Three axes guide the approach of the Chair. Through these three axes, the chair proposes to take a critical look at the complexity of tourism as a sociogeographical phenomenon.
Axis 1: Process and way of living in tourist areas.
Tourist activity transforms the spaces it consumes (Urry, 1995), whether through the sacralization and staging of places (McCannell, 1976), by the integration of dominant discourses on local activity (Saarinen , 2004) or the redevelopment of spaces dedicated to tourism (Judd and Fainstein, 1999). This axis addresses the ways of inhabiting tourist areas by residents and those of tourists in these same spaces, the transformations that these modes induce in the living environment as well as the images, speeches and staging of inhabiting by different groups.
Axis 2: Governance mechanism and power relations.
Tourism activity draws our attention to spaces as products of the expression of different forms of power. Thus, we observe an acceleration of new territorial constructions and a transformation of the actors present. However, not enjoying the same status, not all actors have the power of operator or territorial creator (Di Méo, 1998). In this context, it is important to know who these actors are, what resources they activate, the policies and forms of governance put in place, how power is expressed and who has access to it and who is excluded from it.
Axis 3: (Re) production of (im) mobilities.
Tourism can be a form of mobility control, where tourist mobility, and subsequent geographies are contingent on travel policies and space occupations (Alderman, 2018), through the control of mobility, but also immobility at different scales (Ek and Hultman, 2008). Current research on the complex nexus of contemporary tourism, with the exception of Ek and Hultman (2008), does not relate the ways of living, power and mobility, of tourists and residents, and has difficulty in articulating the micro and macro scales, as well as the relationship between the structures and the agency of the actors in the tourist deployment process. These three axes fill a gap in understanding of the tourism phenomenon and will contribute in particular to informing the implementation of public policies in the fields of tourism, regional development, planning and mobility.