Tourism & Heritage TIG

In this edition of the Tourism and Heritage Topical Interest Group (THTIG) column, we are highlighting our activities for the 84th Annual Meeting, scheduled for March 26 to March 30, 2024, in Santa Fe, NM. We invite members to contact us with ideas and activities to promote and cultivate our community interests. If you plan on being at the Annual Meeting, please feel welcome to join us in preparing for this exciting event. Alternatively, just stop by to say hello and enjoy the panels, posters, and conversation. And remember, volunteers are always greatly appreciated.

The Tourism and Heritage Topical Interest Group (THTIG) is a sub-group of the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) that plans events at the annual SfAA Meetings, organizes student awards, and shares tourism and heritage related information and announcements with members through social media and our list-serve. Check out our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/TourismHeritageTIG. If anyone would like to join us, please contact Lawrence Ramirez at lrami070@ucr.edu.  

THTIG’s Schedule for the Annual Meeting

At the Annual Meeting in Santa Fe, NM, the THTIG has a robust set of panels planned, both virtually and in person. Here is a preliminary schedule of events:

On Demand Sessions (Whova):

Deep History and Community Joy: Making the Connections
CHAIRS: RANHORN, Kathryn (ASU) and MEHARI, Asmeret (Independent)

Tuesday, March 26:

(T-08) TUESDAY 9:00-10:45; Zia C (El Dorado Hotel)
More Than a Black Cowboy: Interdisciplinary Approaches to George McJunkin’s Folsom Site Legacy in Northeast New Mexico’s Hi Lo Country
CHAIR: ERICKSON, Ken (Folsom Museum)

(T-92) TUESDAY 3:45-5:30; Eldorado B (El Dorado Hotel)
Enchanted Futures: Transforming Museum Practice through Relational Curation
CHAIR: MCCHESNEY, Lea (Maxwell Museum, UNM)

Wednesday, March 27:

(W-36) WEDNESDAY 11:15-1:00; Zia A (El Dorado Hotel)
Sifting through Labor and Leisure: Facets of Running an Ethnographic Methods Field School at an All-Inclusive Beach Resort in the Dominican Republic
CHAIRS: OUESLATI-PORTER, Claire and GUTIERREZ-NUNEZ, Yaliza (U Miami)

(W-77) WEDNESDAY 1:30-3:15; Chapel (Hilton Hotel)
Crisis and Understanding: Anthropological Responses and Critiques in Uncertain Situations
CHAIR: STUMPF-CAROME, Jeanne Marie (KSU Geauga)

(W-127) WEDNESDAY 5:45-7:30; Zia B (El Dorado Hotel)
Multimodal Nation: Narrative and Nuance in Multimedia Representations of National Parks
CHAIR: COLLINS, Samuel (Towson U)

Thursday, March 28:

(TH-01) THURSDAY 9:00-10:45; Eldorado A (El Dorado Hotel)
Transforming the Field: The Inaugural Erve Chambers Tourism and Heritage Student Paper Award
CHAIR: STEVENS, Melissa (CultureSnap Consulting LLC)

(TH-92) THURSDAY 3:45-5:30; Eldorado B (El Dorado Hotel)
Poster Session

(TH-126) THURSDAY 5:45-7:30; Zia A (El Dorado Hotel)
The Argan Tree as a Nexus of Sustainability, Women’s Cooperatives, and Tourism in Morocco
CHAIRS: DEUBEL, Tara (USF) and NAUGHTON, Colleen (UC-Merced)

Friday, March 29:

(F-72) FRIDAY 1:30-3:15; Mesa A (Hilton Hotel)
Memorials and Remembrance: Cemeteries and Preserving the Past
CHAIR: UDVARDY, Monica (UKY)

(F-76) FRIDAY 1:30-3:15; Canyon 2 (Hilton Hotel)
Pedagogy and the Transmission of Knowledge: Virtual, Ethnographic, and Archival Methods of Knowledge Exchange
CHAIR: GRAHAM, Margaret (UTRGV)

Saturday, March 30:

(S-09) SATURDAY 9:00-10:45; DeVargas (El Dorado Hotel)
Revivals and Revisions: Contesting Heritage Representations
CHAIRS: LOEWE, Ronald (CSULB)

(S-102) SATURDAY 3:45-5:30; Mesa A (Hilton Hotel)
Maps, Standards, Records, and Landscapes: Epistemic Models and Anthropology
CHAIR: KRAUSE, Stefan (Lamar U)

Additionally, we also have a need for volunteers in the operations of THTIG events at the meeting. For example, the Valene Smith Tourism Poster Contest will require judges to review the student posters. If you would like to learn more about volunteer opportunities at the 2024 meeting, please email Lawrence Ramirez (lrami070@ucr.edu). Thank you.

Celebrating the “Erve Chambers Tourism and Heritage Student Paper Award”

The “Erve Chambers Tourism and Heritage Student Paper Award” was established to honor the legacy of Dr. Erve Chambers and recognize his contributions to the anthropology of tourism and heritage, as well as encourage new and innovative avenues of inquiry within the field through an annual student paper competition. This year, we will be holding our inaugural Erve Chambers Tourism and Heritage Student Paper Award ceremony at the SFAA conference. Please join us in Santa Fe on Thursday, March 28th, 9:00 AM - 10:45 AM, in Eldorado A (El Dorado Hotel) to hear the students present their innovative research in the session “Transforming the Field: The Inaugural Erve Chambers Tourism and Heritage Student Paper Award.”

Call for Newsletter Volunteers and Submissions

As the THTIG newsletter column grows, we would like to develop our editorial staff. Currently, we are looking for volunteers to serve as assistant newsletter editors overseeing important departments for this newsletter column. The three departments that we are building are: essays, news, and book/film reviews. If you are interested in learning more about these editorial opportunities, please contact Lawrence Ramirez (lrami070@ucr.edu).

For upcoming newsletters, we are accepting abstracts for short essays (1000-2500 words) to be published in this column. We are especially interested in submissions that relate emergent forms of tourism and heritage celebration in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic. However, we are interested in other tourism or heritage-related topics as well. Submissions may include editorials, accounts of personal experiences in the field or in the classroom, reviews of a recent book or film on tourism, arguments for or against a certain view on a tourism-related matter, etc. Abstracts should be no more than 200 words and may be submitted to Lawrence Ramirez (lrami070@ucr.edu). Submissions are currently being accepted for the May 2024 newsletter. We look forward to hearing from our members. Thank you.