Ph.D. Students\u27 experiences and emotions in neoliberal tourism academia

Situated within the emerging social science literature contesting the diffusion of neoliberal ideologies into academia, this study explores the effects of neoliberalism (in the face of Covid-19 as well) on doctoral students. It employs a qualitative arts-based approach amalgamating aspects of autoethnography, ethnography, ethnodrama, and qualitative interviews to co-construct empirical material on Ph.D. students\u27 experiences and emotions. In general, the discussions with the doctoral students portray a rather hostile tourism academy, characterized by unhealthy levels of competition, questionable supervisory practices, and quantitative measurements of output that discourage intellectual engagement and creativity. As such, tourism doctoral students often experience negative emotional experiences, such as fear and anxiety, which in some instances also lead to high levels of stress and depression. Overall, this work contributes to our understanding of the effects of neoliberalism on tourism academia by unveiling the multiple power structures tourism doctoral students have to face throughout their Ph.D. journeys

Critical theories in tourism - a systematic literature review

Critical approaches to tourism knowledge production and representation alongside critical approaches to tourism as a lived experience outside academic circles (its impacts on places, peoples and economies) are not new in tourism. However, propelled by a ‘critical turn’ and by an overall critique of positivist research, debates concerning the meanings and implications of ‘the critical’ in tourism have gained momentum and more visibility in the last fifteen years. As an attempt to organise and critically assess the growing body of knowledge on criticality, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of critical studies published in tourism journals, books and book chapters in four languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian) in the last 43 years (1977–2020). Four main aspects of criticality in tourism were assessed, namely the main critical approaches mobilized, the areas/topics of interest, authorship and the emancipatory outcomes pursued. The review shows that a) the word ‘critical’ in tourism is mobilised within a multiplicity of different and not clearly defined approaches, beliefs and terminologies alongside diverse understandings of criticality; b) a significant nexus exists between criticality and sustainability; c) Western universities plays a dominant role in propelling critical scholarship; and d) limited explanations are provided on how participatory and emancipatory practices are sought and achieved. Based on the outcomes of our review, critical research in tourism should not stop debating the meanings associated to the term ‘critical’, challenge traditional capitalist discourses of sustainability with alternative theories (such as regenerative tourism), consider postcolonial/decolonial perspectives, and provide more details on how emancipation and participation are supposed to be achieved

Behind the research beliefs and practices of Asian tourism scholars in Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd This article explores the power structures behind the research beliefs and practices of tourism scholars based in three Asian countries, namely Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. More specifically, through qualitative interviews, this study gives voice to a group of Asian tourism scholars to cast light on the historical (colonial/postcolonial) and contemporary (neocolonial) forces influencing their research beliefs and practices. Conceptually, this work mobilises the notions of “intellectual imperialism” and “captive mind”, developed by the Malaysian sociologist Syed Hussein Alatas. Overall, the empirical material supports Alatas on the idea that Asian tourism scholars are influenced by power structures that tend to reiterate Western-centric ideologies. However, an important aspect emerging from the interviews was that regional/national research agendas and the influence of other Asian countries, such as Japan, South Korea and China, also play a role in shaping the research beliefs and practices of scholars based in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam

A systematic review of systematic reviews in tourism

© 2019 CAUTHE - COUNCIL FOR AUSTRALASIAN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY EDUCATION Traditional literature reviews and more advanced systematic reviews have been a focal point in assessing the epistemological progress of any field. However, studies assessing the nature and quality of the systematic review papers published in tourism and hospitality literature are scarce. Considering the items of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, this study reviews how tourism and hospitality scholars have operationalised systematic reviews. All systematic reviews published across 34 tourism journals until 2017 were considered for this review and the results of the study portray multiple limitations in the design, organization and execution of current systematic reviews

‘Some glimpses of an Asian PhD journey in tourism’ – An ethnodrama

By combining three different genres – academic writing, theatrical playwriting and performing – this article presents different ways of knowing and representing realities for tourism scholars. More specifically, drawing upon social scientists\u27 influential work on performance texts and an ethnodramatic script written by the authors based on dramatized ethnographic and autoethnographic fieldwork, it portrays a tourism PhD journey in an Asian institution. As an attempt of representing the power structures underpinning academia (and tourism academia), namely postcolonial, gendered, global, regional, institutional, and socio-cultural forces, among others, the 8 scenes constituting the script (one of which is enacted and presented in a video) discuss how Asian PhD journeys are shaped by specific approaches to supervision, issues of authorship, gendered dynamics and postcolonial legacies. The main rationale behind this work lies in the recognition of the powerful/performative role of embodied texts and performances in producing, shaping and re-presenting realities. More specifically, the ethnodrama presented in this paper and its embodied representation act as vehicles that are both political and entertaining in producing meanings

Qualitative online research in tourism – a systematic review of the literature

© 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: This paper aims to present a systematic review of tourism articles using qualitative online methods. By focussing on tourism journals, this work explores the paradigmatic beliefs, methodological approaches and methods underpinning tourism qualitative online research. Design/methodology/approach: This review was conducted systematically by following the reporting checklist of the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses by the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination. Findings: Overall, this systematic review indicates that the ontological and epistemological beliefs guiding online research are not clearly expressed by tourism scholars. It also shows that the possibility of using the internet for more interactive and participatory forms of research has not been fully explored by tourism scholars. Research limitations/implications: This paper expands tourism scholars’ awareness of the range of qualitative approaches/methods available by suggesting additional research instruments that could replace or complement the traditional ones. However, by selecting only indexed journal papers, other sources of publications, such as papers published in non-Scopus and non-Web-of-Science journals, books, book chapters and conference papers, were not included in the current review. Originality/value: This work emphasizes the important role of cyberspace in facilitating virtual interactions between researchers and participants in the co-construction of qualitative empirical material

Beyond the third moment? Mapping the state of qualitative tourism research

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper poses a central question: what is the present moment in qualitative tourism research? To answer this, the authors review the state of contemporary qualitative tourism research over the past decade (2007–2017), against current progress in the social sciences. Specifically, a systematic bibliometric analysis of tourism journals was undertaken to determine how tourism scholarship maps against Denzin and Lincoln’s social science ‘moments’. These moments prove useful in heuristically framing the development of qualitative social research and thinking; from early moments characterized by positivist ways of knowing, through to later moments where scholars struggle through and beyond the crisis of representation. Using an adapted moments-based framework, our analysis of 1541 qualitative papers across 51 tourism journals indicates that the majority of papers are emblematic of ‘early moment’ thinking. Despite clear evidence of a crisis of representation in some areas, and an increase in the number of qualitative papers published, there is a lack of ‘later moment’ thinking, methodology and/or approach. The political, social and philosophical constraints and opportunities presented by these findings are discussed

A postcolonial feminist analysis of official tourism representations of Sri Lanka on Instagram

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd Although postcolonial analyses examining the sexualized imagery of women in tourism have been conducted, previous studies have predominantly focused on gender and (post)colonialism from a patriarchal perspective. By doing so, other (neo)colonial power asymmetries, such as race, class and ethnicity, have often been neglected. This paper mobilises postcolonial feminist theory to expand the existing analyses and discourses concerning gendered representations in tourism. Through a narrative analysis of the images published in the official Instagram page of Sri Lanka\u27s Ministry of Tourism, we contend that the images produced and circulated to promote Sri Lanka in many instances echo essentialist gendered binaries (e.g. men/women; coloniser/colonised; hegemonic/subordinated). However, as the images tend to produce and reiterate Sri Lankan national identity through a hegemonic Sinhalese Buddhist discourse, they also show the intersections between gender and other asymmetries of power (e.g. race, ethnicity, religion, and social class) – in reproducing (post)colonial gendered identities

Eurocentrism, capitalism and tourism knowledge

Global hegemonic structures of power have been a subject of debate among social scientists for decades. However, issues addressing the ‘subjugation of the intellect’ and forces shaping knowledge production – globalisation, capitalism and neo-colonialism – remain understudied in tourism. Drawing upon critical theories of Eurocentrism and capitalism, in this paper we explore and address the ideological impacts of existing global power structures on the next generation of tourism ‘knowledge producers’ in Asia. More specifically, this work critically discusses the ontological and epistemological beliefs – and subsequent methodological choices – of a group of Asian PhD scholars. The empirical material presented in this paper highlights that persisting forms of Eurocentric ideology embedded in capitalist structures of power permeate non-Western academic circles