Speaker:
Merje Kuus
Professor – Geography, University if British Columbia
Talk title:
Planning a Wine Region: Place and Beauty in Okanagan Valley
Abstract:
This talk explores the potential of Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, as a place of distinctive wines and the tourism experiences that match these wines. Focusing on the last 10-20 years, I investigate the cultivation of a sense of place in the Okanagan through the collective efforts of wine, hospitality, and planning professionals in the province. By ‘distinctive’, I mean wines with a taste of place woven into their production and marketing. My effort is to tell the story of the Okanagan as a place of wine, to foreground why and how wine could be more beneficial to the region, and to touch on the role of beauty in the study of wine and other place-based products.
Speaker Bio:
Merje Kuus is a political geographer who investigates the workings of expertise in policy-making processes. She examines how national and transnational institutions, such as government agencies, international organizations, or civil society groups, know what they know, how they have come to know what they know, and how they persuade themselves and others that this is so. Her current work examines diplomatic practices in Europe and the Arctic, but this empirical focus undergirds a broader interest in knowledge and power in bureaucratic settings.
