Summers of war. Affective volunteer tourism to former war sites in Europe

An important aspect of contemporary volunteer tourism is generated by the possibility of having personal, emotional and affective encounters and experiences. Volunteer summer camps on former war sites, organized by the German Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ARSP), can be regarded as an expression of a contemporary form of tourism, which consists of the development of a personal, affective, and immersive approach to learning and volunteering on former war sites. A performative approach to studying emotion is applied, and helps to locate and understand the social, cultural, and political components that instigate the desire for affective volunteer tourism. For this study, 26 semi-structured in-depth interviews have been conducted with participants of ARSP volunteer summer camps that focused on conserving and maintaining former war sites in Italy, Lithuania, and France. The results indicate that volunteers expect war themed summer camps to be impactful (in terms of work) and emotional (in terms of personal experiences). Yet, the sought-after impact and emotion are not always found, which gives rise to contradictory feelings and tensions. Feelings of guilt about unmet expectations have caused volunteers to re-evaluate their motives and look for different ways to make the summer camps meaningful to them. Participants were encouraged to critically reflect, on this form of volunteer tourism in particular, and on societal debates about war and volunteer tourism in general

Touching War: An ethnographic analysis of war tourism in Europe

In my dissertation I research four specific groups of ‘war tourists’: Dutch army members who undertake battlefield tours to sites associated with the First and Second World War; Dutch veterans who undertake return trips to their former area of deployment in Bosnia and Herzegovina, young Europeans who engage in volunteer work on former war sites during their summer holidays, and participants of the yearly peace march to Srebrenica. By means of in-depth interviews and ethnographic field work, I analyze the motivations, experiences, and reflections of these four different groups of visitors

Lessons of War. The Significance of Battlefield Tours for the Dutch Military

This paper analyses the personal experiences of Dutch army members during military battlefield tours to historical war sites. We present a qualitative interview based analysis of the experiences and uses of the past by the Dutch military and discuss the tensions present in the military battlefield tours. In doing so, we argue for integrating research about cognitive procedures of re-enactment and bodily experiences on historical sites. Our findings suggest that the military battlefield tours help to evoke a specific placebound engagement with the past. Visits to former war sites evoke detailed and vivid images of the past. The historical landscape thereby provides external clues and arguments that assist in comprehending the course of a historical event. The multiple visual and sensual triggers on a historical site allow for cognitive and bodily knowledge and appeal to the participant’s imagination. How and to what extent the past is imagined strongly depends on the knowledge an

Produtividade e vigor do maracujazeiro-amarelo plantado em covas e plantio direto sob manejo orgânico.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar o vigor e a produtividade do maracujazeiro-amarelo plantado em diferentes tamanhos de cova e plantio direto sob manejo orgânico. O experimento foi conduzido de 2005 a 2007, no Setor de Agricultura Ecológica da Universidade Federal do Acre, em delineamento de blocos casualizados, constituídos de cinco tratamentos, quatro repetições e quatro plantas por parcela. Foram avaliados cinco tipos de preparo do solo: T1 cova do tamanho do torrão (0,19 x 0,063m) com adubação em cobertura; T2 cova de 0,30 x 0,30 x 0,30m com adubação de plantio na cova; T3 cova de 0,30 x 0,30 x 0,30m com adubação de plantio em cobertura; T4 cova de 0,50 x 0,50 x 0,50m com adubação de plantio na cova; e T5 cova de 0,50 x 0,50 x 0,50m com adubação de plantio em cobertura. O tamanho da cova e o plantio direto não influenciaram o vigor da planta e a biomassa de raízes. O número de frutos por planta e a produtividade, na segunda e na somatória das duas safras, foram maiores com plantio direto e com covas cúbicas de 0,30m. Após dois anos de cultivo, a densidade do solo foi maior na camada de 0-5cm de profundidade num raio de 20cm da planta para o plantio em covas de 0,50m com adubação na cova e menor para o plantio direto, não havendo diferença entre os demais tratamentos. O plantio direto ou o plantio em covas pequenas com dimensões de 0,30 x 0,30 x 0,30m proporcionou maior produtividade de maracujá que o plantio em covas maiores, mesmo não influenciando o vigor das plantas e a massa seca de raízes