The Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies is proud to present the Shaw-Mannell Leisure Research Award Lecture featuring 2024 recipient, Ana María Munar.
The award recognizes international career contributions to the study of leisure, broadly defined, and influence on leisure scholarship at the University of Waterloo. The award is named in honour of retired faculty members Sue Shaw and Roger Mannell to recognize their outstanding individual career achievements.
Tourism is Drive: A Psychoanalytical, Philosophical, and Mythical Exploration
This talk challenges some of the ontological ideas that are at the basis of many theories of tourism and leisure management, specifically: the focus on the human as a subject master of its thinking and knowing; the dominion of representation and conscious emotion; the primacy of the ‘individual’, ownership (of thought, body, others, world) and autonomy. The human is also the being that does not know what it knows; that dreams, desires, and enjoys unconsciously what cannot be explained consciously; the being that is always already relational; the being that is vibrant exposed matter. In other words, a body; a body that expresses, senses, and acts without always (or mostly) obeying the principle of reason. This presentation is a post-disciplinary invitation that combines inspiration from psychoanalysis, poststructuralist philosophy, the humanities, and popular culture to foster new imaginations on the relationship of humans and touring. In this talk, I will present an alternative way of thinking about why we travel and why we seem unable to stop traveling despite contemporary ethical or political demands. For this, I turn towards the body/bodies, the drives, Thanatos and Eros, and the mythical to explore the touring that keeps on coming. The thesis that I will explore is the following: Touring, the act of leaning/going/circling around/moving toward other places, other people, is the manifestation of a drive. I imagine this as the energy and push that is in the ‘with’ (the relationality of being). We will see how love and aggression, and erotic and death drives, link tourism and leisure to contemporary developments in late capitalism and postmodern societies. During my talk, I will draw inspiration from the topic of gender and the body-mind, which informed the scholarship of Susan M. Shaw and Roger C. Mannell. I will end by reflecting on what ethics and justice are possible when considering a different understanding of what the speaking being is.
Ana María Munar
- Associate Professor in the Department of Business Humanities and Law, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
- Ana’s scholarship is postdisciplinary and characterized by the application of critical theory and philosophical thought to tourism and related fields, gender studies and higher education
- In her latest book, entitled “Desire: Subject, Sexuation and Love” she applies psychoanalysis, philosophy, art, and literature to explore what desire means for our human condition. Currently, she is writing a book entitled “Body-Bodies: Mythical and Philosophical Meditations” and co-editing “With: Critical Relationalities”, a collective book project born out of friendship and community.
- Ana’s passion lies in philosophising and developing creative academic spaces where love and joy are possible. One of these is the Critical Tourism Studies network that she cochaired together with Professor Kellee Caton
- Over the years, she has held multiple academic positions and responsibilities such as being union representative, member of the Diversity and Inclusion Council, research director, or coordinator of educational programs
- Ana has edited multiple book anthologies and special issues, and has written more than 40 academic articles and book chapters
- Her gender research combines academic reports and publications, with advocacy and action research projects, her latest collective work is a book and online platform on “Sexism in Danish Higher Education and Research”
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Ana is deeply grateful to the thinkers, friends, family, colleagues and students, and the many welcoming beings and places in Mallorca and Copenhagen who are the nurishing ground and the light of her writing and her work
This lecture is offered in person.
Lecture and award presentation will take place in Sun Life Auditorium - Lyle S. Hallman Institute (LHS) 1621, starting at 2:30 p.m. We will conclude with a short reception in the adjacent Fireplace Lounge with refreshments.
The Shaw-Mannell Lecture is funded by the Lyle S. Hallman Professorial Endowment.