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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; 94
“[s]ocietal unification needs no factors outside its component elements, the individuals” (Simmel 1971, p. 7). As true as it is that social science and social theory have been articulated and enacted on the basis of a separately existing social, a fracture in this ontology can easily be caused. In fact, it is provided by the material turn in social science. What is enough is to bring in what we in everyday language refer to simply as “things”. Tourism is actually full them and every single tourist is in practice surrounded by them. Nevertheless, in spite of this we reach the conclusion that things have in fact not received a corresponding amount of recognition in tourism theory. This strange paradoxical state of affairs has been spelled out by Franklin (2003, p. 97): In tourism theory tourist things are both omnipresent and impotent (or inert, passive). Tourist things tend to be significant only in what they represent; as a meaningful set of signs and metaphors (of social things, mainly ideas, values, discourses etc) (Franklin 2003, p.97). One principal reason why “tourist things” have not been regarded as significant in tourism theory is a preference for the reference plane of the social when projecting tourism phenomena. As we have shown elsewhere, the consequence has been that things have been either neglected or conceptually reduced to passive and inactive material objects, for example to those touristic things that tourists gaze upon in order to decode the socio-cultural meanings they are supposed to represent. Yet, there are other ways of theorizing things than reducing them to mute passive material objects with only extensive properties whose significance should be measured and realized by the social. As both more and less than mere matter, things may also be distinguished as significant in themselves. As indicated in terms of images above, they may be conceived of as equipped with material agency that enables them to become “active agents in the production of tourism” (Franklin 2003, p. 98). Those simple things may also be understood as “hybrids”, phenomena defiant of purified ontological classification, whose present presence has been haunting social science theorizations for some time now. According to Urry: 95
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© Icelandic Tourism Research Centr
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Table of Contents 1. Introduction .
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esearch but also “education and c
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Tourism images have had a longstand
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gradually expanded and become more
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Tourism - an earthly business For u
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Image 1.3: The Island of tourism &
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2. Image & destination The actual a
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variety of sources could be used in
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consequences for how she or he will
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either the textual or the visual, a
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Composed of numerous small encounte
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materiality. Yet, you are able to r
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demand it is mediated by investment
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tourism reflects broader social and
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signification, not the least in tou
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usiness and market to potential cus
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ound to cross traditional disciplin
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sightseeing and whatever activities
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Social science research is carried
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environment. If they had, they were
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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
Page 90 and 91: 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 100 and 101: [M]ost significant phenomena that t
Page 102 and 103: 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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