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Aalborg Universitet Studying tourism in Greenland through collaboration A social practice approach Chimirri, Daniela DOI (link to publication from Publisher): https://doi.org/10.5278/vbn.phd.hum.00104 Publication date: 2021 Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication from Aalborg University Citation for published version (APA): Chimirri, D. (2021). Studying tourism in Greenland through collaboration: A social practice approach. Aalborg Universitetsforlag. Aalborg Universitet. Det Humanistiske Fakultet. Ph.D.-Serien https://doi.org/10.5278/vbn.phd.hum.00104 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. ? 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Downloaded from vbn.aau.dk on: October 05, 2021 STUDYING TOURISM IN GREENLAND THROUGH COLLABORATION THROUGH GREENLAND IN TOURISM STUDYING STUDYING TOURISM IN GREENLAND THROUGH COLLABORATION A SOCIAL PRACTICE APPROACH BY DANIELA CHIMIRRI DISSERTATION SUBMITTED 2021 DANIELA CHIMIRRI DANIELA STUDYING TOURISM IN GREENLAND THROUGH COLLABORATION A social practice approach by Daniela Chimirri Dissertation submitted Dissertation submitted: January 2021 PhD supervisor: Associate Prof. Carina Ren Aalborg University Assistant PhD supervisor: Associate Prof. Lill Rastad Bjørst Aalborg University PhD committee: Associate Professor Laura James Aalborg University (chair) Professor Gunnar Þór Jóhannesson University of Iceland Professor Gestur Hovgaard Ilisimatusarfik / University of Greenland PhD Series: Faculty of Humanities, Aalborg University ISSN (online): 2246-123X ISBN (online): 978-87-7210-876-6 Published by: Aalborg University Press Kroghstræde 3 DK – 9220 Aalborg Ø Phone: +45 99407140 [email protected] forlag.aau.dk © Copyright: Daniela Chimirri Printed in Denmark by Rosendahls, 2021 CV Daniela Chimirri holds a Bachelor degree in Business Administration and Management from the Berlin School of Economics and Law (Berlin/Germany), and a Master’s degree in Global Tourism Development from Aalborg University (Copenhagen/Denmark). Her main research area is Arctic tourism, with a main focus on tourism in Greenland over the last four years. In this context, Daniela is particularly interested in sustainable tourism development, community based tourism approaches, collaboration theory, co‐creation in tourism, tourism practices, and the interrelation of tourism with other aspects of everyday life. Her journey into the world of Arctic tourism research started in 2016, when Daniela became part of a project mapping the tourism landscape in Greenland. The dissertation at hand is inspired by this former research project, and it explores how tourism is practiced through practitioner collaboration on a daily basis. III ENGLISH SUMMARY The research project presented in this dissertation investigates how collaboration in Greenland’s tourism sector is understood and carried out by actors on the ground. There has been organized tourism in Greenland since the early 1960s, and government strategy papers and reports officially started ascribing high significance to tourism in the 1970s. Nevertheless, it was first only relatively recently that concrete action toward developing this sector increased. While tourism has come to be regarded as one of Greenland’s three main economic pillars, alongside fisheries and mining, this has yet to be reflected in the amount and diversity of research in this field: Despite increased attention from the political side, the literature on Greenland tourism remains sporadic. Moreover, it remains limited in its scope, as it tends to focus on visions and plans for tourism in the future, rather than providing insights into how tourism is actually practiced by tourism actors at present, including the challenges practitioners are facing. The empirical findings from a precursor project in 2016/17 provided the first practice‐based insights into the contemporary Greenland tourism landscape. The interviewed tourism actors in this project have pointed out in particular how collaboration is crucial to them. Collaborating enables them to operate in and cope with the challenging environment of Greenland’s tourism surroundings. Yet it remained unclear how tourism actors actually work together on an everyday basis, and how these collaborative practices constitute tourism in Greenland. To fill this knowledge gap, the dissertation in hand explores how Greenland tourism is practiced through collaboration, amongst and across the multiple tourism practitioners in the diverse destinations around the country. Between April 2018 and July 2019, the author travelled to and engaged in and with Greenland in various ways to learn together with others (i.e., the tourism practitioners) and to co‐create the empirical material upon which this dissertation is based. The dissertation is a combination of a monograph and three separate publications. The publications included here and the additional empirical materials discuss and contribute in diverse ways and to different extents to studying the central research interest of the dissertation: how tourism in Greenland is practiced through collaboration. Publication 2 illustrates the life mapping exercise as a methodological tool to co‐create the knowledge and understanding of collaborations in Greenland, whereas Publication 1 primarily shows how collaborations unfold in practice. By turning to a practice‐theoretical take as analytical frame, Publication 3 explores how collaborations emerge as and through practices. It is these collaborative practices that constitute the Greenland tourism landscape. Altogether, this dissertation argues for an understanding of collaboration as multiple and entangled complexes of practices. On the one hand, this challenges the V widespread instrumental‐managerial and mainly theoretically established notion of collaboration as a strategic tool for tourism planning and development. On the other, it contributes empirically and theoretically to our understanding and the further development of the collaboration concept in the social sciences. Moreover, arguing for tourism as complexes of practices calls for approaches to tourism research that depart from exploring how tourism is actually and practically gone about in everyday life; or, in other words, how tourism is practiced by practitioners on the ground. Finally, in this light, it discusses how practice theory could make a valuable contribution to tourism research more generally. VI DANSK RESUME Nærværende forskningsprojekt undersøger hvordan samarbejde bliver forstået og praktiseret blandt turismeaktører i Grønland. Organiseret turisme i Grønland har eksisteret siden 1960, og i 1970’erne startede officielle kilder, såsom strategipapirer og rapporter fra regeringen, med at fremhæve turisme som værdifuld økonomisk sektor. Selvom det derefter tog relativt lang tid før konkrete udviklingsaktiviteter blev igangsat, optræder turismesektoren i dag som tredje søjle i den samlede grønlandske økonomi, sammen med fiskeri og minedrift. Denne central‐økonomiske og dermed politiske betydning af turisme er dog ikke reflekteret i mængden og mangfoldigheden af pågældende forskningstiltag – akademisk litteratur om turisme i Grønland forbliver sporadisk. Herudover forbliver dets fokus ret snævert, idet den primært undersøger hvordan turisme bør planlægges i fremtiden for at maksimere sektorens afkast, fremfor at belyse, hvordan turisme de facto bliver praktiseret som en del af turismeaktørernes dagligdag – og hvilke konkrete udfordringer turismeaktørerne står med. Empiriske fund fra et tidligere forskningsprojekt i 2016/2017 tilbød første praksisnære indblik i Grønlands aktuelle turismelandskab. I denne sammenhæng nævnte interviewdeltagerne, at særligt samarbejde var centralt for den daglige drift. Samarbejdet gør det altså muligt for dem at drive deres turistiske virksomhed, og at håndtere de mange udfordringer de møder. Det forblev dog uklart, hvordan turismeaktørerne rent faktisk arbejder sammen til daglig, og hvordan mere præcist dette samarbejde udgør Grønlands turismelandskab. Nærværende afhandling sigter derfor mod at bidrage med viden om, hvordan turisme er praktiseret i Grønland gennem samarbejde, blandt de mange turismepraktikere på tværs af landets forskellige destinationer. Afhandlingens forfatter rejste til Vest‐, Syd‐ og Østgrønland for at lære hvordan turismeoperatørerne arbejder medturisme. Dets empiriske materiale blev dermed skabt i samarbejde med dem. Afhandlingen kombinerer en monografisk tekst med i alt 3 selvstændigt publicerede forskningsartikler/‐kapitler. Hver tekst udforsker på forskellig vis og fra forskellige vinkler, hvordan turisme i Grønland praktiseres til daglig. Publikation 2 fremviser afhandlingsprojektets primære metodologiske bidrag, ved at anskueliggøre ’life mapping’ metodens relevans for at samskabe viden og en