Doctoral Dissertation Research: Rural Tourism Development in Kotzebue, Alaska and the Production of Place, Memory, and Corporate Organization

University Of Kentucky Research Foundation, Lexington KY

Investigators

Abstract

ROBERTS, RAITZ, and KURTZ. The doctoral dissertation study is concerned with the effects of political, economic, and cultural change associated with tourism development in rural Alaska. The research examines how places have been represented, the kinds of organizations that have been developed to promote tourism, and the ways in which tourism and its promotion have created collective memories of people and places. It focuses on the case of tourism promotion in Kotzebue, Alaska, and asks three inter-related research questions: (1) How has traditional and rural Alaska been represented in tourism products, performances, advertising, and development? (2) How and why did key groups in tourism and rural development adopt corporate forms of social organization? and (3) How do practices of shared or social memory (oral and written) construct and reproduce social groups and social identities in the context of tourism development? Drawing from archival research and extensive interviews from the first stage of the study, this stage uses more intensive, field-based methods including oral history and organizational ethnography. The results of this research will provide material to support the development of more integrative planning processes between urban and rural tourism organizations, as well as contribute to literature in historical-cultural geography and development theory.