The aeromobile tourist gaze: understanding tourism ‘from above’

ABSTRACT

While the impact of aeromobility on the growth of tourism and its destinations is well documented, the role of aeromobility in the process of experiencing and shaping place with specific regard to tourist destinations has received little attention from scholars. With the growth of commercial aviation and the increasingly mundane nature of the experience within mass tourism, I draw attention to the touristic experience of flying as the activity beyond its role in arriving at the destination. After a brief review of the genealogy of aeromobility and tourism, I reflect on examples of tourist aeromobility in Cape Town, South Africa in order to theorise the aeromobile tourist gaze. This paper analyses mobile testimonies from online travel reviews from airborne tourists performing helicopter ‘flips’ over Cape Town. Results highlight the need to focus on flying as tourism itself while they illustrate the role it plays in the aeromobile tourist gaze, a unique perspective and experience of the tourism destination as ‘tourism from above’ that emerges from the touristic dimensions of flight including the destination, the flying device and flight route. The findings underscore the role of flying-as-tourism. The aeromobile tourist gaze thus spectacularises the destination and disrupts the relationship between tourists and place.     

The sky is the limit: reconstructing physical geography from an aerial perspective

In an era of rapid geographical data acquisition, interpretations of remote sensing products are an integral part of many undergraduate geography degree schemes but there are fewer opportunities for collection and processing of primary remote sensing data. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) provide a relatively inexpensive opportunity to introduce the principles and practice of airborne remote sensing into field courses, enabling students to learn about image acquisition, data processing and interpretation of derived products. Two case studies illustrate how a low-cost “DJI Phantom Vision+” UAV can be used by students to acquire images that can be processed using Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry software. Results from a student questionnaire and analysis of assessed student reports showed that using UAVs enhanced student engagement and equipped them with data processing skills. The derivation of bespoke orthophotos and Digital Elevation Models has the potential to provide students with opportunities to gain insight into various remote sensing data quality issues, although additional training is required to maximize this potential. Recognition of the successes and limitations of this teaching intervention provides scope for improving future UAV exercises. UAVs are enabling both a reconstruction of how we measure the Earth’s surface and a reconstruction of how students do fieldwork.     

Quality, imagery and marketing: producer perspectives on quality products and services in the lagging rural regions of the European Union

A range of factors, including consumer concerns about food safety, the growing popularity of rural tourism and policy initiatives to promote endogenous rural development, is converging to promote a relocalization of food production and service provision, especially in those regions marginalized by the globalization of the food supply system. The recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the UK has starkly illustrated the fragility of localized systems which depend heavily on consumers travelling to them. Within such a context, the importance of successful marketing strategies has become even more apparent. This paper reports on a questionnaire survey which investigated promotional and marketing strategies among a diverse range of producers and service providers in marginal agricultural areas of the EU. The findings suggest that many producers are situated towards the "formal" end of a marketing continuum, whereby ability to promote quality products and services (QPS) lies with a range of intermediaries. This raises doubts about the future economic benefits of QPS, should current marketing structures persist. The discussion offers critical reflections on interdisciplinary and international research of this nature, and advocates further theoretical and methodological development in order to explore in more depth many of the aspects raised in this exploratory investigation.     

Integrating pedological and geophysical methods to enhance the informative value of an archaeological prospection – The example of a Roman villa rustica near Regensburg,Germany

Geophysical prospection techniques are widely used to visualize the buried past. Various methods such as magnetometry, electric resistance mapping and electric resistivity tomography and ground penetrating radar yield different results. The use of all three techniques in combination with aerial photography interpretation and pedological mapping is highly effective, but it requires a multi-layer approach. This paper presents such a multi-layer approach carried out at a site with buried remnants of a Roman villa rustica in southern Germany. The integration of the various results into a geographical information system leads to a geocodation of all outcomes and a final archaeological interpretation. Several buildings in different states of preservation, different kinds of ground floors both with and without hypocausts, perimeter walls and kilns could all be detected. The soil mapping results helped in the geophysical interpretation by outsourcing soil erosion and accumulation areas. It is shown that none of the employed methods could have supplied all the compiled information on their own, and the strengths and weaknesses of each method is discussed in order to point out the implications for archaeologists.     

Remote sensing techniques for reconstructing a vast Neolithic settlement in Southern Italy

The combined application of remote sensing techniques is often the most effective way for deepening the knowledge on very large archaeological sites (several hectares). In particular, geophysics and aerial photography could yield very detailed information on buried structures not only outlining their location but also, in many cases, defining their planimetry. Moreover, the accurate geocoding of different data sets and the use of GIS for their integration allow to extract the most comprehensive information from a combined study.     

Mapping ancient chinampa landscapes in the Basin of Mexico: a remote sensing and GIS approach

This paper uses remote sensing data to document a raised field, chinampa system adjacent to the Postclassic kingdom of Xaltocan in the northern Basin of Mexico. Various forms of landscape information; historic records and maps as well as remote sensing; are considered to understand the chinampa system. The remote sensing data examined include 1950s aerial photographs, Landsat 7 data, and Quickbird VHR, multi-spectral imagery. This article evaluates the utility of each of these forms of data to identify buried chinampa features and integrates them in a GIS to produce a map of Xaltocan's chinampa landscape. Canals of various sizes and hydrological positions comprised the chinampas and integrated the system together. Occupying at least 1500–2000 ha, Xaltocan's chinampa system represents the largest pre-Aztec, chinampa system in the Basin of Mexico.     

Radial route systems and agro-pastoral strategies in the Fertile Crescent: New discoveries from western Syria and southwestern Iran

Radial systems of spoke-like pathways, often termed “hollow ways,” are frequently found surrounding mounded tell sites in northern Mesopotamia and have been explained as the product of a particular set of land use practices involving dry-farming agriculture and intensive ovicaprid pastoralism. Yet while similar subsistence strategies were very common across the Near East throughout much of the Holocene, classic hollow ways have only been previously documented in a small region and articulate almost exclusively with sites of the third millennium BC. This paper presents newly discovered hollow ways in western Syria and southwestern Iran, made possible through analysis of an online database of declassified, Cold War-era CORONA satellite imagery. The association of these previously undocumented ancient roads with archaeological sites dating to the Iron Age, Roman/late Roman and early medieval periods, suggests that the land use practices which produced radial route systems may have been quite widespread. Taking into account the wide geographic and temporal distribution of hollow ways, analysis explores various aspects of the agro-pastoral systems that disparate communities may have shared. Results confirm some aspects existing models of hollow way formation, while offering some refinements in terms of the roles that settlement organization, agricultural land use and pastoral strategies play.     

Space, culture and economy—a question of practice

This article addresses the current debate within geography and other circles studying urban and regional development of the relationship between culture and economy. It revolves around two arguments. First, that the relationship should be seen not only as a question of epochal change, of de-differentiation and culturalisation of the economy; it should be considered as an analytical rather than a historical question. Second, it is argued that a theoretical articulation may be gainfully employed starting from the level of social ontology-particularly an ontology of practice. These arguments are developed starting from a critical discussion of two dominant bodies of thought about the relationship, following which, a demonstration of the inseparability of practice and meaning is used to conduct a theoretical re-articulation of culture and economy. Finally, the spatiality of the culture economy relation is considered, displacing the emphasis from connectivity in bounded regions towards joint involvement in the production of space on different scales.     

Some Significant Recent Books in the Field of Mediaeval Literature

Although much has been written about André Breton’s concept of the Surrealist image, the present article examines a number of aspects that have so far escaped notice. In particular, it examines several antecedents of Pierre Reverdy’s theory of the image and compares the latter to that developed in the Manifeste du surréalisme. A close reading of the manifesto reveals the presence of a previously unknown model used by Breton in formulating his theory.     

Two Careers across Two Cultures

Beginning with my recollection of hearing C. P. Snow's ‘Two Cultures’ lecture, I sketch my experience of building two academic careers in succession, first in one of the natural sciences and later in the history of such sciences. I outline both the difficulties and the rewards that I encountered in crossing the alleged gulf between the sciences and the humanities, but also emphasise the diversity of cultures that I experienced within each. I describe my own encounter with the academic culture of continental Europe, within which the concept of a monolithic singular ‘Science’ could be dismissed as an ‘anglophone heresy’, and viewed from which the Two Cultures debate could seem both provincial and redundant.