The [in]discipline of visual tourism research

This chapter continues the philosophical discussion commenced by Rakić in Chapter 2, but in this chapter I wish to focus specifically on those epistemological issues associated with the use of the visual in tourism research. That is, in this chapter I will seek to address some specific epistemological questions including: how do we know what we know about the visual in tourism research? What are the current boundaries of knowledge about the visual in tourism research? What is legitimate or valid knowledge in visual tourism research? In seeking to address these questions I will discuss the multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary nature of visual tourism research which draws on, and integrates a number of disciplines and theoretical approaches from the social sciences, especially though not exclusively the main disciplines of geography, sociology and psychology, anthropology and their sub-disciplines.