Mirek Dymitrow
Articles
Geographia Polonica (2023) vol. 96, iss. 3, pp. 321-338 | 
Full text
doi: https://doi.org/10.7163/GPol.0258
Abstract
This paper reviews the latest research directions and conceptual developments on the phenomenon of volunteer tourism. The last review was published in 2017, so it is time to summarize and re-evaluate how voluntourism has evolved. The paper projects future developments within voluntourism by showcasing some critical changes in the participants’ attitudes. This is likely to influence how, where and by whom volunteering initiatives will be implemented. The contributions of this paper are assembling an overview of efforts to formulate a definition of voluntourism and providing clues as to what socio-cultural and market- forces will drive its evolution in the future.
Keywords: Volunteer tourism, review, local communities, experience tourism, adventure tourism, involvement tourism
[w.lis@doktorant.umk.pl], Interdisciplinary Doctoral School of Social Sciences Nicolaus Copernicus University Bojarskiego 1, 87-100 Toruń: Poland
[grzelak@umk.pl], Department of Urban Studies and Regional Development, Faculty of Earth Sciences and Spatial Management Nicolaus Copernicus University Lwowska 1, 87-100 Toruń: Poland
[mirek.dymitrow@keg.lu.se], Department of Human Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences Lund University Sölvegatan 10, 223-62 Lund: Sweden; Faculty of Arts and Humanities Department of Cultural Sciences Linnæus University SE-351 95 Växjö: Sweden
Rural/urban: Laying bare the controversy
Geographia Polonica (2018) vol. 91, iss. 4, pp. 375-397 | Full text
doi: https://doi.org/10.7163/GPol.0126
Abstract
Concepts are the basic building blocks of all knowledge, while the strength of any societal project is dependent on the quality of those concepts. As two of the oldest geographical concepts still in widespread use, ‘rural/urban’ stand in stark contrast to the immense changes encountered by the society over the last century, let alone decades. To better understand this controversy, this paper moves away from conventional rural and urban theory, and instead focuses on the philosophical constitution of this conceptual pair. By critically evaluating six of the most common conceptions of ‘rural/urban’, including their pros and cons, this paper makes a case for reconfiguring our relationship with familiar understandings of societal organization. The paper concludes that by paying greater attention to how concepts operate at a cognitive level, how they are construed and collectively maintained, can help facilitate decisions whether ‘rural/urban’ are truly analytically contributory to a specific line of thought or action, or whether they merely linger as a cultural ostinato that is too elusive to be conquered or held.
Keywords: rural, urban, conceptions of space, critical analysis, knowledge production
[mirek.dymitrow@keg.lu.se], Department of Human Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences Lund University Sölvegatan 10, 223-62 Lund: Sweden; Faculty of Arts and Humanities Department of Cultural Sciences Linnæus University SE-351 95 Växjö: Sweden