NS34 Session 14

The session will explore how tourism scholarship can contribute to a more equitable, sustainable and regenerative future. By foregrounding local voices and community priorities, we seek research that demonstrates how tourism can support fairer distributions of benefits, strengthen cultural continuity and foster regenerative relationships between people, place and environment. Comparative, interdisciplinary and practice‑embedded perspectives are especially encouraged. 

As part of the session, we will briefly introduce a developing initiative to form an international research network on regenerative cultural tourism and placemaking, as an early point of connection for those interested in shaping this thematic agenda. 

This session invites contributions on community‑centred, place‑based and regenerative approaches to cultural tourism for placemaking in Northern and Arctic rural, island and peripheral communities. We welcome work examining how tourism development intersects with local identity, community wellbeing, cultural resilience, placemaking practices and environmental responsibility, as well as critical reflections on agency, representation and power dynamics in Northern and Arctic contexts. 

Alongside traditional papers, we also welcome creative and experimental presentation formats, including micro‑workshops, dialogue‑based formats, collaborative mapping or storytelling, short provocations or demonstrations of community‑engaged methods that reflect the session’s place‑based focus. Contributions that spark interaction or invite new ways of knowing are particularly valued.