(Hermeneutic) Phenomenology in tourism studies (original) (raw)

Progress or regress in phenomenological research in tourism

Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 2024

Phenomenology has become a popular approach in studying tourism experiences, rising to the forefront of methodological practice in the field. While phenomenological research numbered only in the dozens before the millennium, its application has since expanded to hundreds of studies. This rapid growth not only calls for a meta-analytical examination but also provides an opportunity to assess the suitability of various methodological tools and software for data construction, analysis, and visualization. This study is the first to critically examine the veracity of potential knowledge claims arising from the use of bibliographic data and VOSviewer by conducting a meta-analysis of phenomenological research in tourism. The results reveal that, despite VOSviewer’s visually appealing imagery, notable epistemological pitfalls exist. The critical insights offered are valuable for navigating the evolving technological and methodological landscape in the field, particularly in understanding tourism experiences.

A Phenomenological Analysis of Tourist Identity: Three Theses and Propositions

There is a dearth of narrative research related to "tourist identity" in leisure and tourism studies. In this review paper, we identify this research gap upon performing a systematic review of articles in leisure and tourism studies published on the SCOPUS database in the last four decades (1979-2021). We furnish three theses based on the prevalent research gap and offer three propositions that foregrounds the questions of identity. We argue that leisure and tourism studies focus more on the collective and the ethnicto pit the collective Self against the collective Other, while discounting the personal and the phenomenological. We insist that leisure and tourism studies must engage with a wide range of traveling practices outside of the tourist experiences, and integrate more non-conventional sources (e.g. photography and narrative autoethnography) and non-Western approaches. Among other things, this will help dismantle the White logic prevalent in, and thus decolonize the field.

Tourism as a Moment of Being

The purpose of this article is to gather together a number of conceptuai or theoretical points drawn from the wider social anthropological discourse on the nature of experience. It advances understandings of the anthropology of experience through the medium of tourism. In turn it also illuminates understandings of the nature of tourism experiences. The article is largely a theoretical piece that is illustrated with details drawn from an ethnographic study of two charter tourism resorts-Palmanova and Magaluf-in Mallorca. Therefore, in an attempt to elucidate more carefully what experience means, it draws on the discussions of 'experience' in the wider anthropological literature, most notably the existential anthropology of Michaei Jacltson and The Anthropology of Experience (Turner and Bruner 1986), and makes links to the writings of Pierre Bourdieu on the concepts of'habitus' and 'field', bringing them to bear on the subject of tourism.

Tourism research with 'double-eyes': A selfless epistemology

Annals of Tourism Research, 2023

Phantasmagorical contexts, wherein the ineffable and the quasi-mystical emerge through encounters with the material, the mediated, the sensual and the affectual, have received considerable attention in tourism research, bringing into view absent presences. However, their fluid, evanescent, transcendental, and often uncomfortable atmospheres make them an easy target for exoticism. Reflexivity has been widely highlighted as a way to avoid exoticising, colonial approaches to knowledge production. Despite the recent focus on reflexivity and calls for deeper reflexivity, there has been little attention on how reflexivity can be achieved. This paper draws on the Kyoto School and their philosophy of 'nothingness' to develop different epistemic groundings for more messy, embodied and situated tourism research. A selfless epistemology is illustrated through a process of learning, unlearning and re-emerging to see with 'doubleeyes.'

Being and Dwelling through Tourism

2017

Much of the existing literature seeks to make sense of tourism based on singular approaches such as visuality, identity, mobility, performance and globalised consumption. What is missing, however, is an overarching framework within which these valuable approaches can be located. This book offers one such framework using the concept of dwelling taken from Heidegger and Ingold as the starting point from which to consider the interrelatedness of being, dwelling and tourism. The anthropological focus at the core of the book is infused with multidisciplinary perspectives that draw on a variety of subjects including philosophy, material cultural studies and cultural geography. The main themes include sensuous, material, architectural and earthly dwelling and each chapter features a discussion of the unifying theoretical framework for each theme, followed by an illustrative focus on specific aspects of tourism. This theoretically substantive book will be of interest to anyone involved with tourism research from a wide range of disciplines including anthropology, sociology, geography, cultural studies, leisure studies and tourist studies.

A phenomenological view of the behavioural tourism research literature

International Journal of Culture Tourism and Hospitality Research

Purpose ‐ This paper aims to discuss a framework in which the behavioural tourism and leisure literature is organised. It seeks to demonstrate the practical use of Gnoth's Tourism Experience Model (TEM), and provide future directions in holiday tourism research. Design/methodology/approach ‐ The paper takes a phenomenological approach to tourists' experiencing as a critical and productive tool for tourism development. The literature reviewed is structured through the four modes of experiencing outlined in the TEM: experience as pure pleasure, as re-discovery, as existentially authentic exploration, and as knowledge seeking. Findings ‐ The TEM provides a model for all potential experiencing, that is, it models the boundaries of what experiencing could be throughout the tourist journey. The discussion of the literature also shows that, in many occasions, different experiential stages, states and modes of feeling await far more detailed research. Originality/value ‐ The paper h...

CHALLENGES AND DILEMMAS OF TOURISM STUDIES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

The sense of physical movement has changed forever. To put this in slightly other terms, dark tourism isolates and replaces the tourists in the virtuality of cyber-space. This begs a more than interesting point: we live in a world where tourists do not travel anymore. This happens because the experience has certainly replaced the physical movement as the key element that molds tourism (Kaelber, 2007). This and other interesting connotations are placed under critical scrutiny in the present chapter. The importance these types of new tourism have received in the Academy is directly proportional to the changes the industry is facing. Still further, the question of whether doom-tourism consists in moving to sites or destinations which are in the bias of disappearance, suggests two important assumptions. On one hand, this industrial world Urry mentioned has been changed by a decentralized and chaotic form of production and accumulation. On another hand, the process of deindustrialization, adjoined to the rise of individualism, is creating a form of consumptions that are unique, special, and cannot be repeated in any way. This is consistent to what Yves Michaud dubbed as “new luxury”, which means the replication of patterns that, far from being communicated to others – as the classic travel stories – are tended to reinforce pleasure-maximization and egocentrism (Michaud, 2013).