Other research is focused on examining high-level political economy, legal frameworks and their influence on tourism development. For example, Ioannides and Apostolopoulous (1999) and Altinay et al. (2002) argue that a federation between South (Greek dominated) and North Cyprus (Turkish dominated) would be the most desirable outcome for the travel industry. Altinay et al. (2002) argue that economic integration with Turkey cannot bring huge benefits to Northern Cyprus tourism, as North Cyprus cannot compete with Turkey’s well-developed tourist industry and competitive pricing. Therefore, a federation with South Cyprus may result in a more positive image of North Cyprus. Doorne (1998), Hall (1994) and Altinay and Bowen (2006) note difficulties in reconsolidating the tourism industry in Cyprus caused by a power struggle and provoked by strong nationalism politics. These two societies of North and South live on the same island, but are partitioned by different objectives and expectations, which are deepening the borders through constant exercising of national sentiments. Healthy cooperation has not been achieved due to national pride and its strongly vocalized sentiments. Many of the studies mentioned argue that the projects set on the governmental level could not bring their desired results because of the complex politics surrounding the issue. The same studies examine political frameworks, yet hardly any research examines the perspective of the common people and possibilities for some cooperation between the partitioned territories and communities. Social psychology studies (e.g. Islam and Hewstone, 1993; Gaertner and Dovidio, 2000; Brown and Hewstone, 2005) argue that basic contacts cannot bring about better understanding between community members. Instead, individuals need to develop frequent high-quality contacts through working together, or through the achievement of a certain common aim (Cehajic et al., 2008).
Amir (1969) argues that the interaction of functionally important activities leading to common goals of higher importance to the group is important in the process of reconciliation. Promoting intergroup contact favours beneficial changes, which bring about quality contacts, as argued by Brown and Hewstone (2005). Travel alone is superficial, and can rarely address social change and reconciliation. Cehajic et al. (2008) suggests focusing on common identities, not differences, through establishing a common goal and a common identity, and launching the possibilities to work together. To illustrate this, Belfast marks the cooperation between former nationalist and unionist prisoners (Causevic and Lynch, 2008). Both nationalist and unionist (West Belfast and Shankill), communities find themselves in similar social settings, i.e. both communities are characterized by similar social problems of unemployment, social exclusion and the presence of former political prisoners. These issues helped the communities studied to relate to each other more easily. According to a Belfast City Council Report (2006), both West Belfast and Shankill boroughs are included in the worst 10% in the UK. Finding a common base, even a negative one, such as a social depravity, facilitates a partnership. As Selin and Chavez (1995) argue, crisis provides a point to commence a partnership. Partnership between the Shankill and West Belfast areas resulted in a new tourism product, which initiated reconciliation among these divided communities.
According to Hall (1994), tourism is seen as benign, and in that sense it is
not perceived as a threat to the current system of values and beliefs, thus positioning tourism as the favourable activity in the social reconciliation process. According to Montville (1987), there are two diplomacy channels.
Track-one diplomacy is the official government channel. Track-two diplomacy is the unofficial channel characterized by people-to-people relations. This chapter focuses on B&H and its attempts to achieve social reconciliation through tourism activities. It takes into a consideration that these cross-‘border’
relationships do not improve via a single trip between territories and that the laws and regulations are conflict-inherited, thus not able to facilitate the process of tourism development. Therefore, the focus is on enabling tourism to facilitate social change.
Methodology and Data Collection
This chapter is a part of a larger thematic analysis, whose purpose was to explore the issues of a post-conflict tourism development in B&H, borders being one of the identified themes. The data was collected using unstructured and minimally structured personal interviews during August, September and October 2006 in B&H. The research included roughly around 50 interviewees whose background ranged from tour operators, government advisors, international aid agencies, academic institutions, consultants, ground handlers, travel agents, tourism ministers and tourism offices. The interviews were conducted in Bosnian. If the interviewee’s native language was not Bosnian, the interviews were conducted in English. Most of the interviews took place in Sarajevo. Other interview locations included Bihac, Banja Luka, Jajce and Mostar. Interviews were enriched through overt participant observation of the guided tours, which provided the study with sufficient detail to enable a robust understanding of the data and in order to link the main findings with the theme of borders.
The complexity of socio-cultural and geopolitical settings in B&H urged an alternative approach to the analysis. Critical theorists like for instance Horkeimer (in Finlayson, 2005), argue the need to create knowledge through the process of the creation of social and political conditions closer to humans, and through that process enrich the knowledge and consequently transform society into a better one. The study’s purpose was to create new knowledge through the emancipation of previously marginalized societies. In this case, the B&H citizens being the periphery to Ottomans, the Hapsburg Empire, both Eastern and Western Europe, and now the EU, were marginalized for centuries (Bec-Neumann, 2007). In this sense, the current research places tourism in the middle of a social and political discourse, thus giving a voice to marginalized and peripheral theories, peoples and places, i.e. seeing the same problem, but from a different, less featured perspective, thus contributing to the wider theoretical understanding of an issue.
One of the non-mainstream methodological approaches taken includes the primary researcher’s own personal reflection and introspection. According
to Meyerhoff and Ruby (1992), reflexivity is the process by which the researcher understands how his/her social background influences and shapes his/her beliefs and how this self-awareness pertains to what and how he/she observes, attributes meanings, and interprets the action dialogue with the informants.
Essentially, this is a form of deep participant observation, whereby the researcher has been fully immersed into the situation as a ratified insider, giving unique access and insight that would not be available to outsiders.
Personal reflection gives an insight into the way the researcher constructs reality in order to write about it. Second, it reveals the social background of the researcher, which helps to explain how the researcher perceives and constructs the social settings contained in the study. The researcher’s Bosnian background, through the personal reflection of this type, has been able to enrich this study by bringing an additional first-hand insight into the argument. An example of a previous study, which brings a researcher’s personal reflection into the process of building a theory is Ateljevic’s and Hall’s personal reflection (Hall and Ateljevic, 2007) into the links between the macho gaze and Croatian nationalism embodied into the relationships between gender and tourism. In addition, Dunkley (2007), while researching a thanatourism experience, embodied her own reflexive account acknowledging herself as a part of the thanatourism subculture she was researching, thus enriching the study by bringing her own voice into the process of creating theory. Without acknowledging personal reflection, these new theoretical concepts would risk becoming inaccessible.
Therefore, reflexivity is incorporated into other techniques in order to enrich the research with an additional voice and to make the theory stronger via an insider perspective.