This Global Communication exploration seminar is intended to help students understand some of the human consequences of globalization by studying the important role communication plays in tourism as a global cultural industry. As the world’s single largest trade, tourism is a powerful factor in shaping everyday interpersonal, intercultural and inter-national communication. Nowhere is this more apparent than Switzerland – the birth place of modern tourism and a country which embodies the challenges and successes of multilingualism, multi-culturalism and multinationalism. Since the 1850s, Switzerland and especially Interlaken (our base for the seminar - see red dot in map) have organized and promoted themselves as the quintessential tourist destinations. In the face of global warming, European/EU politics, and international economics, this “production of place” is also being constantly revised. In June 2008, as co-host of the European Cup football (‘soccer’) tournament, Switzerland becomes yet again a major focus of cultural production.
The seminar is designed as an enjoyable learning-by-doing experience with students involved in a series of practical projects involving different theoretical issues and key research skills (e.g. visual ethnography, text analysis). In doing so, students examine the linguistic, visual, material and spatial strategies used to represent and promote Swizterland as a global tourist destination. They also study how visitors and local people interact in tourist sites. It’s in this way that the seminar means to address the darker side of tourism as well, by considering how the making of place and the production of culture always overlook many areas of life. So, for example, one assignment entails students undertaking “counter tourism” in Geneva, following non-touristic routes through this global diplomatic city and developing an alternative tour-guide script. Through a series of fieldtrips, hands-on projects, and guest speakers, students are asked to evaluate critically the implications of tourism for human communication on both a local scale and a global one.
For more information about the University of Washington's Exploration Seminars, please visit the official website.