Dr Dan Knox
Academic and research departments
Surrey International Institute at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics (SII-DUFE).ResearchResearch interests
My research interests focus on cultural tourism, national identities, visual culture, tourism and embodied practice and experience. Particular topics of current interest include emotional responses to leisure activities, Chinese heritage cultures, and the nature of experience. My research is critically informed through a long-term engagement with social science methodologies and particularly cultural geography. My PhD thesis (University of Durham) focused on the role of festivals and cultural events in the promotion of regional and national identities in Aberdeenshire, Scotland,. I am particularly interested in the development of theory in the field of tourism studies as well as practical applications of theory in tourism contexts.
Research interests
My research interests focus on cultural tourism, national identities, visual culture, tourism and embodied practice and experience. Particular topics of current interest include emotional responses to leisure activities, Chinese heritage cultures, and the nature of experience. My research is critically informed through a long-term engagement with social science methodologies and particularly cultural geography. My PhD thesis (University of Durham) focused on the role of festivals and cultural events in the promotion of regional and national identities in Aberdeenshire, Scotland,. I am particularly interested in the development of theory in the field of tourism studies as well as practical applications of theory in tourism contexts.
Supervision
Postgraduate research supervision
I am currently supervising two UK-based PhD students and am open to discussion concerning further supervisions. Topics I am currently supervising include social media practices and identity at music festivals and disabled family experiences at theme parks in the UK.
Teaching
MAN3161 Dissertation and MAN3230 Destination Management
Publications
The spectral geography of the colonial legacy in Bristol is marked by a series of absences from official and tourist narratives about the city. The people and practices of the Atlantic slave trade are part of the historical and contemporary fabric of the city and persist as ever-present spectres. There are significant differences of view that agree with little beyond that the city was a major port of Empire and a significant site in the triangular trade. Bristol is commonly portrayed as a multicultural city with a rebellious spirit and a strong commitment to social justice. This urban imaginary is evident in accounts of the removal of a statue of Edward Colston, a slave trader and philanthropist, during a Black Lives Matter rally in 2020. The now empty plinth of the Colston statue has become a contested, liminal space that sits between disparate interpretations and radically different points in time in terms of social relations. Individual and collective memories and stories about slavery constitute hauntings in a spectral geography of Bristol. Such stories are rarely heard, and the city is thus haunted by the absences of the voices of those enslaved and a lack of knowledge of the role of slavery in the growth and historic prosperity of the city. Little has been done to incorporate such dissonant heritage and so the histories of slavers, slavery, and slaves are not significant themes in tourism marketing, attractions or experiences in the city. This paper demonstrates that a process of coming to terms with difficult heritage and associated hauntings offers significant potential for tourism to contribute to historic and contemporary social justice.
The purpose of this study is to identify risk issues in managing active sport tourism event projects in China from the perspective of event managers. A qualitative method was utilized, with 12 semi-structured interviews being conducted in China in order to achieve the research objectives. A key finding is that ten risk issue categories were identified: safety, financial, environmental, technical equipment, operations, human resources, political, legal, tourist behavioral, and relationships. Among these categories, the issues can be further divided into two groups focused around, firstly, 'contributing risk' which directly leads to the occurrence of the second 'primary risk' category. The second finding uncovers the impacts of these risk issues as well as the interaction between them. Furthermore, another finding reveals distinctions of risk issues in different types of sport tourism event projects in China. This research contributes to the development of systematic understanding of categories and management of risk in active sport tourism from the perspective of managers, and will be useful in developing consensus in both the Chinese and international sport tourism industries.