3.2 darbellay and stock 2012 - tourism as a complex interdisciplinary research

Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 39, No. 1 pp. 441–458, 20120160-7383/$ - see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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doi:10.1016/j.annals.2011.07.002www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures

TOURISM AS COMPLEXINTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

OBJECT

Frederic DarbellayMathis Stock

University Institute Kurt Bosch (IUKB), Switzerland

Abstract: Tourism is currently a complex and globalised phenomenon with demonstratedsocio-economic importance. While tourism is a socially recognised phenomenon, its status asscientific object within an academic field seems to be still in question. We ask the followingquestions: What is the order of construction of the field of knowledge constituted aroundtourism? Is it a paradigmatic order or an epistemic order? In what ways do the scientificobject’s specificities constitute an important element of understanding of a new episteme?How do different definitions of tourism allow for a reconstruction of the field? This articleseeks to summarise the current debate in the light of broader reconstructions of scientific dis-course and reflect from an interdisciplinary epistemological perspective. Keywords: tourismstudies, paradigm, episteme, complexity, interdisciplinarity. � 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rightsreserved.

INTRODUCTION

Tourism studies’ emergence as a primary scientific field has becomeevident through the emergence of specialised journals, universitydepartments, and research centres. Tribe (1997) identifies two distinctfields, labelled ‘TF1’ (The Business of Tourism) and ‘TF2’ (Non-Busi-ness related Tourism). There is ongoing discussion about ‘tourism sci-ence’, as a ‘discipline’ or as a ‘field of study’. Efforts can be traced backto the 40s, for example, Hunziker and Krapf’s (1942) pioneeringfremdenverkehrswissenschaft and the discussions since the 70s amongGerman, English, and French speaking scholars about an emerging dis-ciplinary field or science around tourism (see, e.g., Freyer, 1991;Jovicic, 1975; Kaspar, 1975; Leiper, 1979). It is interesting to notethe context of the development of contemporary science. Many post-disciplinary orderings of scientific objects developed since the 50s, withtourism studies (Coles, Hall, & Duval, 2006) as a specific case alongside

Frederic Darbellay: (Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur le Tourisme, InstitutUniversitaire Kurt Bosch, Chemin de l’Institut, 1950 Sion, Switzerland. Email <[email protected]>). Mathis Stock: Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur le Tourisme,Institut Universitaire Kurt Bosch, Chemin de l’Institut, 1950 Sion, Switzerland. Email<[email protected]>.

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computer science, communication studies, gender studies, culturalstudies, post-colonial studies, and so on; these are now well-establishedfields.

Following the discussion about disciplines, indisciplines, paradigms,and networks (Leiper, 2000; Ren, Pritchard, & Morgan, 2010; Tribe,1997; Tribe, 2010), this article reflects on tourism’s challenging charac-ter for social science, and the conditions of translating the disciplinaryachievements as well as conceptual and methodological tools into aninterdisciplinary approach to tourism. We do not seek to operationaliseinterdisciplinarity into practical problems, but to provide a reflectionon the implications of tourism’s complexity on scientific work coordi-nated between different disciplines.

The problem of the definition of the research object seems crucial,and two issues can be detected. The first is the problem of scientific self-organisation related to existing definitions of tourism. Our workinghypothesis is the following: if tourism is seen as a self-organised, auton-omous, and delineated ‘system’ (Cornelissen, 2005; Leiper, 1979),then a field of study or even a discipline called ‘tourism studies’ or ‘tou-rismology’ is a possibility. Yet, if tourism is seen as a mere relationshipto the world—a relationship theorised in social sciences as ‘gaze’(Foucault, 1969; Urry, 1990), ‘intentionality’ or ‘form of life’ (Schutz,1981), or ‘engagement regime’ (Thevenot, 2001)—then it makes nosense to discuss the existence of a field, owing to the implication thattouristic dimensions occur as actors engage this specific relationship tothe world. No subject limits per se can be detected. This is exemplifiedby many anthropological studies, in which tourism itself is not analysedas a topic, but societies and how they deal with tourism. What is there-fore at stake is tourism as a means or a perspective to investigate varioussocietal problems, rather than as a research topic in itself.

A second problem is the interdisciplinary approach to tourism, whichis a result of disciplinary approaches recognising difficulties of derivingsatisfactory descriptions, explanations, and understandings of tourism.Indeed, each discipline’s limitations are better understood now, com-pared to the disciplinary-based tourism studies in the 50s to 70s. Sincethe discussion about the tourism studies field and the disciplinaryproblem, we have now evidence that a disciplinary ordering is notthe only possible path (Leiper, 1981; Kadri & Bedard, 2006; Cerianiet al., 2008). Yet, while existing narratives on the field’s emergence fo-cus on the 60s and 70s as an important moment, there is a body of workprior to the 50s that addresses tourism as a multidisciplinary problem.Based on publications outside of the small circle of Anglo-Americancontributions, we intend to show that tourism studies have a deeperand more complex history than is generally assumed. The diversity ofdisciplinary backgrounds and traditions is—for example—clearly dem-onstrated by the work of the multidisciplinary experts in the tourismstudies field gathered in an edited volume on the origins and develop-ments of the sociology of tourism (Dann & Liebman Parrinello, 2009),which is anchored beyond the English-speaking world in many Euro-pean countries (Germany and France, but also Poland, Yugoslavia,the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Spain, Italy, and Greece). In this

F. Darbellay, M. Stock / Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2012) 441–458 443

historical perspective, we must consider that the definition of tourismis multifaceted, multinational, and makes sense at the intersection ofthese traditions.

This article seeks to summarise the current debate in the light ofbroader reconstructions of scientific discourse and reflect from aninterdisciplinary epistemological perspective. We ask the followingquestions: What is the order of construction of the field of knowledgeconstituted around tourism? Is it a paradigmatic order or an epistemic or-der? In what ways do the scientific object’s specificities constitute animportant element of understanding of a new episteme? How do differ-ent definitions of tourism allow for a reconstruction of the field?

TOURISM: A SPECIFIC COMPLEXITY

Tourism can be seen as a scientific object with specific, distinct qual-ities that produces a specific complexity, different from other researchtopics. This is due less to the different attempts to define tourism—which, interestingly, are both similar at its core and differ significantlyin terms of delineation—than to the heterogeneity of actors of whatcould be termed the ‘touristic field’. One can identify and define sev-eral key elements of tourism.

Towards a Relational Definition of Tourism

If we try to analyse some key elements of tourism, it is useful to con-sider some of the most important definitions provided during by schol-ars during the 20th century. Notably, for Hunziker and Krapf (1942, p.21), ‘tourism is the relationships and phenomena that stem from thesojourn of strangers to a place (Ortsfremder), if through the sojournno establishment for paid work is founded’. This definition has hada broad impact in the German-speaking world, since this notion oftourism is contained in many textbooks (see Bieger, 2006; Kaspar,1995; Krippendorf & Muller, 1994) as well as the International Associa-tion of Scientific Experts in Tourism (AIEST) since its foundation in1951 (www.aiest.org).

The idea of a system—predominant in 70s discourses throughout alldisciplines, including biology, particularly due to ‘general systems the-ory’ (Bertalanffy, 1968)—has led several authors to speak of tourism asa system or even a ‘tourism system’. Leiper (1979), whose work is agood example of this, defines tourism as a system of five elements: tour-ists, three geographical elements (generating region, transit route, anddestination region), and a tourist industry. Yet, we question the con-ceptual fit between system and tourism. Does tourism have the qualitiesgenerally accorded to systems, i.e. autonomy, self-organisation, teleol-ogy, limits to an environment, and functional closure? Pott’s (2007) re-cent contribution, from a Luhmann-inspired system theoreticalperspective, allows one to further question this research object. Heconcludes that tourism is not a social system like law or economics,


owing to a lack of coherence, self-organisation, and organisational lim-its from an identified environment.

It is possible to provide a relational account of the problem of defin-ing tourism and of defining tourism as a specific relationship to theworld. MacCannell’s (1976) idea of the touristic as a relationship ofsemiotic quality between a marker, an attraction, and the tourist isan important milestone in this respect. The notion of tourist gaze (Urry,1990) attempts to clarify this touristic attitude: it defines a specific wayof looking at places, focussing therefore on the visual perception.MacCannell (2001) criticised this reduction to visual perception.Acknowledging these criticisms, we go further by defining tourist gazenot as visual perception, but as a specific encoding of practices, applyingan attitude or a mode of engagement that is touristically informed.Bourdieu (1965, p. 59) call this specific relationship the touristic atti-tude (posture touristique), and defined it as follows: ‘To adopt whatcould be named the touristic attitude is to distance oneself from therelationship of inattentive familiarity with the quotidian world, whichis the indistinct background from which to isolate the forms of quotid-ian preoccupations’.

Building on these insights, we can define the touristic, or society’stouristic dimensions, as a relationship to people, objects, practices,and self in which re-creation occurs (i.e. practices of controlled de-con-trolling of self-control in the sense of Elias and Dunning (1986)),which is combined with bodily dis-placement and inhabiting a placeof otherness (Equipe MIT, 2002; Knafou & Stock, 2003). Thereforethe touristic bears the relation to a ‘other’ place and to otherness asa central problem, combined with the playful decoding and encodingof practices. Therefore, tourists inhabit places differently to residents.The enactment of this specific relationship is enabled by assemblingmultiple elements, such as technology, markets, actors, codes, norms,and values. This definition—as a specific relationship to the world en-acted through mobility and recreation—will help us understand thespecific complexity of this assemblage and relationship.

The Constituents of Tourism’s Specific Complexity in Contemporary HumanSocieties

How does this scientific object’s complexity necessitate complexity-laden observation? This is why we seek to clarify tourism’s key elementsas a complex assemblage. Tourism as a relationship to the world con-structs a specific enactment in order to exist. Therefore, its specificcomplexity arises through the following elements, which we will ex-plore here: the heterogeneity of actors, the multilocality and translocalrelationships, the globalisation of practices, places, governance, the ex-treme diversity of practices, the ‘recreational turn’ from distinction toinfusion and, finally, civilisation processes.

Heterogeneity of Actors. Because tourism is not primarily an economicactivity but a relationship, we have multiple actors with differing


interests. Hotel manager, transport, restaurants, tour operator, localcommunities, tourist offices, organised at different scales, are uncoordi-nated and create cacophonic voices in tourism. One striking example isthe definition of tourism by the World Tourism Organisation (UN-WTO), in which every type of border crossing for more than 24 hoursis seen as tourism, even working (if not under local contract!); anotherdefinition includes ‘business tourism’ and ‘medical tourism’, in whichthe roles of transport, restaurants, and hotels are clear, but the rolesof sightseeing or playing are unclear. This heterogeneity of actors isone mode of tourism’s complexity, where the actors’ interests and com-petences are not necessarily led by tourism, but by the distinct aspects ofaccommodation, restaurant, transport, destination image, etc.

Multilocality and Translocal Relationships. Tourists create relationshipsbetween places through bodily dis-placement from one place to an-other. These associations of practices and places create new spatial rela-tionships: centre (urban centres of the developed world) andperiphery (the touristified margins)—are interdependent in a specificway; wealth circulates, while images and identities are reshapedthrough tourism’s ‘ethnoscapes’ (Appadurai, 1996). The emergenceof a new tourism-informed oecumene through the domestication offormerly non-inhabited space (high mountains, shores, deserts, Antarc-tica, national parks, etc.) is one of tourism’s spatial dimensions. Thisspatial complexity, with highly differentiated tourist places—cities, re-sorts, sites, parks, etc.—is an important element that defines tourism’sspecific complexity.

Globalisation. Tourism has developed from an exceptional, elite prac-tice to industry-driven mass tourism that covers the whole oecumene.Globalisation has meant both the emergence of tourist places all overthe world and access to tourist practices for formerly economicallyunderdeveloped societies, such as India and China. The touristificationof places, societies, people, and economies has enabled tourism to be-come a producer of globalisation; on the other hand, the globalisationof firms, people, and finance fosters tourism. It transforms tourism intoa globalising and globalised object. For example, ‘multilevel gover-nance’ is at stake (Mayntz, 2007)—powerful actors such as the WorldBank, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organi-sation (UNESCO), and the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO)define financial effects and cultural values for tourism. A contradictoryideology of tourism as a positive enabler of economic development anda negatively rated so-called acculturation is enacted. Thus, tourism’sspecific complexity also lies in a specific touristic globalisation, in whichthe flow of capital and images define a global field of tourism.

Extreme Diversity of Practices. There is a large spectre of practices per-formed by tourists while on tour: every kind of place—countryside, sea-side, mountain, desert, resort, city, site, metropolis, etc.—every kind ofintentionality (discover, play, relax) and every kind of practice (skiing,


drinking wine, golfing, surfing, playing music, trekking, visiting etc.).While so-called mass tourism is massive only to its numbers, it is notone standardised product (Cuvelier, 1998). Instead, ‘special interesttourism’ has grown and has rendered the formerly less complex assem-blage of tourism in standardised practices more complex.

A ‘Recreational Turn’. Touristic dimensions infuse practices and prod-ucts of everyday life and are no longer contained to the extra-quotidianlifeworld (Lussault, 2007). Lussault (2007) sustains the thesis of tour-ism as a ‘common genre’ of the different elements of the social world.It means that the model of a distinction between a temporal, spatial,and emotional exceptions to the ‘everyday’ is no longer adequate.Tourism is seen as a common horizon of the extra-quotidian, an ele-ment of the everyday. Thus the touristic ‘infusion’ of different ele-ments has become pervasive: urban development, city image, valuesof places, products, etc. are all associated with touristic values. This‘turn’ towards the touristic has resulted in more complex relationships.Concerning European cities, Stock (2007, p. 122) writes: ‘The recrea-tional turn is defined here as four interrelated processes: (1) the pres-ence of tourists in urban places; (2) the desire, by local authorities orenterprises, to have tourists in their territory; (3) rejection of tourism(i.e. a negative attitude towards tourism; and (4) a general interpreta-tion scheme—a gaze in the Foucaultian sense—based on tourism, withwhich to interpret the world’.

Civilisation. Tourism as a relationship that articulates recreation andalterity/otherness is a specific mode of self-directed and other-directedcontrol of individuals. This happens in contradictory ways that are differ-ently enacted in various tourist practices. On the one hand, there is self-control that avoids violence towards other individuals. On the otherhand, there is a temporary loss of self-control and a ‘quest for excite-ment’ (Elias & Dunning, 1986) through re-creation, leading to bingedrinking, orgiastic sex, drugs, etc. Therefore, tourism is an importantelement of individual development because a specific balance betweenlosing and keeping self-control of emotions. In this respect, the questionof identification is also raised by tourism: the touristic relationship to theworld is driven not only by the recognition of otherness and the diffi-culty of dealing with otherness, but also by various identification pro-cesses of tourists with the other. Practices and products that focussingon the other’s experience of way of life are omnipresent in souvenirs,and photographs of fish markets in Tokyo, Hamburg, or Paris, for exam-ple. Other examples are gay tourists, where tourist practices help buildsexual identity (Jaurand & Leroy, 2010) or relationships in a familyreproducing or modifying a family’s relationships while on holiday.

This probing into some constituents of tourism makes it clear that theidea of a system or an autonomous topic does not fit. Tourism appears as aphenomenon research that which is present in or with all the socially con-stituent elements we can think of: nature, food, transport, imaginary,images, places, cities, firms, communities, computer systems, and so


on. It configures those elements in a specific way. This corresponds toMauss’ conception of a ‘fait social total’, a phenomenon mobilising allor a great number of social institutions. Mauss (1960, p. 274) definesthe total social fact as phenomenon ‘at once legal, economical, religious,even aesthetic and morphological’. Therefore, they are ‘more thanthemes, more than elements, more than complex institutions’ (1960,p. 274). Furthermore, the concept of tourism used in the social sciencescould also be seen as specific kind of concept. Following Cassirer’s(1929) distinction between a substantial and relational concept, the con-cept ‘tourism’ corresponds to a specific kind of concepts that expressesa relationship—rather than a substance—called tourism. Indeed, the lat-ter is enacted in different societal spheres, be it the spatial, social, eco-nomic, political, cultural, legal, individual, and ecological.

Owing to the specific arrangement of elements (i.e. different fromthose found in sports, education, the military, etc.), tourism has a specificcomplexity. Tourism, through its global interdependencies, the hetero-geneity of actors at different organisational levels, its local embeddings,and its specific historicity and development, therefore appears as a scien-tific object of specific complexity. Tourism illustrates the idea of a ‘fabric(complexus: which is woven together) of heterogeneous constituents,inseparably associated’ (Morin, 1990, p. 21). Tourism is confronted bythe two aspects of complexity described by Morin (1999, p. 8): The firstis the problem of the phenomenon’s ‘globality’, ‘i.e. the more and moreimportant, deep and problematic inadequacy between on the one hand afragmented knowledge in disjunctive elements, separated in disciplines,and, on the other, multidimensional, global, transnational, planetaryrealities and more and more transversal, multidisciplinary, even transdis-ciplinary problems’. The second is the problem of inadequacy of themode of knowledge ‘that teaches us to separate (the objects of their envi-ronment, the disciplines one from another) and not to articulate thingsthat are yet tied together’ (Morin, 1999, p. 8). This might be one reasonfor the highly differentiated field of tourism studies, characterised bymultidisciplinary approaches and delimitations.

THE EMERGENCE OF TOURISM STUDIES: PARADIGM OR EPI-STEME?

We now turn to the place devoted to tourism in scholarship: Howhave the scientific observers organised their gaze on the topic? Is it aparadigmatic form of organisation or an epistemic one? If we take tour-ism’s complexity seriously, are there arguments in favour and against aparadigmatisation of tourism studies, i.e. the development of a disciplin-ary matrix that encloses a field of thought (Kuhn, 1962)? We posit thehypothesis that tourism has been subject to a non-paradigmatic conver-gence that has reorganised both disciplinary knowledge and the emer-gence of a field called tourism studies. This is congruent with the ideaof a post-disciplinary and indisciplined arrangement (Tribe, 2000,2010) as well as of the ‘network of fractional coherence’ (Ren et al.,2010).


Paradigm is used here in a way that follows one of the many meaningsin Kuhn’s (1962) seminal text: disciplinary matrix. It means an ensembleof principles and methods shared by a specific scientific community.The concept of paradigm is therefore related to disciplinarity and stan-dardisation of by a self-organised scientific community that delineates afield of interest. Our working hypothesis is as follows: the concept ofparadigm, since it is related to disciplinarity and standardisation ofknowledge, does not allow to describe the dynamics of interdisciplinaryknowledge in the relatively complex and heterogeneous domain oftourism studies. By contrast, ‘episteme’—following Foucault (1969),Foucault (1994)—refers to a field of formation and transformationof knowledge that cannot be reduced to an accumulation or a simplestage of the different bodies of knowledge at any moment of scientificdevelopment. It takes into account the ‘gap, distances, oppositions, dif-ferences, relations’ (Foucault, 1994, p. 676) articulated between themultiple scientific discourses: ‘it’s an open and indefinitely relationallyconstructed field’ (Foucault, 1994, p. 676). ‘One can say that knowl-edge as a field of historicity where sciences emerge, is free of any con-stituent activity, free of any reference to origin or a historical-transcendantal teleology, detached of any support of founding subjec-tivity’ (Foucault, 1994, p. 731).

By mobilising these notions, we can distinguish three moments ofthe scientific approach of tourism: (1) a holistic approach to tourismas a system, (2) a disciplinary fragmentation and specialisation, withthe emergence of tourism geography as well as tourism economics, psy-chology, and anthropology since the 70s, and (3) a more recent inter-disciplinary fertilisation between 1995 and 2000.

Holistic Innovation

Since the beginnings of the discovery of tourism for scientific obser-vation, there have been difficulties with dealing adequately with the re-search object and the development of disciplines. Yet, there have beeninteresting beginnings, where tourism is seen as a whole—interdepen-dent with many elements of the then industrial societies. The moststriking contribution is made by Hunziker and Krapf (1942) andHunziker (1943), who attempt to build a field of tourism studies inwhich tourism is related to several societal issues. By putting the touristin the centre, they establish that there is no economic prevalence ofthe phenomenon. In fact, they see tourism as a cultural problem andrelate it to issues of health, technology, culture, social problems, policy,and economics. Their definition of tourism as a relationship enactedby the local encounter between tourists and place relates tourism tothe various dimensions of human societies. It develops a ‘wissenschafli-che Fremdenverkehrslehre’, that is, for the first time, an attempt at a theory-laden observation of tourism (Spode, 1993, 1998a, 1998b, 2010).

Prior to 1950, there were attempts to build a field of ‘tourism studies’(Fremdenverkehrskunde) in several publications. Hunziker and Krapf(1942) point out the problems of a holistic approach. Nevertheless,


these holistic approaches lacked sound empirical and theoretical sub-stance; this would follow later. At the same time, the institutionalisationof research on tourism was triggered in the 20s with attempts byGlucksmann (in Dusseldorf and Berlin), who established the Archivfur Fremdenverkehr in 1929 in Berlin, only to be halted five years laterby the Nazi regime (see Spode, 1993). Vienna and its Wiener Institutfur Fremdenverkehr followed in 1934, Bern with Forschungsinstitut fur Fre-mdenverkehr, while Sankt Gallen followed in 1941 with Seminar fur Fre-mdenverkehr (see Spode, 1993, 1998). After World War II, theDeutsches Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Institut fur Fremdenverkehr e.V. inMunich in 1950 was another milestone.

A holistic approach to tourism guided these attempts; tourism wasseen as a whole that was not reducible to disciplinary approaches. How-ever, the attempt to create a new discipline called ‘tourism science’(Fremdenverkehrswissenschaft) based on these theoretical underpinningshas been unsuccessful (Spode, 2010). One of the reasons has been thedevelopment of an applied science of tourism, rooted in businessschools and the German equivalent of polytechnics (Fachhochschulen)(Spode, 1998). As Spode (1998) notes, the development of a theory-la-den, paradigmatic organisation of the scientific knowledge on tourismhas been blocked by this business-driven organisation.

Disciplinary Fragmentation

A second moment of scientific approaches to tourism can be identi-fied. Tourism is constructed as a scientific object for fragmented disci-plines with disjunctive dimensions: its historical, spatial, economical,cultural, social, political dimensions are treated in a ‘splendid isolation’from one another by the various disciplines. This period is identified bySpode (1998) in the German-speaking world as ‘specialisation’; some saythis lasted from 1940 to 1970, while others say this endures to this day. Sci-entific work is done without engaging the different points of conver-gence or interactions between disciplinary constructed knowledge. Alack of interdisciplinary bibliographical cross-referencing is evident. Asan example, in the textbooks of tourism geography between 1970 and2000, only a handful of references refer beyond the discipline. The cog-nitive base is closed to disciplinary knowledge.

This movement is consistent with disciplinary logic, in whichresearchers are ‘disciplined’ into a paradigm by a community ofresearchers. Indeed, ‘every discipline constructs itself as delineated: itaccepts its limits. It recognises itself as local and partial’ (Schlanger,1992, p. 292). Every discipline delineates a specific ‘area’ of a globalknowledge and defines a certain perspective, different from anotherdiscipline’s perspective. Therefore, ‘the discipline circumscribes andrelinquishes’ (Schlanger, 1992, p. 292). This ‘renouncement’ of otherpoints of view helps one to concentrate on disciplinary achievements.Such dissociation has an atomising effect on the scientific object called‘tourism’ following a disciplinary logic, and reduces tourism’s inherentcomplexity. Hence, the tourism’s dimensional unity ‘cannot be con-


ceived otherwise than by excluding or occulting the diversity and viceversa’ (Morin & Piattelli-Palmarini, 1983, p. 194). What is therefore atstake is the integration of different disciplines in order to think the spe-cific complexity of tourism.

A disciplinary mode of investigation has developed around the re-search object ‘tourism’ since the 50s. Tourism geography, tourism soci-ology, tourism anthropology, and tourism economics have emerged asfairly independent disciplinary perspectives. Each discipline developsits own theoretical perspectives as well as conceptual and methodologicaltools. Within each discipline, tourism as a research topic encountersmuch opposition, owing to an alleged lack of seriousness. In the 30s,the first disciplinary engagement as ‘tourism geography’ appeared inFrance, Great Britain, and Germany via the work of Miege (1934), Gilbert(1939), and Poser (1939), that can be considered as ground-breaking. Atthe same time, the economic perspective is dominant (Ogilvie, 1933;Senn, 1918), which leads to tourism economics. Surprisingly, the socio-logical and anthropological perspectives are absent, with the exceptionof Wiese (1929) and Knebel (1960). Historical approaches can be de-tected from the late 40s, with Pimlott’s (1947) account for Englandand Hunziker and Krapf’s (1941) account for Switzerland.

From the 50s, the disciplinary perspective gains momentum and sev-eral Ph.D. dissertations, articles, and monographs appear in geogra-phy, economics, sociology; anthropology only begins to engage withthe problem in the 70s. The 70s therefore represent a key moment,with tourism both strengthening the disciplinary equipment and (re-)emerging as an topic for discussion as a ‘field’. The case of tourismgeography is interesting. At the very moment tourism constitutes itselfas a recognised sub-field within geography in the 70s, the process of thescientific object’s autonomisation– and thus the interrelationships withother disciplines—occurs, leading to the a domain called ‘tourismstudies’. We can conclude that disciplinarisation and autonomisationof the topic occur simultaneously.

An Episteme for an Interdisciplinary Approach to Tourism

These intertwining disciplinary and non-disciplinary developmentsaround the tourism phenomenon allows for an approach to tourismstudies as episteme. The scientific observation focuses on ‘the touristic’in many varied research objects. At the same time, disciplines take intoaccount other disciplines’ framework or methodologies, translatingthem into their own problematisation. These practices have led to botha hybridization of disciplinary knowledge—for example, Urry’s (1990)notion of ‘tourist gaze’ is widely cited through many disciplines—and ashared interdisciplinary knowledge of some elements of tourism,although the approaches differ. Tourism studies currently comprise aheterogeneous configuration of institutions, networks, actors, and ‘aca-demic territories’ (Tribe, 2004, 2010). The university departmentsaround ‘tourism studies’ oscillate between business education andscientific research. We can therefore conclude in favour of a


multidisciplinary organisation of institutions and knowledge con-structed around tourism. This is a non-paradigmatic organisation, inwhich different epistemological styles are mobilised. These epistemo-logical styles vary and give rise to an extreme heterogeneity of the field,as a result of four aspects: the disciplinary distinction, the methodol-ogy, the difference between business and theory, and the definitionof tourism.

First, the different disciplines do not construct tourism identically.For instance, tourism is seen as a spatial problem—places, place prac-tices, spatial arrangements, and qualities of space (resorts, cities,etc.)—for geography, as a social problem—for instance social positionof tourists and effects on local societies—for sociology, as a problem ofgovernance, policies and politics for political science, and for econom-ics as pricing and allocation of financial resources as well as monetaryeffects. Second, the methodology-driven differentiation of the field isbased on the qualitative-quantitative distinction, the difference be-tween case studies and econometric studies, and the opposition be-tween ‘grounded theory’ and the hypothetical-deductive style ofscientific investigation. This leads to what Echtner and Jamal (1997,p. 879) call the ‘disciplinary dilemma’ they state that an ‘evolution oftourism towards increased credibility as a field of study and towards dis-ciplinary status include: holistic, integrated research; the generation ofa theoretical body of knowledge; an inter-disciplinary focus; clearlyexplicated theory and methodology; and the application of qualitativeand quantitative methods, positivist and non-positivist traditions’.

Third, the field is also informed by the distinction between an appli-cation-driven body of knowledge without theoretical ambitions and thescientific ethos (Spode, 1998c). Spode (1998c) shows how the instru-mental vs. the reflexive use and of theories as well as serious vs. playfulcommitments are key differences between the two. Furthermore, thequestions arise due to practical problems, rather than deriving frommacro-theory. For instance, using the World Tourism Organisation def-inition of tourism as a basis for producing scientific knowledge anddata, without critical distance towards its content, is a typical stancein applied science. Yet, from a scientific perspective, World TourismOrganisation develops a specific kind of ‘emic’ knowledge for scientiststo analyse, rather than take for granted.

Finally, tourism is a scientific object constructed on similar bases byvarious disciplines, but that produces different imaginations of its con-tent. Tourism as a system, as a practice, as an economic sector or aneconomic activity, as a gaze, or as an intentionality rely on different,incommensurable definitional referents. This difference between theword (signifier)—‘tourism’—and the meaning (signified)—tourismas practice, tourism as system, tourism as mobility, etc.—constitutes adifferentiating element of the episteme. As Ren et al. (2010, p. 890)note, ‘the body of tourism research can be addressed as a strongly di-vided field of research, a viewpoint which is responded to and felt bymany of its scholars. However, it may also be conceptualised as a net-work of fractional coherence, in which standards, compromises andintellectual innovations are locally negotiated and in which highly


diverse knowledge and ways of knowing are assembled and enacted’.This is also apparent in the contributions of Coles et al. (2006), whichdescribe post-disciplinary arrangements of tourism.

Therefore, the knowledge on tourism can be framed as an episteme,where ‘difference, distances, oppositions, relations’ (Foucault, 1994,p. 731) exist between the different disciplines. It constitutes a dialogueof specialised knowledge, but is subject to new epistemological obsta-cles. Indeed, the juxtaposition of multiple disciplines raises the ques-tion of the possibility of cumulative knowledge and the dialoguebetween the heterogeneous discourses on tourism.

PROBLEMS OF INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO TOURISM

There have been ongoing calls for an interdisciplinary approach totourism since the 70s. Leiper (1981), Leiper (2000) makes a plea foran interdisciplinary framework, based on ‘working between the disci-plines, blending various philosophies and techniques so that the partic-ular disciplines do not stand apart but are brought togetherintentionally and explicitly to seek a synthesis’ (Leiper 1981, p. 72, ori-ginal emphasis). Leiper (1981) holds that a general theory of tourismshould be built so as to better understand the empirical phenomenaand to achieve a new discipline—called ‘tourology’—by means of inter-disciplinary synthesis. Yet, to date, tourism has been studied within amultidisciplinary and not an interdisciplinary field, since the research ob-ject is decomposed into multiples dimensions and perspectives, yet jux-taposed without interaction. This dispositif of multiplicity encountersstandardisation and institutionalisation of teaching and research prac-tices, owing to the addition of closed disciplinary-shaped paradigms(Fourez, 2002; Karpinsky & Samson, 1973).

Bearing in mind our definition of tourism as a relationship to theworld that allows people to encode/decode the different elements ofreality in specific ways, i.e. by approaching all the elements encoun-tered as ‘re-creation plus otherness’, it is not possible to follow theseauthors in their proposal of a new discipline called ‘tourism studies. Itis nevertheless necessary to explore the advantages and limits of inter-disciplinary theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and research tech-niques in order to understand how society’s touristic dimensions areconstructed and reconstructed—at the level of the industry, the prac-tices, the places, the governance as well as the politics and policies.How these interdisciplinary approaches could be explored in orderto work on the different elements of society’s touristic dimensions?What are the epistemological obstacles and what are the advantagesof such perspectives?

What is Interdisciplinarity?

If we try to thoroughly analyse the quality of interdisciplinary re-search on tourism, we must define interdisciplinarity, and then


analyse the way tourism fits into this scheme. Following the insightsof Thompson Klein (1990), Perrig-Chiello and Darbellay (2002), andRepko (2008) on interdisciplinary research, we define the interdisci-plinary approach as a process of mobilising different institutionaliseddisciplines through dynamic interaction in order to describe, ana-lyse, and understand tourism’s complexity. Yet, we distinguish multi-disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches. Here,we concentrate on the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinaryapproaches.

In a multidisciplinary approach, a topic or a theoretical and/orpractical problem is dealt with on the basis of two or more disciplin-ary separate points of view, without any interaction between them.This confirms the institutionalisation and standardisation of teachingand research practices that are socially and historically situated andgoverned by scientific paradigms. It reflects the traditional juxtaposi-tion of several institutional communities of experts, organised in fac-ulties, departments, sub-fields, and laboratories in relative autonomy.

Interdisciplinary approaches involve two or more disciplines in dy-namic interaction in order to describe, analyse, and understand thecomplexity of a phenomenon. It considers a research topic not onlyfrom one perspective, but from the perspectives of several disciplines.Beyond merely juxtaposing disciplinary perspectives, it implements col-laboration and integration between disciplines around a common pur-pose; it involves knowledge co-production. The process of dialoguebetween disciplines mobilises their expertise and tools, while retainingan openness to other disciplines. Complex and emergent knowledge isco-constructed by means of an interdisciplinary process on the basis ofexisting skills, while being irreducible to any one specific discipline.Cooperation and skills integration can take place at different levelsof interaction: through the borrowing of another scientific field’s con-cepts or the transfer of concepts and methods of one scientific field toanother. Furthermore, the mechanisms of hybridisation between disci-plines can create new research fields.

Tourism as a Research Object of Interdisciplinary Research

Interdisciplinary research on tourism can be defined as the organisa-tion of an interface between different disciplines and bodies of knowl-edge in order to analyse the manifestations and the existingcomplexities of society’s touristic dimensions. The different disciplin-ary approaches are therefore seen as complementary. Interdisciplinaryresearch involves organised coordination within a research process. Wecan distinguish three important features of interdisciplinary researchon tourism.

First, interdisciplinary work corresponds to a ‘mediation space’ co-constituted through interaction between different knowledge do-mains (Duchastel & Laberge, 1999). The interactions between differ-ent perspectives are essential in order to organise knowledgeproduction. The problems and question raised are situated literally


‘between’ (inter) the disciplines and cannot be solved by a disciplin-ary perspective. The interdisciplinary approach to tourism thereforegoes beyond the juxtaposition of disciplines and organises the col-laboration of disciplinary knowledge. Tourism can be conceived ofas a common scientific object within a perspective of co-productionof knowledge. The dialogue between disciplines is based on themobilisation of their specific competences and tools, but also onthe of the perspectives of the other disciplines. Tourism as a com-plex object is co-constructed within this interdisciplinary processon the basis of existing disciplinary competences. Therefore, theknowledge produced is not reducible to the disciplinary perspec-tives, but has a new quality. It creates new concepts by assemblingthe different disciplinary elements.

Second, the interdisciplinary mode of research consists of capitalis-ing on the different disciplinary bodies of knowledge in order tomore adequately understand tourism. The knowledge produced with-in the traditional disciplines is an important input for discussion. Con-necting the different bodies of knowledge is at stake: as Morin (1999)notes, ‘connecting bodies of knowledge’ that are separated in orderto analyse the complexity of tourism’s manifestations. Geographical,sociological, and economic approaches to tourism propose specificcompetences. Yet, conflicts about best practices between scientists de-velop because of different epistemological backgrounds, differentscientific aims, and different theoretical, conceptual, and methodo-logical toolboxes, which make different selections when observingthe empirical world. For instance, how does an ethnographic descrip-tion of tourist practices can be confronted to econometric models oftourist spending? This complementarity leads to contradictions andconflicts in discussions about a coherent, consistent, and adequatedescription and explanation of touristic phenomena. Especially theself-protection due to disciplinary closures leads to struggles for influ-ence, as noted by Karpinsky and Samson (1973, p. 17): ‘The disci-plines have conserved a ‘‘no trespassing attitude’’ that stems fromthe traditional division of knowledge. The disciplines have begun tostruggle for their influence rather than establish links between them.Those struggles for influence have come into being with the institu-tionalisation of the disciplines and raised problems related to theirdifferent conceptual approaches, i.e. problems of data, of theoryand of methodology’.

Third, interdisciplinarity is a process of hybridization through‘nomadism’, i.e. the circulation of concepts and practices. This is an-other reason why tourism studies can neither be a paradigm nor anautonomous ‘field of study’ (Lehre, etudes, studies) nor a unified science(Wissenschaft, science) as ‘tourismology’: as a research object, which mul-tiple relationships with other elements of society, it gives the illusion ofthe possibility of an integrated field. The construction of a commonvocabulary, despite the limitations of the different disciplinary perspec-tives, is one of interdisciplinary work’s key issues. It is an open questionwhether it is possible to integrate the political science’s ‘governance’and ‘institutional resource regime’, geography’s ‘centrality’, anthropol-


ogy’s ‘culture’, economics’ ‘capital investment’, sociology’s ‘distinc-tion’, marketing’s ‘image’ etc. in one coherent description and expla-nation of tourism (Stock, Clivaz, Crevoisier, Darbellay, & Nahrath,2011).

CONCLUSION

Tourism represents a scientific object that permits a privileged per-spective on human societies and constitutes a certain vantage point. Thisfocus on a specific dimension of society—the touristic manifestationsof society—implies the arrangement of disciplinary knowledge in a spe-cific way because the different dimensions of society (e.g., the political,social, economic, spatial, temporal, and cultural dimensions) are ar-ranged specifically. The disciplines embodying such knowledge (e.g.,geography, sociology, anthropology, economics, and political science)must therefore all be mobilised when approaching society’s touristicdimensions. This is why an interdisciplinary approach fits with the cog-nitive project and the complex object. The interdisciplinary approacharticulates the double movement of disciplinary specialisation and theawareness of an autonomous logic of the touristic that has been emerg-ing within ‘tourism studies’.

The pervasive manifestation of tourism in society calls for an analysisof its modes of existence within the various elements. Interdisciplinarymovements within tourism are neither an ideological discourse (Pal-made, 1977), nor a new meta-science of tourism that proposes an ‘epis-temological panacea to heal all the pains affecting the scientificconscience of our time’ (Gusdorf, 1983, p. 31). It creates opportunitiesfor the researcher by affording him some autonomy against the exist-ing disciplines. Tourism is a case of the process of empowermentagainst the traditional disciplines since the 50s resulting from by organ-ising research around a ‘theme or a research topic.

This development is consistent with the historical development ofknowledge as a specialisation arranged around newly discovered re-search topics. As Gusdorf (1983, p. 33) notes: ‘The interdisciplinaryproject delineates from epoch to epoch one of the great axes of the his-tory of knowledge. The progression of knowledge is realised throughspecialisation, the search for unity triggers the desire of a regroupingwhich would help to the intolerable crumbling of domains of knowl-edge and of researchers’. Yet, it does not follow from the adequacyof an interdisciplinary approach that there must somehow be a ‘tour-ism science’ or even a field of studies that needs unified textbooks.No paradigmatic organisation of the knowledge on tourism is neces-sary. Instead, there can be imagined a network of actors and actants(researchers, models, approaches, concepts, institutions, etc.) ar-ranged around a research object whose manifestations exist in everyelement of contemporary society. The organisation of tourism as epi-steme leads to a specific cognitive project in which the touristic dimen-sions of society, not tourism as an autonomous system, is at the core ofinterdisciplinary approaches.


Acknowledgment—The authors acknowledge the funding by the Swiss Federal Science Founda-tion (SNF), Grant No. 135390 for the project « Between abyss and metamorphosis. An inter-disciplinary approach of the development of tourist resorts ».

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Submitted 23 December 2010. Final version 2 July 2011. Accepted 7 July 2011. Refereedanonymously. Coordinating Editor: Hasso Spode.

3.2 darbellay and stock 2012 - tourism as a complex interdisciplinary research

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