The ‘Critical Turn’ in Tourism Studies: A Radical Critique

Abstract In many respects Tourism Studies appears to be increasingly divided between the unquestioning embrace of the market, on the one hand, and questions of discourse, culture, and representation on the other. This apparent rift also conceals a growing convergence around the significance of ‘culture’ and cultural analyses in tourism, brought about by greater engagement with post-structural theory and a concomitant retreat from political economy. Accordingly, this paper evaluates the scope and potential for a revitalized radical critique of tourism that engages with issues of power, inequality and development processes in tourism whilst acknowledging the significance of cultural diversities. Some commentators, such as Aitchison, suggest the ‘cultural turn’ and, more broadly, the emergence of a sub-discipline of critical Tourism Studies, has shaken up the conceptual and theoretical foundations of tourism research and, in so doing, has delivered new insights into the discursive, symbolic and performative realms of tourism and tourist experiences. Whilst this has perhaps resulted in a more nuanced appreciation of the social and cultural dimensions of power manifest in tourism (particularly into its dominant discourses and representative frameworks), the emphasis on the latter at the expense of production and material aspects of tourism and mobility, has meant that tourism often appears detached from the forces of structural power that characterize twenty-first century capitalism and globalization. In response, this paper draws on Marxist political economy and a historical materialist method of inquiry, in order to both critique the ‘critical turn’ and to reflect upon tourism's relationship to the economic and political relations of power in the contemporary global (dis)order. In doing so, this paper puts forward the case that tourism research needs to further engage with some of the major themes and theoretical debates related to processes of globalization, capitalism and structural power if it is to engage with issues of substantive import related to critical scholarship and social justice.