Production Places or Consumption Spaces? The Place-making Agency of Food Tourism in Ireland and Scotland

This article examines the transformation of food production sites into spaces of touristic experience. Traditional food producers are opening their doors to visitors as the popularity of food tourism increases, negotiating a balance between the operation of their business and the drive towards developing new arenas of consumption. An approach that retains spatial, social and cultural influences is advanced to conceptualize the place-making agency of food tourism, whilst theorizing the blurring of work/leisure to explore the merging of work places with leisure spaces. Findings from 32 interviews with producers and 34 interviews with tourists in Ireland and Scotland include the identification of hybrid spaces where consumer needs clash with production requirements; the discovery of producers who create new spaces of consumptive leisure to accommodate touristic interests; the constructive agency of tourist expectations; and insights into how producers alter patterns of traditional production to facilitate growing consumptive demands.