108 Int. J. Tourism Anthropology, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2018
Copyright © 2018 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Towards new paradigms in tourism fields:
an anthropological perspective
Maximiliano E. Korstanje
Department of Economics,
School of Business,
University of Palermo,
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Email: mkorst@palermo.edu
Abstract: The present notes of research centres on the problem of
fragmentation, which is experienced by tourism applied research in the recent
years. Echoing the original claims issued by John Tribe –followed by many
others scholars–, we discuss further on the socio-economic factors that
prevented tourism its maturated and stylised form. Though we introduce a
materialist viewpoint, echoing David Harvey, no less true is that the point is
open to further debate, incorporating cultural viewpoints. The impulses and
bursts of interest received simultaneously from social science but also by the
theory of scientifisation coined by Jafar Jafari did not suffice to gain purchase
over a maturated discipline. Even if followers of Jafari envisaged that the
maturation of tourism hinged on the proficiency and prolificity of published
works, this obscured more than it clarified. Nowadays, the epistemology of
tourism is facing a serious crisis which needs immediate attention.
Keywords: truth; reality; fragmentation; postmodernism; epistemology of
tourism.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Korstanje, M.E. (2018)
‘Towards new paradigms in tourism fields: an anthropological perspective’,
Int. J. Tourism Anthropology, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp.108–112.
Biographical notes: Maximiliano E. Korstanje is a reader at Economics
Department, University of Palermo. He serves as Book Series Editor in
Advances in Hospitality, Tourism and the Service Industry, IGI Global Hershey
Pennsylvania and an Associate Editor for Studies and Perspectives in Tourism,
CIET Argentina. He is a foreign member of AMIT – Mexican academy for the
study of tourism as well as advisory board of important academic publishers as
Routledge, Springer, Cambridge Scholar Publishing and IGI global. His recent
books include The Rise of Thana Capitalism and Tourism, Routledge,
Terrorism, Tourism and the End of Hospitality in the West, Springer Nature,
and Mobilities Paradox: a Critical Analysis, Edward Elgar among others.
1 Introduction
Over the recent decades, tourism research led towards what Jafari (2001) dubbed as ‘the
scientifisation of tourism’. Per his viewpoint, tourism experienced different stage, which
oscillated from a precautionary towards a scientific-centred paradigm paving the
pathways for the rise of an objective understanding of tourism. Though Jafari was quite