The Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change (JTCC) is a peer-reviewed, transdisciplinary and transnational journal edited by Professor Mike Robinson (Sheffield Hallam University, UK) and Dr Alison Phipps (University of Glasgow, UK). This new journal focuses on critically examining the relationships, tensions, representations, conflicts and possibilities that exist between tourism/travel and culture/cultures in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex global context. Global capitalism, in its myriad forms engages with multiple 'ways of being', generating new relationships, re-evaluating existing, and challenging ways of knowing and being. Tourists and the tourism industry continue to find inventive ways to commodify, transform, present/re-present and consume "culture". The JTCC seeks to widen and deepen understandings of such changing relationships and stimulate critical debate. The JTCC seeks to address fundamental issues such as

• Local-global connectivity, transculturation and global ideological frameworks;
• The making and re-making of places, identities and pasts;
• The erosion, resistance and survival of traditions and local/ethnic cultural pattern;
• The changing forms of cultural expression in the contexts of the pre- and post- industrial, pre- and post-modern and the post-colonial world.
• The powerful creative dimension to tourism and cultural change that emerges in language and translation through approaches of literature, travel writing, language education, film, art and varieties of performance. For further information about submitting a paper or ordering this journal please contact Mike Robinson or go to the 'journal section' of the Channel View Publications website. via Anthro-L

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Ross Mayfield discusses online-games as social software: "What's interesting about virtual worlds is how when people meet each other in them their real identity is the least explicit of all the models. But gradually as they observe how each other acts in the game and chat, more clues are revealed about who they really are and trust increases. Modes of communication outside the gaming environment are commonly used and occassionally real world relationships are cemented by in-person meeting. Andrew pointed out that the ultimate test of trust is to hand over logins to someone else so they can literally walk in their virtual shoes. Kind of like giving the keys to your car and house in absence of insurance or rule of law." In his story he links to several other resources on the topic, too. via Ross Mayfield's Weblog

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Tiernan Ray has published an interesting article on blogging, called Why Blogs Haven't Stormed the Business World: "Whatever you may think of the publishing revolution known as blogging, the advent of technology for posting "top-of-mind" thoughts to a Web site is an intriguing development in Internet history. Weblogs, or "blogs" for short, dramatically ease the process of uploading simple kinds of content, thus facilitating a loosely organized kind of collaborative publishing. We're at an important moment in the evolution of such publishing, and it is worth pausing to reflect on how things could go terribly wrong. The main virtue of blogging is that it closes the arms gap between informed, individual users and official outlets of information. And it has potential not only in the public world, but also in the corporate sphere. "

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Seemingly the topic-complex of 'real vs. virtual' has spawned another related discussion: Can computergames be art? Matching the topic, ConfigSys.boy! has published a lengthy article called Arts and Electronic Entertainment, which spawned a lot of feedback here and here. (Prematurely jumping into the discussion, I already made a fool of myself over there). The newly published revised and expanded edition of a book by Oliver Grau deals with the same issue:

GRAU, OLIVER. 2003. Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion. Cambridge: MIT Press. [Rev. and expanded ed.]

"Virtual art is all too often precisely that - almost, but not quite, art. Much of Oliver Grau's book, especially the part dealing with immersive virtual reality environments, is replete with reservations about whether what he is writing about really qualifies as important art, given that it lacks the quality of distance that is essential for critical reflection. When one experiences a totally immersive environment one is in the image, and so one cannot step back to gain an overview, nor is one supposed to be aware of the illusion-creating technology used to produce the image. Moreover, as Grau points out, many examples of virtual art are suffused with mystical or mythological undertones that do not sit easily with the criticality and irony that are the hallmarks of today's art.". (Taken from the review by Michael Gibbs in Art Monthly. Read the complete review here.) Also related is a book by Mark Wolf:

WOLF, MARK J.P. (Ed.). 2002. The medium of the video game. Austin: University of Austin Press.

Wolf wants to get to grips with computergames by means of media sciences: "Currently, they [videogames] are best approached and analyzed using conceptual tools developed in film and television studies. The study of video games overlaps these fields in many theoretical areas, including those of the active spectator, suture, first person narrative, and spatial orientation, point of view, character identification, sound and image relations, and semiotics." Telepolis carries a recent article, called How to read videogames (in german), critically discussing Wolf's book. In there Tilman Baumgärtel writes: "Just recently the analysis of videogames by the humanities has started. In Germany it was not before last year, that two books were published which deal with computergames beyond the ever-resurfacing question 'do they make the youth violent?'." [my translation] Media sciences, the humanities ... but nobody mentions either cultural anthropology or online-communities clustering around games explicitly -- that's where my own project will jump in ;o) via Anthro-L, Telepolis, and ConfigSys.boy!

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I just found a Guide to Professional Skills for PhD Students: How to employ electronic media to make an academic carreer. A paper by Phil Agre,Department of Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles Is this too american?

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The ESRC Science in Society Programme has a new funding opportunity (up to £3000 per visit) to assist scholars actively researching the themes covered by the programme, to visit UK institutions for 3 to 10 days. We hope that such visits will promote international collaborations.

For full details see the programme website

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On 8, 9, and 10 of May 2003 the "5th European Colloquium on Ethnopharmacology: The cultural interbreeding in ethnopharmacology: from indigenous to scientific knowledges" will take place in Valencia, Spain: "Conceiving of science as a unique social and cultural product of Occidental civilisation is unfortunate. Many kinds of knowledge and practices related to health and disease have enjoyed currency across space and time in all human societies. Exchanges between the diverse visions of nature have advanced and continue to advance the wellbeing of humankind; medical exchanges can and should become advantageous and profitable for all. The International Congress, 5th European Colloquium on Ethnopharmacology, has been organised in this light, thus titled The cultural interbreeding in ethnopharmacology: from indigenous to scientific knowledges. Since we do not understand the cultural exchange to be unidirectional, we expect “interbreeding” to become the protagonist during the scientific development of the meeting. One of our goals is to establish, from a critical point of view, a model for communication and exchange between developed and developing countries concerning uses of natural remedies for public health. With that purpose, we intend to map the current state of scientific studies about medicinal properties of plants used by indigenous populations, as well as European folk medicinal plants; to map the current state of cataloguing indigenous floras; to study the possibilities of exploitation of the natural healing products of each world region by NGOs, and to continue with the study of the legislative framework in each country of the EC regarding safety control, sale and consumption of phytodrugs. It is our aim for the different approaches and points of view in the colloquium to continue the spirit of diversity in which ethnopharmacology emerged. Consistent with the intellectual plurality of this field of study, we anticipate that work shall be presented in terms of the subject-matter constituting the diverse disciplines contributing to ethnopharmacology, notably botany, pharmacology, ethnology, history, chemistry, medicine, and pharmacy, avoiding reductionism in approaches from any single science." See the website for indepth information, map of Valencia, and the preliminary program, downloadable as .pdfs in English and Spanish.

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Well, it already was way overdue, to tell you about this: "Anthro-L is a "list", an electronic bulletin board dedicated to friendly and scholarly discussion of anything pertaining to anthropology and its study. (Please note that the list's name ends in "L", not "one".) The list is run on Listserv software from the University at Buffalo, in Buffalo, New York, USA. Since its inception in 1985, Anthro-L has grown rapidly. Messages from the list currently reach several thousand subscribers of all ages and backgrounds and from over 46 countries. Subscription is open to all. While only subscribers may post, non-subscribers are encouraged to send relevant messages to the List Manager (see address at end of file). Anthro-L is a forum for the announcement and discussion of anthropological news, research, theories, publications, meetings, exhibits, and events, and for dialogue on matters relating to the discipline itself. We welcome contributions from anthropologists, professional or avocational, and from our colleagues in other fields. The day to day operations of the list are carried out by the List Manager. Matters of policy and conduct are overseen by a Board of Governors. The Board is composed of present/past managers and owners of the list." Please have a look at Danny Yee's Anthro-L Homepage (from which the above statement was taken), and the fully searchable Anthro-L archives. You'll find information on how-to-subscribe here and here.

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We are soliciting submissions for a collection of essays examining and implementing possible ways to present, represent, or perform the postfoundational (postmodern and/or poststructural) body/subject in autoethnography. Autoethnography, a qualitative research methodology which falls in the intersection of poststructural ethnography and autobiography, has predominately examined the body/subject of its focus as a modern self. Although much theoretical discussion has taken place around the intersection of postfoundational theories and qualitative research, few, if any, autoethnographies have been published which attempt to deal with the body/subject as a postfoundational phenomena. Thus, the question continues to arise, how would one write a postfoundational body/subject? What would a postfoundational body/subject "look" like? What are some possible modes of textualizing a postfoundational body/subject? We are interested in pieces that go beyond a theoretical discussion and embrace a wide variety of possible methods, including work that is poetic, fictional, performative, etc.

Submission should be made to the following: Jodi Kaufmann Department of Educational Psychology 325 Aderhold Hall University of Georgia Athens, GA

Works must be submitted on diskette, floppy or zip. Deadline for completed manuscripts is May 30, 2003. All inquires may be addressed to Jodi Kaufmann or Nathaniel Kohn. via Anthro-L

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The romanic seminar and the "Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien" of the Johannes-Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany stages a presentation series on "Literature and oral literature in Africa". Most of the presentations are in german, but there are some in English and French, too. Read the program here.

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The regional group "Africa" of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde (which equals to: "German Society for Social/Cultural Anthropology") has sent a CALL FOR PAPERS for their next conference, which will be held from 2. through 4. October 2003 in Hamburg, Germany. The topic of the call is: "Mobilität und kulturelle Identität. Methoden der Erforschung interethnischer Beziehungen in Afrika" ("Mobility and cultural identity: Methods for research on interethnical relationships in Africa"). Read the call (in german) here.

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Maybe someone from our workgroup tourism would like to comment on that project?

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