Negotiating the rubbish on the coast of Dhermi/Drimades, Himara municipality, southern Albania
Abstract
This paper discusses how the meaning of rubbish on the coast of Dhermi (official name) Drimades (local name) in Himara Municipality of Southern Albania is related to construction and reconstruction of social and spatial boundaries and vice versa. Firstly in 1997, after the fall of the pyramid schemes and the loss of the state control in the post-communist Albania and later on after the year 2000, when the national coastal road to Dhermi/Drimades was rebuilt, tourist facilities on the coastal plain of Dhermi/Drimades enlarged in number. First owners of these tourist facilities, such as small hotels, apartments and restaurants, were mainly newcomers from Vlora and Tirana who bought the land that used to belong to the state in the period of communism (1945-1990). Later, after 2000, the returnees from Greece, whose parents originate from Dhermi/Drimades, joined these endeavours and built their tourist facilities on the land which belonged to their ancestors. Nowadays, with the growing number of tourists coming to the coast of Dhermi/Drimades, coinciding with the absence of communal service, the dumpsites along the main road and in the clearings are rising in numbers and rubbish is becoming an important issue in general. This paper illustrates how the owners of tourist facilities and the tourists, represented by emigrants originating from Dhermi/Drimades and other places throughout Albania, as well as others coming from Vlora and Tirana or rarely from different parts of Europe, discuss the rubbish as contested. In their representations, they negotiate who is responsible for the rubbish. During these negotiations the local owners and the emigrants originating from the Dhermi/Drimades construct and reconstruct the social and spatial boundaries and their sense of belonging.http://www.nomadit.co.uk/asa/asa07/
Thinking through tourism
10th - 13th April 2007, London Metropolitan University, UK
This conference will mark over three decades of anthropological work on tourism and tourism-related issues. It will combine reflections on the evolution of anthropological interest in the subject, on where the subject stands presently, and on the various directions in which it may be going. Possible panels will include the ethnography of tourism; the kinship between tourism, anthropology and epistemology; images and objects; tourism and the body; tourism policy and planning; anthropological approaches to museums; anthropology and the global political-economy of tourism; anthropology and regional development; anthropology, tourism and borderlands; and tourism and nationalism. It will be held at London Metropolitan University.
The conference will start at midday on Tuesday 10th April 2007 and finish in the early afternoon of the 13th. Days will be divided into morning and afternoon sessions of approximately three hours duration. The conference will open on Tuesday afternoon with an extended plenary session. Morning sessions will consist of a 90-minute plenary, followed by 90-minute parallel workshops. The afternoons of days two and three will be devoted to further parallel sessions, with time between lunchtime and 4pm on Thursday for network and business meetings. The conference will close at lunchtime on Friday. There will be three plenary and seven parallel sessions over the four days of the conference.
The call for papers is closed; ASA organised accommodation is fully booked; however registration is still open!
Paper-givers do NOT have to be ASA members, although the Association would encourage joining.
Registration is open.
Download the conference poster as a PDF and print it off for display in your office or department.
Low-resolution (280k - not for print) || Hi-resolution (6meg - for colour print on A3).
With support from:
Conference convenors
Prof Tom Selwyn, London Metropolitan University
E: t.selwyn(AT)londonmet.ac.uk
Dr Julie Scott, London Metropolitan University
E: j.scott(AT)londonmet.ac.uk
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