EMERGING TOURISM FUTURES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

EMERGING TOURISM FUTURES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
1st workshop of the Mediterranean Mobilities Research Group
Lancaster University Conference Centre, 7 July

Since its birth European tourism has been inextricably linked to the Mediterranean. Today this sea stands as the world> '> s first tourist destination and tourism is entangled in virtually every realm of life in the Mediterranean, from terrorism, corruption or drug smuggling to gender and ethnic relations, migration, and environmental awareness.

Current geopolitical transformations and intensified processes of globalization have produced a new form of radical uncertainty for the 21st century which is opening up a plethora of new possibilities for the evolution of tourism in the region. Growing demand of luxury goods and landscapes, deindustrialisation, economic polarisation, expansion of illicit economies, cheap flights, rapid urbanisation of the coastline, growing flows of migrants from the South and East, escalation of military conflicts, tensions surrounding energy supply -> these are traces in the emerging and uncertain landscape of Mediterranean life.

This workshop will reflect on the way that tourism futures are being constructed by recent developments. The presentations will address aspects of Mediterranean tourisms in a way that elicit discussion about emerging patterns in the evolution of these leisure practices and its implications for future developments in the region.

This focus on emerging futures is part of a wider concern in the social sciences to keep pace with a changed and changing world. The popularity of tropes of emergence and becoming in social research partly reflect the anxieties in apprehending the complexity, provisionality and indeterminacy of novelty in social life. This workshop will also offer a possibility to reflect upon the ways in which our own anxieties of 'being behind' and our own future orientations in imagining tourism are shaping the research agenda on tourism in the Mediterranean.

This is the first in a series of workshops organised by the Mediterranean Mobilities Research Group-CeMoRe aimed at advancing our understanding of how the transnationalisation of forms of life and places is shaping the Mediterranean. Further information about the can be found in the link below.

Mediterranean Mobilities Research Group