Material Cultures of Tourism

Abstract

Despite the fact that tourists constantly interact corporeally with things and physical places, tourist studies have failed to understand the significance of materiality and objects in modern tourism. Like much theory and research influenced by the ‘cultural turn’, tourist (and leisure) studies have melted everything solid into signs. This article is inspired by current calls for a renewed engagement with the ‘material’ in social and cultural geography and sociology. It introduces questions of materiality and material culture into cultural accounts of contemporary leisure and tourism, in particular in relation to space and ‘human’ performances. In doing so it stresses the inescapable hybridity of human and ‘nonhuman’ worlds. It is shown that leisure and tourist practices are much more tied up with material objects and physical sensations than traditionally assumed and that emblematic tourist performances involve, and are made possible and pleasurable by, objects, machines and technologies. Thus we suggest that further engagement with the ‘material’ would be the constructive path to follow for future leisure and tourist studies.     

The Use of Data Envelopment Analysis with Probabilistic Assurance Regions for Measuring Hospital Efficiency

This paper uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for an estimation of the cost efficiency of 70 Danish hospitals. The analysis relates to a cost function based on 483 outputs in combination with a set of probabilistic assurance regions defined by the cost distributions for each output. It is demonstrated that the probabilistic assurance region approach allows for (i) a frontier estimation in the full output space, i.e., no fixed aggregation is required, and (ii) a controlling of the variation in heterogeneity of the output clusters, in casu Diagnosis Related Groups. The likelihood of the estimated efficiency score for a given hospital can be measured based on the sensitivity of the score w.r.t. the probability levels used in the specification of confidence intervals for the probabilistic assurance regions.     

Ownership and Productive Efficiency: Evidence from Estonia

Privatization in Estonia has produced varied ownership configurations. This enables hypotheses on the productivity effects of different ownership forms to be tested. Findings are based on fixed-effects production function models and are estimated using a large, random sample of firms. Depending on the particular specification (and relative to state ownership), (i) private ownership is 13–22% more efficient; and (ii) all types of private ownership are more productive, though managerial ownership has the biggest effects (21–32%) and ownership by domestic outsiders has the smallest impact (0–15%). The joint hypothesis that privatization coefficients are equal is rejected. Findings are robust with respect to choice of technology and the use of instrumental variable estimates. These results provide only partial support for the standard theory of privatization, but stronger support for theorists who argue that some forms of insider ownership may constitute preferable forms of corporate governance in some circumstances.     

Shared Sectoral Growth Versus the Dual Economy Model: Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire,Ghana, and Zimbabwe

Abstract: Though recently challenged, the dual economy view has affected development economics and development policy, either explicitly or implicitly, for more than half a century. According to this view, agriculture merely serves to build the industrial sector — in particular, agriculture has no role as an engine of growth in the long term. Examining agriculture, industry and service sector growth in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Zimbabwe over more than three decades, we find little empirical support for this view. On the contrary, our analyses find a large degree of interdependence in long‐run sectoral growth, implying that the sectors ‘grow together’ or, similarly, that there are externalities or spillovers between sectors. Policy implications are also discussed; these include directing more attention towards the interdependencies in sectoral growth broadly defined. In particular, our findings have implications for the design of education and health programs, as well. This improved understanding of inter‐sectoral dynamics at all levels may facilitate policy implementation aimed at increasing economic growth — and thereby ultimately improving peoples' livelihoods — in Africa and elsewhere.     

Land and contract farming: Changes in the distribution and meanings of land in Kilombero,Tanzania

In the context of contract farming of sugarcane in an outgrower scheme in Tanzania, this paper explores how the scheme has fundamentally altered people's relationships with the land over the last 50 years, in particular, since 1999, when, after three decades, the sugar parastatal was privatized. The paper reviews the literature on the mutual relationship between contract farming and land ownership and examines the scheme with a focus on long-term changes in the forms of land acquisitions and land use. We argue that the meaning and importance of landownership in contract farming schemes needs to be reassessed if participation in contract farming entails a departure from previous forms of acquiring land, generates new spatial patterns of agricultural production, and necessitates additional economic and social resources in order to transform land into an economic asset.