Discourse as a carrier of history: wine tourism in the Negev and its evolution

ABSTRACT

The literature on spatial evolution has taken a high interest in structure-agency dynamics, but how long-term discourse interacts with these dynamics in shaping new paths still lacks a systematic understanding. To advance such an understanding, this article draws on the agency, structure, institutions and discourse (ASID) framework and refocuses it on spatial evolution. By doing so, the article aims at elucidating the discursive aspects of evolutionary spatial processes and highlights in particular the role of abstract macro-level discourses and concrete imaginaries as long-term discursive foundations of spatial evolution. In this way, discourse acts as a carrier of long-term historical roots and associations. By considering the historical rootedness of the discursive foundations of paths, the framework contributes to giving history a stronger role in evolutionary economic geography. We apply this analytical framework to wine tourism in Israel’s Negev and focus particularly on the historically rooted imaginaries that underpin the development of this path.

KEYWORDS:

• Agency
• discourse
• evolutionary economic geography
• imaginaries
• institutions

Introduction

As a ‘developmental’ stream of evolutionary economic geography (Martin and Sunley 2015), the literature on regional path development (Grillitsch, Asheim, and Trippl 2018; Martin and Sunley 2006; Tödtling and Trippl 2013) addresses the emergence and growth of new paths in regional economies. More recently, this literature has taken a high interest in the role of agency (e.g. Grillitsch and Sotarauta 2020; Isaksen et al. 2019; Jolly, Grillitsch, and Hansen 2020) in a specific case of the wider structure-agency debate in the social sciences (Archer 1982; Giddens 1984; Sewell 1992). At the same time, interest in other factors of spatial evolution such as assets (e.g. Trippl et al. 2020), structural and institutional conditions (e.g. Baumgartinger-Seiringer et al. 2022), and discursive elements such as expectations and imaginaries (e.g. Miörner 2022; Steen 2016) have surfaced. However, how different forms of agency interact with institutional, discursive and other structural conditions in shaping new paths still lacks a systematic understanding. In particular, apart from a few exceptional studies that address how agents make sense of the history and future (e.g. Kurikka et al. 2022; Steen 2016), the role of discourse in intertemporal agentic processes (Emirbayer and Mische 1998) in path development has not yet been systematically examined. We argue that the agency, structure, institutions and discourse (ASID) framework (Moulaert, Jessop, and Mehmood 2016) provides a useful analytical lens to examine these factors of regional path development and to reveal the interrelationships between them.

This article draws on recent tendencies in the path development literature that focus on the role of agency and institutions and aims at advancing the understanding of structure-agency dynamics in spatial evolution. By refocusing the ASID framework on questions of spatial evolution, the article proposes an analytical lens for focusing on the interrelationships between agency, structure, institutions and discourse in the emergence and growth of new paths. Specifically, drawing on this evolutionary ASID framework, the article aims at fostering our understanding of the discursive aspects of evolutionary spatial processes and highlights in particular the discursive foundations of paths. As these discursive foundations are historically rooted, we respond to recent calls in the paradigm of evolutionary economic geography (EEG) for giving history a stronger role (Henning 2019; Martin and Sunley 2022). Hence, the article aims to situate discourse along with agency, structure and institutions as a factor propelling regional path development and examines the role of long-term historical roots and associations of discourse. The article explores the following research questions: generally, how do agency, structure, institutions and discourse shape spatial evolution and specifically, how do agents employ historically rooted discourses to shape the development of a regional path?

The article starts by reviewing the literature on spatial evolution. Drawing on the generic ASID framework, a more specific evolutionary framework is proposed. The empirical part applies the framework to the case of wine tourism in Israel’s Negev desert and discusses the interrelations between the components of the framework. The final section discusses the results and draws conclusions.

Spatial evolution and its factors

Drawing on EEG (Boschma and Frenken 2006; Essletzbichler and Rigby 2007) with its fundamental idea of path dependence but conceptualizing a path as a contingent process (Martin 2010; Martin and Sunley 2006) under a ‘developmental’ approach (Martin and Sunley 2015), the literature on regional path development has led to a nuanced understanding of the positive or negative paths regional industries can pursue (Blažek et al. 2020; Grillitsch et al. 2018; Martin and Sunley 2006; Tödtling and Trippl 2013). By doing so, the path development literature has complemented the focus of EEG on path dependence with a path-as-process perspective (Martin 2010; Martin and Sunley 2006) that considers both radical change and gradual, developmental evolution (Benner 2023b; Martin 2012). However, the factors that propel these paths and their interrelationships are not fully understood so far.

Several factors have been identified in the more recent path development literature. In what can be understood as an expression of the long-standing structure-agency debate in the social sciences (Archer 1982; Giddens 1984; Sewell 1992), the role of agency has attracted particular attention (e.g. Isaksen et al. 2019; Jolly, Grillitsch, and Hansen 2020; Trippl et al. 2020). Agency in path development can instigate transformative change (Grillitsch and Sotarauta 2020) but also maintain existing structures (Henderson 2020; Jolly, Grillitsch, and Hansen 2020), and it takes place either at the firm level or at the system level agency (Benner 2023c; Hassink, Isaksen, and Trippl 2019; Isaksen et al. 2019). As a way of definition, ‘firm-level agency has its main field of influence within one firm or organization, while system-level agency exerts influences outside its institutional and organizational borders’ (Hassink, Isaksen, and Trippl 2019, 1638).

In a more structuralist sense, spatial evolution is shaped by institutions and their change (Benner 2022b; Zukauskaite, Trippl, and Plechero 2017). Institutions can be distinguished along their formal or informal nature (North 1990), and they can both enable and constrain action (Hodgson 2006). Stressing the informal aspects of institutions and their embodiment in practices, Bathelt and Glückler (2014) understand them as ‘stable patterns of social practice based on mutual expectations’ (346).

The relevance of institutions for regional development is well established (Gertler 2010; Rodríguez-Pose 2013), but how they shape the evolution of regional economies is anything but clear (Bathelt and Glückler 2014; Rodríguez-Pose 2020). Here again, the role of agency is important, as approaches such as institutional entrepreneurship (Battilana, Leca, and Boxenbaum 2009; DiMaggio 1988) or institutional work (Lawrence and Suddaby 2006) highlight, thus again leading to the interactions between agency and (institutional) structure. Indeed, institutions can be understood as a specific sub-type of the structural conditions of a regional economy (Baumgartinger-Seiringer et al. 2022). Further structural conditions apart from institutions include, for example, natural resources, physical infrastructure, and the regional stock of knowledge and skills (Trippl et al. 2020).

However, the structural side of regional economic activity is not static but shaped by dynamics beyond the reach of regional agents (Moulaert, Jessop, and Mehmood 2016). These structural dynamics include, in particular, opportunities that agents can seize if and when they arise. Grillitsch and Sotarauta (2020) conceptualize these dynamics as opportunity spaces, Benner (2022a) understands transnational policy alignment as a peculiar case of a structural opportunity space for regional development, and Kurikka et al. (2022) describe how agents perceive a structurally given region-specific opportunity space.

These opportunities are shaped not only by ‘material practices’ but also by ‘symbolic constructions’ (Friedland and Alford 1991, 248) and, hence, by elements of discourse. Accordingly, Beer, Barnes, and Horne (2023) identify ‘discourse as a process and driver of change at critical junctures’ (987) and consider discourse as a cross-cutting dimension that structures opportunity spaces for change agency. Discourse can take different forms. In a more abstract sense, macro-cultural discourses (Lawrence and Phillips 2004) are relevant as the wider discursive arena in a society. By redrawing the shift from whaling to whale-watching, Lawrence and Phillips (2004) provide a convincing account of how the macro-cultural shift from the frightening ‘Moby Dick’ to the sensitive ‘Free Willy’ affected this path. Similarly, Zerubavel (2019) elaborately recounts how the role of the desert in Israeli popular imagination and culture evolved from a desolate ‘empty space’ (7) towards a diverse space rife with adventure, spirituality, and recreation.

Discourses affect different social levels and are (re)interpreted at each of them, including in processes of institutionalization (Zilber 2009). More specifically, agents operationalize abstract macro-cultural discourses in path development activities as concrete and intertemporal visions, narratives, or imaginaries (Beer, Barnes, and Horne 2023; Benner 2020, 2022a, 2023a; Binz and Gong 2022; Miörner 2022; Sotarauta 2018) that in turn shape agents’ expectations (Borup et al. 2006; Steen 2016). Imaginaries can be generically defined as ‘collectively available symbolic meanings and values’ (Van Lente 2021, 23). Addressing imaginaries in tourism, Salazar (2012) proposes the more elaborate definition of ‘socially transmitted representational assemblages that interact with people’s personal imaginings and are used as meaning-making and world-shaping devices’ (864). Through narratives, visions, and expectations (Borup et al. 2006; Sotarauta 2018; Steen 2016), discourse helps agents exert intertemporal agency (Emirbayer and Mische 1998) and furnishes a lens to ‘see how the cumulative consequences of past actions constrain and limit future action’ (Martin and Sunley 2022, 77). Hence, discourse provides an important driver for the historical evolution of economic activity that Henning (2019) as well as Martin and Sunley (2022) place at the heart of EEG.

A specific ASID framework for spatial evolution

The various factors of regional path development discussed in the preceding section can be conceptualized along the ASID (agency, structure, institutions, discourse) framework proposed by Moulaert, Jessop, and Mehmood (2016). This framework assumes that (multiscalar) ‘structure is (…) a product of path-dependent institutionalization and path-shaping (collective) agency’ while agency is ‘discursively and materially reproduced and transformed’ (Moulaert, Jessop, and Mehmood 2016, 167). By combining aspects of path dependence and path shaping, the framework is compatible with the fundamental procedural and agentic perspective of path development (Martin 2010; Martin and Sunley 2006) but adds a discursive element that is important for regional transformative processes (Beer, Barnes, and Horne 2023; Steen 2016).

Since the ASID framework is a meta-theoretical heuristic that requires concretization for particular analytical purposes (Moulaert, Jessop, and Mehmood 2016), it can be applied to processes of spatial evolution by combining its elements with concepts known from the path development literature. Generally, the usefulness of the ASID framework for regional development and transformation has been demonstrated by Suitner and Ecker (2020) who apply it to energy transitions and by Beer, Barnes, and Horne (2023) who draw on different types of change agency and opportunity spaces and add three broad types of discourse referring to government, markets, and partnerships. Despite the merits of such an approach, the multiple and complex ways in which agency can unfold (Benner 2023c) including the role of non-change types of agency such as maintenance and reproductive agency (Bækkelund 2021; Henderson 2020; Jolly, Grillitsch, and Hansen 2020) and the fuzziness often involved in institutional definition and analysis (Bathelt and Glückler 2014; Hodgson, 2006) call for a more nuanced framework. We find it useful to propose a more specific framework for spatial evolution that distinguishes different levels of agency, structural conditions and their change through (multiscalar) opportunities, formal and informal institutions and discursive elements. Table 1 sketches such an evolutionary ASID framework for the analysis of regional paths.

Table 1. Conceptual framework for ASID in spatial evolution.

	Agency	Structure	Institutions	Discourse
Guiding questions	Which entrepreneurial agents drive the growth of a path and how (firm level)? (Hassink, Isaksen, and Trippl 2019; Isaksen et al. 2019) Who supports the development of the systemic environment of a new path and how (system level)? (Hassink, Isaksen, and Trippl 2019; Isaksen et al. 2019)	Which structural conditions shape the development of the new path and how? (Baumgartinger-Seiringer et al. 2022; Trippl et al. 2020) Which (multiscalar) opportunities or disruptions shape the development of the new path and how? (Beer, Barnes, and Horne 2023; Grillitsch and Sotarauta 2020)	Which rules and policies enable or constrain the development of a new path and how (formal institutions)? (Gertler 2010; Hodgson 2006; North 1990) Which mutually expected practices enable or constrain the development of a new path and how (informal institutions)? (Bathelt and Glückler 2014; Gertler 2010; North 1990)	Which abstract societal ideas provide the discursive environment for a new path and how (macro-cultural discourse)? (Lawrence and Phillips 2004; Zerubavel 2019) Which concrete ideas guide the new path and how (imaginaries)? (Miörner 2022; Sotarauta 2018; Steen 2016)
Relevance for spatial evolution	Past, present, and future aspects of agency (Emirbayer and Mische 1998)	Rootedness of structural conditions in the past (Archer 1982) as a source of path dependence (Martin and Sunley 2006)	Institutional hysteresis (Setterfield 1993) as a source of path dependence (Martin and Sunley 2006)	Connecting past and future in strategic ways (Benner 2022a) based on cultural repertoires (Swidler 1986) rooted in history (Henning 2019; Martin and Sunley 2022)

Source: Authors’ elaboration drawing on Moulaert, Jessop, and Mehmood (2016).

In the ‘agency’ column of Table 1, we follow the firm/system-level distinction that captures a wide range of actions (Benner 2023c; Hassink, Isaksen, and Trippl 2019; Isaksen et al. 2019). The ‘structure’ column addresses structural conditions that define the context of a regional economy (Baumgartinger-Seiringer et al. 2022; Trippl et al. 2020) with the exception of institutions that are seen as specific ‘socialized structure’ (Moulaert, Jessop, and Mehmood 2016, 169). In a dynamic perspective, structure is affected by higher-order changes that confront agents with particular opportunities (Benner 2022a; Grillitsch and Sotarauta 2020) but also crises and other disruptions (Beer, Barnes, and Horne 2023; Suitner and Ecker 2020) as part of what Moulaert, Jessop, and Mehmood (2016, 172) call ‘conjunctural dynamics’. The ‘institution’ column refers to both formal and informal institutions (Bathelt and Glückler 2014; Gertler 2010; Hodgson 2006; North 1990). Finally, the ‘discourse’ column draws attention to both abstract macro-cultural discourses (Lawrence and Phillips 2004; Zerubavel 2019) and more concrete imaginaries that guide agents’ actions in path development (Miörner 2022; Sotarauta 2018; Steen 2016; Suitner and Ecker 2020). The meanings conveyed by macro-cultural discourses and imaginaries can reach far into the past and take a long-term historical dimension (e.g. Azaryahu 2005; Shilo and Collins-Kreiner 2019, 2022; Zerubavel 2019). Hence, following Swidler (1986), discourse can be understood as a rich cultural repertoire that contains a number of ‘symbolic vehicles of meaning’ (273) with varying ranges and scopes.

A weakness of the ASID framework that is partly due to its meta-theoretical character is that it remains vague on the precise interactions between its elements. While Moulaert, Jessop, and Mehmood (2016) stress the mediating role of institutions between structure and agency, the role of discourse is less clear, although evidence suggests that discourse can affect institutions and both are shaped by agency in turn (Benner 2022a, 2023a; Lawrence and Phillips 2004; Swidler 1986). Elucidating these interactions is critical for sharpening the evolutionary dimension of the ASID framework. While structure and agency interact (Giddens 1984), we follow Archer's (1982) morphogenetic approach that assumes structure predates agency. Hence, structure is rooted in the past and exhibits features of path dependence, although not in a ‘canonical’ way but in a contingent sense (Martin 2010; Martin and Sunley 2006). The same holds true for institutions as a more specific expression of structure. They will typically exhibit a considerable degree of ‘institutional hysteresis’ implying their short-term exogeneity (Setterfield 1993). At the same time, in the long run structures and institutions are shaped by agency (Archer 1982; Giddens 1984; Setterfield 1993) which consists of past, present, and future aspects (Emirbayer and Mische 1998). These intertemporal aspects of agency are reinforced by discourse which helps agents connect the past and future through meaning-making imaginaries which are, in turn, used and shaped strategically and sometimes controversially by agents (Benner 2022a; Binz and Gong 2022; Shilo and Collins-Kreiner 2019) who choose from the cultural repertoires available to them (Swidler 1986). These cultural repertoires include long-term historical roots and associations which carry history over into the development of a new path (Henning 2019; Martin and Sunley 2022).

In the next section, we use the empirical case of wine tourism in Israel’s Negev desert to examine and clarify the interactions between the elements of the evolutionary ASID framework in an attempt to demonstrate how a systematic conceptualization of discourse can help better understand processes of spatial evolution.

Wine tourism in the Negev¹

At about 60 per cent of Israel’s territory, the Negev desert in Israel’s south covers a large part of the country (Teschner, Garb, and Tal 2010). In terms of population, the Be’er Sheva subdistrict that includes the Negev had just above 800,000 inhabitants (less than ten percent of Israel's population) but witnessed enormous growth up from only 14,000 in 1948 (Central Bureau of Statistics 2022). The arid, rural Negev belongs to the country’s periphery, is socio-economically lagging, and is addressed by long-standing national spatial planning policies such as the government’s ‘Negev 2015’ strategic plan dating from 2005 that, among other goals, aimed at growing the regional population by 200,000 inhabitants, improving the socio-economic status of the Bedouin minority, and developing tourism (Hillel, Belhassen, and Shani 2013; Teschner, Garb, and Tal 2010; Zerubavel 2019). Indeed, despite or maybe precisely because of being regarded as a desolate space far removed from urban civilization (Azaryahu 2005; Zerubavel 2019), for more than a decade the Negev has seen a boom in desert tourism, drawing on a discourse that combines distance and emptiness with desires for adventure, respite, and spirituality (Schmidt and Uriely 2019; Zerubavel 2019). The combination of the region’s peripheral status, its importance for socio-economic development in Israel, its rich history, and the rise of desert tourism make Negev wine tourism an interesting case for studying the role of historically-rooted discourse in spatial evolution, given the underused potential for tourism centred on authentic Negev agricultural produce (Hillel, Belhassen, and Shani 2013).

In line with a boom in winemaking and a spread of boutique wineries in Israel, during the past roughly two decades the Negev has seen the rise of a winemaking industry facilitated by drip irrigation technologies (Jaffe and Pasternak 2004; Rogov 2012). Some of the Negev winemakers have diversified towards complementary offers such as tourism. This path mirrors the increasing popularity of wine tourism both in Israel (Jaffe and Pasternak 2004; Shor and Mansfeld 2012) and internationally (Cambourne et al. 2004; Getz et al. 2008; Mitchell and Hall 2006).

Wine tourism is particularly suited as a lever for regional development in rural regions and is often organized and marketed under the framework of wine routes (Cambourne et al. 2004; Hall and Mitchell 2000; Hall, Johnson, and Mitchell 2004). Studies on wine routes suggest they can lead to tourism-driven growth in rural regions (e.g. Vázquez Vicente, Martín Barroso, and Blanco Jiménez 2021) but at the same time can face institutional challenges as coordinating stakeholders in wine routes and encouraging their collaboration may suffer from unclear definitions of the wine route (Bregoli et al. 2016) or weak interactions with public-sector promotion agents (Festa et al. 2020). In Israel, while the development of a wine industry and wine tourism are fairly recent phenomena, they allude to a long history (Cambourne et al. 2004; Hall and Mitchell 2000), given that ‘Israel is one of the birthplaces of wine, having established the industry some 4300 years ago’ (Jaffe and Pasternak 2004, 238).

Another trend visible in the Negev is the attempt to harness the region’s rich past for culturally-based forms of tourism, building on a number of archeological sites dating from the Nabatean period such as Avdat, Mamshit, Nitzana and Shivta but also Roman and Byzantine archeological heritage (Fuks et al. 2020; MDPNG and NDA n.d.; Zerubavel 2019). The fourth century BCE saw a prospering incense trade with Nabatean merchants carrying frankincense and myrrh along the trade routes between the Arabian Peninsula and the Roman Empire (Amar 2021; Ben-David 2021; Shilo and Collins-Kreiner 2022). The Nabateans as one of the tribes residing on the Arabian Peninsula played a key role in the ancient incense route economy which flourished up to the year 106 CE when the Nabatean kingdom was annexed by the Roman empire (Rosenthal-Heginbottom 2003; Shilo and Collins-Kreiner 2022). Frankincense and myrrh were a valuable and regularly used good for Pagan worship rituals, and the Nabatean kingdom became a local power whose economic success was built on frankincense and myrrh (Amar 2021; Ben-David 2021; Shilo and Collins-Kreiner 2022). This history provides an important historical background for today’s tourism in the Negev as the ancient Nabatean incense route was recognized as UNESCO world heritage in 2005 (MDPNG and NDA n.d.; Zerubavel 2019).

It was particularly during the late Roman and Byzantine periods that the south of the country became a prominent winemaking region (Rogov, 2012). According to new archeological evidence, between the 4th century to the mid-6th century CE, the Negev wine industry for export culminated (Fuks et al. 2020). The famous white wines of the Negev, known as ‘Gaza wine’ due to its shipment from Gaza port, were sent to markets across Europe, and the vineyards in the Negev highlands flourished (Fuks et al. 2020).

Wine tourism and the archeological and historical heritage are complementary in tourism development in the Negev. According to Getz et al. (2008), due to their consumer characteristics, ‘wine tourists also want a range of cultural and outdoor experiences’ (265). Given that archeological interest is considered a suitable and complementary way to augment wine tourism in Israel (Jaffe and Pasternak 2004), the touristic valorization of historical imaginaries such as the Nabatean incense route and the Byzantine heritage provides a discursive background to the path development of wine tourism in the Negev.

Zerubavel (2019) traces the emergence of the Negev wine route which was based on the establishment of up to thirty individual farms in the Negev during the late 1990s and early 2000s (see also Hillel, Belhassen, and Shani 2013). According to her, the programme of establishing this route of farms ‘foregrounded the agricultural component and evoked an association with wine tourism as well as with the ancient Nabbatean [sic] Incense Route’ (132) in an attempt to both settle and economically develop the peripheral region, albeit the programme met considerable resistance by environmental groups (Zerubavel 2019). In addition, the Sfat haMidbar programme promoted agritourism including winemaking in the Negev town of Mitzpe Ramon (Schmidt and Uriely 2019; Zerubavel 2019). In recent years, wine tourism has been part of the regional tourism marketing efforts, along with the Negev’s natural and archeological heritage including the Nabatean incense route (MDPNG and NDA n.d.; Zerubavel 2019). However, Hillel, Belhassen, and Shani (2013) lament the lack of regional authenticity in marketing the Negev’s agricultural produce (including wine) in tourism, as well as the weak links between wine and other regional food products.

Within this context, the case study applies the conceptual framework for ASID in spatial evolution (Table 1) to the development of the wine tourism path in the Negev and explores how discourse² and its long-term historical roots and associations interact with agency, structure and institutions in processes of spatial evolution.

Methods

Wine tourism in the Negev serves as a paradigmatic case study (Flyvbjerg 2006; Yin 2018) to examine the role of discourse in spatial evolution. Following Martin and Sunley’s (2022) recommendation, we aim at providing a narrative account in a logic of appreciative theorizing that ‘stays close to the empirics of a particular case’ (77). For our research interest in revealing the role of discourse as a carrier of history, the Negev is particularly well-suited because of its long and meaning-charged history and modern efforts to reconnect with this history and its cultural meanings to promote regional tourism (Zerubavel 2019).

The case study is based on a series of twelve semi-structured interviews (Flick 2014; Helfferich 2019) conducted between June and October 2022. Of the thirteen interviewees³, twelve represented vineyards and/or wineries while one represented an intermediary organization,⁴ all of them related to winemaking and/or wine tourism in the Negev. Most of the vineyards or wineries represented were small, family-led wineries and most of the winemakers interviewed were their owners. Interviewees were sampled according to one author’s (S.) knowledge in the field as a tourism developer and consultant, and the number of interviews reflects the threshold at which theoretical saturation can typically be expected (Guest, Bunce, and Johnson 2006). Interviews were conducted in Hebrew. The first interview was conducted by one author (S.) accompanied by two students, each subsequent interview was conducted by one of these students, respectively, and the last interview was conducted by the same author and the two students together. All interviews followed an interview guideline prepared by the authors. Most interviews were held as online video conferences but three were held face to face in full and one in part.⁵ As all interviewees stated their informed consent to recording, all interviews were recorded and transcribed by the students. Both authors listened to the recordings and checked the transcripts.⁶ One author (B.) subsequently analyzed the transcripts through coding along a deductive coding structure (Mayring and Fenzl 2019) derived from the conceptual framework (Table 1), using MaxQDA coding software (Kuckartz and Rädiker 2019). To deepen familiarization with the context and facilitate the interpretation of results, the analyzing author visited the websites of the wineries and/or read older wine guide entries (Rogov 2012) where available, respectively. In sum, the empirical work produced almost ten recorded hours and 129 transcript pages.⁷

Results

The results presented cover the development of winemaking and wine tourism in the Negev since 1995 when the first of the vineyards was established. The processes propelling path development are analyzed below along the ASID framework but with a particular focus on the historical roots of discourse.

Agency

On the firm level, entrepreneurial activity, innovation, and experimentation is apparent in the development first of winemaking (vineyards and/or wineries) and second of wine tourism. Engaging in wine tourism by offering winery tours, seminars, or tastings seemed logical from the perspective of winemakers, as occasional references to internationally known wine regions or countries such as Napa Valley or Australia suggest, but concrete motivations included also marketing wines directly to customers or making wine more accessible to them. For some entrepreneurs, wine tourism is complemented by food or accommodation offers or by other agricultural produce such as olive oil.

System-level agency includes the national Ministry of Tourism with its marketing and tourism development activities in the Negev in general. More specifically for wine tourism, system-level agency is exerted particularly by the Merage Foundation, a philanthropic organization that promotes winemaking in the Negev through the setup of a network, the ‘Negev Wineries Club’. Some interviewees considered this initiative to have contributed to more cooperation among winemakers in the Negev, and one interviewee expressed the opinion that this cooperation works only because of the support provided by the foundation. However, another interviewee considered the foundation’s work on wine tourism in the Negev still too recent to evaluate its impact. This private system-level support somewhat contrasts with official tourism policy which is evaluated differently among interviewees. While one interviewee highlighted the support for wine tourism by the tourism ministry, another rather critical one considered the efforts undertaken by tourism policy insufficient:

The only ones pushing the subject of wine tourism are like the Merage Foundation plus all sorts of similar, small organizations. The Ministry of Tourism does not promote wine tourism. I never saw an ad [saying], ‘come taste the wine of Israel’. (interview #3)

Going back to the beginnings of the Negev wine route, however, some interviewees highlighted the role of former agriculture minister and prime minister Ariel Sharon, who himself operated a farm in the Negev, in supporting the establishment of individual farms (Zerubavel 2019).

Structure

At the nexus between firm-level agency and structure, the buildup of a regional stock of human skills and knowledge seem to have been a decisive factor in the development of winemaking and wine tourism. Some interviewees stated having learned about winemaking in the winemaking courses offered by a winery in the centre of the country or drawing on suitable knowledge of family members. Nevertheless, the acquisition of needed skills was not always without difficulty, particularly when entrepreneurs diversified towards less related knowledge, which hints at the structural obstacles they encountered:

When I decided to establish the winery, I understood that I needed to learn how to make wine. The issue of the vineyards was easier because I was born as a farmer, I know agriculture from bottom to top, although it was vegetables, but converting to vineyards was very easy, (…) the hardest part to me was [setting up] the winery itself. (interview #12)

Overarching structural tendencies include the general growth of the Israeli wine industry and interest in wine among demographic groups such as millennials and senior citizens, Israeli high-tech companies organizing visits to vineyards for their employees, and international tourists seeking the combination of wine and desert which is seen as unique in the Negev. The latter related more broadly to the specific structural (e.g. climatic) conditions for winegrowing that characterize the terroir in the Negev.

Somewhat surprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic turned out to be a major structural opportunity for wine tourism in the Negev. One interviewee explained how during the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for online wine courses among Israeli consumers looking for entertainment activities at home increased, reinforcing interest in wine at large. At the same time, restrictions on foreign travel increased the attractiveness of wine tourism within the country, and the attractiveness of wine tourism specifically in the Negev was additionally underpinned by the imaginary of the region’s remoteness from dense and pandemic-strained urban life. For example, celebrating open-air weddings in a vineyard fitted the conditions of the pandemic. Taken together, one interviewee summarized the effect of the pandemic on domestic wine tourism:

During the corona period, the wineries in particular discovered that they would be the first that could emerge out from the crisis because many people came out of their homes, the lockdown was over, it was permitted to move around, but there were no restaurants. Yet, it was permitted to enter a winery. So post-Covid wine tourism was created that helped many wineries to find an income. (interview #8)

In this way, the pandemic whose onset accidentally roughly coincided with the beginning of the Merage Foundation’s activities for Negev winemaking may have contributed to a change in tourist patterns towards intentional wine tourism as opposed to sporadic and casual visits to vineyards or wineries. For example, one winery saw ‘queues of people that fled from the centre [of the country] because of the lockdowns and were looking for [leisure] activities’ (interview #12).

Notwithstanding, the relative lack of a critical mass in wine tourism and, as a consequence, the large distances between wineries in the Negev as well as the reliance on independent travellers and lack of organized offers are structural problems raised:

I don’t think that to date, (…) there is something that can be called wine tourism in the Negev, (…) it’s not like you travel, say, on the Golan heights, although there is no wine route, or in (…) Mateh Yehuda [near Jerusalem], you feel [it’s] full of wineries (…). What have we got here? Hardly any wineries. (interview #12)

Wine tourism, that’s mass, that’s a shuttle, that’s a bus that someone must organize on a regular basis, that would leave every day from Tel Aviv with 50 people in a luxurious bus, with a professional guide that talks all along the way about Israeli wine in the Negev highlands, and the bus would stop in several places on the same day. (interview #8)

Institutions

When it comes to formal institutions, several interviewees complained about the bureaucratic burden involved in winemaking and wine tourism. Despite the tourism ministry’s efforts at promoting tourism, complaints about bureaucratic hurdles (e.g. against constructing buildings on vineyards) could be interpreted as a fragmented governmental approach to tourism due to contradictory institutional and regulatory remits of government agencies. For example, one interviewee stated the impression that ‘there is perhaps opposition by the state because this is agricultural land and on agricultural land it is forbidden to do tourism’ (interview #5), a problem rooted in spatial planning and contradicting the very rationale of the Negev wine route. These institutional contradictions are also evident in another interviewees’ perception:⁸

The problem is that you need a permit for this and a permit for that and a permit for that … you can plan as much as you want, but if one organization or one government ministry does not give its permit, that ruins everything, [there is] too much bureaucracy. (interview #3)

As for informal institutions, attitudes towards cooperation in wine tourism appear to have been weak but to improve recently under the activities of the Merage Foundation. The previously dominant mindset among Negev winemakers was considered as an individualistic pattern in which ‘everyone went his own way because everyone was thinking they kept some sort of a secret’ (interview #3). Another interviewee specified a need for more cooperation in matters related to marketing. The foundation’s system-level agency contributed to more knowledge about the path among its constituent entrepreneurs and subsequent networking, as one winemaker explained:

We are also discovering many wineries. We did not know they exist and suddenly, from ten that we were in the beginning in the [activities of the] Merage Foundation, suddenly it turns out that there are 30. (…) As people get to know others, they develop friendships and that helps them. (interview #2)

However, as one interviewee noted, during the beginning of Negev winemaking in the early 2000s there seems to have been a more close-knit community among winemakers as ‘everybody knew everybody, also everybody studied in the same place’ (interview #7) such as the winemaking courses mentioned above.

Discourse

The imaginary of the Negev wine route was not uncontroversial among interviewees. For example, one interviewee expressed criticism against it, saying that ‘I don’t know what that is, the Negev wine route. I saw a sign twenty years ago. (…) There are many routes [but] there’s not much wine’ (interview #3). Another interviewee downplayed the importance of the wine route for branding wine tourism in the Negev and another one considered regional efforts to valorize the wine route for tourism not successful so far. In a similar vein, an interviewee expressed sympathy for the imaginary of a wine route but stated that it is not yet operational because ‘a wine route, that’s not just wineries, that’s a path, and where do you sleep and where do you eat’ (interview #6) which would call for a more organized effort. These different interpretations reveal a certain ambiguity about how the imaginary is understood, for example as the original programme, a brand, a support scheme, or simply a map of Negev wineries. Nevertheless, current efforts to achieve a geographical indication for Negev wines hint at a certain complementarity with the Negev wine route imaginary.

Beyond the Negev wine route as such, historically rooted discourses were widespread in the interviews. The Nabatean incense route is one of those imaginaries that figure prominently in the discourse on winemaking in the Negev:

Basically, we are sitting on almost the same routes which were traveled in the past by traders, pilgrims, or tourists. (interview #7)

In some instances, proximity to the ancient incense route and to the ancient winemaking tradition in the region during the Nabatean era serves as an inspiration and as a theme of identification:

I believe that the story of the Nabateans is fundamental. With us that was really a part of the story that everybody who comes to the winery also hears. (interview #2)

We have an old tradition of growing vines in the Negev. (…) And then they discovered the terraces that were [built by] the Nabateans and suddenly you plant the vineyards on the terraces. (…) You understand that there was something before. (…) So there’s a very important role of this history. (interview #6)

Through the Nabatean theme, the ancient history of the region with its archeological sites and its former role as a trade route is anchored and linked to winemaking in a tourism imaginary (Salazar 2012) that provides meaning to visitors and that links ancient history to travel, as several interviewees highlighted:

I believe that people are excited about hearing that the history began many years ago and wine is still made here. (interview #2)

As there was the spice [incense] route there was also an ancient wine route that is not documented (…). On this route [between Arad and Mitzpe Ramon] there were tens of Nabatean growers that made wine and tourism, (…) there were no tourists then as [there are] today, but there was tourism of traders (…) [that came] to do business. (interview #8)

You can buy a bottle of wine everywhere, at a supermarket, (…) but [customers] do look for the story (…) of (…) the Nabateans. (interview #9)

In a more mundane way, the Nabatean route serves as a well-known marketing theme for wine tourism in the region:

That’s a brand (…), that’s something that everyone knows and hears, even if they don’t know what it is. (interview #10)

Nevertheless, not all interviewees agreed on the importance of the Nabatean imaginary, with one winemaker opining that ‘there’s no need for the spice [incense] route to market’ wine or tourism (interview #12).

Another imaginary that became apparent in several interviews was the Zionist mission of winemaking in the Negev that is historically rooted, inter alia, in the interest of Israel’s first prime minister David Ben Gurion in developing the region, and that is well documented in the macro-cultural discourse about the desert in Israeli society which can in turn be traced back to historical narratives of the Exodus and the Jewish diaspora (Zerubavel 2019). One interviewee explicitly linked winemaking in the Negev to a motivation to ‘make the wilderness bloom’ (interview #5) which belongs to the long-standing Israeli macro-cultural discourse (Shapira 2015; Zerubavel 2019). This imaginary seems widespread among Negev winemakers and relates to feelings of authenticity (see also Hillel, Belhassen, and Shani 2013) among domestic wine tourists who seek ‘to see with their eyes the vineyard and the farmer, (…) they also strongly connect to this on the Zionist level’ (interview #5). Interestingly, one interviewee referred to citizens evacuated from the Sinai and Gaza strip after the Israeli withdrawals from these territories, respectively, as performing a Zionist mission in settling in the neighbouring Negev and performing some kind of agriculture there.

Another imaginary that surfaced was Israel’s history as one of the ancient cradles of winemaking (see also Rogov 2012) which is evident, for example, in one winemaker’s collaboration with a university that aims at re-cultivating ancient grape varieties. This imaginary is often joined with reminiscences of the viticultural tradition during the Byzantine era,⁹ as these two winemakers explained:

The Byzantines made great wine here, now we are not Byzantines indeed but we make great wine. That’s the link I would make. (…) I’m sitting on a 1,500 year-old agricultural estate. (interview #4)

This region was considered one of the regions with the best wine in all of the Byzantine empire. (interview #10)

One interviewee considered the Byzantine imaginary particularly important for international customers due to the link to the Christian world (see also Shilo & Collin-Kreiner 2022). Nevertheless, despite the importance accorded to the winemaking traditions of the Byzantine era by winemakers, one interviewee criticized a lack of attention by national tourism policymakers, arguably ‘because that’s the Byzantine era, not [the] Jewish era’ (interview #3). Referring to an ancient winery found in Yavne in the centre of the country, the interviewee conjectured that this imaginary is not promoted by the national tourism policy for this reason:

If there’s a winery of one and a half million liters from the Byzantine era, that has to be a place that thousands of people come to see. (…) But that doesn’t fit our story, so we conceal it [in tourism policy]. (interview #3)

Finally, some winemakers stressed their approach to organic or natural winemaking, and one of them explicitly linked it to the authenticity rooted in Biblical narratives such as Noah’s engagement with wine or Abraham’s wanderings:

I am not an industrialist. I’m not even a producer. I’m a person who lives in the middle of the most authentic desert in the world, the cradle of worldwide culture, the cradle of the Tanakh [Hebrew Bible]. Everything happened here, everything began here, and we have got the privilege and the gift of living here, (…) and giving tourists the atmosphere that Abraham gave to his guests. (interview #8)

However, organic or natural winemaking still appears to be a fringe discourse among Negev winemakers. Taken together, the imaginaries observed demonstrate the importance of discourse in linking wine tourism in the Negev to the cultural repertoire (Swidler 1986) filled by the region’s historical and religious heritage. To elucidate the link between discourse and history, Figure 1 proposes an approximate timeline of the eras in which the observed discourses are rooted and illustrates how far back in time the cultural repertoire of agents can reach. Table 2 provides an overall summary of the major empirical results.

Discussion and conclusions

According to the terminology of the path development literature (Grillitsch, Asheim, and Trippl 2018), the initial setup of individual farms along the Negev wine route can be classified as a combination of partial path importation insofar as entrepreneurs came from the centre of the country to the Negev and path branching as some of them diversified into winemaking from other agricultural products. Although the idea of linking tourism to wine was inherent to the original plan of the Negev wine route (Zerubavel 2019), the development of tourism offers on vineyards and in wineries was a gradual process of path diversification into an activity that required new skills and knowledge (Grillitsch, Asheim, and Trippl 2018). The difficulty of diversification towards more unrelated activities is underlined evocatively by entrepreneurs’ efforts in upgrading their knowledge and skills. This, together with physical distances and administrative fragmentation, confirms some of the barriers to wine tourism enumerated by Hall (2005).

Figure 1. Timeline of historical roots of discourse in Negev wine tourism. Source: authors’ elaboration with historical dates drawing on Amar (2021), Ben-David (2021), Fuks et al. (2020), Rosenthal-Heginbottom (2003), Shapira (2015), Shilo and Collins-Kreiner (2022), and Zerubavel (2019).

Table 2. Agency, structure, institutions, and discourse in the development of wine tourism in the Negev.

Agency	Structure	Institutions	Discourse
Firm level: Entrepreneurial activity and innovative experimentation among winemakers System level: Support for wine tourism by the Merage Foundation through networking	Structural conditions: Uniqueness of desert winemaking and the regional terroir Lack of critical mass Opportunities or disruptions: Increased interest in wine during the COVID-19 pandemic Travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic strengthening domestic wine tourism in the Negev	Formal institutions: Contradictory governmental approach towards regulation Informal institutions: Weak but improving collaborative attitudes	Macro-cultural discourse: Zionist motivation of cultivating the Negev (Zerubavel 2019) Imaginaries: Nabatean incense route and winegrowing as an anchor to the region’s history Israel as one of the cradles of winemaking, particularly during the Byzantine era Authenticity of natural winemaking rooted in Biblical narratives Winemaking in the Negev as part of the Zionist mission

Source: Authors’ elaboration.

The interaction between structure and agency is particularly visible in the coincidence of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the increasing interest in wine among domestic consumers on the one hand and the Merage Foundation’s support for networking among winemakers on the other hand. While this coincidence was accidental, it demonstrates how agency fills emerging opportunity spaces (Grillitsch and Sotarauta 2020), thus confirming the role of a system-level ‘champion’ in wine tourism (Hall 2005). The institutional patterns visible suggest that different stages of path development bring with them specific institutional patterns in that the initial cohesion may weaken as the path grows and eventually can be rebuilt by system-level agency while the contradictory policy and planning environment (see also Teschner, Garb, and Tal 2010) suggests a fragmented institutional infrastructure (Baumgartinger-Seiringer, Miörner, and Trippl 2021; Baumgartinger-Seiringer et al. 2022).

When it comes to discourse, although winemakers disagreed about which imaginaries are important, their role in strategically employing imaginaries taken from a cultural repertoire (Swidler 1986) as discursive devices in spatial evolution becomes clear. Still, how winemakers engage with the Negev wine route imaginary varies considerably and might call for dedicated system-level agency in reaching a common understanding of what precisely it means and how it can be used to promote wine tourism, consistent with research on Italian wine routes (Bregoli et al. 2016). Further, there is considerable disagreement about which part of the Negev’s history to primarily draw on (e.g. Nabatean, Byzantine, or Jewish periods), although as subsequent historical eras these imaginaries are clearly complementary. This suggests a need for additional awareness building and promotional efforts to create a common understanding on how to market the Negev wine route and thus highlighting the regional authenticity of Negev winemaking and embedding it into an authentic wider food tourism product (Hall 2005; Hillel, Belhassen, and Shani 2013).

This article sought to explore how discourse serves as a carrier of long-term history in spatial evolution embedded in structure-agency dynamics through the analytical heuristic of a specific ASID framework. Nevertheless, by drawing on a single case, the article has its limitations that call for further research. The Negev wine tourism case is instructive because of its strong roots in historical imaginaries and the peripheral, rural area covered which makes it particularly interesting for other rural areas with a rich cultural and historical repertoire. Future multiple-case research along these lines would be useful, particularly in rural regions across countries that seek to develop tourism at the intersection between culture and agriculture in arid areas and under difficult climatic conditions.

In sectoral terms, wine tourism provides an idiosyncratic case whose conclusions are difficult to generalize beyond the tourism industry. Nevertheless, the specific ASID framework for spatial evolution we propose can be useful for analyzing the role of historical imaginaries underpinning the evolution of other industries in other regions. For instance, the emerging geography of sustainability transitions (Hansen and Coenen 2015) could benefit from the framework by examining how sustainability-focused fringe discourses such as the one on organic or natural winemaking observed are historically rooted. More wide-ranging research is certainly welcome to understand how paths are built and developed by agents drawing on historical heritage that can reach back to times far preceding the industrial era.

Acknowledgments

Both authors are grateful to Hila Nisan and Oren Or for conducting and transcribing the interviews. M. Benner is grateful to Michaela Trippl and Erika Faigen for suggestions or comments. Further, the authors are grateful to two reviewers for their useful comments, and to the editor. Of course, all errors and omissions are the authors’ alone, as are any opinions expressed.

Disclosure statement

S. Shilo is involved in promoting tourism in the Negev as the head of the Friendly Negev Desert destination management organization as well as in tourism development in Israel as a consultant to the Ministry of Tourism. He also has partial family ties to one of the Negev wineries.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): M 2992-G.

Notes

1 Insofar as the case study addresses imaginaries about the Negev in general and tourism policy there, it draws on Benner (2022a, 2023a).

2 For a wider analysis of the role of discourse in gastronomic tourism in the Negev at large, see Hillel, Belhassen, and Shani (2013).

3 One interview covered two interviewees.

4 Drawing on two interviewee types (winemakers and intermediaries) can be regarded as an element of data triangulation (Denzin 2009; Flick 2014).

5 Due to an interruption, one interview was held on two dates, one online and the other face to face.

6 Transcriptions were slightly simplified (e.g. by leaving out repetitions, filling words, digressions, or interviewer explanations).

7 Interview quotes taken from the transcripts were translated into English by the authors and, in some instances, the English language translation was slightly modified to enhance readability.

8 Israel’s land rules and laws were shaped during the early years of the state and reflect the primary importance of agriculture compared to a low priority for tourism for the young state (see also MARD 2015).

9 In a similar vein, one interviewee referred to the Crusader era.