Author Archives: RGS-IBG Managing Editor: Academic Publications

The fluid geographies of marine territorialisation processes

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By Paula Satizábal, University of Melbourne, and Simon P J Batterbury, Lancaster University.

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(c) Photo by Paula Satizábal, small-scale fishers on the Gulf of Tribugá.

Empty-yet-full imaginaries

Oceans are framed by policy makers and governments as being empty of people and full of resources available for capital accumulation (Bridge 2001). They are portrayed as containers of open access public goods (e.g. the Exclusive Economic Zones prescribed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). These images are used to facilitate the privatisation of fishing grounds and other productive areas, as well as to justify the overexploitation of marine resources, which are generally under very limited state control. People who live near coasts are often excluded from conversations about how marine territory is negotiated.

People living at the intersection of land and sea have not been passive observers of these processes of accumulation by dispossession. Despite an absence of institutional instruments that recognise peoples’ marine territorial rights, several groups and communities have relied on marine conservation enclosures as the only legal tool available to legitimise their authority over the sea. However, for many, this is not a long-term solution; once a marine protected area has been established coastal peoples are often excluded from decision-making arenas.

Previous research has highlighted the key role played by state and non-state actors in negotiating land-based territorialisation. However, the role played by socio-cultural dynamics on guiding and informing marine territorialisation processes has been largely overlooked. Our recent publication in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, entitled ‘Fluid geographies: marine territorialisation and the scaling up of local aquatic epistemologies on the Pacific Coast of Colombia’ (Satizábal & Batterbury 2017), addresses this gap. We examine the participatory process undertaken by coastal Afro-descendant communities along the Gulf of Tribugá on the northern Pacific coast of Colombia, which enabled them to take part in the state production of territory at sea through the creation of a marine protected area.

Local aquatic epistemologies

Ulrich Oslender (2016) coined the concept of ‘local aquatic epistemologies’ to denote the ways of knowing that result from the entanglements of humans in aquatic environments. We argue that coastal dwellers in the Gulf of Tribugá hold ‘local aquatic epistemologies’, which is where knowledge has been produced through the individual and collective experiences of people entangled in the fluid dynamics of rain, rivers, and sea, as well as through their interactions with indigenous and expert knowledge.

Coastal people along the Gulf generally conceived the sea as a lived space, where territory is constructed through everyday practices, moving beyond marine/riverine/coastal divides. However, the collective territorial rights granted to Afro-descendant communities in Colombia since 1993 only recognised their rights over the land, reproducing the spatial logics of the colonial period. Conflicts between coastal communities and the deep-water shrimp and tuna industrial fisheries have escalated since the 1990s due to the impacts of overfishing and excessive bycatch. These conflicts cannot be reduced to threats to coastal food security or access to fishing resources; they are an important part of coastal dwellers’ efforts to defend their marine social spaces and authority over the sea.

The marine protected area

With the support from conservation NGOs, and informed by their local aquatic epistemologies, these communities are navigating the state institutional apparatus. They have used formal institutional mechanisms to claim their marine rights through the creation of a marine protected area. The process has been centred on the conservation of fishing resources, relegating the socio-cultural dimensions of their marine claims to the background.

The creation of the marine protected area on the Gulf of Tribugá involved the scaling up of local aquatic epistemologies. This has enabled Afro-descendant territorial struggles to reach national negotiation arenas, transforming relations of authority at sea. The marine protected area emerges as a space of resistance that subverts the lack of legal mechanisms to assert the marine territorial rights of coastal people. These spaces are, however, still dominated by the interests of the fishing industry.

Although this process contests marine empty-yet-full imaginaries, the creation of marine protected areas remains centred on access and control over fishing resources. We emphasise the importance of developing legal instruments that overcome marine coastal divides and recognise the relevance of marine social spaces as part of indigenous and afro-descendant peoples’ territorial rights.

About the authors: Paula Satizábal is a PhD Candidate at the School of Geography, University of Melbourne, and Simon P J Batterbury is Professor of Political Ecology at the Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University.

References

60-world2 Alexandersen A, Juhl S, Munk Neilsen J 2017 Ocean grabs: fighting the ‘rights-based’ corporate take-over of fisheries governance The Ecologist 21 November 2016 http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2988355/ocean_grabs_fighting_the_rightsbased_corporate_takeover_of_fisheries_governance.html 

books_icon Bridge G 2001 Resource triumphalism Environment and Planning A 33 2149–2173.

60-world2 Jarvis R and Bennett N 2017 Ocean conservation needs a Hippocratic oath – we must do no harm The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jun/28/ocean-conservation-needs-a-hippocratic-oath-we-must-do-no-harm 28 June 2017

books_icon Oslender U 2016 The geographies of social movements: Afro-Colombian mobilization and the aquatic space Duke University, United States.

60-world2 Ota Y and Cisneros-Montemayor A 2017 For indigenous communities, fish mean much more than food The Conversation https://theconversation.com/for-indigenous-communities-fish-mean-much-more-than-food-70129 30 January 2017 

books_icon Satizábal, P. and Batterbury, S. P. J. (2017), Fluid geographies: marine territorialisation and the scaling up of local aquatic epistemologies on the Pacific coast of Colombia. Trans Inst Br Geogr. doi:10.1111/tran.12199

60-world2 Silver Herrera J 2015 Los pescadores del Chocó que se empeñaron en cuidar su mar http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-15474539 (Spanish)

60-world2 Smiths M, Beal D, Lind F, Portafaiz A, Chaundry T 2017 The Economic Imperative to Revive Our Oceans Boston Consulting Group https://www.bcg.com/en-au/publications/2017/transformation-sustainability-economic-imperative-to-revive-our-oceans.aspx

Does green infrastructure represent a sound investment opportunity?

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By Steve Cinderby, University of York, UK, and Sue Bagwell, London Metropolitan University, UK. 

Globally our societies are becoming increasingly urbanised with the United Nations (UN) reporting that already the majority of people live in urban settings with predictions this will rise to 66 per cent by 2050. Historically this has often meant increasingly constructed, grey, environments, however, there are increasing demands to green our cities with the introduction of more plants and trees.

Last month London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, unveiled plans to make the English capital the world’s first “National Park City” by 2019. With initial funding of £9M the intention is to increase the amount of green space including encouraging the development of more green roofs, green walls and rain gardens. This initiative connects to the UN Sustainable Development goals for cities and the calls for accessible greenspace made in the New Urban Agenda that emerged after the 2016 UN Summit on Future Cities.

Whilst some have highlighted the challenges for an existing cityscape like London of introducing more green into the urban fabric alongside demands for housing, businesses and service infrastructure recently published research indicates that the Mayor’s plan could bring not just environmental benefits (reducing surface water flooding, improving air quality, cooling urban heat islands and increasing local wildlife diversity) but also improve the mental health and well-being of Londoner’s and increase the economic vitality of the city.

Our newly published Area paper describes the impact of introducing a relatively small number of green infrastructure schemes around Victoria station in London. The findings illustrate that as well as the known environmental returns investing in urban green infrastructure within existing neighbourhoods could also make sound financial sense. The research provides new evidence that city greenery can increase customer footfall particularly for retail and leisure businesses, encouraging visitors to ‘linger-longer’ and potentially ‘spend more’ in a pleasanter environment. In our city workplaces the study found that investing in office greenspace improved staff member’s morale and work satisfaction. Greener workplace setting also seem to encourage staff to adopt more sustainable behaviours including better energy saving and recycling again potentially bringing both environmental and economic benefits.

This new evidence indicates that, alongside the London Mayoral investment, the city’s private enterprises should also consider financing the incorporation of more green infrastructure into new building schemes whilst retrofitting green walls and street trees into existing neighbourhoods where possible. These improvements could boost their economic value for retail and desirability for employers. A National Park City investments could not only make environmental sense but could bring sound financial and well-being benefits as well.

About the authors: Steve Cinderby is a Senior Researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), University of York. Sue Bagwell is Research Development Manager at the Cities Institute London Metropolitan University. 

60-world2 BBC 2017 London mayor launches bid to improve city’s green credentials http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40899234 11 August 2017

books_icon Cinderby, S. and Bagwell, S. (2017), Exploring the co-benefits of urban green infrastructure improvements for businesses and workers’ wellbeing. Area. doi:10.1111/area.12361

60-world2 Sofianos G (2017) Mayor wants to make London world’s first National Park City LondonLovesBusiness http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/london-news/mayor-wants-to-make-london-worlds-first-national-park-city/17132.article 11 August 2017

60-world2 UN New Urban Agenda http://habitat3.org/

Digital Data: Opening up the Weather Archive – Geo at #RGSIBG17

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Geo: Geography and Environment

Join us on Wednesday 30 August at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference for our Geo sponsored session ‘Digital Data: Opening up the Weather Archive’ (Education Centre, session 3, 14.40-16.20), convened by Georgina Endfield (The University of Liverpool), Lucy Veale (The University of Liverpool), and Sarah Davies (Aberystwyth University).

This session brings together researchers working on weather and climate history, existing or potential end users of research databases, and custodians of manuscript weather data, to critically evaluate the construction, management, application, and implications of digital weather data. Emphasis will be placed on thinking about the future of these tools and how we can improve connections between them, both technical and geographical.

The session will also include a live demonstration of the TEMPEST database (Tracking Extremes of Meteorological Phenomena in Extent across Space and Time). TEMPEST’s c.20,000 records are drawn from primary research into original documentary sources held in archives around…

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Decolonising geographical knowledges: new papers in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers and Area

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The 2017 RGS-IBG Annual International Conference Chair, Sarah Radcliffe, University of Cambridge, has chosen the theme ‘Decolonising geographical knowledges: opening geography out to the world’.

A series of articles that directly engage with the conference theme have been published in the RGS-IBG journals Transactions and Area. The following papers are free to access until August 2018.

Transactions Themed Intervention, Decolonising Geographical Knowledges. Guest edited by Sarah A Radcliffe

Decolonising geographical knowledges  by Sarah A Radcliffe (University of Cambridge) and RGS-IBG Conference Chair.

Mainstreaming geography’s decolonial imperative by Tariq Jazeel  (UCL)

From where we stand: unsettling geographical knowledges in the classroom by Michelle Daigle and Juanita Sundberg (The University of British Columbia)

Decolonial theory in a time of the re-colonisation of UK research by Patricia Noxolo (University of Birmingham)

Decolonialism by Stephen Legg (University of Nottingham)

Area Special Section, Decolonising Geographical Knowledge in a Colonised and Re-colonising Postcolonial World. Guest edited by Patricia Noxolo

Introduction: Decolonising geographical knowledge in a colonised and re-colonising postcolonial world by Patricia Noxolo (University of Birmingham)

Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) student and staff in contemporary British Geography by Vandana Desai (Royal Holloway University of London)

A day in the life of a Geographer: ‘lone’, black, female by Divya P Tolia-Kelly (Durham University)

Decolonising geographical knowledges: the incommensurable, the university and democracy by Andrew Baldwin (Durham University)

‘Free, decolonised education’: a lesson from the South African student struggle by Adam Elliott-Cooper (King’s College London)

Commentary: The 2017 RGS-IBG chair’s theme: decolonising geographical knowledges, or reproducing coloniality? By James Esson (Loughborough University), Patricia Noxolo (University of Birmingham), Richard Baxter (Queen Mary University of London), Patricia Daley (University of Oxford), and Margaret Byron (University of Leicester)

 

Cities as Anthropocene landforms

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By Simon Dixon, University of Birmingham, UK

Blog_Area12358

Attributions A) Used with permission of author, appears in Hartland A, Fairchild I J, Lead J R, Dominguez-Villar D, Baker A, Gunn J, Baalousha M and Ju-Nam Y, 2010, The dripwaters and speleothems of Poole’s Cavern: a review of recent and ongoing research Cave and Karst Science 36 37–46, B) Bradley Garrett, used with permission, C) CC BY 3.0, User Σ64 on Wikimedia commons, D) Photo by Aheneen for State of California (public domain)

Sinkholes regularly appear in city streets around the world, but despite often widespread media interest, there is almost no academic research into sinkholes in urban environments. This is symptomatic of a wider lack of urban-based earth surface research. The world is becoming increasingly urbanised, with the majority of people already living in cities and the proportion expected to rise to 66% by 2050. We are undeniably living in the age of humankind, the “Anthropocene”, but we are still coming to terms with what this means for the planet and for ourselves. Researchers and policy makers have begun to consider the social and environmental impacts of our increased urbanisation. There are also efforts to understand the impact human activity is having on the surface of the earth more broadly – for example, through the creation of anthropogenic landforms like open-cast mines, and by changing erosion processes in rivers through human activity. However, so far there has been little attention paid to the way earth surface processes are slowly altering and morphing the fabric of our cities to create new, startling and potentially dangerous features.

In our new Area paper, we argue, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that in neglecting to consider how earth surface processes are changing the urban fabric we risk repeating the fate of Ozymandias, the great king in the Shelley poem of the same name. In the poem the famous lines: “look on my works ye mighty and despair” are inscribed on the plinth of a ruined and eroded statue. One way of interpreting this is the king did not consider whether time and earth surface processes would degrade the monuments he constructed. We argue that without considering the forces acting within our cities we cannot understand the way they will change, decay and potentially fall into ruin in the future.

There are several interesting ways we have identified earth surface processes working on our cities, including the development of limestone cavern-type formations in old tunnels running under cities, formed from dissolved concrete. A key component in how earth surface processes develop in a city is the degree of maintenance. Social pressures and conditions which mean parts of a city are neglected or abandoned could allow these physical processes to proceed unchecked. Indeed places such as Detroit, Chernobyl and Hashima Island provide examples of hybrid urban landforms created by decay and weathering.

One important example of hybrid urban landforms is that of urban sinkholes, which although a natural phenomenon, occur in different ways in the urban environment. The formation processes for sinkholes in areas of limestone bed rock are well-documented and understood, and they can be classified partly according to the layer of rock and soil above the limestone. However, in urban environments we have created a very unusual situation where there is a hard, impermeable “rock” (tarmac/asphalt/concrete) sitting on top of a soft layer (soil or “made earth”). Flowing or percolating water can remove the soil, creating a void under the tarmac, which eventually develops into a sinkhole. It is possible this process played a role in the collapse of the Oroville Dam spillway in February 2017, with flowing water removing material under the spillway. The combination of a hard impermeable layer over a soft, easily-erodible layer only really occurs in nature during some volcanic eruptions where pumice is overlain by lava. We therefore have no natural comparisons for how soil piping sinkholes form in cities. Without specifically researching these it is hard to design ways to prevent them from occurring, or devise early warning systems.

Once we begin to think of the whole urban fabric as a human created “landform”, and the buildings, and infrastructure within it as like Anthropocene rock formations or outcrops, multiple research avenues open up. Understanding the processes happening within our cities would obviously help civil engineers and municipal authorities, but potentially also help archaeologists studying ancient ruined cities to interpret the features they find. We argue this exciting new frontier in earth science is fundamentally interdisciplinary, as it is not possible to disentangle the social drivers from the physical processes. It is our hope that researchers will start to view the urban environment in a slightly different way and work to together to explore some of the unknown earth surface processes acting in our cities.

About the author: Simon Dixon is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham.  He is currently working a NERC “MegaScours” project looking at river confluences in the world’s largest rivers.

60-world2 Boxall B 2017 Water under Oroville spillway probably caused February collapse, state consultants say The LA Times http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-oroville-spillway-20170424-story.html

books_icon Dixon, S. J., Viles, H. A. and Garrett, B. L. (2017), Ozymandias in the Anthropocene: the city as an emerging landform. Area. doi:10.1111/area.12358

60-world2 Mitchell K 2017 Denver Uber driver ignores warning, plunges car into sink hole The Denver Post May 27 2017 http://www.denverpost.com/2017/05/26/uber-drives-into-sinkhole/

60-world2 Practical Engineering ‘How do sinkholes form?’ http://practical.engineering/blog/2017/6/28/how-do-sinkholes-form

60-world2 Roxburgh H 2017 Endless cities: will China’s new urbanisation just mean more sprawl? The Guardian 5 May 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/may/05/megaregions-endless-china-urbanisation-sprawl-xiongan-jingjinji 

 

Finding a Heiferlump and curing bovine Tuberculosis

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By Gareth Enticott, Cardiff University, UK

P1180966

(c) Gareth Enticott

In April 2017, Brian May – the rock star turned badger conservationist – brought together policy makers, scientists, veterinarians and farmers to discuss the continuing problem of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in badgers and cattle. Whilst most media attention has focused on the controversy of badger culling, my recent paper in Transations of the the Institute of British Geographers, “Navigating veterinary borderlands: ‘heiferlumps’, epidemiological boundaries and the control of animal disease in New Zealand” (Enticott, 2017), examines a fundamental question: how do we even know what bovine tuberculosis is? And, is it the same everywhere, or do we need different ways of seeing disease to meet different local contexts?

Knowing Bovine Tuberculosis

Confronted with disease, most people want to be certain that a disease is present or not – that somehow disease can be routinely and easily diagnosed, and that this diagnosis would be the same anywhere. Such a belief in the universality of disease is popular amongst policy makers and epidemiologists too: it provides the basis for standardised responses to disease throughout an area or country. As my paper shows, though, in the field or on the farm, these universalities can be far from helpful. Rather, than relying on universal perspectives, the paper shows how accepting the mutability of disease by combining different knowledges and understandings can be central to its management.

Heiferlumps and Striking Farmers

The argument made in the paper comes from an historical analysis of attempts to eradicate bTB from New Zealand. Records of meetings held by the Department of Agriculture in New Zealand National Archives show that as the eradication programme was rolled out in the 1960s, the effects upon farmers’ businesses began to be felt, leading many to question the accuracy of the diagnostic tests. The problem was felt most on the West Coast of New Zealand. Farmers here refused to test: their strike causing political consternation. Local vets, too, had their doubts about the accuracy of the test. The problem seemed to be what was known locally as ‘Heiferlumps’ – young cattle testing positive to the skin test used to diagnose bTB, but which had no internal signs of disease at slaughter. One of these vets, Peter Malone, led pleas for a ‘lighter’ interpretation of the test results – what he called ‘reading light’ – but was ignored by senior government vets in the capital, Wellington.

The relationship between vets and farmers on the West Coast and government officials in Wellington turned toxic when Malone admitted to ignoring heiferlumps when interpreting the results of bTB tests. The Department of Agriculture’s leading vet, a Scotsman called Sam Jamieson responsible for the eradication program, and known for his short temper and scientific approach, was outraged. Malone was forbidden from testing, only stoking an air of mutual mistrust between vets and farmers on the West Coast and distant government vets like Jamieson.

In the ensuing controversy, Jamieson turned to a field trial to establish the veracity of the bTB tests and rule out the possibility that there could be local variations in the nature of bTB. It had little effect: although the trial proved the test was good, no test is ever 100% accurate and farmers and vets continued to raise doubts. But rather than more science, what came to settle the dispute was a new kind of science: a version of epidemiology that was not confined to a particular discipline but crossed boundaries to combine different ways of knowing disease .

The paper refers to this new approach as ‘borderland epidemiology’ in which
government vets came to recognize during the 1970’s that bTB was as much a social and moral problem as an epidemiological one. Archive documents show that they began to dispense with the rule-book, and instead working with farmers, to modify and adapt how bTB should be diagnosed, and reflect unique geographical variations. Understanding that managing disease is a balancing act made from negotiations rather than universalisms has since become a principle on which New Zealand has been able to almost eradicate bTB

Lessons for the UK?

Could these experiences from New Zealand be relevant to the management of bTB in the UK? On the one hand, Defra – the government department responsible for managing bTB – look favourably upon the New Zealand approach to managing disease, their recent strategy mentioning them more than any other country (Defra, 2014). Yet, at the same time, there appears to be little room for manouvre to experiment and try new approaches to managing disease. In fact, as revealed at Brian May’s summit, attempts of the kind conducted in the 1970s in New Zealand, but by vets in England, have been ruled illegal and halted, despite their positive impacts upon disease and farmer engagement with disease management process.  In future, however, as my paper argues, adapting and adjusting diagnostics to local geographical variations by working with farmers to develop new kinds of veterinary knowledge may offer the best chance of dealing with disease.

About the author: Gareth Enticott is Reader in Human Geography in the School of Geography and Planning. His research focuses on biosecurity, practices of environmental regulation and governance, and scientific controversies in animal health. His main focus is on the ongoing controversy surrounding bovine Tuberculosis in the UK, as well as the management of the disease in New Zealand.  His work has helped inform policy on bovine Tuberculosis in England and Wales.

books_icon Defra (2014) The Strategy for Achieving Officially Bovine Tuberculosis Free Status for England, London: Defra. 

books_icon Enticott, G. (2017), Navigating veterinary borderlands: ‘heiferlumps’, epidemiological boundaries and the control of animal disease in New Zealand. Trans Inst Br Geogr, 42: 153–165. doi:10.1111/tran.12155

60-world2 Midley O (2017) Rock star Brian May hosts bovine TB debate https://www.fginsight.com/news/rock-star-brian-may-hosts-bovine-tb-debate-20023 FG Insight 

Jewish heritage tourism in Bucharest between neglect and rediscovery

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By Andrea Corsale, University of Cagliari, Italy

The Great Synagogue of Bucharest surrounded by communist apartment blocks, empty areas and new high-rise buildings. Source: Author’s own, 2016.

The Great Synagogue of Bucharest surrounded by communist apartment blocks, empty areas and new high-rise buildings. Source: Author’s own, 2016.

Multicultural and cosmopolitan places, where different national groups have made their mark on the landscape and contributed to territorial identity, offer significant opportunities for niche cultural tourism. Aspects of a complex heritage can be created, recognised, highlighted, reinterpreted and ultimately sold, diversifying the image of a tourist offering even after previous phases of neglect or destruction.

In places where minority cultural heritage has (re)surfaced in recent times, majority groups may react in terms of nationalistic confrontation or cultural dissonance (Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996). However, in many cases there is a clearly visible trend toward greater appreciation of historical minority group heritage. Besides locally specific political, social and cultural reasons, a pragmatic, growing interest in the development of niche tourism products is often one of the driving forces of this ongoing change (Krakover 2016).

One of the most remarkable and controversial examples is the growing interest in Jewish history and culture in central and eastern Europe, even in countries where Jewish communities have disappeared, or have been reduced to tiny and barely visible minorities, Jewish history and culture is increasingly recognised as a significant part of local and national history and identity (Gruber 2002). This heritage can be metaphorically viewed, and used to re-think and re-define collective histories, representations and narratives which either consciously or unconsciously support dominant or minority group images. This growing interest has produced an expanding niche within cultural tourism (Schwarzbaum 2015). However, Jewish heritage tourism in Europe presents unique features, as the sites generally represent the legacy of a minority which either disappeared (in some cases centuries ago), or is now represented by small groups of people with high median age and advanced degrees of assimilation. This implies that Jewish communities are not always able to keep a central role in decision-making related to the management and promotion of their heritage.

Both positive and negative aspects can be identified in past, ongoing and planned practices of revitalisation and commodification of Jewish heritage (Silverman 2001). Rampant commercialisation of Jewish-related sites raised significant negative reactions in parts of the Jewish community; at the same time, rehabilitation and revitalisation of Jewish heritage in many European cities has turned decaying and forgotten neighbourhoods into vibrant and cosmopolitan urban spaces (Sandri 2013).

My recent paper (Corsale 2017), published in The Geographical Journal, discusses the case of Jewish heritage in Bucharest. In this historically cosmopolitan city, the large and vibrant Jewish community has been dramatically reduced by emigration, but has left a considerable cultural legacy and still asks for involvement and participation in the management and promotion of their tangible and intangible heritage.

Jewish heritage in Bucharest suffered significant destruction over World War II and especially during the last years of Ceauşescu’s regime, when a large part of the old Jewish district was demolished and replaced with wide avenues, standardised apartment blocks and empty spaces (see the image at the beginning of the blog post). In spite of these losses, Jewish heritage remains significant, and includes lavish Moorish Revival synagogues, the last Yiddish theatre in Europe, Ashkenazic and Sephardic cemeteries and valuable buildings once designed or decorated by Jewish architects and artists. Thus, tangible heritage shows elements of both cultural and architectural flourishing, as well as neglect and destruction (see the Jewish Virtual Library). The intangible Jewish heritage of Bucharest, on the other hand, includes a rich tradition of literature, music, traditions, folklore and food which has been dramatically undermined by mass emigration.

The strategies, practices and discourses of different stakeholders linked to Jewish heritage protection, production and management need to be assessed and understood. The largely unexpressed potential of this niche within the development of tourism in Bucharest, along with early signs of economic and political exploitation by non-Jewish stakeholders, makes this case study relevant for the broader study of sustainable cultural tourism.

I have described and analysed the case of Jewish heritage in Bucharest to illustrate how the Jewish community perceives the critical elements and economic potential of its cultural heritage, and envisions its development (see The Romanian Jewish Community), and compared these perceptions and practices with those of non-Jewish stakeholders interested in this niche tourism development. Controversial and contradictory signs, ranging from ongoing heritage destruction to restoration of key buildings, reveal the underestimation of and interest in this cultural tourism niche (Romania tourism). Significant growth of this tourism niche and its structural integration into the city’s image might perhaps risk powerful stakeholders taking control and excluding both the tiny Jewish community and the small-scale specialist tourist operators. Through this case study, my paper ultimately aims to contribute to the discussion about the complexity of niche heritage tourism practices in multi-ethnic contexts.

About the author: Andrea Corsale is Assistant Professor of Geography at the Department of History, Cultural Heritage and Territory, University of Cagliari, Italy. He has a Ph.D. in African and Asian Studies. His research interests include international migrations, ethnic minorities, rural and cultural tourism, participation and local development, particularly in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Region.

books_icon Corsale, A. (2017), Jewish heritage tourism in Bucharest: reality and visions. Geogr J. doi:10.1111/geoj.12211

books_icon Gruber R E (2002) Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish culture in Europe.  University of California Press

60-world2 Jewish Virtual Library http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/bucharest 

books_icon Krakover S (2016) A heritage site development model: Jewish heritage product formation in south-central Europe Journal of Heritage Tourism 12 (1) 81-101

60-world2 The Romanian Jewish Community http://www.romanianjewish.org/en/# 

60-world2 Romania tourism (n.d) Jewish heritage in Romania http://romaniatourism.com/jewish-heritage.html 

books_icon Sandri O (2013) City heritage tourism without heirs: a comparitative story of Jewish-themed tourism of Krakow and Vilnius  Cybergeo  DOI : 10.4000/cybergeo.25934

books_icon Schwarzbaum L (2015) Tracing Jewish Heritage Along the Danube The New York Times, 13 March 2015 

books_icon Silverman J (2015) Polish tourism benefits from Holocaust memories BBC news, 9 January 2001.

books_icon Tunbridge J E and Ashworth A (1996) Dissonant heritage: the management of past as a resource in conflict Wiley