Announcement: Special Issues series (2019-2022) on Transport, Mobilities and Sustainable Tourism.

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Call for Papers: Special Issue for the Journal of Sustainable Tourism on ‘Innovative Approaches to the Study and Practice of Sustainable Transport, Mobility and Tourism’

Guest Editor: Dr. Debbie Hopkins, University of Oxford, Debbie.hopkins@ouce.ox.ac.uk

Transport is woven into the fabric of everyday life. Societal processes are both shaped by, and shape transport and mobility. Transport has also been central to the development of the contemporary tourism industry, enabling massive growth in tourism through the redefinition of time-distance-cost thresholds. The tourism industry is highly dependent on cheap energy and efficient transport. The economic, social and environmental sustainabilities of transport vary across mode, space and time, but largely carry negative implications.

Transport is required throughout the tourism production cycle, from the construction of resorts and associated infrastructure, to the movement of tourists to, between and within destinations, to the transportation of the goods required for tourism operations, attractions, and services; and the removal of waste. Moreover, transport can be a tourism activity in its own right, and forms an important part of the tourist experience. Changes and growth in demand for tourism are further exacerbating the need for transport, and much of this mobility is dependent on high-polluting, motorised modes contributing not only to environmental impacts including climate change, and local air pollution, but also in many cases entrenching asymmetric relationships between tourists and host communities. Planning solutions required to provide the transportation systems can also impose negative impacts on communities, despite the potential for them to bring positive gains.   

Mobilities scholarship has provided novel insights, opening dialogue between academics from a range of disciplinary backgrounds to examine the interconnected physicalities and socialities of mobility. It has also highlighted the politics of mobility; the entanglement of movement, representation, and practice. While this body of work has provided critical insights into the study of tourism, there has been less attention to the light mobilities research could shed on the study ofsustainable tourism and the interconnections between transport, mobility and tourism. More specifically, questions of sustainable tourism frequently overlook the complexities of dependence on high-polluting transport modes, fail to account for the nuanced socio-cultural and bodily experiences of mobility that are intertwined with tourism, and neglect the deeply political dynamics of travel and transport. This series of special issues on questions of transport and mobilities will, therefore, examine topics including but not limited to; novel theoretical, conceptual, and methodological approaches, the spaces and places of transport and mobility for sustainable tourism, and innovations across technology, behaviour and policy/governance.

The Journal of Sustainable Tourism (JOST) will publish a series of Special Issues on Transport, Mobilities and Sustainable Tourism. The series will be guest edited by Dr. Debbie Hopkins (University of Oxford), and the series will take the form of four special issues, one to be published each year over four years (2019-2022). The first of the series, to be published in 2019, will address ‘Innovative approaches to the study and practice of sustainable transport, mobility and tourism’ (see Call for Papers below).

Call for Papers: Special Issue for the Journal of Sustainable Tourism

Innovative Approaches to the Study and Practice of Sustainable Transport, Mobilities and Tourism 

The first Special Issue is titled Innovative Approaches to the Study and Practice of Sustainable Transport, Mobilities and Tourism. This SI seeks contributions that challenge the norm, that push critical, novel and innovative approaches to understanding the mobile tourism experience and that re-centre the role of transport and mobility within tourism studies. The primary aim of this SI is to identify how novel approaches (methodologies, theories, conceptualisations) can progress the study of sustainable tourism by exposing new insights, geographies, contestations and opportunities. This may include; critical appraisals and/or adoption of new data collection techniques that go beyond traditional quantitative or qualitative methods (e.g. mobile methodologies, Big Data), drawing theoretical insights from Science, Technology and Society (STS), theories of behaviour change, system dynamics modelling, socio-technical transitions and beyond, and ways of rethinking the ‘pillars of sustainability’ across spatial and temporal scales. Papers that reach across traditional disciplinary boundaries are strongly encouraged.

To this end, we invite papers that engage with issues of transport, mobilities and sustainable tourism. The inclusion of empirical material is not required, but can be used to develop, extend, or aid the conceptual argument. We seek papers that move beyond hegemonic, global North perspectives, that challenge the status quo, and that seek meaningful and perhaps radical opportunities for tourism and sustainable development. Expressions of interest in contributing a paper to this special issue are invited in the form of a working title and 450-500 word abstract of your proposed paper by 15 November 2017, to be submitted by e-mail to: Debbie.hopkins@ouce.ox.ac.uk. Abstracts should include paper title, authorship, author affiliation(s) and contact information (including the email addresses of all authors) and keywords (maximum six). Full papers will be invited following a review of submitted abstracts.

The deadline for the submission of full papers will be 31 May 2018, for publication in early 2019. All submissions will be subject to the journal’s normal high standards of peer review. All accepted papers will be published online without delay, with print publication of the special issue to follow.