Publication
Emerging Tourisms and Tourism Studies in Southeast Asia
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Abstract:
The field of tourism studies is now addressing a range of issues which in part stem from the problems engendered by multi-disciplinary approaches and from the post-modernist, post-colonialist, post-structuralist criticisms that its priorities and concepts have been determined by a Western-centric (Euro-American) view of the world of tourism. In this regard comparisons are made in this paper between tourism studies and area studies (specifically Southeast Asian Studies). Both suffer from some of the same difficulties. From this comparative perspective, it is suggested that we engage critically with unhelpful binary modes of thinking which have sought to distinguish between the West, and in this case the East, between Western-centred and Eastern-centred perspectives, and between insiders and outsiders. The issue of “emerging tourisms” only serves to complicate these matters. How do studies of tourism accommodate novel tourisms? Do we view them as simply variations on a theme which can be addressed within existing conceptual frameworks? Is a “mobilities” or an “encounters” approach sufficiently robust and viable to handle apparent touristic innovations? In an Asian and Southeast Asian context does the issue of emerging tourisms in this region require us to re-engage with debates about Orientalism and Western academic hegemony?
Description:
Date:
2017
Authors:
Victor T. King
Publisher:
Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam
