Mobilizing relational ontology: meeting the pluriversal challenge in tourism studies

Abstract

ABSTRACT Philosophical and theoretical research on tourism is ever more pertinent in an age of increased uncertainty, manifold vulnerabilities, and determination to promote justice, fairness, and equality. The pluriversal challenge facing tourism and tourism studies, that is, the necessity for polycentric, inclusive, and equitably participatory being, doing, and knowing, suggests that these transitional times require an ontology that can assist with understanding the entangled complexities of being and becoming vis-à-vis tourism. Relational ontology is thus presented as a crucial lens for comprehending the ethical, environmental, political, social, cultural, and spiritual potentialities that emerge uniquely through tourism as relationalities. This paper argues that relational ontology not only accommodates but also discloses pluriversality and the ontological multiple, and that it can facilitate not universal but relational understandings, which can coexist, enrich, and promote human flourishing through tourism.