ABSTRACT
Accompanying the remarkable growth in studies of tourism over the last decade, new ways of seeing have emerged which cohere around the idea that ‘tourism’ – as well as being a type of leisure activity or a collection of service industries distinguished by (the trade in) journeys to and overnight stays in remote destinations – is a post-modern practice that shapes and helps us to make sense of the world we live in. It is no coincidence that, during this time, there has been greater theoretical engagement in a fi eld once celebrated and criticised in equal measure for its (narrow) empiricism and perceived relevance to industry and public policy, in part a response to earlier calls for tourism researchers to inject some social and cultural theory into their analyses (e.g. Davis, 2001; Hughes, 1992; Squire, 1994). This goes beyond so-called ‘middle-order’ theories, such as tourist typologies or destination life cycles, to the level of theoretical perspectives or philosophies – principally post-modernism, structuralism and post-structuralism (Davis, 2001). Together, these comprise the focus of this chapter although, as its title implies, much of it is given over to explaining the post-structuralist perspective and how this has informed ideas about space and place in contemporary tourism geographies. To this end, and after a brief explanation of cognate terms, ‘old’ and ‘new’ conceptualisations of change in destinations are contrasted (with specifi c reference to Butler’s 1980 Tourist Area Life Cycle and Dietvorst and Ashworth’s 1995 Model of Tourism Transformations), and a short commentary is provided on two movements of relevance and substance – the New Mobilities Paradigm (NMP) and Critical Tourism Studies (CTS). The advantages and limitations of the above-mentioned perspectives – and post-structuralism in particular – are highlighted throughout the chapter, which concludes with an appeal to blend social theory with empirical study in tourism-related research (rather than pursuing one at the expense of the other).
