be used to provide behavioral insights into some of the most commonly studied critical tourism issues. These application topics include household participation in broad tourism travel activities, travel parties’ tourism destination and travel mode selection, individuals’ loyalty towards daily and tourism activities, and travel parties’ participation in combinations of specific tourism trip activities. These application studies incorporate a variety of data sources, decision makers, study scales, situation-appropriate modeling techniques, and economic/individual/environmental factors to capture all aspects of the decision and travel activity-making process.
Elizabeth Diller: Regarding the Proper in Architecture
(0000-00-00) Diller, Elizabeth
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Estudios Sociales: Revista de Investigación Científica, Número 41, Enero-Junio 2013
(Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo, 2013-01) Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo
Estudios Sociales: Revista de Investigación Científica, Número 46, Julio-Diciembre 2015
(Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo, 2015-07) Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo
Estudios Sociales: Revista de Investigación Científica, Número 47-2, Enero-Junio 2016
(Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo, 2016-01) Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo
Estudios Sociales: Revista de Investigación Científica, Número Especial, 2010
(Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo, 2010) Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo
Finding myselfie : reflections on a changing visual language
(2016-05) Keapproth, Lukas Kiel; DeCesare, Donna; Todd, Russell
A search for the hashtag “selfies” on Instagram brings up over 16 million images uploaded in the last 24 hours. These millions of faces come in all shapes and sizes from all over the world. Each assumes that selfies are a universal visual language enabling direct communication with friends, family and an anonymous sea of internet users. Many social network users post their images to mark personal milestones or while traveling to some of earth’s most beautiful landmarks. What causes these selfie-takers to turn from the fascinating world around them, instead drawn toward a mirror and a focus on themselves? The general conversation of analyzing selfies tends toward polarized views, with many, if not most, viewing selfie-taking as a shallow exercise and a sign of narcissism. What is lacking in such conversations is a more complex understanding of how selfies are used and why they continue to impact daily communications in our increasingly networked world. This report features photos and interviews with selfie-takers at some of the busiest tourist destinations in the world, documenting their behavior and personal reflections on what selfies mean. These are considered along with media articles and some of the latest research from a variety of academic fields to complicate our understanding of this new and rapidly growing social phenomenon and mode of communication.
From disease to desire : Panama and the rise of the Caribbean vacation
(2016-05) Scott, Blake Charles; Guridy, Frank Andre; Garrard-Burnett, Virginia; Lawrence, Mark Atwood; Raby, Megan; Sutter, Paul S.
This dissertation traces the historical “roots” and “routes” of a transnational tourism industry stretching from the Straits of Florida to the Isthmus of Panama. The project describes the emergence of a quintessential “Caribbean vacation” and critically examines ideas and social practices guiding U.S. travelers comfortably into the tropics. Focusing on historical linkages embedded in a key trade route – coalescing at the Isthmus of Panama – the dissertation shows how leisure travel reshaped the history of U.S.-Caribbean relations. The building of the Panama Canal between 1904 and 1914 marked a profound shift in U.S. traveling culture. Modern tourism emerged within the crucible of U.S. empire building and its associated cultural, scientific, and infrastructural developments. My research documents this history through the stories of a wide range of travelers who helped shape and define the Caribbean’s tourism industry. By paying close attention to specific cases of mobility and sometimes immobility, the dissertation analyzes broader trends that still effect the tourist experience. Chapters highlight the stories of U.S. frontiersmen who became tourist entrepreneurs in the early twentieth century; national elites in Panama and Cuba who turned liberal aspirations of progress and desirable immigration into tourism development; naturalists and explorers from the Smithsonian who produced knowledge not only for science but also for tourists in search of adventure and discovery in exotic lands; and traveling writers from the “Lost Generation” who articulated new motivations and means of escape for folks at home tired of the drudgery of modern life. These diverse social groups have rarely, if ever, been analyzed in relation to the Caribbean’s modern tourism industry. Their ideas and their travels, I show, influenced the way generations of tourists dreamed of and experienced the Caribbean.
Geographies of confinement : America's carceral bulwark, 1973-2022
(2022-11-28) Barber, Judson Grant; Thompson, Shirley Elizabeth; Hoelscher, Steven D; Meikle, Jeffrey L; Smith, Mark C
This study examines two distinct planes along which prisons have become naturalized in the United States during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, paying special attention to the ways in which the carceral institution has been used to generate capital value. Focusing on museums and tourist attractions, narrative fiction, visual media, and real estate development in rural California, this study considers the prison’s novel importance to the cultural and economic function and survival of the state and nation at-large. The proliferation of the prison, in both real space and the cultural imaginary, has produced barriers to abolition that now appear indestructible and insurmountable. The primary attempt in this study is to demonstrate why and where these barriers now exist, and to consider what cultural and economic revolutions must occur for the prison to be supplanted by more productive, equitable, and just alternatives as activists and academics have championed for decades. The prison, like taxes or insurance, is one of many things we have come to assume the existence and necessity of in American culture. This assumption is so deeply rooted that we’ve lost the ability to analyze its integrity objectively and critically. This interdisciplinary project contributes to discourses in cultural geography, museum studies, and carceral studies by examining the prison as a broad cultural event rather than as a narrow social or political issue, locating the crux of abolition most prominently in economic dependence and cultural assumption.
The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky
(C.G. Darnall, 1890) Panton, J. Hoyes
Marfa, Texas : a historical and cultural geography
(2014-05) Shafer, Mary Kathleen; Adams, Paul C.; Hoelscher, Steven D.; Butzer, Karl; Lewis, Randy; Zonn, Leo
Marfa is a town in far west Texas, three hours to the nearest commercial airport and one hour from the U.S.-Mexico border. The cultural landscape of Marfa includes a historic yet dying ranching community plagued by drought, as well as the remnants of a former military fort turned modern art museum. Marfa’s slow shift from being just another small town to the darling of the art world has taken over twenty years, and its placement on a global cultural map has contributed to the commoditization of its place. Its evolution has been the work of its full and part time residents: those artists and arts patrons who were inspired to migrate to Marfa because of the artist Donald Judd. These people stayed because they saw the same potential and beauty that originally drew the legendary artist in the early 1970s, and by way of their actions Marfa has developed into a remarkable center of tourism that is no longer dependent on Donald Judd’s vision. The goal of this study is to investigate the space and place of Marfa using a range of methods from cultural geography and will contain a visual component. This multiperspectival approach will provide a historical picture of Marfa’s shifting identity from ranching and railroad to art and tourism, against a background of a largely Hispanic community.
Music and tourism in Cusco, Peru: culture as a resource
(2009-05) LaBate, Elizabeth Ann; Slawek, Stephen
This dissertation explores music in Cusco, Peru found in the festivals and other performance contexts related to tourism. The central thesis considers what happen when culture becomes a resource for socio-economic development. First the historical emergence of culture as a resource is examined through the discourse of international agencies, folklorists, and travelers. Next, various contexts of music and tourism in Cusco highlight specific examples of culture as a resource, such as Inti Raymi, other raymi festivals, the pilgrimage of Señor de Qoyllur rit’i, dinner show restaurants, and nightclubs. In each example, I discuss the history of the performance context, the musical repertoire, opportunities for musicians, and how local people keep the performance relevant to their lives. While critics have called cultural tourism a devil’s bargain and proponents have called it a panacea to under-development, I conclude that the real effects of culture as a resource in Cusco are more complex. I analyze the music in conjunction with social conditions of asymmetric power as the aestheticization of poverty.
Once you go you know : tourism, colonial nostalgia and national lies in Jamaica
(2012-05) Wint, Traci-Ann Simone Patrice; Gordon, Edmund Tayloe; Franklin, Maria
Jamaica is rich in contradictions. Life, like the landscape, is made up of great highs and lows, a wealth of beauty paralleled by intense desperation. This report explores these contradictions through an examination of the image of Jamaica packaged and presented to the world as a consumable tourism product. In 2012 as Jamaica prepares to celebrate 50 years of (in)dependence, the small nation finds itself battling (neo)colonialism, dependence, dispossession. Tourism is Jamaica’s main source of revenue and the industry is a major employer. The island’s role as a premier tourist destination is thus inseparable from Jamaicans’ daily lives. The current marketing slogan says to tourists ‘Once you go, you know”, I argue that this assertion is representative of the form tourism takes in Jamaica. By literally and figuratively granting understanding and ownership of the island and its resources to foreigners, the construction of Jamaica’s tourism product systematically commodifies Jamaica, its people, and culture. I seek to interrogate the role of tourism in Jamaica’s continued exploitation and to question the presence of secrecy, colonial nostalgia and national lies in how Jamaicans self identify and in how we are portrayed.
An outsider's view of the favela of Rocinha and its people
(2005-05-21) Carter, Joseph Coleman; Roberts, Bryan R., 1939-
In this thesis I explore the favela of Rocinha, in Rio de Janeiro, and its rich complexities. I will first give a brief history on favelas with particular emphasis on Rocinha. Then I will talk about the growing tourist industry that has begun to cater to tourists who wish to see the harsher realities of Rio de Janeiro. Over the course of six months during the year 2004, I documented the social and economic effects of tourism on Rocinha, as well as the reciprocal effects on foreign tourists. However, tourists are shown a very limited part of the favela. The parts of the favela that are not covered in the tours are precisely the poorest and most dangerous. During my residency in Rocinha I experienced a reality of the favela that the tours do not show. This led me to explore the most precarious areas of the favela and to see how their residents lived, including the neighborhood of Roupa Suja, where a significant number of residents survive by picking up trash. One of these residents is André Clemente dos Santos. The final part of the thesis is a documentary film on André’s life. The film is an example of the resourcefulness of the poorest favela residents in the absence of any social assistance or formal employment. The DVD reveals André’s economic condition, his relative social exclusion, and his dreams and aspirations
A project for tourism development in the Serra Gaúcha
(2013-05) Wahlberg, Molly Anne; Kelm, Orlando R., 1957-
In 2004, the Brazilian Ministry of Tourism launched the Tourism Regionalization Program (Roteiros do Brasil), which presented new prospects for Brazilian tourism through decentralized management. One of the goals of this program was to disperse Brazil’s tourism supply, predominantly located along the coast, and bring tourism to the interior of the country. Brazil’s formal recognition of the need for diversification of its tourist destinations was a positive step toward the development of a thriving Brazilian tourism market, but in the global tourism market, Brazil continues to be associated with a limited number of stereotypical attractions. Despite the advances achieved by the Tourism Regionalization Program, tourism remains geographically concentrated in cities such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. This research serves as an analysis of the lesser-known tourism market in the Serra Gaúcha region of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Through the use of fundamental qualitative research methods, namely semi-structure interviews and questionnaires completed by students and professionals involved with tourism—both in the Serra Gaúcha as well as outside of Brazil—I assess the current state of tourism to the region in order to formulate key recommendations for the development and improvement of the industry there. From the results, I conclude that the tourism boards of the municipalities throughout the Serra Gaúcha should join together to function regionally in order to more effectively market themselves as a desirable tourist destination and to compete on a national scale for tourists’ attention. In light of the magnified attention Brazil is enjoying due to its selection as the host for both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics, now is an optimal time for competitive touristic regions, such as the Serra Gaúcha, throughout Brazil to actively build their brand and pursue tourism development strategies tailored to their unique regional strengths and weaknesses.
Racial narratives in leisure landscapes : colonial tourism in Santo Domingo
(2020-05-15) Nimoh, Suzanne Yaa Boakyewa; Faria, Caroline; Vasudevan, Pavithra
This project analyzes the tourist landscape of Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. Through focusing on Zona Colonial in the 20th and 21st centuries, I analyze the neighborhood’s colonial architecture, and assert the landscape creates a national identity based on whiteness. I conduct a visual analysis of the city, using photographs I took myself and archival photographs from the Archivo General de la Nación in Santo Domingo. I read the built environment as a public archive through studying monuments, street names, and memorials in Zona Colonial, attending to structures created through Spanish colonial and US imperial influence. I examine my personal observations of the tourist neighborhood, interrogating the narratives performed in the landscape. I argue these architectural structures are instrumental in shaping collective memory around whiteness. Further, I analyze the contributions of US military occupation in Santo Domingo in promoting a Dominican national identity on anti-blackness, through their dissemination of anti-Haitian ideology. I continue by examining how Dominicans have used Zona Colonial to resist US imperialism. I center two instances of protest, and how critically examine the archives they come from and represent. Ultimately, I argue Zona Colonial creates a vision of heritage that centers Hispanicism and patriarchy, omitting African ancestry from images of Dominican national identity.
Religious rhetoric from the center to the periphery of public discourse in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain since 2011
(2020-05-05) Alrafaei, Dabya N.; Barany, Zoltan D.
Because religious rhetoric is so central to social and political commentary in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, no one expected to witness Ayedh al-Qarni, a central figure in the Saudi religious establishment, renounce and apologize for the Sahwa movement, which shaped the lived experience of Saudi and Bahraini society for decades. His apology in 2019 may have embodied the mainstream Saudi religious elites’ choice to accept co-optation and complacency in Mohammed bin Salman’s kingdom, but it also sprang from a broader shift in religion’s place within public discourse that began in the 2010s. This thesis traces and analyzes recent transformations in the religio-social sphere by mapping the shifting position of religious rhetoric from the center to the periphery of Saudi and Bahraini public discourse, and by situating this shift within the broader political and social transformations of the 2010s.
Revista Región y Sociedad, Número 17, Enero-Junio 1999
(El Colegio de Sonora, 1999-01) El Colegio de Sonora