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Tending to destinations: Conceptualising tourism’s transformative capacities

Tending to destinations: Conceptualising tourism’s transformative capacities This article is a theoretical contribution to inform scholarship on tourism destination development and dynamics. Our point of departure is the prevailing linear ‘economic growth paradigm’ animating tourism development discourse and practice. Through this discourse, people, landscapes, heritage and artefacts become valued as commodities and claims laid to tourism benefits emerge as objective, measurable facts. We contend that this discourse relies on an understanding of tourism resources and entrepreneurial activities as pure social constructs, which does not fully grasp the dynamics of emergent tourism realities and destinations’ transformative capacities. We argue for alternative conceptualisations of tourism that equip tourism scholars with the conceptual tools to grasp the plurality of tourism futures. These involve ‘vital materialism’ built on a relational ontology foregrounding the creative life force that permeates us and all that surrounds us. We conclude with outlining the implications this approach has for the discussion of tourism destination development. We argue that these conceptual tools will lay the foundations for ethically sound tourism development in times of global uncertainties from the perspective of people, their commitments and aspirations and the environment. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Tourist Studies SAGE

Tending to destinations: Conceptualising tourism’s transformative capacities

Tourist Studies , Volume 19 (3): 16 – Sep 1, 2019

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References (44)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019
ISSN
1468-7976
eISSN
1741-3206
DOI
10.1177/1468797619832307
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This article is a theoretical contribution to inform scholarship on tourism destination development and dynamics. Our point of departure is the prevailing linear ‘economic growth paradigm’ animating tourism development discourse and practice. Through this discourse, people, landscapes, heritage and artefacts become valued as commodities and claims laid to tourism benefits emerge as objective, measurable facts. We contend that this discourse relies on an understanding of tourism resources and entrepreneurial activities as pure social constructs, which does not fully grasp the dynamics of emergent tourism realities and destinations’ transformative capacities. We argue for alternative conceptualisations of tourism that equip tourism scholars with the conceptual tools to grasp the plurality of tourism futures. These involve ‘vital materialism’ built on a relational ontology foregrounding the creative life force that permeates us and all that surrounds us. We conclude with outlining the implications this approach has for the discussion of tourism destination development. We argue that these conceptual tools will lay the foundations for ethically sound tourism development in times of global uncertainties from the perspective of people, their commitments and aspirations and the environment.

Journal

Tourist StudiesSAGE

Published: Sep 1, 2019

There are no references for this article.