The present article offers a trenchant criticism of the imaginative geographies of 'Europe' using a Pred inspired methodology. The essay strikes at the mythos of Europa as the vanguard of humanity, and enumerates many of the 'dirty tricks' that project the singular as confirmation of the universal. It aligns with the critique of the present in the manner of Allan Pred's critical takes on Europe and deconstruction of the mythos of Europe. With Nietzsche's takes on 'philosophical laughter' as a cue, the essay offers playful parodies on the narcissistic discourses of Europe's historical mission or purpose, its essence/identity, and its place in history. My critique is thus an instance of postcolonial laughter. Critique of historicism and 'European reason' are recurrent themes in Pred's work. Historicism places European humanity as history's prime (favourite) subject, culminating in the infamous yet pompous 'end of history' thesis popularized by Fukuyama, of which Pred was highly critical of. In my reading, Pred's playful takes on Fukuyama's folly, are inspired by postcolonial laughter. Postcolonial laughter is deployed here as an affirmative response to the European negation of the other's being. I use by turn satire and irony, by turn parody and the grotesque to strike at the heart of the mythos of Europe and its 'dirty tricks'. Postcolonial laughter unsettles the hubris and narcissism underlying discourses of Europe's mission/moralism as the vanguard of humanity. Postcolonial laughter is attuned to Pred's 'restless geographies'.

This paper addresses one of the pedagogical challenges that followed the presence of increasingly multinational student groups, particularly the increased diversity of academic backgrounds among students. Theoretically, this challenge can be understood as an encounter between different teaching and learning regimes (TLRs). TLR, coined by Trowler and Cooper (2002), implies a constellation of assumptions, rules, relationships, and practices regarding the conduct of higher education that colours academic staff members’ performance in their profession. It has become a widely used heuristic tool in the reflection process among university staff. It is shown in this paper that TLRs are not only a heuristic tool that can be applied in teacher reflection but may also be fruitfully applied in the classroom in student-teacher interaction. Consequently, we decided to bring the TLR into the classroom. The written student reflections constitute the empirical material that this analysis is based on. We approach these reflections as expressions of confessions of the Self, as laid out by Michel Foucault. We conclude that it is useful for the students to reflect upon TLR’s, but simultaneously, such an approach runs the risk of enhancing pedagogical and epistemological conformism at the neoliberal university. 

This paper discusses the growing regional socio-economic disparity in Sweden and investigates two regions’ power relationship with the economically and politically dominant Stockholm region: one region with a negative economic trajectory and the other with a positive economic development over 25 years. The conceptual framework is based on the topography/topology nexus, using the key concepts of ‘reach out’ and ‘fold in’ in different resources. To enrich this framework, we incorporate two concepts in regional planning: ‘borrowed size’ and ‘agglomeration shadow’. The findings suggest that ‘reach out’ and ‘fold in’ explain why ‘borrowed size’ and ‘agglomeration shadow’ take place, or do not.

The present article explores tourist attractions that include touch as a significant component of the tourist’splace-related experience. We have chosen to label this phenomenon “tactile tourism”. The tradition of touchingattractions is not new but has been a central part of the experience of specific place-related interests for a longtime. However, despite its frequent and often significant presence in tourist destinations, few studies in tourismresearch study the phenomenon. The article is based on a theoretical line of reasoning which starts from a fewconcrete examples of different places in Europe where we have identified tactile features relevant to tourism.The empirical material for our discussion has been collected partly through e-mail correspondence with touristorganizations in the places selected for the study and partly through articles in social media and other relevantsecondary data. This tactile experience contributes a substantial share of the primary enticement of the attractionand simultaneously invests the place with meaning, which in turn attracts tourists.

With the rapidly emerging development of technology-mediated tourism experiences and place-based digital services for visitors, there is a lack of awareness regarding the spatial implications of technological implementations. Based on a participatory action research method applied in this study on five research-based destination development projects in Sweden, we propose a spatially sensible approach when developing enhanced experiences for visitors through digital technology. This paper is motivated by the emerging criticism of how media technology is shaping and reshaping spaces. Drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of the growing field of geomedia studies, we propose “geomedia sensibility” as a way to offer a sensible approach in the co-creation of digital experiences at destinations.

Fika har visserligen en lång och djupt rotad tradition i vårt land, men det finns ännu en betydande potential att kunna utveckla fikakulturen med dess mångfacetterade undertoner betydligt mera än vad som idag görs. Vi skulle därför kunna säga att fika är som en oslipad diamant som på olika sätt går att vidareförädla utifrån inte minst lokala och regionala förutsättningar. ”Slipningarna” i diamanten kan, också bör, ha olika texturer. Det gäller dels att lyfta fram lokalt och regionalt skapade bakverk, dels att ta utgångs-punkt i traditioner som bygger på en identitet genom berättelser. Detta sam-mantaget kan, särskilt utifrån ett besöksnäringsperspektiv, utgöra incita-ment för besök som också innebär möten mellan människor där samtal och erfarenhetsutbyte utgör centrala ingredienser. De narrativa inslagen i sam-verkan med plats, miljö och mötet med andra människor är därmed viktiga ingredienser för att vi ska få en helhetsupplevelse där i detta fall fika utgör det sammanhållande kittet. Sett utifrån ett lokalt eller regionalt förädlings-värdesperspektiv av fika kanske vi i ökad utsträckning behöver få ett uti-frånperspektiv för att på det sättet få idéer om vad som kan vidareutvecklas? I många fall blir vi tyvärr ”hemmablinda” och vi följer ”gamla hjulspår” och ser inte alltid värdet i den potential som de facto ofta är närvarande för att vidareutveckla institutionen fika. Fika som upplevelse och attraktion-sattribut har, vill jag hävda, kommit i skymundan av den fokusering som idag finns kring måltiden och dess kulturella och sociala betydelse. Fikakul-turen utgör en minst lika viktig del för gemenskap och välbefinnande. Sett utifrån ett besöksnäringsperspektiv är fikakulturen en viktig faktor såtill-vida att allt oftare utgör ett konditori eller enbart möjligheten till en fika på en trivsam plats anledningen till att företa en resa. Särskilt under pandemin kunde vi se hur såväl utflykter i naturen, med en fikakorg i bagaget, eller att enbart ta en fika med någon bekant på en parkbänk i en stadsmiljö blev allt mera vanligt förekommande. Fika är således en viktig intermediär fak-tor för social samvaro, vilket också har en betydande hälsofrämjande effekt.Fika, med dess olika praktiker är därför en viktig faktor i demokratiproces-sen då den skapar förutsättningar för samtal mellan människor. En kopp kaffe och därtill också kanske en hembakad kaka kan vara den faktor som kan sänka den tröskel som kan upplevas finnas när människor träffas för såväl medarbetarsamtal, svåra förhandlingar eller diplomatiska spörsmål? Därav bör fika, med dess olika texturer i beaktande, ägnas mera intresse för att därigenom kunna vidareutveckla dess potential utifrån såväl ett socialt, besöksnärings- som utifrån ett demokratiperspektiv.

Fika and its importance for both social interaction and the development of a place cannot be overestimated. From a hospitality industry perspective, both private and public actors are continuously working to highlight their own location or the region's advantages in various ways in order to attract visitors. This work is often characterized by an ambition to highlight the identity and authenticity of the place from a producer perspective. At the same time, there is a demand from consumers to experience what they personally feel is unique and has a strong connection to the place. Food and drink loaded with identity through its place- and regionspecific profile has therefore become increasingly important in attracting visitors. Fika as a social institution with its long tradition in Sweden is particularly important in this context. At the same time, there is a risk that the tourist product is overused and risks losing its genuine attraction value by being perceived as a stereotypical "tourist trap", which weakens both its place-related attraction value and its social value. The purpose of this article is to discuss, from a fika perspective, to what extent it can be the place that constitutes the primary attraction and lure for visitors or whether it is instead the concrete fika experience with its underlying ceremonial factors that is central, or whether it is both factors in interaction.

Increasingly, place branding is regarded as stakeholder-centric, participatory and inclusive. However, a central assumption permeates the place-branding literature that there is a dominant organisation of some sort working strategically to organise the place-branding process. In this article we question this assumption and explore how multiple 'authors' create narratives and contribute to the branding of places. Using interviews, observations and printed and online material, we study a small town in southwest Sweden. Our illustrative case study reveals a decentralised collective production of narratives by multiple authors that together constitute the branding of a place.

Even though urbanisation is the prevailing trend in modern societies, the net migration balance of Sweden's largest cities has been negative for the past few years, and overrepresented among these migrants are families with young children. The stories of counterurbanisation have often relied on rather stereotypical representations of unsustainable city life versus sustainable rural life, thus strengthening the much criticised rural-urban binary. The aim of this article is to explore how the counterurbanising families' ideas of "a sustainable everyday life" developed during and after the migration event. We uncover the needs, ideological foundations, practices, capacities, social atmosphere, temporality, and place-based understanding of one's own role and responsibilities in society by studying what the families do in their everyday lives, what they are striving to achieve, and how they understand sustainability. Counterurbanising families represent a driven group that are not primarily guided by economic wants-as many of their active choices are lifestyle-driven. Our theoretical foundation highlights the structures and dimensions of social sustainability, relational place, and learning, contrasted with the subjectivity of everyday life in the urban-rural transition. Forty-five in-depth interviews (1-2 h) were conducted via video conference software, and the material was analysed using thematic analysis. The findings indicate that the views and understandings of social sustainability among counterurbanising young families highlight place-based needs and conditions, with implications for sustainability and mobility research, individuals, and contemporary society as a whole in navigating the somewhat diminishing rural-urban dichotomy.

The article discusses and exemplifies from a tourism-geographical perspective how food and drink can form an important part in loading places with identity and thereby strengthen the geographical profile and its attraction value.

This article presents an action-research study investigating a spatially sensitive innovation process of place-based experiences in a rural area of Sweden. Lately, there have been a growing number of initiatives focused on developing location-aware mobile media – geomedia technologies – to offer place-based digital experiences within tourism. Drawing on contemporary critical studies on geomedia technologies, we stress the importance of reflecting upon the implications of place-based technologies to minimise both the negative impacts on a place and the neglect of local perspectives. We conducted action-research interventions to unpack the complexity of developing place-based mediated experiences. The study makes an illustrative case of how interventions lead to more nuanced development processes of geomedia technologies while simultaneously fostering creativity. We argue that as action research allows researchers to intervene in media innovations, it identifies models for more nuanced place-based development processes, including local spatial and sociocultural perspectives.

Political philosophy is applied to analyze the democratic potential of tourism social media. This study shows that while these media have deliberative potential, they also reflect the postpolitical and postdemocratic condition in tourism digital communication. This analysis is illustrated through the discussion of three metaphors: the menu, the stranger, and the tourist-light. The menu represents the increased invasion of lifeworlds by the commercialization and corporate regulation of the tourism social Web. The stranger symbolizes the weak accountability of online communities. The tourist-light embodies the relevance of hedonism in virtual worlds. Social media contributes to digital narcissism and supports consumer centricity. Digital communication produces a sanitized version of tourism and entails a subtle constraint of political citizenship.

The number of Swedish students temporarily studying in another countryto receive a post-secondary education amounts annually to approximately 22,000students. The study aims to give some indications of where outbound Swedishstudents have spent their time and money studying abroad since the turn of themillennium. What are the popular study destinations? What are students looking for?Will their interest in studying abroad change post-COVID-19? The results show that

English-speaking countries are attractive to Swedish outbound students. Top desti-nations are the UK and US. Countries such as Poland, Canada, Switzerland, Japan,

the Netherlands, Latvia, South Korea and Singapore are growing in popularity. Itis noticeable that big cities attract Swedish outbound students. Large metropolescan offer many prestigious Higher Education Institutions (HEI). Popular cities forSwedish outbound students are London, Copenhagen, Riga, Singapore and Sydney.

During the COVID-19 pandemic Sweden stood out globally as a country that persistently refused to take drastic measures like proclaiming a curfew or a lockdown on public and commercial facilities. Instead, a “softer” approach was chosen. The population was only recommended to restrain as much as possible from social contact as well as other cautionary measures. In this chapter this Swedish “exception” is addressed, with a focus on regional differences. Much political and media focus has been on the spread of COVID-19 in the large postindustrial cities. Instead, we focus on the situation in the sparsely populated northern part, Sápmi, once colonized by the Swedish kingdom. Here, the city of Gällivare was severely affected by the virus. In symbiosis with the state-controlled mining industry, the community had a steady national and international inflow of mining-related personnel which resulted in one of the highest infection rates per capita nationally.

The article serves to highlight the growing trend to visit abandoned places, presently existing without purpose and external actor, but with remnants of previous activity which was ongoing for a limited time. There is a research gap regarding abandoned places which have fallen into oblivion and which have therefore become a tourist attraction. It is therefore important to discuss how non-planned tourist places are expressed and challenged in the process of gradually ceasing to exist. The aim of this article is to discuss how former activity in rural places expected to disappear can develop from being a problem to becoming a tourist attraction, without a clear producer perspective driving the process. Our overall focus is to highlight visitors' experience of place that involves a transition from the expected disappearance to a "legal", non-planned attraction with a preservation tourist value. The article is based on qualitative interviews with key individuals because they were expected to be able to summarise and represent various perspectives. The article concludes that this form of tourism represents a substantial deviation from the traditional relationships that constitute the tourism industry but is perceived to have a potential in the tourism industry.

Purpose This paper aims to focus on the re-presentation of the cultural phenomena hygge in Denmark and fika in Sweden in destination branding and address the inevitability of their essentialization through the branding process. Design/methodology/approach Three relevant semi-structured interviews with destination marketing organisation's employees were conducted, as well as a content-based analysis of three social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). A total of 465 posts in total were analysed (140 Facebook posts, 109 Twitter posts, 216 Instagram posts). Findings This study demonstrates how, when communicated through social media, intangible cultural assets are transformed into tangible elements. It explains why the re-presentation and place branding processes necessarily simplify and essentialize the destination. Originality/value Destination branding scholars have traditionally criticised the flattening and essentialization of culture in destination branding and have called for a more nuanced approach to presenting a destination. This paper situates destination branding as a process that necessitates the manipulation of the presentation of the destination, which inevitably essentializes the place; this is intended. Critical destination branding researchers need to rethink their criticisms and acknowledge the inherent essentialization goal of destination branding.

Our changing climate foretells a future with continued large forest fires and extreme weather events, such as devastating storms, heavy rainfall, flooding, heat and drought. This project focuses on preparedness for this kind of events taking place while large, spread-out, and often uncertain, numbers of visitors are roaming the Swedish countryside – not seldom voluntarily or involuntarily of the grid. The conditions for crisis communication is changing with social media, apps and digitalization of information. Obstacles and possibilities for digitalization in the tourism sector in relation to the specific conditions of nature-based tourism needs more attention.

Tourists are a vulnerable group in crisis situations, since they are not acquainted with neither the place nor how to find information about the crisis and how to keep themselves safe. In parallel, the Swedish tourism sector is constantly growing, with new trends as ”vacation at home” and increasing numbers of international tourists visiting Swedish nature, and nature-based tourism is believed to see a significant increase in post-pandemic travel, as more visitors seek uncrowded destinations. A crisis can be devastating in nature tourist areas. Despite this, the tourism sector is often viewed as peripheral and is in some cases not even included in crisis preparedness planning.  

The aim of this study is to generate new knowledge and methods for incorporating the Swedish countryside tourism sector in crisis management and communication. Crisis management and risk preparedness and awareness, and collaborations and relations between the tourism sector and other crisis management actors (municipalities and public authorities) are in focus, as well as the nature tourists themselves.

The number of students temporarily studying in another country to receive a post-secondary education has grown significantly since the 1970s. This study aims to learn more about what attracts Swedish outbound students when studying abroad. What are the popular study destinations? Can data reveal touristic preferences? Descriptive statistics from the Swedish Board of Student Finance are used, making it possible to scrutinize studying abroad on an aggregate level over a period of two decades. The results show that English-speaking countries are attractive to Swedish outbound students. Places growing in popularity are the countries of Poland, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Singapore, and China, as well as the region of Hong Kong in particular. However, more than 50 percent of outbound students study in Europe. In these troubling and uncertain times, we are living in, with COVID-19 and other crises hampering worldwide travel, it is difficult to predict the long-term effects on mobility.

We ask if mass tourism, morphing into over-tourism, can be conceptualised as an emerging plague of zombie tourists, and what kinds of tourism futures might come of it? Overtourism is not only unsustainable; it is the logical outcome of capitalism and thus, a token signifying that the capitalist system is well and alive even though it is threatening everything else on Earth. We outline a drastic narrative of this unsustainable phenomenon, characterizing it as a pathological condition that chisels-out a zombie tourist, well-travelled but at the same time oblivious to the tourist destinations he or she passes through. We further argue that the entrance of social media and digital portable technological devices have increased this pathological state as it has added a self-centric, narcissistic dimension into the set of touristic practices to a degree that the zombie tourist even runs an increased risk of ending up dead. Secondly, we present two bifurcated scenarios presenting possible trajectories for future tourist practice, both less reliant on physical long-distance travelling: the implantation of digital memories in the individual tourist’s mind and consciousness and ï¿œstaycationï¿œ tourism, i.e. short trip close to the home of the tourist. These two more optimistic scenarios bring some relief to the environmental situation generally and the social situation of overtourism already emerging at many destinations. But, at the same time, these two scenarios are nevertheless embedded in a pathological capitalism and are perhaps bound to create new societal and environmental problems, possibly bringing new kinds of unsustainability. Or?

Abstrakt Hantverksbryggerinäringen på Gotland är särskilt vital och omtalad från ett nationellt perspektiv, men innehar inte desto mindre en betydande utvecklingspotential. Syftet med denna studie har varit att skapa en nulägesbild över samt identifiera och analysera nyckelaktörer i hantverksölens värdekedja på Gotland. Analysen stödjer sig på en internationell forskningsöversikt, Michael Porter’s värdekedjemodell och noggranna fältarbeten på Gotland. Analysen har vidare genomförts för att vidare kunna utveckla en behovslista och handlingsplan som underlättar och möjliggör för de gotländska hantverksbryggarna att ytterligare utveckla sin verksamhet och sina produkter samt bli en mer betydelsefull del av det gotländska näringslivet och dess turism- och besöksnäring. Två åtgärder lyser igenom. Den första är en möjlighet att koordinera logistik, transport och teknologianvändning på ett ekonomiskt och miljömässigt bättre sätt. För att detta ska låtas göras behöver hantverksbryggerinäringens transporter, kommunikationer och teknologi-utnyttjande kartläggas geografiskt genom geografiska informationssystem (GIS). Bryggerinäringens värdekedja behöver kartläggas och analyseras geografiskt för att hållbara affärsmodeller kring transporter, logistik och teknologi ska kunna tas fram. Den andra åtgärden är på längre sikt: etablerandet av en bryggerimötesplats som utgör ett regionalt (och på sikt nationellt) centrum för kunskapsdelning och skråmässigt praktiskt hantverkskunnande kring bryggandet av högkvalitativ öl. <br/> <br/> <br/>Abstract The craft brewery industry on Gotland is particularly vital and well known in Sweden, but nonetheless holds significant development potential. The main purpose of this study has been to construct a situational awareness of the craft beer value chain on Gotland, and to identify its key actors. Furthermore, in order for the craft breweries to become a more prominent part of Gotland's business and tourism and visitor industry, different needs have been identified and analyzed. These needs have then been used to develop an action plan that in the long term can facilitate and enable Gotland's craft brewers to improve their processes and products. Furthermore, the analysis is based on an international research review, Michael Porter's value chain model and extensive field works on Gotland. The results show that two actions appear to be particularly important. The first is about the possibilities of coordinating and using logistics, transports and modern brewery technologies in a more economically beneficial and environmentally friendly way. An important initial part of the action plan is to map the craft brewery industry's transport, communication and technology utilization needs. This mapping is proposed to be carried out with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Thus, the brewery industry's value chain needs to be analyzed geographically in order to develop sustainable business models that include transport, logistics and a sharing of expensive brewery equipment. The second action plan is more long-term and is about the establishment of a brewery meeting place which constitutes a regional (and in the long term national) center for knowledge sharing and practical craftsmanship about the brewing of high quality beer.

Att resa och utifrån den enskilda individens perspektiv besöka och uppleva nya platser och attraktioner är för många en viktig del av livet. Vad är det då som fängslar vår nyfikenhet så att vi bestämmer oss för att genomföra en resa? Vi söker efter platser som över tid blivit en attraktion, men som initialt ur olika perspektiv ansågs vara problematiska och där det offentligas hållning initialt var att platsens attraktion skulle försvunnit alternativt glömts bort. Med denna utgångspunkt är syftet med föreliggande artikel att sätta ljuset på den form av verksamheter som varit föremål för utredningar av det offentliga om att tas bort eller på annat sätt inte ge allmänheten tillgång till platsen, men som efterhand utvecklats till att vara en besöksattraktion och därmed istället ses som en resurs för platsen och regionen.

There is a lack of critical engagement and a focus on practical solutions in sustainable tourism debates. Research on biosphere reserve (BR) tourists has focused mainly on descriptions, while not critically engaging in issues relating to sustainable tourism. This article explores tourists' reflections on sustainable development in the landscape of a Swedish BR. The findings indicate that BR landscapes can increase environmental awareness, that aesthetics are important to how tourists make sense of sustainability, and that the functionality of the BR landscape shows how people perceive environmental concerns and how they see their own roles in affecting the landscape.

This article heeds previous calls for revitalized feminist accounts of gender and religion. Having identified post-secular female pilgrimages as practices that actuate a 'third space', we claim that it is a space that cannot be adequately theorized from within secular feminist perspectives and attendant conceptions of subjectivity, agency and autonomy. Nor do perspectives from religious studies and its conceptions of piety as expressions of subjectivity, agency and autonomy do justice to the spatialities and subjectivities of post-secular female pilgrims. The article aligns itself with the budding field of critical feminist studies of post-secularism. We argue that, in general, both the protagonists and the detractors of post-secularism fail to recognize feminist theorizations of religion, the post-secular debate in feminist studies, and the place and role of women in the emergence of the post-secular. Whence, our neologism post-sexularism.

Geomedia technologies represent an advanced set of digital media devices, hardwares, and softwares. Previous research indicates that these place contingent technologies are currently gaining significant social relevance, and contribute to the shaping of contemporary public lives and spaces. However, research has yet to empirically examine how, and for whom, geomedia technologies are made relevant, as well as the role of these technologies in wider processes of social and spatial (re-)production. This special issue contributes valuable knowledge to existing research in the realm of communication geography, by viewing the current “geomediascape” through the lens of social constructivist perspectives, and by interrogating the reciprocal shaping of technology, the social, and space/place. Scrutinizing the social construction of geomedia technologies in various empirical contexts and in relation to different social groups, the essays deal with important questions of power and control, and ultimately challenge the notion of (geo)mediatization as a neutral process.

Post-secular constructions of space and re-configurations of traditional sacred places are examined inspired by de Certeau’s conceptual quadrant of space, place, strategy and tactics. De Certeau’s theorization enables us to draw out the subversive or disruptive spatial practices of post-secular pilgrimages as instances of pedestrian rhetorics, pilgrimage as a space of enunciations and as the double other of both secular and sacred terrains, as well as ‘proper' practices. The article is based on interviews conducted on and off-season with pilgrims in the region of Galicia (Santiago de Compostela and Fisterra). Beyond an intervention in the geography of religion, this paper is also a contribution to the post-secular debate, post-secular geographies and the blurring of the boundaries between the secular and the sacred elicited by philosophers and social scientists.

We argue that home proper is tourism’s uncanny. Questions of home do not take centre stage in the discipline. Of course second homes have been explored in tourism studies. However, home proper has not been a subject worthy of philosophical/theoretical deliberations, analytical or methodological debates. Strange as it may seem, the discipline is home-less.

Research on tourism enclaves has relied mainly on topographical understandings of the phenomenon. The focus has been on the ontic, that which is or exists instead of the relational qualities or properties of tourism enclaves. Topographical conceptions thus tend to simplify enclavic processes and attributes that are much more complex than meets the eye. In this article, we make the case for topological understandings of tourism enclaves, based on a relational ontology, as a complement. We thereby strive to offer more nuanced conceptions of tourism enclaves. We depart from Agamben's political ontology to illustrate our claim. Seen topologically, tourism enclaves are not simply spaces marked-off from the norm, but rather constituents of the norm. Tourism enclaves need to be theorized as 'prototypes' or 'laboratories' of new subjectivities (ways of being, relating, and experiencing the world). The tourist thus emerges as a model figure of biopolitics in the contemporary, the norm rather than the exception. The tourist is not that which is abandoned by the sovereign in the manner of Agamben, but rather a free exilant, a subject that self-willingly chooses abandonment. We deploy topological concepts, like Agamben's the ban, the camp, and state of exception. Such a conception, we argue, widens the ontological register or horizon of tourism theory.

There is political interest in Sweden’s proximity to Norway, which is reflected in the regional policy focusing on developing business needs. As such, proximity at the regional level is simply expected to generate economic growth. The authors propose a holistic approach to spatial planning in a Swedish–Norwegian border region in place of the simplistic economic perspective. The aim of the article is to highlight the importance of adopting a bottom-up cross-border planning perspective that is based on the perceptions of the border region residents by showing that the proximity of Norway is important to communities in Värmland Province, on the border with Norway, in a different way from how regional authorities and policymakers perceive it. The authors used a qualitative method in their study. They found that residents were more interested in the individual, social, and cultural opportunities of the border, while authorities stressed traditional growth strategies. In conclusion, the authors recommend that policymakers should implement a bottom-up cross-border planning strategy (CBPS) in Värmland that includes the residents’ perspective, as a reinforcement of place-based policy approaches.

Emotional labour has for decades been addressed and investigated in tourism studies andtourism management. Originally coined by Arlie Hochschild in the late 1970s it has increasinglybeen elaborated upon in relation to tourism service work. This take on the originally sociologicalconcept has predominatly been managerial in tourism management studies, and contextualized asa clear-cut social interaction between employees and customers, with an employer in thebackground. Faithful to its mission to produce knowledge of value for the management of thetourist company (be it a hotel or some similar typical actor in the tourism industry) emotionallabour has thus been imagined, grasped and understood in specific more or less instrumental andfunctionalistic ways. Emotional labour is something that has to be formalized in a certain way inorder to be addressable and handable from a managerial rationality.However, with the rise of the sharing economy in tourism, with beacons like uber andAirbnb in the center, the employee becomes his or her own employer, and at the same time isregulated by an assemblage of digital technologies. The established view on emotional labour assituated within a triangle of employee, customer and employer does not apply in the same way.As a consequence, emotional labour as a societal phenomenon needs to be rethought, outside thecomfort zone of conventional managerialism. To some degree this has been done in tourismstudies, but this research is still in its cradle. In particular, there is a lack of reasoning of more(sociological) contextual and systematic, as well as critical but also nuanced, takes on emotionallabour in the tourism sharing economy. This paper offers such a contextual, systematic, criticalbut also nuanced (thus avoiding conventional neoliberalism-bashing) take on the phenomenon,with the highlighting the emotional labour of being an Airbnb host as a case.

Western society has increasingly turned to different kinds of spirituality in dealing with an accelerated tempo and demands in everyday post-modern life. Yoga, meditation, mindfulness and other forms of modalities, often connected to ancient eastern thinking, are taught and implemented in management and leadership practises (Cederström & Spicer, 2015). Although organizational theorizing has previously excluded issues of spirituality, an increasing interest in this discourse has awakened (cf. Fry, Latham, Clinebell & Krahnke, 2016). For instance, an important sub-field of organizational theory where non-rational views of organizations actually already have evolved is the field of leadership, that commonly addresses non-rationalistic ideals in organizations such as emotions, visions and transformative change (cf. Bass, 1990). In line with a growing interest in alternative ways of organising our lives as both consumers and producers (as taking part of building our societies through business or non-profit operations) to take care of each other and the world, compassion is a concept to be explored. This is particularly the case when it comes to creating places of leisure and relaxation. The challenge is to create and implement compassionate and sustainable leisure places of community that allows people to catch their breath. These environments need to be conscious, supportive and compassionate to function as intended: to be like a shelter in a contemporary society that stresses other goals and priorities (as efficiency, rationality, environmentally unsustainable economic growth and so on). In this paper we present a case study, an attempt by lifestyle and leisure entrepreneurs to build a leisure community in Northern Cyprus, through the invocation of entrepreneurial and organizational leadership strategies of compassion, care, mindfulness and consciousness. We approach this case study through the following research questions: How can we understand compassionate organising? How is compassionate leadership practised? The aim is to explore compassionate leadership and, through a combination of sociological theories of space and insights in quantum theory, offer an empowering understanding of compassionate organisational spaces. In order to understand compassionate organisational spaces we need to turn to socio-spatial theoretical outlines of the nature and constitution of environments (Massey, 2005). Our understanding of that builds on an inherently relational notion of space. Here, physical distance is not the sole or primary factor or variable. Rather, space is unfolded by social relations (of caring and compassion) that transgress physical distances and institutional barriers (Deleuze, 1993; Doel, 1999; Shields, 2013). This approach harmonizes (and is here combined) with the world-view expressed in quantum theory (non-locality and entanglement: that cause and effect works regardless of how far apart they are and that reality is created by consciousness) (Abrahamsson, 2012; Pernecky, 2016). To distill the reasoning somewhat: compassion and consciousness are in themselves unfolded spatialities that can be nurtured into sustainable environments (as things can be observed into existence due to the mind-interdependence of quantum reality).

Denna rapport är resultatet av ett projekt vars syfte har varit att bygga upp en forskningsdatabas över och kartera svenska mikro-/hantverksbryggerier verksamma under främst 2000-talet. Sammanställningen har skett genom insamling, systematisering, lagring, analys och visualisering av bryggeridata utifrån geografiska platser. Forskningsdatabasens användbarhet exemplifieras genom analyser med stöd av GIS (geografiska informationssystem) och digitala kartor över svenska bryggeriers geografiska utbredning och koncentrationer över tid samt bryggeriernas rumsliga förhållande till befolkningsrelaterade variabler som folkmängd och utbildningsnivå. Även om fokus har legat på ”mikro”-bryggerier inbegreps även ett antal större bryggerier som möjligtvis ej faller under definitionen mikrobryggeri i databasen. Skälet till detta grundar sig i den potentiella betydelsen dessa kan ha för utvecklingen av övrig bryggeriverksamhet i den specifika regionen. Ett mer lämpligt begrepp är hantverksbryggeri, som vi istället använder genomgående i rapporten i största möjliga utsträckning. En motsvarande forskningsdatabasuppbyggnad har så vitt vi är bekanta inte genomförts i Sverige, i fråga om detaljnivå, utsträckning och geografiska analysmöjligheter. Forskningsdatabasen, de geografiska analyser och resultat som presenteras i denna rapport är långt ifrån uttömmande utan visar mer potentialen inom fältet. Såväl de geografiska analyser som presenteras som forskningsdatabasen i sin nuvarande form skall ses som en väsentlig inspiration för fortsatta studier av svenska bryggeriers förändringsprocess över tid och rum.

Drawing on qualitative interviews with people journeying to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, this paper examines contemporary forms of pilgrimage. The journeys are found to encompass elements of both pilgrimage and tourism, blending the sacred and the profane. Contemporary pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela is shown to be an expression of new forms of spirituality, as well as reflecting the global increase in tourism, rather than as a revival of a traditional religious practice. At one level, the sacred meaning of Santiago de Compostela is thus shifting. A sense of the historical sacredness of the Way persists, however, and this is as an important backdrop for the understanding and experience of the contemporary pilgrim.

The pursuit for sustainability in biosphere reserve (BR) tourism entails the need not merely for tourism businesses to adapt to the changing environmental preferences of tourists but also for entrepreneurs to gain new knowledge about sustainability. Our study illustrates how place is central to grasp the processes of learning for sustainability. Drawing on qualitative interviews, we examine place-specific and social learning processes for sustainability among small-scale tourism entrepreneurs in a Swedish BR. The findings are discussed using an analytic framework, based on themes of place-specific learning emerging from the interviews. Learning for sustainability among tourism entrepreneurs entails an emphasis on both social and spatial processes. Our findings show how the small-scale tourism entrepreneurs engage in learning through their interactions with tourists at their tourism establishments, through networking with other tourism businesses and regional stakeholders, through engaging with local resources and cultural norms of the BR, and through their experiences and practices connected to their everyday lives and the private sphere.

The phenomenon of travelling to myth-related places has had a revival inrecent decades, warranting an investigation of how such places areperceived by today’s tourists. While established myths and the specificplaces they are associated with have been extensively researched, thereis as yet relatively little research on how tourists appropriate and reworkconventional myth-based place meaning and identity. The aim of thisarticle is to contribute to wider debates on place, meaning and identityin tourism studies particularly as regards myth-related tourist destinations.Relying on theories of place and identity, we highlight how mythicalplaces and their identities are appropriated and consumed by andmade part of individual tourists’ experiences. Drawing on qualitativeinterviews with tourists journeying to Finisterre in Spain, this articleshows how tourists rework the classical symbolism surrounding mythicalplaces and imbue these with new meanings and identities. Based onFinisterre as a case, our study found out that myth-related places havebecome tourist-driven attractions: at present it is tourist flows that shapetraditional myth destinations.

 In contrast to traditional nature protection strategies, UNESCO's Man and Biosphere Reserves (BRs) can be seen as a more pronounced perspective that includes nature, culture and sustainable development. Tourism is generally supported in BRs, which also are meant to function as "learning sites of excellence to explore and demonstrate approaches to conservation and sustainable development" (UNESCO, 1996 p. 16). The focus of BRs has centred on environmental sustainability, due to the concept's history in nature preservation. However, like all global concepts, the interpretation of sustainable development in BRs is filtered over time through national, regional and local conditions. Explicit or underlying development strategies are also in place when the concept is applied in practice. It is therefore important to gain a better understanding of how sustainable development is interpreted and how BR stakeholders see the role of tourism over time. It is against this background that a case study was carried out on the Lake Vänern Archipelago BR in Sweden, its tourism aspects and the interpretation of sustainable development. The findings illustrate an ambivalence with regard to which approach to sustainable development is preferred, but there are striking parallels between the evolution of environmental commitment during the 20th century and the changing profile of BRs in general. Further, it can be noted that studying concrete examples of situated cases of sustainable development efforts in terms of biosphere reserves can contribute greatly to the ongoing discussion about which development approaches are seen as more or less sustainable.

The coming of post-secular society has opened up interesting transdisciplinary research and perspectives. Research and academic debates on the post-secular have yet to make inroads into the discipline of tourism studies, which is ironic since there is an intrinsic religiosity to tourism. We table that tourism lies at the core of the post-secular turn and should be studied as such. Likewise, academic debate on post-secularism has not accorded tourism its proper due. This study has two objectives. First, to fill the research gap in studies of tourism and post-secularism and, second, to show that post-secular tourism is one of the key spaces where the post-secular is articulated. This article is based on interviews of pilgrims in the Galicia region (Spain) conducted in 2011, 2012 and 2014. Four major attributes of post-secular tourism were identified: (self-)reflexivity, quest for ontological security, heterodoxy and topos-disloyalty. Our findings indicate that the post-secular tourist transcends conventional dichotomies between religious pilgrimage and tourism, journeying as affirmation of denominational faith and pure leisure. Post-secular tourism is about ontogenesis, that is, it is performative rather than injunctive. It is in this sense that one can speak of post-secular tourism as something open, unfolding and in constant becoming.

Revolution and the Critique of Human Geography. Prospects for the Right to the City After 50 Years’ is the paper that Don Mitchell read for the plenary lecture at the 7th Nordic Geographic Meet, held in Stockholm in June 2017. The paper was the Geografiska Annaler B Lecture, at the invi- tation Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography and the conference organizers.

Proceeding from the premise that ‘revolution is a geographical act’, Mitchell relies on two key revolutionary thinkers cum protagonists to convey the profoundly spatial nature of revolution. The first, Henri Lefebvre is a well-known thinker in geographical circles not least through his oft- cited 1967 text The Right to The City, with the likes of David Harvey, Edward Soja, Neil Smith, Andy Merrifield, Bob Shields, Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden, and of course Don Mitchell himself, as interlocutors. The second protagonist, Guy Debord is a significant thinker in his own right, Lefebvre’s former student and political antagonist, well known in Marxian, media, film and cultural theory, but not so well known in geographical circles. Debord’s book The Society of the Spectacle (1995) is a pioneer work on commodified life, culture and power in the contemporary (Merrifield 2004). It is only apposite then that Mitchell grants Debord more space (15 entries on The Society of the Spectacle compared to the 4 or 5 entries on the Right to the City) in his deliberations on revo- lution. Even with the numbered format (reminiscent of Debord’s numbered Theses), one can discern an introduction, corpus and a coda. In what follows, I present my take on Don Mitchell’s lecture/ paper by focusing on two themes. The first revolves around issues of time and history, the second is parallel readings of Debord-Mitchell on questions of space, revolution and the critique of human geography. I wind up by offering an alternative take on revolution and the critique of human geography. 

Following on the reiterated claim that accounting inscriptions make action at a distance possible, we draw on post-mathematical topology to explain that this distance work is dependent on inscriptions acting on distances. By adopting a relational understanding of space, we show that accounting inscriptions by themselves create the distances across which they operate. Our case study uses pay-as-you-throw solid waste-collection invoices in a new waste-collection program aimed at increasing the sustainability of waste management. By displaying weight and cost side by side, these invoices conduct topological operations that dissolve, create, and redefine the distance between people and their waste, between the economy and the environment, and between the city and its residents. The ability of these operations to mobilize a sense of environmental responsibility, enroll residents in the city's plans for sustainability, and translate political ambitions into individual behavior demonstrates that the performativity of accounting inscriptions resides in the efficacy of their distance work.<br/>

In this article, we explore governance structures of the recreational landscape of Kvarken Archipelago in Western Finland, an area where shore displacement occurs due to land rise and emergent (pristine) land is continuously created. Traditionally a production landscape, of fishing and small-scale agriculture, the recreational value of the archipelago has been acknowledged. The area is a popular second home destination and was designated UNESCO World Heritage in 2006. There are roughly 10,000 second homes within the study area, of which 14% are leaseholds located on emergent land. The emergent land thus makes up a common-pool resource system where private and collective use rights overlap. This article aims to understand the implications for recreational use (second home ownership) through interviews with different local stakeholders such as municipality planners, representatives of commons, local communities, and with environmental and land survey authorities. Especially, it sets out to ask, what kinds of value are created within the recreational resource system, what power relationships within the commons steer the management of the recreational resource system, and what are the implications for recreational use of the landscape. The results show different logics of recreational resource management locally in the studied commons. Access to second homes located within the collectively owned emergent land is limited to part-owners of the commons and tend to be less commercialized and also less modernized than privately owned second home plots.

In the Kvarken Archipelago in western Finland, land elevation occurs as a result of the latest ice age. Here the elevation is approximately 0.8-0.9 cm per year creating 1 km2 of land yearly in the shallow archipelago. This new land becomes an economic and social resource for the local stakeholders in the archipelago. As it accrues automatically to the commons (local land ownership organisations constituted through Finnish law), access to the land resources becomes an issue of local governance. There are roughly 20,000 second homes in the Ostrobothnian region, many of which are located on leaseholds on emergent land. Most of the power of negotiation of access and leasehold contract engineering lies with the part-owners of the commons. Part-owners enjoy both more generous access to and fairer pricing of leaseholds, leading to a concentration of locals in the seaside second home areas. Second home leaseholders, at least those without part-ownership in the commons, have very limited opportunities to participate in decision-making processes regarding their leaseholds, and they are to a large extent excluded from the social management of the resource system. This has visible traces in the second home landscape as e.g. incitement and possibilities for renovation and upkeep differs, and in some areas the situation is conflictual. In this chapter, we explore the second home owners' experiences of the implications of land elevation and the social management of the emergent land practised by the commons. Through interviews with representatives of the commons, and with second home owners (both leasers and those who own their plot), the aim is to understand the roles of the different stakeholders in the negotiation of access to second home plots, and management of the resource system made up by attractive emergent land.

This paper focuses on collaborative geomedia research methodologies. Geomedia can be described as intersecting theories and practises from media and communication studies and human geography. By using the concept of collaborative geomedia we point to a research approach in which tourism actors, researchers, designers and visitors together develop place-based digital experiences. Collaborative geomedia methods can be applied as research tools among scholars with interest in how various groups relate to and make sense of a certain place and its history interconnected to practical development of concrete location-based applications that are developed through collaborative work involving researchers, designers and potential users.  We will discuss this type of method and how it has been used in an on-going research project regarding place-based digital visitor experiences. The fast pace of technical development within the tourism industry creates a gap between the development and knowledge about digitalisation and mediatisation within the industry. While the technique tends to steer the development, the digitalisation within the industry increases rapidly with lack of reflection of how different actors from the industry is included and what the effects are for the tourism destinations and the local place. This paper intends to fill an identified gap of knowledge about methods for enhancing visitors’ on site-experiences using digital media, where key actors in the local tourism industry and community are included and were processes of development are based on place-anchoring. By launching the geomedia approach within the research field in tourism studies, we are building a bridge between technology and people and connecting media with a place-based perspective. By using the geomedia perspective, we focus on ‘who can communicate what at different places?’ What is represented at places and ‘whose’ places are represented (today and in the past)?  

In this thesis I analyse sustainable development by researching tourism in a biosphere reserve. Sustainable development is based on a broad range of environmental, economic and social elements, bound together by the fact that development is limited by boundaries in the environment. Studies on tourism have the potential to contribute to sustainable development by changing environmental awareness, by promoting a way of life that reduces environmental impact, and by suggesting sustainable lifestyle changes. It is this aspect of sustainable development that I have addressed, as a contribution to the knowledge base, via the example of tourism development in biosphere reserves. Exploring the complex interaction between sustainable development and tourism in a biosphere reserve provides the added value of a case study in which sustainable development is central and actively promoted, as biosphere reserves are meant to be learning sites for sustainability. By incorporating and highlighting a theoretical foundation, consisting of relational place, substantive landscape and sustainable development, this study included analysis of a selection of concrete tourism-related features, activities and actors, all of which influence sustainable development. Consequently, the main research question of this study was: How is tourism mobilised by different actors to attain and promote sustainable development in a biosphere reserve?

This thesis shows that that sustainable development is a spatial relation, and something that we make together with other people, and that tourism, under certain circumstances, has the potential to contribute to sustainable development. My research on the mobilisation of tourism for sustainability in biosphere reserves in general, and Lake Vänern Archipelago Biosphere Reserve in particular, has highlighted several theoretical and empirical findings that contribute to our increased understanding of how sustainable development works.