Past events
- Friday, 20 February 2026, 9:00 a.m.-6:15 p.m. Study day: ‘Towards a geohistory of tourism and heritage: approaches, concepts, methods’, Paris Institute of Geography (Room "Nouvel Amphi").
With the support of the EIREST Laboratory at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, directed by Prof. Maria GRAVARI-BARBAS, the Swiss National Science Foundation Research Programme ‘Faire le Monde – Premiers tours du monde touristiques (1869-1914)’ directed by Prof. Jean-François STASZAK (University of Geneva) ; as well as the SPHINX Consortium “Sustaining and Preserving cultural Heritage: Innovation, Networking and eXpertise” led by Alliance Sorbonne University, with the support of France 2030.
This study day aims to understand what it means to ‘make’ a geohistory of tourism and heritage, highlighting the value of a cross-disciplinary approach between the spatial and temporal dimensions of these two phenomena. Rather than considering them separately, it proposes to analyse their interrelationship over time, showing how tourism contributes to the construction, promotion and transformation of heritage, and how heritage, in turn, influences tourism practices, imaginaries and dynamics. This reflection is based on a critical analysis of the methods, theories and concepts used by researchers to understand the joint evolution of tourism and heritage as spatial, social, economic and cultural phenomena, their role in the dynamics of globalisation, the transformation of power relations, and changes in societies and environments.
The geohistory of tourism and heritage is an approach that remains relatively unexplored in the scientific field. Although a geohistory of the development of tourism in places – particularly cultural heritage sites – emerged in the 2000s, theoretical work and syntheses that structure and unify knowledge on this approach remain rare. While heritage has gradually been studied as a factor in tourist attractiveness and territorial development, the effects of tourism on the construction, transformation and recognition of heritage have, on the other hand, been much less analysed from a diachronic perspective. This study day aims to fill this gap by highlighting innovative and interdisciplinary perspectives, combining history, geography, social sciences and analysis of tourism and heritage practices.
(detailed programme for the day can be downloaded below)
Organising committee:
- François JEANDILLOU, PhD student, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (EIREST Laboratory), University of Bologna (Department of Economics)
- Laura SAYSANAVONGPHET, PhD student, University of Geneva (Department of Geography and Environment), Université Côte d'Azur (CTELA Laboratory)
- September 5th, 2025. Workshop: Geo-history of sea cruises, 19th century to 1930s: travel practices, tourism practices. André Malraux Museum of Modern Art (MuMa), Le Havre.
Organizing committee:
Etienne Faugier, Senior Lecturer in History, Lumière Lyon 2 University
Vincent Guigueno, Advisor on Maritime Culture and Heritage, DGAMPA
Jean-Francois Staszak, Professor of Geography, University of Geneva
With the kind hospitality and collaboration of MuMA (Thanks to Clémence Ducroix)
- June 11th - June 13rd 2025 : Conference "WORLD TOURS AND GLOBETROTTERS : actors, practices and imaginaries", Geneva.
A Conference organized by EIREST, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne-Panthéon, TSWG, University of California at Berkeley and the Geography Dept. of the University of Geneva. With the participation of HEAD-Geneva, HES-SO.
Organizing Committee:
Jean-François Staszak, Department of Geography, Geneva University
Nelson Graburn, Department of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley
Maria Gravari-Barbas, Tourism Studies (IREST, EIREST), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
Raphaël Pieroni, HEAD-Geneva, HES-SO
- October 17th - 18th 2024 : "What Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours has changed for the world", University Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens.
A conference co-organized by the CERCLL (UPJV) and the University of Geneva (UNIGE), as part of the FNRS research program.
- June 19th - June 22nd 2024 : Conference "IMAGINING TOURISTS AND TOURISM: Fiction, practices and representations", Paris.
A Conference organized by EIREST, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne-Panthéon, TSWG, University of California at Berkeley and the Geography Dept. of the University of Geneva.
Organizing Committee:
- Nelson Graburn, Department of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley
- Maria Gravari-Barbas, Tourism Studies (IREST, EIREST), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
- Jean-François Staszak, Department of Geography, Geneva University
Conference website
- March 14th and 15th, 2024: workshop with the research team, Geneva.
- October 9th and 10th, 2023: workshop with the research team, Geneva.
Program
Monday, October 9th
9h00 : welcome (coffee & pastries)
9h30 : welcome address, presentation of new team members and the workshop schedule
10h00-12h30 :
- Discussion on the reprogramming of the project and any other general questions concerning its progress (exhibition + catalog, conferences), common work
- Presentation of new sub-programs: time's measure, Jules Verne (Marie-Françoise Melmoux-Montaubin)
12h30 -14h00: Lunch
14h00 - 15h30 : Conference-debate with Prof. Romain Bertrand: « Affaire(s) à suivre. Enjeux et apports de la microhistoire globale ».
15h30 - 15h45 : Break
15h45 - 15h15 : Presentations and discussion of the initial results (Lisa Zanetti, Laura Saysanavongphet)
19h30 : Dinner
Tuesday, October 10th
9h00 - 10h30 : Presentation and discussion of initial results on stereoscopic photographs (Jean-François Staszak, Daniela Vaj) and cruises around the world today (Raphaël Pieroni)
10h30 - 10h45 : Break
10h45 - 12h30 : Presentations and discussion of the first results about Japan (Julien Béal, Sonia Favi) and tour operators (Alina Dittmann)
12h30 - 14h00 : Lunch
14h00 - 17h00 : Working session on the exhibition catalog
- September 29th 2023: Workshop (in French) "Le tour du cadran: mesures du globe, mesures du temps", Musée international d'horlogerie, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Salle du Carillon.
Program
10h00 : Introduction: The first around-the-world tours and their space-time (Jean-François Staszak, Université de Genève)
10h30 : The Mechanical time: framework and horizon of mobility in the 18th century (Catherine Herr-Laporte, Université Paris-Cité, Laboratoire ICT)
11h15 : High-modernist Reforms and Pluralizing Practices: Coming to Terms with Time(s) in the late 19th Century (Caroline Rothauge, Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt)
12h00 : Around-the-world tourism: narrative, experience and time's measure (Laura Saysanavongphet, Université de Genève)
12h45-14h15 : Lunch break
14h15 :Time zones and the watch industry (Gianenrico Bernasconi, Université de Neuchâtel)
15h00 : Holding the world in your pocket: universal time watches (Nathalie Marielloni, Masaki Kanazawa, Musée international d'horlogerie, La Chaux-de-Fonds)
15h45-16h15 : Break
16h15 : The Cottier Fund: displaying universal time (Estelle Fallet, Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva)
17h00 : The globe in watch advertising (Aude Barthe-Monié, Université of Neuchâtel)
- 1st June 2023, 2pm to 5.30pm: "TOUR DU MONDE" seminar, Campus Condorcet, room 1122, Bâtiment de recherche sud, 5 cours des Humanités, Aubervilliers (France).
Organised by Nadine Cattan, Clarisse Didelon-Loiseau, Brenda Le Bigot, Anne-Cécile Ott.
UMR Géographie-cités, LabEx DynamiTe
The 'Tour du monde' seminars aim to explore issues related to individual mobility that explicitly take global space as a reference. Guest speakers:
- Jean-François Staszak, Full Professor, University of Geneva. Title of speech: "Faire le monde. Premiers globetrotters et tours du monde touristiques (1869-1914)".
- Gwenola Wagon, HDR Lecturer, Université Paris Lumières. Title of speech: "Le Métaverse Terre".
- 22nd April 2023, 4pm: Opening of the temporary exhibition "Le tour du monde de Emilio Balli (1878-1879)", at the Museo di Valmaggia (Cevio, Ticino).
Between April 2023 and October 2024, a major international exhibition will be open to the public: the circumnavigation of the globe undertaken between 1878 and 1879 by Emilio Balli, a native of Valmaggia and the only inhabitant of Ticino to have completed an expedition of this scale. The project was made possible by the availability of Emilio Balli's archives, which had been carefully preserved in his home for many years, and by the collaboration of the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Geneva.
Copyright: Ascona-Locarno Tourism - photo Alessio Pizzicannella
- 6th February 2023: Kick off meeting of the SNSF project "Faire le Monde - Premiers Tours du Monde Touristiques (1869-1914)", Room CV1, University of Geneva, 66 Boulevard Carl Vogt.
Kick-off meeting to present the project and its various collaborators, and to discuss how the programme will run over the next four years.