NS34 Session 19

Title: Building Communities, Developing Regions: Research, Studies, and Practices 

Organisers: Laufey Haraldsdóttir, Deisi Maricato, Annika Hanau, and Jessica Aquino

Affiliation: Hólar University, University of Iceland, University of Wuppertal

Description

Community building and regional development are the processes of making communities and regions more equitable, inclusive, and resilient through collaborative efforts towards socio-economic and environmental improvements, focusing on both healthy humans and healthy environments, which underline a holistic view of quality of life (Jóhannesson et al., 2025). Capacity building has recently undergone a change in how it is understood: what was previously seen as a one-way process of knowledge transfer is now viewed as a collective construction grounded in capacity sharing, emphasising reciprocity, inclusive dialogue, ethical collaboration, and multidirectional knowledge exchange among different actors (Mercer & Ovitz, 2023). Within this context, regenerative tourism approaches highlight learning, networking, and mobilization (Aquino et al., 2024) as central mechanisms for fostering long-term community resilience. These developments highlight the importance of dialogic networks and knowledge exchange as a path for co-creating resilient communities.  

This session invites contributions that examine tourism as a relational and networked process within community and regional development. Drawing on perspectives from tourism studies pedagogy, community-based tourism, regional development, and regenerative approaches, the session focuses on how knowledge exchange, collaboration, and co-creation shape development outcomes across different contexts. 

Contributions may address a range of empirical and conceptual perspectives, including—but not limited to—capacity sharing practices, governance arrangements, stakeholder networks, and pedagogical approaches to tourism and development. Culture-based tourism, creative practices, and events may also be explored as contexts or mechanisms through which collaboration, learning, and community engagement are enacted, without being treated as isolated tourism products. Overall, the session seeks to advance critical discussions on tourism’s role in supporting resilient communities and regions by foregrounding relational processes, shared capacities, and networked forms of development. 

References  

Aquino, J., Falter, M., & Fusté-Forné, F. (2024). A community development approach for regenerative tourism in the Nordics: lifestyle entrepreneurs towards a place-based research agenda. Journal of Tourism Futures. https://doi.org/10.1108/JTF-06-2023-0148 

Jóhannesson, G. T., Haraldsdóttir, L., & Aquino, J. (2025). Navigating Sustainability: Meaning and Manifestation of Sustainable Coastal Tourism in Northwest Iceland. In C. Dragin-Jensen, G. Kwiatkowski, & O. Oklevik (Eds.), Nordic Coastal Tourism: Sustainability, Trends, Practices, and Opportunities (pp. 17–32). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73187-7_2 

Mercer, L., & Ovitz, K. (2023). Shifting from capacity building to capacity sharing in Arctic research: Considering transformative shifts in collaborative research at the ArcticNet Annual Scientific Meeting. The Polar Journal, 13(1), 172–176. https://doi.org/10.1080/2154896X.2023.2205248