Gunnar Þór Jóhannesson
Biographic Data
| ID | 2918902 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gunnar Þór Jóhannesson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gunnar Þór |
| FAMILY NAME | Jóhannesson |
| SIGNATURE | JÓHANNESSON G Þ |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Iceland |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0098-3265 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 179 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
A review of research into Arctic tourism
This review of research into Arctic Tourism launches the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on Arctic Tourism. Instead of dwelling on the question of what Arctic tourism is, the review proceeds to inquire how the Arctic comes to matter for tourism research and what we, as scholars and practitioners of tourism, can learn from a focus on the Arctic. By discussing what the authors believe are the most relevant and dominant research traits…
Rethinking connectivity in Arctic tourism development
Mobilities on the Margins
This chapter sets focus on Melrakkaslétta, a marginal place on the Icelandic northeast coast and home to a few hundred people. Generally, Melrakkaslétta is experienced as remote and inaccessible, located far from the country's main route of travels, the Icelandic highway that circles the country. The community has experienced outmigration in recent decades, but, recently, tourism has been brought to the fore as a tool for economic diversification…
To be or not to be like Iceland? (Ontological) Politics of comparison in Greenlandic tourism development
In this article, we introduce the concept of politics of comparison in tourism development, looking at how comparison contributes to shaping and making sense of tourism development in Greenland. Decision makers and operators in Greenland foresee tourism growth as new transatlantic airports are set to open by 2024. To navigate an uncertain tourism future, many look towards neighbouring Iceland, who experienced exponential growth in international t…
Tracing tourism with Bruno Latour: Actor-Network Theory, Critical Proximity and Down to Earth
Bruno Latour passed away October 9 2022. At the age of 75 he was still actively dealing with pertinent questions of human existence on Earth through relational thought and tools he started to develop in the 1970s. Latour’s intellectual work is difficult to classify into disciplinary categories; it traverses the boundaries of philosophy, anthropology and sociology as well as geography and has also been translated by others into for instance touris…
Hacking Hekla: Exploring the dynamics of digital innovation in rural areas
This article explores innovation initiatives in rural communities in Iceland conveyed through the implementation and perceived outcomes of the hackathon Hacking Hekla. Digitalisation is often proposed as a new, all-purpose tool for regional development that responds to rural challenges innovatively. However, the digital role is often less clear when examining finer development practices. Hackathons are frequently applied to achieve instant econom…
Arctic Tourism in Times of Change
This report was originally published as: Jóhannesson, G.T., Welling, J., Müller, D.K., Lundmark, L., Nilsson, R.O., de la Barre, S., Granås, B., Kvidal-Røvik, T., Rantala, O., Tervo-Kankare,K., & Maher, P. (2022). Arctic tourism in times of change: Uncertain futures - from overtourism to re-starting tourism. Nordic Council of Ministers. DOI: 10.6027/temanord2022-516
Slowing down with tourism
Arctic Tourism in Times of Change: Dimensions of Urban Tourism
This case study was originally published as: de la Barre, S. (2020). Urban tourism in the wilderness city Whitehorse, Yukon (Canada). In Müller, D.K., Carson, D.A., de la Barre, S., Granås, B., Jóhannesson, G.T., Øyen, G., Rantala, O., Saarinen, J., Salmela, T., Tervo-Kankare, K., & Welling, J. Arctic tourism in times of change: Dimensions of urban tourism (pp. 28-40). Nordic Council of Ministers. DOI: 10.6027/temanord2020-529
Messy realities and collaborative knowledge production in tourism
In this paper, we draw on a relational ontology to explore what collaborative ways of knowing might mean in the field of tourism research. Using tourism as a prism to explore the messy realities of collaborative knowledge production, we argue that knowledge is always co-created through situated practices. By focusing on collaboration and co-creation of research and based on a discussion on what, how and where to know we suggest four orientations …
Arctic tourism in times of change: Seasonality
This report was originally published as: Rantala, O., de la Barre, S., Granås,B., Jóhannesson, G.Þ., Müller, D.K., Saarinen, J., Tervo-Kankare, K., Maher, P.T., & Niskala, M. (2019). Arctic tourism in times of change: Seasonality. Nordic Council of Ministers. DOI: 10.6027/TN2019-528
Tending to destinations: Conceptualising tourism’s transformative capacities
This article is a theoretical contribution to inform scholarship on tourism destination development and dynamics. Our point of departure is the prevailing linear ‘economic growth paradigm’ animating tourism development discourse and practice. Through this discourse, people, landscapes, heritage and artefacts become valued as commodities and claims laid to tourism benefits emerge as objective, measurable facts. We contend that this discourse relie…
Looking down, staying with and moving along: Towards collaborative ways of knowing with nature in the Anthropocene
Ant: A decade of interfering with tourism
Aurora Borealis: Choreographies of darkness and light
Earthly substances and narrative encounters: Poetics of Making a Tourism Destination
This article deals with the becoming of place in relation to tourism. The agency of non-human actors, such as earthly substances or matters underlying any given destination, has rarely been addressed empirically. Our argument is based on the view that a place is an entanglement of ever-moving substances. Hence, our objective is to trace how materialities of cultural landscape contribute to the continuous production of places through tourist encou…
Ordering, materiality, and multiplicity: Enacting Actor–Network Theory in tourism
In this article, we demonstrate how Actor–Network Theory has been translated into tourism research. The article presents and discusses three concepts integral to the Actor–Network Theory approach: ordering, materiality, and multiplicity. We first briefly introduce Actor–Network Theory and draw attention to current Actor–Network Theory studies in tourism with a focus on how the approach is sensitive toward heterogeneous orderings. The following se…
Emergent Vikings: The Social Ordering of Tourism Innovation
During the last three decades, Iceland has experienced a rapid growth of tourism, both in regard to international tourist arrivals and in domestic terms. Tourism has increasingly been taken up as an option for economic development not least at regional levels where innovation in the area has been promoted by public actors. This article focuses on the accomplishment of a particular tourism innovation project, the Gísla Saga project, in the small f…
Icelandic Tourism: Past Directions-Future Challenges
ttention has been focused primarily on warm-water islands; conversely, limited \nattention has been paid to cold-water islands as destinations for tourists. This paper assesses \nthe development of tourism in one such destination, Iceland, and discusses its history and the \nchallenges confronting it. Tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors in the Icelandic economy. \nTourism arrivals have multiplied in recent years, doubling, for instance,…
Tourism translations: Actor–Network Theory and tourism research
This article discusses Actor–Network Theory (ANT) and its utility for tourism studies. It argues that ANT can be an effective methodological approach for studying tourism development due to two reasons. First, its ability to deal with relational materiality of the social world, immanent in the concept of translation which highlights the net- workpractices of different actors; and second, its willingness to grasp multiple relational orderings, thu…
Coping With Social Capital? The Cultural Economy of Tourism in The North
This article engages critically with recent social theorising about local development, with illustrative examples from Icelandic peripheral settings. People in resource-based localities have attempted to cope with the transformations of late modernity in various ways. Such coping strategies consist of reflexive social practices which simultaneously produce and make use of social capital. A view of social capital as embedded in practice is advance…
Ordering, materiality, and multiplicity: Enacting Actor–Network Theory in tourism
In this article, we demonstrate how Actor–Network Theory has been translated into tourism research. The article presents and discusses three concepts integral to the Actor–Network Theory approach: ordering, materiality, and multiplicity. We first briefly introduce Actor–Network Theory and draw attention to current Actor–Network Theory studies in tourism with a focus on how the approach is sensitive toward heterogeneous orderings. The following se…
Tourism translations: Actor–Network Theory and tourism research
This article discusses Actor–Network Theory (ANT) and its utility for tourism studies. It argues that ANT can be an effective methodological approach for studying tourism development due to two reasons. First, its ability to deal with relational materiality of the social world, immanent in the concept of translation which highlights the net- workpractices of different actors; and second, its willingness to grasp multiple relational orderings, thu…
Coping With Social Capital? The Cultural Economy of Tourism in The North
This article engages critically with recent social theorising about local development, with illustrative examples from Icelandic peripheral settings. People in resource-based localities have attempted to cope with the transformations of late modernity in various ways. Such coping strategies consist of reflexive social practices which simultaneously produce and make use of social capital. A view of social capital as embedded in practice is advance…
Ant: A decade of interfering with tourism
Icelandic Tourism: Past Directions-Future Challenges
ttention has been focused primarily on warm-water islands; conversely, limited \nattention has been paid to cold-water islands as destinations for tourists. This paper assesses \nthe development of tourism in one such destination, Iceland, and discusses its history and the \nchallenges confronting it. Tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors in the Icelandic economy. \nTourism arrivals have multiplied in recent years, doubling, for instance,…
Aurora Borealis: Choreographies of darkness and light
To be or not to be like Iceland? (Ontological) Politics of comparison in Greenlandic tourism development
In this article, we introduce the concept of politics of comparison in tourism development, looking at how comparison contributes to shaping and making sense of tourism development in Greenland. Decision makers and operators in Greenland foresee tourism growth as new transatlantic airports are set to open by 2024. To navigate an uncertain tourism future, many look towards neighbouring Iceland, who experienced exponential growth in international t…
Tracing tourism with Bruno Latour: Actor-Network Theory, Critical Proximity and Down to Earth
Bruno Latour passed away October 9 2022. At the age of 75 he was still actively dealing with pertinent questions of human existence on Earth through relational thought and tools he started to develop in the 1970s. Latour’s intellectual work is difficult to classify into disciplinary categories; it traverses the boundaries of philosophy, anthropology and sociology as well as geography and has also been translated by others into for instance touris…
Earthly substances and narrative encounters: Poetics of Making a Tourism Destination
This article deals with the becoming of place in relation to tourism. The agency of non-human actors, such as earthly substances or matters underlying any given destination, has rarely been addressed empirically. Our argument is based on the view that a place is an entanglement of ever-moving substances. Hence, our objective is to trace how materialities of cultural landscape contribute to the continuous production of places through tourist encou…
Tending to destinations: Conceptualising tourism’s transformative capacities
This article is a theoretical contribution to inform scholarship on tourism destination development and dynamics. Our point of departure is the prevailing linear ‘economic growth paradigm’ animating tourism development discourse and practice. Through this discourse, people, landscapes, heritage and artefacts become valued as commodities and claims laid to tourism benefits emerge as objective, measurable facts. We contend that this discourse relie…
Rethinking connectivity in Arctic tourism development
Messy realities and collaborative knowledge production in tourism
In this paper, we draw on a relational ontology to explore what collaborative ways of knowing might mean in the field of tourism research. Using tourism as a prism to explore the messy realities of collaborative knowledge production, we argue that knowledge is always co-created through situated practices. By focusing on collaboration and co-creation of research and based on a discussion on what, how and where to know we suggest four orientations …
Looking down, staying with and moving along: Towards collaborative ways of knowing with nature in the Anthropocene
Coping With Social Capital? The Cultural Economy of Tourism in The North
This article engages critically with recent social theorising about local development, with illustrative examples from Icelandic peripheral settings. People in resource-based localities have attempted to cope with the transformations of late modernity in various ways. Such coping strategies consist of reflexive social practices which simultaneously produce and make use of social capital. A view of social capital as embedded in practice is advance…
Tourism translations: Actor–Network Theory and tourism research
This article discusses Actor–Network Theory (ANT) and its utility for tourism studies. It argues that ANT can be an effective methodological approach for studying tourism development due to two reasons. First, its ability to deal with relational materiality of the social world, immanent in the concept of translation which highlights the net- workpractices of different actors; and second, its willingness to grasp multiple relational orderings, thu…
Emergent Vikings: The Social Ordering of Tourism Innovation
During the last three decades, Iceland has experienced a rapid growth of tourism, both in regard to international tourist arrivals and in domestic terms. Tourism has increasingly been taken up as an option for economic development not least at regional levels where innovation in the area has been promoted by public actors. This article focuses on the accomplishment of a particular tourism innovation project, the Gísla Saga project, in the small f…
Icelandic Tourism: Past Directions-Future Challenges
ttention has been focused primarily on warm-water islands; conversely, limited \nattention has been paid to cold-water islands as destinations for tourists. This paper assesses \nthe development of tourism in one such destination, Iceland, and discusses its history and the \nchallenges confronting it. Tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors in the Icelandic economy. \nTourism arrivals have multiplied in recent years, doubling, for instance,…
Ordering, materiality, and multiplicity: Enacting Actor–Network Theory in tourism
In this article, we demonstrate how Actor–Network Theory has been translated into tourism research. The article presents and discusses three concepts integral to the Actor–Network Theory approach: ordering, materiality, and multiplicity. We first briefly introduce Actor–Network Theory and draw attention to current Actor–Network Theory studies in tourism with a focus on how the approach is sensitive toward heterogeneous orderings. The following se…
Earthly substances and narrative encounters: Poetics of Making a Tourism Destination
This article deals with the becoming of place in relation to tourism. The agency of non-human actors, such as earthly substances or matters underlying any given destination, has rarely been addressed empirically. Our argument is based on the view that a place is an entanglement of ever-moving substances. Hence, our objective is to trace how materialities of cultural landscape contribute to the continuous production of places through tourist encou…
Ant: A decade of interfering with tourism
Aurora Borealis: Choreographies of darkness and light
Arctic tourism in times of change: Seasonality
This report was originally published as: Rantala, O., de la Barre, S., Granås,B., Jóhannesson, G.Þ., Müller, D.K., Saarinen, J., Tervo-Kankare, K., Maher, P.T., & Niskala, M. (2019). Arctic tourism in times of change: Seasonality. Nordic Council of Ministers. DOI: 10.6027/TN2019-528
Tending to destinations: Conceptualising tourism’s transformative capacities
This article is a theoretical contribution to inform scholarship on tourism destination development and dynamics. Our point of departure is the prevailing linear ‘economic growth paradigm’ animating tourism development discourse and practice. Through this discourse, people, landscapes, heritage and artefacts become valued as commodities and claims laid to tourism benefits emerge as objective, measurable facts. We contend that this discourse relie…
Looking down, staying with and moving along: Towards collaborative ways of knowing with nature in the Anthropocene
Slowing down with tourism
Arctic Tourism in Times of Change: Dimensions of Urban Tourism
This case study was originally published as: de la Barre, S. (2020). Urban tourism in the wilderness city Whitehorse, Yukon (Canada). In Müller, D.K., Carson, D.A., de la Barre, S., Granås, B., Jóhannesson, G.T., Øyen, G., Rantala, O., Saarinen, J., Salmela, T., Tervo-Kankare, K., & Welling, J. Arctic tourism in times of change: Dimensions of urban tourism (pp. 28-40). Nordic Council of Ministers. DOI: 10.6027/temanord2020-529
Messy realities and collaborative knowledge production in tourism
In this paper, we draw on a relational ontology to explore what collaborative ways of knowing might mean in the field of tourism research. Using tourism as a prism to explore the messy realities of collaborative knowledge production, we argue that knowledge is always co-created through situated practices. By focusing on collaboration and co-creation of research and based on a discussion on what, how and where to know we suggest four orientations …
Arctic Tourism in Times of Change
This report was originally published as: Jóhannesson, G.T., Welling, J., Müller, D.K., Lundmark, L., Nilsson, R.O., de la Barre, S., Granås, B., Kvidal-Røvik, T., Rantala, O., Tervo-Kankare,K., & Maher, P. (2022). Arctic tourism in times of change: Uncertain futures - from overtourism to re-starting tourism. Nordic Council of Ministers. DOI: 10.6027/temanord2022-516
Mobilities on the Margins
This chapter sets focus on Melrakkaslétta, a marginal place on the Icelandic northeast coast and home to a few hundred people. Generally, Melrakkaslétta is experienced as remote and inaccessible, located far from the country's main route of travels, the Icelandic highway that circles the country. The community has experienced outmigration in recent decades, but, recently, tourism has been brought to the fore as a tool for economic diversification…
To be or not to be like Iceland? (Ontological) Politics of comparison in Greenlandic tourism development
In this article, we introduce the concept of politics of comparison in tourism development, looking at how comparison contributes to shaping and making sense of tourism development in Greenland. Decision makers and operators in Greenland foresee tourism growth as new transatlantic airports are set to open by 2024. To navigate an uncertain tourism future, many look towards neighbouring Iceland, who experienced exponential growth in international t…
Tracing tourism with Bruno Latour: Actor-Network Theory, Critical Proximity and Down to Earth
Bruno Latour passed away October 9 2022. At the age of 75 he was still actively dealing with pertinent questions of human existence on Earth through relational thought and tools he started to develop in the 1970s. Latour’s intellectual work is difficult to classify into disciplinary categories; it traverses the boundaries of philosophy, anthropology and sociology as well as geography and has also been translated by others into for instance touris…
Hacking Hekla: Exploring the dynamics of digital innovation in rural areas
This article explores innovation initiatives in rural communities in Iceland conveyed through the implementation and perceived outcomes of the hackathon Hacking Hekla. Digitalisation is often proposed as a new, all-purpose tool for regional development that responds to rural challenges innovatively. However, the digital role is often less clear when examining finer development practices. Hackathons are frequently applied to achieve instant econom…
Rethinking connectivity in Arctic tourism development
A review of research into Arctic tourism
This review of research into Arctic Tourism launches the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on Arctic Tourism. Instead of dwelling on the question of what Arctic tourism is, the review proceeds to inquire how the Arctic comes to matter for tourism research and what we, as scholars and practitioners of tourism, can learn from a focus on the Arctic. By discussing what the authors believe are the most relevant and dominant research traits…
Tourism (18 works) · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research (14 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Political science (10 works) · Archaeology (9 works) · Geography (9 works) · Economic geography (7 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · Arctic (5 works) · Arctic and Russian Policy Studies (5 works)