UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY
2nd International Conference on Economic and Social History
"Markets" and Politics
Private interests and public authority (18th-20th centuries)
Volos, 10-12 February 2012
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Abstracts
- Eleftheria Deltsou Agro-and eco-tourism enterprises at the turn the 21st century: Observations on new forms of entrepreneurship in the European Union
During approximately the last two decades the European Union promotes specific forms of entrepreneurship as strategies for the development of the so-called Less Favored Areas and of other categorical entities in need of subsidized support. Any consideration, however, of these subsidizing programs as simply means for the development of local and regional economies leaves the cultural dimensions of the economic, as well as a broad conceptualization of the political as anything that pertains to power relations unattended. By focusing, on the one hand, on European Union eco- and agro-tourism subsidizing programs and, on the other, on eco- and agro-tourism subsidized enterprises, this paper explores the co-articulation of the economic with a politics of culture that construct “rural culture” and the “natural environment” as commodities. Agro- and eco-tourism enterprises as such, different performative means for the tourist promotion of areas, the promotion of local products and other similar practices incorporate in locality essentialized properties of the past. Notions such as “traditionality”, the “natural properties” of products, but also discourses about the “natural and cultural wealth” of places become components of locality, while nature and culture get valued as consumer goods and commodities. On top, the ISO certification of tourist enterprises and agricultural products, but also all the stakeholders involved in local development reveal the complex ways through which locality is co-articulated with the world market.
