Message from Paradise: Critical Reflections on the Tourism Academy in Jerusalem

Abstract

In this critical review article an adopted framework from critical theorists will be introduced in order to question the alleged neutral objectivity in social scientific discussion. This old discussion—on value free science—becomes increasingly evident through the illustration of the relevant example of how academics concealed their positions of neutrality just before the 86th annual tourism conference of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), October 2010 in Jerusalem. This critical review article continues by analyzing the relatively high amount of email reactions to a Palestinian tourism scholar who called for support from the tourism academic community for the rejection of Jerusalem as the place where the conference will be held. On the basis of this material, three categories of reactions will be introduced and organized as a normative, critical discussion. In this discourse, an emancipatory perspective on this topic will be presented. This emancipatory knowledge will give voice to the marginalized and less heard voices in this region. With these voices a counterdiscourse can be organized in this region in which Arendt's “agora” will be introduced as a place of plural discussions. The intention of this revitalized critical discussion is to create a climate of broader enlightenment that ultimately goes beyond the perspectives of individual parties. (Editor's introduction)