UKZN Academic Invited to Present Pre-Conference Teaching Seminar in Turkey

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Dr Maheshvari Naidu, an academic in the School of Social Sciences, presented a seminar at the 3rd Interdisciplinary Tourism Research Conference at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Naidu’s involvement with the Conference goes back to 2006 in Cannakale in Turkey and again in 2012 when she attended the 2^nd Interdisciplinary Tourism Research Conference in Fethiye in Turkey.

Naidu’s presentation, titled: “Penetrating Tourism: Doing Ethnographic Work in Tourism Studies”, drew on her anthropological background and published qualitative and ethnographic work around cultural/identity/gender issues in tourism studies.

Naidu delivered one of two invited presentations - the other, titled “Doing Interdisciplinary Research”, was presented by Professor Shawn Jang, a Professor at Purdue University in Indiana, USA and Co-Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Tourism Sciences.

The seminars are usually held a day before the paper presentations begin, and offer a learning space for the participants to acquire skills, learning and research insights, often beyond their own disciplinary locations.

The Conference also has had, traditionally, a concurrently run conference for Graduate Research on Tourism and offers a space for aspiring postgraduate students to present their current research alongside faculty members who present research papers in the parallel conference. This year, parallel to the 3^rd Interdisciplinary Tourism Research Conference, was the 7^th World Conference for Graduate Research on Tourism.

Naidu said: ‘Many of the participants at the previous conference were keen on ethnographic approaches and what qualitative work could offer within the scope of tourism studies. Many indicated a keenness to attend such a seminar and asked if I could offer such a programme.

‘The Conference organisers also showed interest in my published work and invited me to return and offer this seminar. Attending the seminar, were both international teaching staff wishing to broaden their research approaches, as well as students wanting to increase their skills set in methodological approaches.’

Both Naidu and Jang were presented with a signed plaque by the Conference organisers acknowledging their invitation and valuable contribution.

Naidu said that the Conference attracted her as it usually held a panel on the evolving understanding on “multi-disciplinarity”, “interdisciplinarity”, “transdisciplinarity”, and more recently, the notion of 
“post-disciplinarity” with eminent scholars such as Jafar Jaffari (one of the early Anthropologists to work in the interdisciplinary area of tourism studies) and the renowned Sociologist, John Urry, attending.

Naidu said feedback from this seminar collected in the form of an anonymous questionnaire was extremely positive. ‘For me this was a wonderful teaching opportunity to share my expertise within an interdisciplinary context.’

-          Melissa Mungroo