Call for Papers open now (until 5 May 23)

`Origin´ in wine and tourism: science, myth, magic

Academic workshop with scientific presentations and exploratory wine tastings. 1-3 Sept 2023. Belém, Lisbon, Portugal. Format: One long table at the winery. 32 participants. Up to 20 presentations. Cover cost registration fee of 90 EUR including lunch, tea and coffee, wine tastings material.

Focusing this second workshop on the notion of origin allows us to bring together debates that have been going on quite independently within the social sciences of wine and of tourism. ‘Origin’ is a key topic in the critical study of tourism as a cultural practice that emerges with the early modern emancipation of secular world views, and the projection of the formerly theological images of a foundational golden age into symbolically heightened geographical and social realms “out there”, e.g., sites of ‘premodern’ age, ‘wild’ nature, ‘organic’ food, ‘primitive’ cultures, etc., that can be accessed and ritually renewed through the tourist journey. Much of the literature has focused on the social and geographic re-arrangement of tourist destinations as places that respond to these modern imaginaries of origin and the celebratory needs of the tourist journey.

‘Origin’ is also a key topic in the critical study of wine as a geographically located place defined by a series of climatic, geological, geo-morphological and cultural patterns – often summarized by the French term ‘terroir’ – that determine the specific oenological and also symbolic quality of wine being produced within such places. Historical studies show how many of the wide-spread naturalistic views of ‘terroir’ – integrating place, nature and humans into a single symbolic entity – have been historically fabricated with various social, economic and political aims, e.g., to create luxury brands, to better govern territories, to create national symbols and brands. Many studies in oenology show how such conventionalized views of terroir are being technologically back engineered by the wine industry and their political quality controllers, as an effort to create and maintain strong terroir typicity and territorial brands.

At the same time, wine marketing and material culture studies observe that from a wine consumer perspective, ‘origin’ often becomes a symbolic token that refers to a specific symbolic and ritual value ascribed within the actual site and practice of consumption rather than as the endpoint of the sequential production chain that originates in a located geographical space. In this sense, vintage and the name or region of the producer may well become brands whose relative magic may stem less from the connection to a real place than from a process of elevation similar to that observed in other areas of consumer culture (fashion, electronics, cars, food, architecture, etc.).

We feel that focusing the workshop on the notion of origin and its all-importance, or lack of importance, will generate fruitful transtopical debate among academics working in critical study fields related to wine and tourism.

Organisation: The workshop is jointly organised by: Adega Belém Urban Winery, University of California, Berkeley Tourism Studies Working Group, EIREST-Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Organising committee: Nelson Graburn, Maria Gravari-Barbas & David Picard

Call for papers: Please click on “Call for Papers” (external link to a google form) or use the form below to submit a 300 word abstract with additional information about affiliation and professional status until 5 May 2023 (to allow participants to plan their trips ahead). Late abstracts considered.

TSWG will pay the registration fee of all full-time students whose abstracts are accepted at the workshop. Allocation limited to quota and available funds.

Please register for the event and pay for your participation (credit card, PayPal or bank transfer) (link not yet activated).

Call for Papers (until 5 May 2023). Late abstracts considered

Download CFP Poster