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2010 Conference: Tourism and Seductions of DifferenceLisbon, Portugal, 10-12 Sept 2010http://sites.google.com/site/tourismcontactculture/project-definitionWhile academics have studied &#8216;heritage&#8217; mainly in terms of a national or elite construction, this panel is interested in the increasingly loud claims to &#8216;heritage&#8217; emanating from minorities and small social groups. Evoking Michel De Certeau (1988), our emphasis here is on analysing &#8216;scriptural practices&#8217;, both as cultural apparatus and means of production and objectification of minorities&#8217; alternative voices.In contexts of colonial and social domination, the social identity of many minorities was formed through processes of cultural &#171; exotization &#187;. Exogenous definitions often made it difficult for dominated societies or social classes to claim independent or otherwise autonomous forms of &#8216;heritage&#8217;. In the recent past, many minorities and small groups have used writing to engage in a process that could be qualified as &#171; reverse-exoticism &#187;. Such a process has become highly visible in the field of literature, the arts and cultural studies, but also in recent normative actions by international organizations, namely Unesco&#8217;s Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention (2003) and the European Commission Faro Convention (2005). The access to literacy and thus the ability to tell and write one&#8217;s own story appear to have been a key issue marking this turning point in history. This panel wishes to examine the various motifs underlying the productions of texts by minority groups and their allure within a global cultural economy within which the very idea of &#8216;minority&#8217; has become a tourist attraction. We welcome papers with a theoretical and/or empirical focus on the role of writing in the construction of &#8216;inner exoticisms&#8217; and what we term &#8216;reverse-exoticisms&#8217;. Key issues to be discussed are (1) appropriations of transnational &#8216;heritagization&#8217; patterns by dominated people; (2) social conflicts accompanying or made manifest through processes of &#8216;heritagization&#8217;; and (3) processes of revitalization or defolklorization of cultural practices, both in post-colonial and Western contexts.Paper proposals (250 words plus contact, scientific affiliation and discipline) are dueby 1st May 2010.Contacts: isnart@uevora.pt and epires@uevora.ptReference: De Certeau, M 1988 (1984) &#171;The Scriptural Economy&#187;, The Practice of Everyday life [translation of Arts de Faire], Berkeley, University of California Press, pp.131-133.