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New Directions in Radical Development Theory Author(s): Ed Brown, Clare Madge and James Sidaway Source: Area, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Jun., 1995), pp. 187-188 Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20003570 . Accessed: 14/06/2014 09:50 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Area. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 195.78.109.54 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 09:50:48 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: New Directions in Radical Development Theory

New Directions in Radical Development TheoryAuthor(s): Ed Brown, Clare Madge and James SidawaySource: Area, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Jun., 1995), pp. 187-188Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20003570 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 09:50

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) is collaborating with JSTOR todigitize, preserve and extend access to Area.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.78.109.54 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 09:50:48 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: New Directions in Radical Development Theory

IBG Annual Conference 187

loosely related to, the commercial sphere. It is, however, the latter which has been the primary focus of previous leisure research.

The first module was succinctly concluded by Shelagh Squire (Carleton). In the past, she argued, few geographers had contextualised their work on tourism in social and cultural frameworks and many tourism studies had been shaped primarily by quantitative practices and approaches. She stressed the need to study tourism as a ' social construct ' and presented two examples of her own research (Beatrix Potter inspired tourism in the Lake District and women travellers in the Canadian Rockies 1886-1939) to illustrate how such an approach can function in practice. In doing so, the potential benefits of adopting a combination of methodological techniques, including textual analysis, long interviews, and focus groups were highlighted.

The session reconvened after coffee to hear Vivian Kinnaird (Sunderland) present a co-authored paper with Derek Hall (Sunderland), in which a gender aware framework for tourism research was outlined. The paper cleverly unpacked the dynamic relationship between gender and tourism. It was argued that, not only is tourism constructed out of gendered societies but tourism is also an area of social life in which gender relations are themselves constructed and reinforced. Furthermore, it was suggested that one of our potential roles as geographers is to investigate the way in which the gender relations of both host and guest societies interact influencing the nature of tourism development in particular places at particular times. Arthur Morris (Glasgow) presented a more empirical paper focusing on the cultural impacts of tourism development in post-Francoist Spain. Drawing primarily upon his own research amongst the Catalan population of the Costa Brava, he argued that tourism can be seen as an agent for cultural change in some receiving areas. In the case study presented, tourism was seen to act as a catalyst for growing cultural and environmental awareness amongst the local population. Jeremy Hoad (Edinburgh) presented a paper in which he described maps as culturally and socially determined artefacts, reflecting a particular society at a particular time. To the tourist, it was argued, maps are a valuable source of information but they can also be read as texts in that they are essentially a re-presentation of reality, a particular portrayal of place, and a historical source of tourist imagery. The final paper in the session, Paul Waley (Leeds), continued with the historical theme. The use of texts as historical sources of information about recreation and tourist related activity was again discussed, in this case they took the form of maps and illustrated guides. The paper highlighted the symbolic and sacred significance of the recreational areas that existed on the outskirts of Japan's pre-modern cities. Day trips to these sites, consisting mainly of gardens, temples and shrines, were described as a form of ' mini-pilgrimage '.

A measure of this session's success was the number of delegates who stayed on afterwards for an informal chat, over a welcome glass of wine, about shared research interests. Finally, from this gathering a real need was identified for a more permanent forum for those of us researching the geography of leisure and tourism, perhaps even an IBG study group!

Graham Mowl University of Northumbria at Newcastle

New directions in radical development theory

The rationale for this session was to offer a forum for those interested in theoretical developments across the intersections of ' geography ', ' radicalism ' and ' development '. The session was conceived within a context of considerable theoretical turmoil at such intersec tions, whereby feminist, ' postmodern ' and avowedly ' postmarxist' debates have impacted.

This has taken place against the contexts of new patterns of uneven development and dependency and the displacement/decay of state socialisms. It was against these dual contexts of dynamic material and conceptual shifts that we sought contributions which would move to (re-)chart radical agendas and/or make critical theoretical interventions. The result was a mix of theoretically informed case studies and position papers.

By way of an introduction to the session, as conveners we (Ed Brown (Loughborough), Clare Madge (Leicester) and James Sidaway (Birmingham)), set out what we saw as some of

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Page 3: New Directions in Radical Development Theory

188 IBG Annual Conference

the main agendas. In doing this we emphasised the contested nature of theory and something of its historical material impacts and problematicised the role of the radical academic in contributing to the theory and practice of ' development' in the 1990s. Uma Kothari (Manchester) and Ian Cook (Lampeter) followed with papers focusing on the politics of representation. Uma was concerned with strategies of working through difference without provoking excessive fragmentation and relativism via a detailed examination of the postcolonial literature. Ian then gave a personal account of the possibilities and potentials of conducting sensitive multi-focal ethnographies through a discussion of his own experiences in conducting research on food commodities between Jamaica and the United Kingdom.

Terry Cannon (Greenwich) reconsidered one of the well-established (and still contested) debates within Marxist development theory; the question of the historically progressive nature of peripheral capitalism. This he addressed through an examina5ion of the effects of Post-Mao economic reforms in China. Gargi Battacharyya (Birmingham) considered the interplay between ' global ' and ' national ' cultures through the presentation of alternative perspectives of Coca Cola's intervention into Indian spaces. Kris Olds also mixed political economy and cultural studies in a discussion of theories of the global cultural economy, world property

markets and the role that Hong Kong and Shanghai (as exemplars) play within the formation of global cultures. Dick Peet considered Focauldian critiques of development theory. After stating what he saw as the central components of post-structuralist critiques of development,

Dick subjected these to a fierce critique arguing strongly for the retention of a historical materialist framework. Ray Bryan (Kings) followed with a paper that problematicised mainstream environmental discourses, rejecting them in favour of a radical discourse grounded in the experiences of popular resistance movements. David Slater (Loughborough) explored a series of questions about the potential for a dialogue between (predominantly literary) conceptualisations of the postcolonial and critical development theory. Finally, after the afternoon coffee break, Janet Townsend (Durham) used her own experiences to show some of the ways in which the intent of postcolonial research may, in the end, be merely another form of extractive research.

Janet's paper was followed by a long debate, in which a number of the presenters of papers from the day led a panel/audience discussion. It is worth noting that this debate was characterised by considerable disagreement both about the future direction of the field of radical development geography-and the value (or otherwise) of recent debates about representation. In the course of these interactions, however, there were revealed a series of commonalities which would seem to provide a first step towards a constructive dialogue amongst those who remain committed to the furtherance of radical agendas. All in all, we feel that this session (and the resultant debates) encompassed a range of exciting papers and raised a series of important and difficult issues. We are currently exploring plans for publication-and hope that many of the papers will eventually be available as an edited collection. Meanwhile, we would like to thank everyone who presented and participated.

Ed Brown University of Loughborough

Clare Madge University of Leicester

James Sidaway University of Birmingham

Society place economy-debates and directions: states of the art in economic geography

The guiding objective of this session-the first convened by the newly reconstituted Economic Geography Study Group-was to explore the complex notion of the economy in ways which include, but go well beyond, current economic debates. The session comprised six modules spread over a day-and-a-half, and included fifteen papers and nineteen authors. It drew

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