Tourists, mobilities and paradigms

Kuhn's perception of paradigms changed over time, and eventually he considered the exemplar to be a defining feature of specialised scientific communities, the sole arbiters of scientific progress, who possess a shared lexicon, more or less incommensurable to non-members. The ensuing debate as to whether or not paradigms, including the new mobilities paradigm (NMP), are found in the social science is sum- marised, and claims it is of special relevance to tourism studies are examined. Authenticity has indeed been a key concept, but the 'discourse of authenticity' has not dominated tourism studies, and Western and Asian scholars, despite a slow start, are now increasingly and successfully applying Western social science concepts to Asian (especially Chinese) tourism without recourse to a 'Non-Western' or 'Asian' paradigm. However, while 'mobilities' is not a paradigm, the NMP is a useful perspective that is commensurable with different theoretical approaches to tourism and other forms of travel.

© 2017. This author's accepted manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/