Reflexivity and Tourism Research: Telling An(other) Story

Abstract

Tourism studies scholars have, for the most part, sidestepped the issue of subjectivity in their research practice and in its reporting. Yet, in the broader social sciences, there is a burgeoning interest in matters of reflexivity which has grown out of a critique of the detached and distant writings which were the result of what has been termed a ‘disembodied intellect’. Reflexivity can be regarded as the act of making oneself the object of one’s own observation, in an attempt to bring to the fore the assumptions embedded in our perspectives and descriptions of the world. Reflexive approaches to research, and to its reporting, have, through a variety of strategies emphasised the subject-centred nature of all human knowing. For example, some scholars have embraced ‘confessional writing’ in attempts to produce embodied texts. However, such approaches have been questioned for seeking to produce realist or ‘truer’ texts – the very goal reflexive practitioners have supposedly abandoned. Thus, while reflexive approaches to research facilitate subject-centred critiques which may be well suited to the kinds of human–human encounters which are often a feature of tourism research, these are also likely to result in a loss of control of knowledge production as a result of the ‘reflective turn’.

Keywords:

• reflexive practice
• relativism
• self
• subjectivity
• voice