Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
attributed to it by producers and consumers, while acknowledging the sustainability
imperative - which 'leads to all kinds of systems control and intervention' (ibid).
How, then, does the model fi t with what we know about post-structuralism? Firstly, it is
concerned with the
agents of change
, and not only the structures that emerge from the sum of
their actions (e.g. the 'boom and bust' sequence posited by the TALC). Indeed, there is no
attempt to delineate a particular trajectory of development - or destiny - for the hypothetical
destination (which brings to mind the post-modernist critique of Enlightenment thinking
and, in particular, the principle that knowledge must be useful). Secondly, it acknowledges the
meanings
that various people attach to tourism places and the things therein, by differentiating
material and symbolic transformations. Thirdly, the model belies the notion that change in
destinations is predictable (and, therefore, may be predicted), in accepting that 'some . . .
transformations are consciously produced, but others develop more or less unintentionally'
(Dietvorst and Ashworth, 1995: 9). In this regard, causal mechanisms are circumstantial,
rather than deterministic. Finally, it situates these transformations within the context of wider
society and social (not just economic) change, rather than subjecting them to 'laboratory
closure' - which was always a weakness of the TALC. Contextual developments of note
including the 'mediatisation' of culture, the emergence of 'instantaneous time', and resistance
to the homogenising effects of globalisation through (re)localisation (see Urry, 1994).
Post-structuralism, the New Mobilities Paradigm and Critical Tourism Studies
Moving on from fi fteen- and thirty-year-old models (at the time of writing), this chapter
concludes by looking to the near future of geography and tourism/tourism geographies and,
specifi cally, the NMP and CTS as signifi cant intellectual projects that are informed by post-
structuralist philosophy. Understandably, space constraints permit only a brief discussion of
each 'project', and readers are directed to
Chapters 5
(Bianchi) and 14 (Duncan) of
this volume for more information (see also Coles
et al.
, 2004; Hall, 2005c; Mavriˇ and
Urry, 2009; Sheller and Urry, 2004 on tourism and mobilities, and Ateljevic
et al.
, 2007b,
2011 on CTS).
The NMP incorporates the work of geographers and sociologists with interests in tourism,
transport and migration studies. It has a number of implications for researching tourism in
general, which may be summarised as follows (adapted from Gale, 2009):
A movement towards 'de-exoticising' tourism (and geography), meaning that we are no
longer preoccupied with leisure travellers and distant lands.
Recognition that the processes which have enhanced the mobility of some people(s) also
serve to highlight, and to heighten, the immobility of others.
The inclusion of imaginative, virtual and communicative (as well as physical/corporeal) travel
in analyses of tourism phenomena, made possible by a range of digital devices that allow us to
access other places and people at the touch of a button - without the need for co-presence.
Concern for the undesirable and hitherto unforeseen consequences of living a mobile life
that lie outside of our control, and which threaten that very mobility (e.g. climate change,
global pandemics, terrorist atrocities).
The use of 'mobile' methodologies and methods (e.g. time-space diaries, cyber-
ethnography).
Accordingly, tourism is re-construed as a form of temporary mobility, located on a continuum
ranging from leisure shopping at one end (the local, the daily) to lifestyle migration at the
