Percy Smith
Biographic Data
| ID | 695387 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Percy Smith |
| GIVEN NAMES | Percy |
| FAMILY NAME | Smith |
| SIGNATURE | SMITH P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tilburg University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5390-4589 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 56 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1914 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Infrastructure
Infrastructure studies is a vibrant domain of research in other disciplines yet, in Linguistic and Semiotic Landscape (LL) scholarship, it is only just emerging. This article reviews three strands of LL literature that demonstrate how the field is ripe for engagement: architecture and built environment, studies featuring infrastructure by other terms, and the online-offline nexus. Thereafter this article develops an infrastructure perspective in …
The spectral life of infrastructure
The state-led push to expand tourism markets in Arabian Peninsula states has spurred a transformation of local landscapes through the development of infrastructure, or the built environment that shapes economies, communication, and ways of life. This article examines how such projects are experienced by those who live alongside them, arguing that infrastructure becomes a site for affectively remembering past lifeways that haunt the present and pr…
Discursive Extraction
The mid‐2010s tourism boom in Myanmar (Burma) shows how discourse creates and extracts value in tourism frontiers. Building on studies documenting tourism's operation as an extractive industry, interviews with 60 tourists, residents, and industry stakeholders in Myanmar in 2018–20 reveal that tourism in frontiers is oriented by an extractivist logic. The high‐value symbolic goods pursued by tourists are experiences with people who are otherised a…
Now there aren’t any birds’
The condition of planetary crisis widely referred to as the Anthropocene is ubiquitous, but it is often unmarked or unseen. This article examines why through a study of Oman’s ‘Grand Canyon of Arabia’, where the absence of birds provides a lens for two sociolinguistic approaches to planetary crisis: (i) a planetary perspective on semiotic landscapes indicates that allegedly ‘natural’ landscapes are produced by human and more-than-human semiotic i…
Anthropocenic landscapes
The Anthropocene concept has been widely embraced, with scholars and practitioners demonstrating its potential to challenge the most tenacious frameworks of modernity even as the Holocene remains the officially designated geological epoch. This special issue takes up the Anthropocene’s conceptual provocations as a heuristic for the study of space and semiosis, laying groundwork for new theoretical and methodological frameworks through which socio…
Hollywood
The HOLLYWOOD sign is arguably the world's most famous language object. Emblematic of prestige and cultural capital, the sign can be found not just in Los Angeles, but in citations all over the world. Beginning with the history of its valorization, HOLLYWOOD is shown to emanate symbolic value through a set of enregistered semiotic features. Drawing upon a set of globally sourced citations of HOLLYWOOD, the circulation and stratified bundling of s…
Nature is trending
Influenced by social media and COVID-19, human relations with ‘nature’ are increasingly shaped by media infrastructures and logics, leading to a global surge of interest in nature tourism and outdoor activities. This article examines the mediatization of relations with nature—or, the more-than-human world—in the Arabian Gulf country of Oman, where nature tourism has developed in the past decade. Through a mixed-methods approach involving fieldwor…
The trash is ruining the picture”
Images of improperly-discarded waste offer a case for examining the broader politics of “pristine nature.” As a global visual register in which the environment is depicted without human impact, an historicization of pristine nature reveals how it was enregistered through the Romantic and Transcendental movements as well as colonial ideologies of the wilderness. Informed by fieldwork in Oman and 300 Instagram posts collected between 2021–23, “unto…
The “untouched” frontier
While limitless growth is widely recognized as contradicting sustainability, tourism imaginaries are often overlooked as key agents in the perpetuation of growth-based and extractive development. The experience and consumption of regions being newly developed for tourism are often shaped by entrenched imaginaries of “untouched” nature, which have proven remarkably durable in the face of Anthropocene-era recognition of environmental degradation. T…
Tourism and symbolic power
Social media use has become a common feature of contemporary tourism, yet in face-to-face interactions tourists often distance themselves from online engagement. Drawing on interviews collected at a popular tourism site in Myanmar (Burma), tourists are found to recurrently take a stance of disavowal regarding social media use, downplaying and rationalizing their engagement or locating a tourist out-group against which their own behavior can be fa…
Landscapes for “likes”
This paper seeks to articulate how ideological representations of the landscape are deployed on social media for the aggrandizement of self. One of the most common forms used in this practice is a visual motif termed the promontory witness [Smith, Sean P. 2018. “Instagram abroad: performance, consumption and colonial narrative in tourism.” Postcolonial Studies 21 (2): 172-191. doi:10.1080/13688790.2018.1461173], which draws on the semiotic canons…
Aestheticising empire
The “picturesque” arose in late eighteenth-century Britain as a way of perceiving and representing landscapes, yet its endurance in the colonial era lasted much longer and is comparatively far less studied. This essay suggests that, in the period of high imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century, a colonial picturesque aesthetic developed as a consequential modality of travel. Drawing upon classically picturesque motifs yet mobilising new …
Instagram abroad
As a form of travel writing and a highly favoured marketing tool, Instagram provides a blueprint of the ideologies underpinning contemporary tourism. This article argues that consistent visual motifs on Instagram echo a colonial iconography that sees tourist destinations as available for possession and consumption, effacing local place and identity. The reproduction of three motifs – the tropical exotic, the promontory gaze and fantasised assimil…
Mudslinging on Twitter During the 2014 Election
Following the work of Evans, Cordova, and Sipole, we examine the way that candidates for congressional seats in 2014 used Twitter during the last 2 months of their campaign. Using a content analysis of every tweet sent by all candidates for both the US House and Senate, we show that particular individual-level and campaign-specific characteristics are related to whether and how often candidates go negative on Twitter. In particular, we show that …
Hawaiki
The Ibadhites ( El‐ibadhiya or El‐abadhiya .)
Did Jesus Foretell Ahmed
Another Plea for Literature in Vernacular Arabic
A Plea for Literature in Vernacular Arabic
THE following thoughts have been suggested to me by the reading of a little work by M. Arshe Darmesteter, the French philologist and lexicographer (d.lSSS), entitled "La vie des mots CtudiCe dans leur significations."(Paris, Librairie Delagrave 3 i&me Cdition, 1889.)Although treating only of the French language, this work deals with phenomena, especially in the Introduction, that are common to other languages also
The Unfinished Task of Raymund Lull
A Plea for the Use of Versions of Scripture and of Other Literature in the Vulgar Arabic It Is Well‐known to Students of Missions That the Question
Landscapes for “likes”
This paper seeks to articulate how ideological representations of the landscape are deployed on social media for the aggrandizement of self. One of the most common forms used in this practice is a visual motif termed the promontory witness [Smith, Sean P. 2018. “Instagram abroad: performance, consumption and colonial narrative in tourism.” Postcolonial Studies 21 (2): 172-191. doi:10.1080/13688790.2018.1461173], which draws on the semiotic canons…
Instagram abroad
As a form of travel writing and a highly favoured marketing tool, Instagram provides a blueprint of the ideologies underpinning contemporary tourism. This article argues that consistent visual motifs on Instagram echo a colonial iconography that sees tourist destinations as available for possession and consumption, effacing local place and identity. The reproduction of three motifs – the tropical exotic, the promontory gaze and fantasised assimil…
Mudslinging on Twitter During the 2014 Election
Following the work of Evans, Cordova, and Sipole, we examine the way that candidates for congressional seats in 2014 used Twitter during the last 2 months of their campaign. Using a content analysis of every tweet sent by all candidates for both the US House and Senate, we show that particular individual-level and campaign-specific characteristics are related to whether and how often candidates go negative on Twitter. In particular, we show that …
Hawaiki
Aestheticising empire
The “picturesque” arose in late eighteenth-century Britain as a way of perceiving and representing landscapes, yet its endurance in the colonial era lasted much longer and is comparatively far less studied. This essay suggests that, in the period of high imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century, a colonial picturesque aesthetic developed as a consequential modality of travel. Drawing upon classically picturesque motifs yet mobilising new …
Nature is trending
Influenced by social media and COVID-19, human relations with ‘nature’ are increasingly shaped by media infrastructures and logics, leading to a global surge of interest in nature tourism and outdoor activities. This article examines the mediatization of relations with nature—or, the more-than-human world—in the Arabian Gulf country of Oman, where nature tourism has developed in the past decade. Through a mixed-methods approach involving fieldwor…
The trash is ruining the picture”
Images of improperly-discarded waste offer a case for examining the broader politics of “pristine nature.” As a global visual register in which the environment is depicted without human impact, an historicization of pristine nature reveals how it was enregistered through the Romantic and Transcendental movements as well as colonial ideologies of the wilderness. Informed by fieldwork in Oman and 300 Instagram posts collected between 2021–23, “unto…
Tourism and symbolic power
Social media use has become a common feature of contemporary tourism, yet in face-to-face interactions tourists often distance themselves from online engagement. Drawing on interviews collected at a popular tourism site in Myanmar (Burma), tourists are found to recurrently take a stance of disavowal regarding social media use, downplaying and rationalizing their engagement or locating a tourist out-group against which their own behavior can be fa…
Hollywood
The HOLLYWOOD sign is arguably the world's most famous language object. Emblematic of prestige and cultural capital, the sign can be found not just in Los Angeles, but in citations all over the world. Beginning with the history of its valorization, HOLLYWOOD is shown to emanate symbolic value through a set of enregistered semiotic features. Drawing upon a set of globally sourced citations of HOLLYWOOD, the circulation and stratified bundling of s…
A Plea for the Use of Versions of Scripture and of Other Literature in the Vulgar Arabic It Is Well‐known to Students of Missions That the Question
The Unfinished Task of Raymund Lull
A Plea for Literature in Vernacular Arabic
THE following thoughts have been suggested to me by the reading of a little work by M. Arshe Darmesteter, the French philologist and lexicographer (d.lSSS), entitled "La vie des mots CtudiCe dans leur significations."(Paris, Librairie Delagrave 3 i&me Cdition, 1889.)Although treating only of the French language, this work deals with phenomena, especially in the Introduction, that are common to other languages also
Another Plea for Literature in Vernacular Arabic
The Ibadhites ( El‐ibadhiya or El‐abadhiya .)
Did Jesus Foretell Ahmed
Hawaiki
Mudslinging on Twitter During the 2014 Election
Following the work of Evans, Cordova, and Sipole, we examine the way that candidates for congressional seats in 2014 used Twitter during the last 2 months of their campaign. Using a content analysis of every tweet sent by all candidates for both the US House and Senate, we show that particular individual-level and campaign-specific characteristics are related to whether and how often candidates go negative on Twitter. In particular, we show that …
Instagram abroad
As a form of travel writing and a highly favoured marketing tool, Instagram provides a blueprint of the ideologies underpinning contemporary tourism. This article argues that consistent visual motifs on Instagram echo a colonial iconography that sees tourist destinations as available for possession and consumption, effacing local place and identity. The reproduction of three motifs – the tropical exotic, the promontory gaze and fantasised assimil…
Landscapes for “likes”
This paper seeks to articulate how ideological representations of the landscape are deployed on social media for the aggrandizement of self. One of the most common forms used in this practice is a visual motif termed the promontory witness [Smith, Sean P. 2018. “Instagram abroad: performance, consumption and colonial narrative in tourism.” Postcolonial Studies 21 (2): 172-191. doi:10.1080/13688790.2018.1461173], which draws on the semiotic canons…
Aestheticising empire
The “picturesque” arose in late eighteenth-century Britain as a way of perceiving and representing landscapes, yet its endurance in the colonial era lasted much longer and is comparatively far less studied. This essay suggests that, in the period of high imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century, a colonial picturesque aesthetic developed as a consequential modality of travel. Drawing upon classically picturesque motifs yet mobilising new …
Tourism and symbolic power
Social media use has become a common feature of contemporary tourism, yet in face-to-face interactions tourists often distance themselves from online engagement. Drawing on interviews collected at a popular tourism site in Myanmar (Burma), tourists are found to recurrently take a stance of disavowal regarding social media use, downplaying and rationalizing their engagement or locating a tourist out-group against which their own behavior can be fa…
The “untouched” frontier
While limitless growth is widely recognized as contradicting sustainability, tourism imaginaries are often overlooked as key agents in the perpetuation of growth-based and extractive development. The experience and consumption of regions being newly developed for tourism are often shaped by entrenched imaginaries of “untouched” nature, which have proven remarkably durable in the face of Anthropocene-era recognition of environmental degradation. T…
Nature is trending
Influenced by social media and COVID-19, human relations with ‘nature’ are increasingly shaped by media infrastructures and logics, leading to a global surge of interest in nature tourism and outdoor activities. This article examines the mediatization of relations with nature—or, the more-than-human world—in the Arabian Gulf country of Oman, where nature tourism has developed in the past decade. Through a mixed-methods approach involving fieldwor…
The trash is ruining the picture”
Images of improperly-discarded waste offer a case for examining the broader politics of “pristine nature.” As a global visual register in which the environment is depicted without human impact, an historicization of pristine nature reveals how it was enregistered through the Romantic and Transcendental movements as well as colonial ideologies of the wilderness. Informed by fieldwork in Oman and 300 Instagram posts collected between 2021–23, “unto…
Discursive Extraction
The mid‐2010s tourism boom in Myanmar (Burma) shows how discourse creates and extracts value in tourism frontiers. Building on studies documenting tourism's operation as an extractive industry, interviews with 60 tourists, residents, and industry stakeholders in Myanmar in 2018–20 reveal that tourism in frontiers is oriented by an extractivist logic. The high‐value symbolic goods pursued by tourists are experiences with people who are otherised a…
Now there aren’t any birds’
The condition of planetary crisis widely referred to as the Anthropocene is ubiquitous, but it is often unmarked or unseen. This article examines why through a study of Oman’s ‘Grand Canyon of Arabia’, where the absence of birds provides a lens for two sociolinguistic approaches to planetary crisis: (i) a planetary perspective on semiotic landscapes indicates that allegedly ‘natural’ landscapes are produced by human and more-than-human semiotic i…
Anthropocenic landscapes
The Anthropocene concept has been widely embraced, with scholars and practitioners demonstrating its potential to challenge the most tenacious frameworks of modernity even as the Holocene remains the officially designated geological epoch. This special issue takes up the Anthropocene’s conceptual provocations as a heuristic for the study of space and semiosis, laying groundwork for new theoretical and methodological frameworks through which socio…
Hollywood
The HOLLYWOOD sign is arguably the world's most famous language object. Emblematic of prestige and cultural capital, the sign can be found not just in Los Angeles, but in citations all over the world. Beginning with the history of its valorization, HOLLYWOOD is shown to emanate symbolic value through a set of enregistered semiotic features. Drawing upon a set of globally sourced citations of HOLLYWOOD, the circulation and stratified bundling of s…
Infrastructure
Infrastructure studies is a vibrant domain of research in other disciplines yet, in Linguistic and Semiotic Landscape (LL) scholarship, it is only just emerging. This article reviews three strands of LL literature that demonstrate how the field is ripe for engagement: architecture and built environment, studies featuring infrastructure by other terms, and the online-offline nexus. Thereafter this article develops an infrastructure perspective in …
The spectral life of infrastructure
The state-led push to expand tourism markets in Arabian Peninsula states has spurred a transformation of local landscapes through the development of infrastructure, or the built environment that shapes economies, communication, and ways of life. This article examines how such projects are experienced by those who live alongside them, arguing that infrastructure becomes a site for affectively remembering past lifeways that haunt the present and pr…
Political science (13 works) · Law (11 works) · History (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Art (7 works) · History (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Tourism (7 works)