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Even though the Earth is mentioned the general orientation in social
science and theory, is to ontologically transform it into space and other
spatial conceptual objects like “regions”, “landscapes” and “places”. This
“de-earthification” has also involved a further move of space, together
with its neighbouring concept place, towards the reference plane of the
social. Not only has this effectively erased the concept of the Earth, but it
has also meant an increasing theorization of space as “socially
constructed”. It is, we believe, this “de-earthified social spatialism” that,
through the usage of concepts like place and space understood as “socially
constructed”, has become more or less taken-for-granted in social science.
The “cultural turn” of the 1990s and onwards, of society and space, and
other spatial units like landscape, does not change much in essence. It does
not depart from social spatialism, but takes it even further, as this more
recent example illustrates:
This ‘new (global) cultural economy of space’, then, emphasizes a
cultural negotiation and interpretation of newly emerging spatial
patterns, relationships and impacts; it constitutes more of a culturecentred
approach of space rather than one exclusively centred on the
uneven geography of costs and revenues. The relevance of a cultural
understanding and interpretation of the changing geographical schemata
of changing socio-economic relations becomes more obvious and
instrumental in the case of the landscape than any other spatial unit…
(Terkenli and d’Hauteserre 2006, p. 4).
In order to further push our inquiries into the alignment between
tourism theory and the social we need now to re-visit to the theoretical
heartland of social science.
Tourism theory beyond social theory
Modern social science and its social theories have always been elaborated
variations on the premise of an existence of a distinct sphere consisting “of
a specific sort of phenomenon variously called ‘society’, ‘social order’,
‘social practice’, ‘social dimension’, or ‘social structure’ ” (Latour 2005, p.
3), or something similar like “social system”, “social communication”, or
“social space” (Luhmann 1995; Lefebvre 1991). As Latour puts it; “the
social as normally construed is bound together with already accepted
participants called ‘social actors’ who are members of a ‘society’ ” (Latour
2005, p. 247). In the words of one of the founders of modern social theory;
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