Call for papers : “World tours and globetrotters, actors, practices and imaginaries”

Who goes around the world, how, why, and with what results? This is the question this conference seeks to answer, hypothesizing that tourist tours of the world reflect and/or operate a major mutation in regimes of historicity and geography.

From cruisers who cross the oceans on luxury liners to backpackers who set off on adventures with three pennies in their pocket, from round-the-world jet trips in three weeks to quests that last several years, from people who ply the seas in sailboats to those who circumnavigate the planet in tandem, there are many ways and reasons to do – or not? – around the world.

This conference will therefore examine the following four issues:

• What is the imaginary world of round-the-world travel?
• Which word are actually tourists trotting around?
• What means are available to enable globetrotters to tour the world?
• Who are globetrotters?

Submission procedures

Paper proposals should contain

• An abstract of less than a page
• A CV of less than a page

Papers can be

• From all disciplines
• On all types of world tour, past or present
• On non-tourism world tours if they shed light on globetrotters’ practices by way of comparison or counterpoint, whether they travel the world for real or forged.

Calendar

• November 1^st 2024: submission of paper proposals
• November 15, 2024: Announcement for acceptance decisions
• January 15, 2025: Program announcement

Practical Information

• Conference dates: 11^th, 12^th and 13^th of June 2025
• Conference venue: University of Geneva and at the
  Swiss National Museum
• Conference organisers: EIREST, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, TSWG, University of California at Berkeley and University of Geneva (Geography Department)
• Further information: HERE