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294 ideology
See also: ethnicity; ethnology
Further reading
Ashworth, G.J. and Larkham, P.J. �eds) �1994)
Building a New Heritage:Tourism, Culture, and Identity
in the New Europe, London: Routledge. �Papers
discussing ways tourism is being promoted as a
catalyst to the formation of new identities in
Europe to facilitate European unity.)
Bradley, D. �1983) `Identity: the persistence of
minority groups', in W. Bhrukasasri and J.
McKinnon �eds) Highanders in Thailand, Kuala
Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 46±55. �Discusses
the relationship between minority identity
and social processes of change in Thailand.)
Lasch, S. and Friedman, J. �eds) �1992) Modernity and
Identity, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. �Papers dealing
with changing conceptions of identity in contemporary
societies.)
ideology
TIM OAKES, USA
Ideology is a highly controversial and contested
concept in the social sciences. It is associated with
attempts to identify the social distribution systems
of ideas, to disclose their origins and the interests
which lie behind them, and to specify the unequal
relationships of power they may generate or
sustain. Some analysts of ideology see tourism as
an ideological system in itself, constructed, elaborated
and exported within international capitalism,
whose effects include the commodification and
appropriation of subordinate cultures, cultural
denote and domination: in effect, imperialism
by peaceful means. In `weaker' versions of ideology,
tourism is seen not as a single ideological system
but as a field constituted by a number of separate
ideological elements circulating among tourist
populations, which may be general �such as `travel
broadens the mind') or specific �such as `the
Seychelles is an earthly paradise').
Both approaches to ideology recognise that
tourism is shaped by social forces and that
motivation for recreational pursuits �or lack of it)
is never purely a matter of personal choice, but a
function of the power of socially derived ideologies
and the `vocabularies of motive' such ideologies
tend to produce in the minds and actions of
individuals �including tourists' images of places
and cultures). Tourists may think they choose; in
reality they are, to a degree, `chosen' by ideologies
circulating within their social networks. Once
tourist ideologies have gained acceptance, those
who embrace them tend to forget whence these
ideas originated and tend to absorb them as
natural `facts of life'. Thus, for example, many
people in the developed world today think regular
recreational travel is a natural rather than an
ideologically derived expectation.
Ideology has acted as a stimulus for three kinds
of tourism scholarship. First, the analysis of tourism
as a general system of practices and representations
focuses on the unequal power inputs and
interests which structure them, and the effects these
produce in relationships �direct or mediated)
between host and guest. Researchers in this
tradition have `deconstructed' tourism representations
�advertising, guidebooks, travel programmes)
to suggest the ideological, connoted
meanings about foreign cultures and peoples which
they embody, the political and economic interests
responsible for them, and the social effects such
portrayals may have. Second, historical analysis
aims at tracing at what moment specific tourism
ideologies and their associated `vocabularies of
motive' emerged and why �for example, the fashion
for picturesque sightseeing). Third, comparative
social analysis shows how ideologies vary among
groups �for example, by comparing tourism tastes
within one society or occupational group with
those of others). Compared to its widespread and
much debated occurrence in other academic fields,
ideology is still a relatively rare focus in tourism
analysis. Nevertheless, it offers promise in understanding
tourism as a social process.
See also: dependency theory; discourse; myth;
neo-colonialism; orientalism; semiotics;
structuralism
Further reading
Andrews, M. �1989) The Search for the Picturesque,
Aldershot: Scholar Press. �Traces the evolution