​Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage Summer School
SOAS University of London
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See the 2020 handbook here. 

In the present global Coronavirus pandemic, the tourism and hospitality industries are in deep sleep. At the same time, issues of climate change are pressing down on economies and societies everywhere: we are at a moment of profound change and re-thinking of the destination of ourselves, our societies and cultures, and the planet itself.

Hospitality, tourism, and pilgrimage are in the front line.

The course offers a wide range of theoretical and policy related approaches to travel, tourism, pilgrimage, and cultural heritage – incorporating reference to migration of all kinds and backed up by appropriate ethnographic/geographical examples from many parts of the world.

The course is taught over an intense two-week period. It is open to students/ participants from a variety of academic disciplines – anthropology, sociology, history, geography, development studies, international relations, art, music, and other disciplines in the Arts and Humanities. Participants with professional and more general experience and knowledge of the field are welcome.

This course consists of on-line presentations, seminars, readings, and discussions. It will offer a wide range of approaches and agendas (both theoretical and policy related) about tourism, pilgrimage, cultural heritage, and travel more generally – including references to migration (including migration of refugees).

The course will be conducted in an intense on-line environment. The course is open to students in a variety of disciplines including anthropology, sociology, history, geography, development studies, international relations, art – as well as disciplines in Art and Humanities more generally. Following the successful summer school held at SOAS last year (2019) we are embedding our mode of teaching within a rigorous and also homely intellectual framework that welcomes and encourages participants from all levels: undergraduate to post-doctoral to fully fledged academics - and all points in between.