Call for Papers for American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Conference 2025, Detroit is open

We invite researchers to submit a paper for Call for Papers for American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Conference, session called "Resilience in Critical Tourism Geographies: Sustainability Transformations in the Era of Polycrisis". The session is organized by Jarkko Saarinen, University of Oulu (Finland) and Joseph M. Cheer, Western Sydney University (Australia), and jointly sponsored by the AAG Recreation, Tourism & Sport Specialty Group, IGU Commission on Geography of Tourism, Leisure and Global Change, and Tourism Geographies.

Session description

Resilience has become an important framework for thinking about the relationship between tourism and change, its governance, and how to transform the industry towards enhancing sustainability in the future (Cheer et al., 2019; Cheer & Lew, 2018; Hall et al, 2017; Lew & Cheer, 2018; Saarinen and Gill, 2019). There are varying ways to understand what resilience means and how it relates to the ideas of sustainable development. In general, resilience refers to the capacity of a unit or a system to prepare for, respond to, and recover from internal or external adverse events and shocks, while maintaining their capacity to function and develop (Folke, 2016).

Resilience is often seen as a condition but not sufficient for sustainability (Derisses et al., 2011), meaning that coping and adapting to change may be an expression of resilience but not necessarily sustainable in the long term. Indeed, resilience is a highly complex set of relationships and at varying operational scales (Boschma, 2014), and it can potentially involve both positive and negative aspects for sustainability (e.g., a high resilience can lock-in a system toward a path of short-term growth that is not beneficial for long-term development).

For resilience, as a process, to become sustainable, there must be a transformative governance of resilience towards the positive normative ideals and principles of sustainable development (see European Environmental Agency, 2023). In this respect, key conceptual and theoretical approaches relevant to understanding transformational governance strategies relating to resilience include, for example, a just transition regime, coevolution, proactive adaptive capacity, good governance, and sustainable mobility governance.

In tourism, identifying and understanding the drivers of change is an important aspect in transitioning towards sustainability (Saarinen & Gill, 2019). This transition has become increasingly critical but also challenging due to the multitude of changes, shocks and related risks. These are estimated to be further intensified and expected to become ‘super-wicked’ in the future, forming complex polycrises that integrate myriad emergent crises, such as climate change, sixth mass extinction, financial insecurity, war and conflict in Europe and the Middle East, and global shifts in geopolitics, among others. In tourism geographies, this calls for critical thinking and nuanced discussion about the role and potential of tourism as a driver for development, and how it might help develop greater destination resiliency, and contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Agenda 2030, and beyond.

This session aims to critically discuss wider notions of resilience and its relation to sustainability in tourism, and how to progress policy and practice toward the transformational governance of tourism towards sustainability, and in the context of the ongoing and intensifying polycrisis. The session welcomes both conceptual papers and empirical case studies.

Call for abstracts is open until 24th of October

If you are interested in participating in the session: Please send your abstract (max. 250 words) to Jarkko Saarinen (jarkko.saarinen@oulu.fi) and Joseph Cheer (j.cheer@westernsydney.edu.au) by October 24. We will swiftly notify the authors, giving participants time to submit before the present October 31 abstract deadline. Note: all accepted contributors will need to register for the conference (and provide their PIN to the session organizers to be added to the session). General information about the conference can be found here on the event page.

It is anticipated that papers from this session will be invited to submit a full manuscript for consideration in a Special Issue in Tourism Geographies.

References

• Boschma, R. (2014). Towards an Evolutionary Perspective on Regional Resilience. Regional Studies, 49(5), 733–751.
• Calgaro, E., Lloyd, K., & Dominey-Howes, D. (2014). From vulnerability to transformation: A framework for assessing the vulnerability and resilience of tourism destinations. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 22(3), 341-360. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2013.826229
• Cheer, J. M., Milano, C., & Novelli, M. (2019). Tourism and community resilience in the Anthropocene: accentuating temporal overtourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 27(4), 554–572.
• Cheer, J. M., & Lew, A. A. (Eds.). (2017). Tourism, resilience and sustainability: Adapting to social, political and economic change. Routledge.
• European Environmental Agency (2023). Transformative resilience: the key to governing. Europe's sustainability transitions in the polycrisis. EEA Report, 10/2023.
• Derissen, S., Quaas, M-F., & Baumgärtner, S. (2011). The relationship between resilience and sustainability of ecological-economic systems. Ecological Economics, 70(6), 1121-1128.
• Folke, C. (2016). Resilience (Republished). Ecology and Society, 21(4):44
• Hall, C. M., Prayag, G., & Amore, A. (2017). Tourism and resilience: Individual, organisational and destination perspectives (Vol. 5). Channel View Publications.
• Lew, A. A., & Cheer, J. M. (Eds.). (2017). Tourism resilience and adaptation to environmental change: Definitions and frameworks. Routledge.
• Lew, A. A., Ng, P. T., Ni, C. cheng (Nickel), & Wu, T. chiung (Emily). (2015). Community sustainability and resilience: similarities, differences and indicators. Tourism Geographies, 18(1), 18–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2015.1122664
• Lew, A. A. (2013). Scale, change and resilience in community tourism planning. Tourism Geographies, 16(1), 14–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2013.864325
• Saarinen, J. & A. M. Gill (Eds)(2019). Resilient Destinations: Governance Strategies in the Transition towards Sustainability in Tourism. Routledge.