General provisions

The course can be taken as an optional advanced course in the one-year Master’s programme in Sustainable Destination Development, the two-year Master’s programme in Sustainable Destination Development, or as an elective course.

Entry requirements

A Bachelor's degree, equivalent to a Swedish Kandidatexamen, from an internationally recognised university. The main field of study must be within the social sciences or the humanities. This prerequisite may be replaced by Introduction to Sustainable Destination Development.

Learning outcomes

The aim of the course is to give practical knowledge and skills that can be applied in working with cultural and natural heritage as resources for sustainable local and regional tourism and destination development. Practical work is combined with interdisciplinary theorisation deriving from, e.g., Ethnology, Anthropology, History, Archaeology, Cultural Geography and Conservation. The student works in collaboration with teachers and stakeholders in the community with problem-based learning concerning sustainability issues in order to investigate the ways in which contemporary tourism is included in globalised socio-economic systems. Basic tools for managing and developing sustainable projects within the fields of cultural and natural heritage are given.

Having completed the course, the student is expected to be able to:

Regarding knowledge and understanding

• Collaborate with stakeholders in destination development and communicate insights into how norms and values affect the understanding, creation and management of cultural and natural heritage in local and regional contexts.
• Describe some legal frameworks for the management of cultural and natural heritage on a local and regional level.
• Apply some ethnographic methods crucial to the course in order to motivate proactive use of culture and nature as a sustainable resource in local and regional destination development.

Regarding competence and skills

• Independently and with ethnographic methods conduct a minor study identifying problems for sustainability arising with the use of cultural and natural heritage in tourism, and in written or other form give an account of and suggest strategic solutions to such problems.
• With ethnographic methods independently articulate research problems and evaluate the use of nature and culture as a resource in tourism and destination development, and to formulate proactive solutions to perceived sustainability problems.
• Give an account of central perspectives, concepts and methods of analysis on the course and reflect on ethical concerns arising from the application of such methods.
• Practically problematise and position him/herself in relation to legal frameworks for the management of cultural and natural heritage.

Content

The course uses a broad definition of “heritage”, both as a central field of knowledge and an analytical perspective. The course gives practical approaches to regulations and administration of cultural and natural heritage from a local to a global level. You carry out, individually or in a group, a project work whose applied specialization is chosen together with an academic supervisor and a local resident on the island of Gotland. In project form the policy of a natural and cultural heritage perspective of tourism and destination development will be applied. The use of cultural and natural resources is thereby related to questions about power, influence and democracy, and also how value patterns and conceptions have an influence on how sustainability is created in local and regional contexts.

Instruction

The course consists of lectures, mandatory seminars and project work performed in collaboration with stakeholders in the community.

Assessment

The course is examined by active participation in seminars (1 credits), exercises (1 credits), written assignments (3 credits) as well as oral and written reports on group assignments (2.5 credits). Final grades are based on a weighted assessment of results from the examination elements.