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2024 Visiting Professors

Peace Communication in Tourism: Words and Choices to Promote Participation and Commitment

☮️ Peace | 🎒 Tourism | 🗣️ Communication


Project description

The research project “Peace Communication in Tourism” addresses the potential of tourism to develop and disseminate place narratives and practices that actively engage in promoting peace, transnational understanding, sustainability, inclusion, and meaningful participation. The Prague Trail for Peace and Non-Violent Resistance, with its eighteen stops spanning twenty kilometres, serves as an excellent case study for this initiative, inspired by the legacy of Czech-Austrian pacifist Bertha von Suttner, the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

To achieve its goals, the project employs a discourse-analytic methodology, drawing on linguistic and semiotic insights, and aligns with the open science principles central to the 4EU+ mission. The two-month, research-intensive Visiting Professorship will be carried out in collaboration with the Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism, Faculty of Social Sciences, and the Peace Research Center Prague, an interdisciplinary hub of excellence based at Charles University.

Period abroad: February - April 2025

Maria Cristina Paganoni’s thoughts on peace and collaboration

A commitment to peacebuilding 

"Through this project, I hope to contribute to a broader appreciation of how tourism can convey a different understanding of heritage and place and inspire peaceful collective action for a better world, especially in the younger generations."

The power of networks  

"I am excited about the opportunity to spend a period of research in Prague in contact with colleagues from Charles University, with whom I have networked in the past four years thanks to the 4EU+ Alliance."


News and updates

Updates from Maria Cristina Paganoni (March 2025)

The 4EU+ Visiting Professorship? Just the beginning!

I am delighted to announce that I have been awarded a travel bursary from ESSE (the European Society for the Study of English) to deepen my research on peacebuilding at the Peace and Internationalism Collection in the Library of the London School of Economics.

I have also been accepted to present my research at the following international conferences:

“The Digital in Tourism Peacebuilding: A Critical Discursive Approach”

ADDA 5: Approaches to Digital Discourse Analysis 5 Conference

MindLabs, Tilburg University, The Netherlands | May 21–23, 2025


“Multimodal Resources for Peace Walking: The Prague Peace Trail”

12th International Conference on Multimodality (12ICOM) – The Multimodal Multiverse

University of Groningen, The Netherlands | October 29–31, 2025


I am one of the convenors of the seminar:

“Tourism Discourse at the Human-Digital Interface: Technology, Regeneration, Storytelling”

32nd AIA Conference – Human, Humane, Humanities: Voices from the Anglosphere

University of Turin | September 11–13, 2025

(Submission deadline, 23 April 2025, details here).


I am pleased to share that I have joined RUni – Pace UNIMI, the local unit of a nationwide Italian network of universities dedicated to peace research and initiatives.