This article explores host-guest dynamics at S olheimar eco-village, Iceland to contribute to the conceptualization of transformative learning in volunteer tourism. At the eco-village, the host and volunteers come together to share similar goals and meaningful experiences. This interaction gets complicated, however: the eco-village exists within the global capitalist system and must operate using market norms. The idealist and educational expectations of the volunteers often clash with the practical short-term goals of the community: there are also cultural and experiential differences between the parties. This clash is used to discuss the importance of sincerity in volunteer tourism at the eco-village. Data were collected through fieldwork, primarily including participant observations and interviews, to help interpret the patterns of behaviors and perceptions of both parties in relation to the aim. Ultimately, the experience that binds host and guests cannot solely be about learning to do things alternatively and sustainably; it requires sincerity, using Taylor's 2001 sincerity concept, to tackle the difficulties in working alternatively and sustainably to attain this experience. It is argued that transformative learning during the volunteer experience in alternative spaces should be conceptualized to include the promotion of sincere encounters, and adjusted to concern both the host and its guests.
Non-representational theories have gained popularity in the last decades, encouraging social scientists to study the production of everyday life. Inspired by Ingold's dwelling perspective, I present my qualitative research on the arts and craft community on Bornholm, Denmark, by exploring some of the bodily movements and mundane practices that shape a taskscape into a tourist landscape. This analysis defines the material and corporeal relations of Bornholm's craft-artists with their island's tourist season and aims to contribute to the application of non-representational landscape theory in tourism scholarship. The everyday practices and embodied movements of these craft-artists fashion the emergence of a realm of dwelling, rather than an exotic site. The tourist landscape is the product of the skills and techniques these craft-artists have developed over time to work with their different materials, and of the creative spaces which they have built to pursue their art. The materials, techniques, and creative spaces used by these craft-artists mediate their interactions with tourists, but also, these encounters mediate the craft-artists' interactions with their materials, techniques, and spaces. I ultimately argue that the taskscape, as a realm of mundane embodied practices, cannot be detached from the landscape the tourists encounter. I propose scholars can use the dwelling perspective in their analysis of tourism to embed local people in their cultural landscape.
To contribute new insight related to the entrepreneurial strategies adopted by local actors involved in rural tourism, this article explores the array of dynamics and complexities faced by the members of the Arts and Crafts Association Bornholm, Denmark. Besides juggling a livelihood with a desired lifestyle, artists pursue the ambition of professional success, which adds a new and interesting dimension to the conceptualization of individual and collective strategies related to lifestyle entrepreneurship, rural identities, the commercialization of rural symbols and products, and new modes of production in the countryside. In their search for customers and spectators, these craft-artists have created a professional brand and work individually on various entrepreneurial strategies, allowing them to benefit from the short but intensive tourist season on their rural island. These strategies blur the line not only between their lifestyle aspirations, career ambitions and livelihood necessities, but also between the commercial, professional and rural nature of the space they present to tourists. This qualitative study was primarily conducted through open-ended interviews with members of the association. It is discussed lastly that these artists consequently create for themselves a hybrid space, strategized and redefined in relation to the complexities of residing in a countryside integrated within a global system.
The dwelling perspective outlines that landscapes are the product of embodied actions and practices. Landscape scholars studying tourism and tourism scholars studying landscapes have neglected to apply this perspective to local realities. Tourism most often represents an activity to integrate to the landscape, rather than a complex socio-spatial phenomenon. When embodiments are studied, it is generally to speak of the tourist experience. I propose using the dwelling perspective to infuse tourist landscapes with the non-representational ethos of materiality and embodiment. My proposition acknowledges the socio-cultural complexities that the tourist system imposes on local people, and addresses landscape as a material realm where there is constant interplay between localised practices and tourism dynamics. This perspective centres scientific conversations on the complex, yet mundane, experience of inhabiting tourist landscapes. Scholars should consider the impacts of tourism on living spaces as they contribute to the formation of language influencing planners and politicians.
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