A Phenomenological Analysis of Tourist Identity: Three Theses and Propositions

Abstract

There is a dearth of narrative research related to “tourist identity” in leisure and tourism studies. In this review paper, we identify this research gap upon performing a systematic review of articles in leisure and tourism studies published on the SCOPUS database in the last four decades (1979-2021). We furnish three theses based on the prevalent research gap and offer three propositions that foreground the questions of identity. We argue that leisure and tourism studies focus more on the collective and the ethnic – to pit the collective Self against the collective Other, while discounting the personal and the phenomenological. We insist that leisure and tourism studies must engage with a wide range of traveling practices outside of the tourist experiences, and integrate more non-conventional sources (e.g. photography and narrative autoethnography) and non-Western approaches. Among other things, this will help dismantle the White logic prevalent in, and thus decolonize the field.