Gazing through the sepia lens: critical considerations of tourism's nostalgic construction of the small town [Paper in themed section: Shifting Cultures. George, Jodie; Pacella, Jessica and Roberts, Rosie (eds).]
Bibliographic record
Abstract
As an industry, tourism has commodified 'place', turning the situated experience into a saleable product by framing landscapes as desirable archetypes through language. Research suggests the small town may be strategically positioned as a 'timeless' place, a contemporary haven embodying a 'golden age' the past may be used to make sense of the present. Yet such calculated positioning denies the constructed nature of these descriptions and the identities they may force upon small town residents. This research seeks to examine how the experience of place may be commodified and how this commodification may impact upon those who live there. Introduction Place' is widely recognised as an important area of research by many scholars (e.g. Jackson 1994; Relph 1976, 1981; Tuan 1992; Urry 1995, 2002) because of the situated nature of the lived experience. Yet the shared meanings of particular places are not neutral or inherent. Instead, they may be influenced both by the residents whose cultural practices shape the everyday experience and, more broadly, by the industries that utilise particular linguistic tropes to construct wider understandings of these locales. Because of its economic potential, the tourism industry may be particularly influential in constructing situated meaning (Campbell 2007, 222). Specifically, tourism represents one of the world's largest industries, generating over one trillion dollars annually; 10% of the world's GDP, and one in 12 jobs (WTTC 2007; Campbell 2007, 222). Despite this, there currently exist few studies into the cultural significance of the small town as a specific, Western-centric site of tourism. In this article I attempt to address that gap, critically analysing the appropriation and reconstruction of the 'small town' for the purposes of tourism, and the problematic outcomes that may result. Evolving Cultural and Social Practices of Tourism Contemporary tourism no longer relies primarily on what has been much derided as 'mass tourism', or pre-packaged holidays designed to provide a 'taste' of local cultures through the mediated itineraries of tourist companies (Uriely 2005, 208). Instead, there has been a shift towards consumer preferences, tailoring experiences to individual needs by incorporating greater specialisation, independence and flexibility (Shaw and Williams 2004, 115). This focus on the individual is particularly significant as the growing intensity of place promotions in the segmented market increasingly requires the alteration and idealisation of place to meet the desires of the target audience. Experiences, a tourism toolkit put out by the Canadian Tourism Commission, has adopted this selective approach, creating a new imperative for all tourism sites to help 're-imag[e] Canada's position as a global destination' (n.d., 2) by 'focusing onthewhy' in Canada -not just the where (n.d., 8). Specifically, Canada's tourism 'brand' is one of experience, designed to make 'an emotional connection with travellers. The idea of Canada. Keep Exploring(TM) speaks to the hearts and minds of curious travellers, inviting them to experience a land and culture defined by a spirit of geographic, cultural and personal exploration' (n.d., 7). According to the authors, this emotional connection is most effectively accomplished by shifting the focus from 'product' to 'experience', the first is understood as something the individual simply buys, the second as something the individual remembers (n.d., 8). To clarify, the toolkit outlines the differences through examples, suggesting that descriptions of a tourism 'product' are informational only: The Calgary Stampede takes place every July' or The CN Tower is one of the world's tallest buildings'. In contrast, descriptions of the 'experience' are understood to be embodied, or felt through every sense. For example: Shucking 101/Keep on Shucking in Prince Edward Island: Learn, prepare and taste all aspects of the oyster from a world-champion oyster shucker. …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.023 | 0.053 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.016 | 0.010 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.009 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".