Resisting Rationalisation in the Natural and Academic Life-world: Critical Tourism Research or Hermeneutic Charity?

Abstract

This paper encourages and challenges tourism researchers struggling in the liminal zones between traditional modernist and critical or postmodernist (non-traditional) research. Using natural area destinations and concepts from critical theory (e.g. Habermas, 1978), it is argued that paralleling the instrumental use and rationalisation of natural areas and everyday life is the rationalisation of the academic research world by (post)positivistic paradigms. These rationalisations are resisted by critical and 'postmodern' paradigms that, ironically, can also contribute to placing the life-world of natural destinations 'under erasure'. So a more diversified and reflexive research praxis is called for, particularly, (1) critical approaches to complement functionalist research orientations, (2) understanding one's own ontological and epistemological assumptions regarding the natural world, and (3) hermeneutic charity that softens the emancipatory gaze of the critical researcher. Yellowstone National Park is used as an example to show how a critical narrative interprets these natural spaces as cultural, political and economic texts mediated by a number of scientific, promotional and symbolic tools serving a diverse range of interests.