PhD Thesis by João Sarmento
Supervisor: Professor Patrick O'Flanagan
External Examiner: Professor Paul Claval (Univ. Sorbonne, Paris)
Internal Examiner: Dr. Kevin Hourihan
Contents
List of Figures iv
List of Plates vi
List of Tables vi
List of Appendices vii
Acknowledgements viii
Chapter one: Introduction 1
Part I: Conceptual Issues and Methodology 12
Chapter two: Space and Representation 15
Part I: Space(s), Place(s) and Landscape(s) 15
Part II: Representation Issues in Social Sciences and Geography 27
Chapter three: Cultural Geography and the Geographical Imagination 39
Part I: 'New' Cultural Geography and Tourism Geography 39
Part II: Geographical Imaginations 53
Chapter four: Virtual Geographies 79
Part I: Technological Revolution 79
Part II: The WWW and Tourism 93
Chapter five: Methodology 107
Part I: Comparative Studies 108
Part II: Qualitative Research 114
Part II: The Production of Space 143
Chapter six: Regional Geographies 145
Part I: The Construction of Marginality 157
Part II: The Construction of the Romantic 190
Chapter seven: Tourism Spaces 217
Part I: Tourism in Ireland and Portugal 218
Part II: Tourism in West Cork and in the Azores 238
Part III: Tourism Spatial Practices and Ways of Seeing the Regions 280
Part III: Representation and Imagination in and of Cyberspace 295
Chapter eight: Agents of Blindness 297
Part I: National Tourism Organisations and the WWW 299
Part II: The "Official" Regional Dimension 323
Chapter nine: Tourism Cyberscapes in West Cork and the Azores 334
Part I: Tourism Cyberscapes 338
Part II: The Regions' Virtual Tourism Gates 358
Chapter ten: Landscape Construction and the Geographical Imagination 400
Part I: Interactions Over Time 402
Part II: Imaginative Geographies 415
Chapter eleven: Reflections 450
Appendices 456
Bibliography 471
Abstract
Throughout this thesis I explore representations and geographical imaginations of West Cork (Southwest of Ireland) and the Azores (Portugal), in an attempt not only to grasp their spirit of place, but to discuss the various ways in which the two regions have been socially and culturally constructed. Most importantly, I examine the various manners in which geographical knowledge is being produced, within the context of the tourism industry, especially in virtual space. Thus, I seek to participate in the ongoing debate of deconstructing geographical discourse to explore the dynamics of power and the role of different interest groups in the representation of landscapes within the tourism industry.
The methodology used comprises textual analysis of various tourist promotional literature, notably those existing in cyberspace, in the World Wide Web. In-depth interviews using Computer Mediated Communication (CMC), and in particular electronic mail were also used as a research methodology that allowed to interact with various people that were thinking of, or did visit, one of the study areas. This methodology is geared towards avoiding an approach that privileges or tilts the researcher's interpretation of texts, images and representations and prioritises polysemic and inter-textual decodings of tourist places especially through the 'voices' of tourists.
The geographies of virtual spaces emerge from the interaction between the practices of users, who resist and assent with the virtual environments they encounter, and the constraining architecture imposed by those who own the technological terrain in question. The opinions of a selection of respondents illustrated how tourism has a key role in people's negotiation of meanings of marginality and authenticity in relation to places. The regions are seen and perceived as marginal and peripheral, and that is clearly related to people's geographical imaginations and tourism. I did not find evidence that small peripheral places in both regions are contesting their marginality position with the construction of web sites. The large majority of the respondents browsed the web sites produced by the official tourism organisations at a national level, notably Bord Fáilte, and other web sites produced by outsiders to the regions. To a great extent the dominant representations of these peripheral places are thus constructed by outsiders, emphasising the themes of 'places apart' and 'the friendliness of the people' (notably in West Cork).
Questions of locality, identity, hyperreality and representation are central to the construction of tourism spaces and are at the centre stage of cultural geographers' concerns. I have illustrated how cultural geography should move from a field of enquiry examining exclusively representations, to one that takes interpretation by other people seriously. I have argued that there is a need to move off from texts, reading them semiotically, to approach the readings of these same texts done by ordinary people. By providing various snapshots of parts of cyberspace, I have illustrated how web sites are spaces of cultural production, where geographical knowledge is being produced. The digital nature of representational technologies is producing new codings and practices, and with them new possible geographies. The changes that this medium is bringing are significant, and the manner in which individuals, businesses and institutions are engaging with it should be studied carefully.