René van der Duim

Wageningen University & Research | WUR · Department of Cultural Geography

The coastal zone has many uses; people live, work and recreate in these areas, protect nature and create protective barriers between the sea and the people living near the coast. In this study, we examine the unfolding of the ‘Waterdunen’ project in the Dutch province of Zeeland as a form of coastal development. By using practice theory, and specif...

The COVID-19 virus has brought tourism to its knees across the globe, so too in Indonesia. In the early period of the pandemic, between March and September 2020, the national debate in Indonesia (including the government, tourism businesses and academics) gradually saw the emergence of several competing discourses and narratives focused on short-te...

Starting from an Actor-network Theory (ANT) inspired relational perspective on object formation and material agency, this article analyses the controversies about plans to pave the Ruhija road through Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (Uganda). Based on interviews, ethnographic observations, and analysis of relevant documents, we examine the multip...

Indigenous peoples such as the Batwa in Uganda are predominantly seen as marginalised groups, leaving little room for foregrounding their power, influence and involvement in tourism and development. Inspired by Foucauldian discourse theory and Actor-Network Theory [ANT], we use the concept of relational agency to analyse how the Batwa contribute to...

This paper aims to further advance the theoretical and practical understanding of tourism and inclusive growth by evaluating the Tourism-Driven Inclusive Growth Diagnostic (T-DIGD) framework in practice. This was done by defining a mixed-method methodology including identifying 96 indicators and applying the framework to the tourism sector of North...

In this paper, we draw on a relational ontology to explore what collaborative ways of knowing might mean in the field of tourism research. Using tourism as a prism to explore the messy realities of collaborative knowledge production, we argue that knowledge is always co-created through situated practices. By focusing on collaboration and co-creatio...

The Amboseli landscape in Kenya has long been facing persistent challenges regarding conservation and development. To mitigate these problems and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), various policy interventions have been initiated, mostly in the form of partnership arrangements. This article examines two such partnerships, the A...

After having banned sport hunting in 1979, Uganda reintroduced it in 2001 around Lake Mburo National Park, and in 2006 in the Kabwoya and Kaiso-Tonya Game Management Area, with the aim to reduce human-wildlife conflicts, especially poaching, by providing incentives for the local inhabitants in order to positively change residents' attitudes towards...

For several decades, both academics and practitioners have fiercely debated how to reconcileconservation and development objectives. In Sub-Saharan Africa, efforts to align biodiversityconservation and livelihood goals have triggered a shift from pure protected area approaches toa hybrid scenario, including diverse partnership arrangements, that co...

The Netherlands is today home to an estimated 2.5 million people with disabilities, and this number is on the rise with the country's rapidly ageing population. Given that the Dutch government ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) only in 2016, there remains a lot to be done within the country to implement the...

One of the greatest challenges in nature conservation is funding. In the pursuit of new financing sources critical to fight biodiversity and ecosystem loss, nature conservation organisations increasingly aim to create networks between states, markets and civil society. Using Manuel Castells’ network theory and World Wide Fund for nature (WWF) as a...

Although gender has become an established research topic in tourism studies over the last decades, the role of religion in relation to women participating in tourism has been less explored. Moreover, gender has been mainly discussed from a Western perspective, while other viewpoints have received little attention. By focusing on women participating...

This chapter examines the history of the regional tourism destination card and develops a specific and detailed analysis of its development as a 'bundling of practices'. It examines the development of this destination card genealogically by historically following its actors and their actions. The chapter reconstructs how connections between practic...

Ten years ago actor-network theory (ANT) entered this journal. To illustrate how the relational ontology and sensibilities of ANT lend themselves to particular kinds of research, we first interrogate the main controversies as a way to open up and discuss the main premises of ANT. These debates concern the status and agency of objects and non-humans...

Practice theories offer a new perspective on tourism, by not focussing on individual agents or social structures, but on social practices as the starting point for theorising and conducting research. Illustrated by the practice of Arctic expedition cruising, we discuss the basic premises of practice theories and their potential applications to tour...

In 2001 sport hunting was reintroduced in Uganda around Lake Mburo National Park, and in 2008 at Kabwoya and Kaiso-Tonya Game Management Area, to derive economic benefits for communities and thus reduce human–wildlife conflict and change communities’ attitudes towards wildlife. We used the policy arrangement approach to analyse and compare the deve...

This article adopts an aidnographic approach to examine how internal organizational modes of ordering have influenced tourism development practices of SNV Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV). Our research revealed six modes of ordering: administration, project management, enterprising, development brokering, development visioning and result...

In the last 60 years floating markets in Thailand, traditionally serving as central places for trade and exchange of agricultural products, have disappeared, were displaced or reappeared as tourism destinations. By making use of insights from actor-network theory, this study shows how floating markets in Thailand reorganize people, canals, boats, h...

Since the early 1990s, nature conservation organizations in Eastern and Southern Africa have increasingly attempted to integrate their objectives with those of international development organizations, the land-use objectives of local communities and the commercial objectives of tourism businesses, leading to diverse institutional arrangements for t...

This book set out to present an overview of different institutional arrangements for tourism, conservation and development in eastern and southern Africa. These approaches range from conservancies in Namibia to community-based organizations in Botswana, private game reserves in South Africa and tourism conservation enterprises in Kenya, as well as...

This chapter examines the organizational form of tourism conservation enterprises, which has been developed and promoted by the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) since the late 1990s. By deploying commercial tourism as a mechanism to attain conservation and livelihood goals, tourism conservation enterprises are interesting cases to illuminate the m...

Tourism plays an increasingly important role in the way non-governmental organisations govern landscapes, especially in decentralised conservation contexts in developing countries. In this paper, we examine the role of three key conservation organisations (the African Wildlife Foundation, the African Conservation Centre and the Northern Rangelands...

The multiplicity of tourism encounters provide some of the best available occasions to observe the social world and its making(s). Focusing on ontological politics of tourism development, this book examines how different versions of tourism are enacted, how encounters between different versions of tourism orderings may result in controversies, but...

Actor-network theory was used to examine the role of postcards in the enactment of tourism destinations by analysing the representational and nonrepresentational readings of 325 postcards offered for sale in shops in Pai, northern Thailand. This paper illustrates how postcards take part in the construction of three versions of the tourism destinati...

To address human–wildlife conflicts and the related threat of extinction of the African lion, in 2003, the Maasailand Preservation Trust established a fund at the Mbirikani Group Ranch in southern Kenya to provide monetary compensation for livestock killed by wildlife. In this paper, the policy arrangement approach (PAA) is used to analyse this arr...

Tourism-conservation enterprises (TCEs), such as eco-lodges, are a relatively new strategy of the African Wildlife Foundation for enhancing community livelihoods and wildlife conservation in wildlife-rich areas outside state-protected areas in sub-Saharan Africa. This article investigates the extent to which TCEs succeed in meeting these objectives...

National Parks in Bangladesh aim to balance nature conservation and local development. Recently a co-management approach has been adopted to elaborate National Park management plans jointly with local people. In Lawachara National Park, ecotourism is one of the main instruments for its development. This research focuses on local people's perception...

Over the last two decades across eastern and southern Africa a range of novel institutional arrangements for tourism, conservation and development have emerged. In this chapter we clarify how we attempt to understand these innovative institutional arrangements and explain the key questions that run through the chapters of this book as well as their...

This book describes and analyzes six novel conservation arrangements in eastern and southern Africa, illustrating how tourism is increasingly used and promoted as a key mechanism for achieving conservation and development objectives outside state-protected areas. Chapter 2 analyzes the emergence of conservancies in Namibia, comparing the promise an...

This paper examines the evolving and innovatory role of the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), an NGO with charitable status, in dealing with the challenge of protecting wildlife outside state-protected areas. Drawing on the theoretical framework of institutional entrepreneurship, we historically trace AWF's engagement in conservation tourism, desc...

Since the early 1990s, nature conservation organizations in Eastern and Southern Africa have increasingly attempted to integrate their objectives with those of international development organizations, the land-use objectives of local communities and the commercial objectives of tourism businesses, in order to find new solutions for the protection o...

Inspired by Actor-network theory, this article examines the role of postcards in the enactment of tourism destinations. By analysing the representational and non-representational readings of 325 postcards offered for sale in shops in Pai, northern Thailand, this article illustrates how postcards take part in the construction of three versions of th...

This article performs actor-network theory (ANT) to examine the development of gorilla tourism at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda. We depict a number of translations in which gorillas were designated and enrolled as coexisting with local livelihood practices, as “trophies” in the hunting network, “man's closest neighbor” in the scientific...

This paper reflects on the socio-political conceptualization of ‘Western Iberia’, one of Rewilding Europe’s first pilot areas. Drawing from Actor Network Theory and social theories discussing Politics of Scale, we illustrate how ‘Western Iberia’ is continuously being negotiated through practices in different sites within / outside its geographical...

In this article, we demonstrate how Actor–Network Theory has been translated into tourism research. The article presents and discusses three concepts integral to the Actor–Network Theory approach: ordering, materiality, and multiplicity. We first briefly introduce Actor–Network Theory and draw attention to current Actor–Network Theory studies in to...

Kan toerisme in Kenia samengaan met natuurbescherming? En pikt de lokale bevolking dan een graantje mee van de komst van westerse natuurliefhebbers? Drie wetenschappers onderzochten de plussen en minnen van ecotoerisme.

Nature-based tourism is well recognised as a tool that can be used for neoliberal conservation. Proponents argue that such tourism can provide revenue for conservation activities, and income generating opportunities and other benefits for local people living at the destination. Private-Community Partnerships (PCPs) are a particular form of hybrid i...

Background/Question/Methods In the last two decades, conservation organizations in Africa have experimented with conservation enterprises; commercial activities designed to create benefit flows that support a biodiversity conservation objective. The combination of commercially driven investments, business development and biodiversity conservation...

The recent surfacing of actor-network theory (ANT) in tourism studies correlates to a rising interest in understanding tourism as emergent through relational practices connecting cultures, natures and technologies in multifarious ways. Despite the widespread application of ANT across the social sciences no book has dealt with the practical and theo...

Over the last 20 years, international development agencies like SNV Netherlands Development Organisation have hesitantly become involved in tourism. This paper explains the complex and rarely researched political and technical issues behind the working practices, drivers and beliefs of an aid agency seeking to alleviate poverty via tourism developm...

Debates on how to deliver conservation benefits to communities living close to protected high-biodiversity areas have preoccupied conservationists for over 20 years. Tourism revenue sharing (TRS) has become a widespread policy intervention in Africa and elsewhere where charismatic populations of wildlife remain. This paper analyzes TRS policy at Bw...

The recent surfacing of actor-network theory (ANT) in tourism studies correlates to a rising interest in understanding tourism as emergent through relational practices connecting cultures, natures and technologies in multifarious ways. Despite the widespread application of ANT across the social sciences no book has dealt with the practical and theo...

In de afgelopen twintig jaar zijn in Oostelijk en Zuidelijk Afrika, vaak financieel ondersteund door (internationale) donoren, steeds meer samenwerkingsverbanden ontstaan tussen lokale bevolking, natuurbeschermingsorganisaties en particuliere toeristische ondernemingen. Deze partnerschappen streven naar natuurbescherming en armoedebestrijding buite...

The aim of Tourism Analysis is to promote a forum for practitioners and academicians in the fields of Leisure, Recreation, Tourism, and Hospitality (LRTH). As a interdisciplinary journal, it is an appropriate outlet for articles, research notes, and computer software packages designed to be of interest, concern, and of applied value to its audience...

De veranderingen in de reissector en de ontwikkelingen in de wereld vragen van de reisbranche een nieuwe kijk op ondernemen. Duurzaam ondernemen zal de komende jaren een steeds grotere rol gaan spelen. En inzetten op duurzaam ondernemen biedt kansen! Duurzaamheid is veel meer dan een keuze voor ‘groen’. Het is een nieuwe manier van ondernemen die b...

Sustainable tourism development is increasingly put forward as a promising mechanism for poverty alleviation and nature conservation. However, to date, knowledge about theories, roles and the practical contribution of tourism arrangements, policy and plans in relation to poverty alleviation and nature conservation still appears to be under a proces...

This paper analyses a pilot project in Costa Rica aimed to examine and improve the market linkages of 24 small-scale tourism initiatives to tour operators in Costa Rica and the Netherlands. It links pro-poor tourism and the concept of tourism chain to actor-network theory. The analysis shows that the tangible results in terms of pro-poor tourism of...

This article introduces an alternative way of looking at and researching tourism by translating actor-network theory into the provinces of these studies. Using the concept of tourismscapes, the article argues that people and things become entangled via complex processes of translation. People, organizations, objects, technologies, and spaces are al...