ABSTRACT
Fieldwork is one of the defining approaches of academic research. Whether in the social or natural sciences, to get out of the office, lecture theatre or laboratory and study, ‘the real world’ is a vital component of the generation of knowledge. In the study of tourism too fieldwork has long been utilised not only to observe tourists and the interactions between tourists and destination communities but also to better understand the social, economic, political and environmental effects of tourism. Yet despite the long tradition of fieldwork in tourism studies and in cognate disciplines, such as anthropology, ecology, geography and sociology, that also place a high value on fieldwork, there is surprisingly little reflection on the role of fieldwork in tourism research (see Bruner [2005] as an exception).
