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usiness and market to potential customers. Also policy-making involves hypothetical and speculative reasoning. For example, making plans for tourism development is theoretical in the sense that it is about something imaginary. The future does not exist here and now, it can only appear here and now as a pure theoretical object. That we in this chapter choose to address and put emphasis on the importance of tourism theory is not be read as advocating theory for its own sake. We do, however, believe that there are some substantial reasons for paying extra careful attention to theory in tourism studies. We agree in principle with Shaw and Williams that “tourism research is still often descriptive, a-theoretical, and chaotically conceptualized in being abstracted from broader social relationships” (Shaw and Williams 2004, p. 1). Although exceptions can readily be found, their argument indicates that one future challenge for tourism theory is to further enhance and develop accounts that situate tourism and tourists in a broader framework informed by contemporary social and cultural theorizing. What we now need to address first is what theory is, and how it is related to tourism studies. With the student audience in mind, this necessitates a brief introductory tour into the relationship between scientific disciplines and theory more generally. Tourism studies: a field or a discipline? One of the distinguishing features of a scientific discipline, for example biology or sociology, is that it has a common theoretical domain consisting of understandings and explanations of the phenomenon being studied. This does not mean that such a domain has to exist in the form of a single unified discipline theory that all its scholars and researchers subscribe to. The point is instead that a discipline theory offers a common disciplinary ground on which theoretical conversations and critical debates can take place. Even if there were to be substantial disagreements and disputes between scholars and researchers, they are nevertheless able to position and locate them on a map of their own discipline territory. So, does tourism studies have a discipline of its own? The question is not altogether easy to answer. Although tourism studies clearly do exist in terms of formal academic institutional structures, with departments offering university degrees and conducting research on tourism and tourists, it is less certain how and to what extent it is a discipline held together by a common theoretical domain. For a long time 32
it has been debated whether or not tourism studies is to be regarded as a discipline of its own, or if it is to be conceived of as merely a field of study populated by scholars and researchers from a variety of different disciplines, who in turn may approach tourism from a variety of diverse theoretical perspectives. Although it is generally acknowledged that tourism studies belong to social science, it can also be placed within any of its disciplines and their respective sub-domains specialised in tourism. Accordingly, one will then find, for example, “anthropology of tourism”, “sociology of tourism” and “tourism geography”, rather than a separate discipline of tourism studies. We can easily add another level of complexity by invoking other neighbouring fields commonly regarded as close to tourism, like “management”, “marketing”, “recreation and leisure studies” and those focusing on “sports and hospitality”. Image 3.1: Where are tourism studies? 21 It thus comes as no surprise that it is common in the tourism literature to recognize that tourism studies are dependent on a mixture of theoretical perspectives originating in particular from other social science disciplines. This state of theoretical affairs has been reflected in an attitude among tourism researchers, which is still common, that tourism studies are best “viewed as an application of established disciplines, because it does not possess sufficient doctrine to be classified as a full-fledged academic discipline” (Bodewes 1981, p. 37). More recently it has been claimed that tourism studies “is not a discipline but a discursive site with multiple disciplinary roots” (Belhassen and Caton 2009, p. 341). From this follows that tourism studies have also been characterised as being “interdisciplinary”, “multidisciplinary” and even “transdisciplinary”. In essence the basic argument is that tourism studies, as a discipline or as a field of study (as well as any study of tourism), is 21 www.jeffvail.net/.../rhizomecentral2-768939.gif (retreived 2009-05-04). 33
Page 2 and 3: © Icelandic Tourism Research Centr
Page 4 and 5: Table of Contents 1. Introduction .
Page 6 and 7: esearch but also “education and c
Page 8 and 9: Tourism images have had a longstand
Page 10 and 11: gradually expanded and become more
Page 12 and 13: Tourism - an earthly business For u
Page 14 and 15: Image 1.3: The Island of tourism &
Page 17 and 18: 2. Image & destination The actual a
Page 19 and 20: variety of sources could be used in
Page 21 and 22: consequences for how she or he will
Page 23 and 24: either the textual or the visual, a
Page 25 and 26: Composed of numerous small encounte
Page 27 and 28: materiality. Yet, you are able to r
Page 29 and 30: demand it is mediated by investment
Page 31 and 32: tourism reflects broader social and
Page 33: signification, not the least in tou
Page 38 and 39: ound to cross traditional disciplin
Page 40 and 41: sightseeing and whatever activities
Page 42 and 43: Social science research is carried
Page 44 and 45: environment. If they had, they were
Page 46 and 47: Our argument is that it is importan
Page 48 and 49: able to cross the minds of many tho
Page 50 and 51: Eight on my list is the heritage of
Page 52 and 53: The cartography of tourism imaginat
Page 54 and 55: Images of Iceland as a tourist dest
Page 56 and 57: Whatever the specifics and forms of
Page 58 and 59: Are you dressed in the road map of
Page 60 and 61: Summing up It has often been lament
Page 62 and 63: A challenge for tourism theory and
Page 64 and 65: carved in stone, they are not given
Page 66 and 67: some of the things that signalled t
Page 68 and 69: Tourist was in fact that “we are
Page 70 and 71: globalisation gets attributed excep
Page 72 and 73: do so on the basis of its own speci
Page 74 and 75: Arguing for or against the idea of
Page 76 and 77: pushed many economies towards crisi
Page 78 and 79: Whatever new ideologies of tourism
Page 80 and 81: The IPCC Reports are based on reach
Page 82 and 83: As evidenced by the Davos Declarati
Page 84 and 85: supports the position that signific
Page 86 and 87:
“voluntary compensation is still
Page 88 and 89:
terms of both adaption and mitigati
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Pratt and Watts 2000, p. 840). What
Page 92 and 93:
co-creator of tourist spaces” (Ek
Page 94 and 95:
can researchers use photography and
Page 96 and 97:
latter, in order to set the scene f
Page 98 and 99:
Even though the Earth is mentioned
Page 100 and 101:
[M]ost significant phenomena that t
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social science when it presents its
Page 104 and 105:
They further argue that “[t]ouris
Page 106 and 107:
meaning and matter. The research ag
Page 108 and 109:
REFERENCES Aramberri, J. (2009). Th
Page 110 and 111:
Franklin, A. (2004). Tourism as ord
Page 112 and 113:
Jóhannesson, G.Þ. and Huijbens. E
Page 114 and 115:
Shaw, G. and Williams, A. (2004). T
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