Contexts of Knowledge in Tourism Studies

The scientific claims of tourism studies have been understood, according to recent debates, in terms of inter-disciplinarity or even as condition of 'indiscipline'. It seems that progress in scientific development has been hampered by the heterogeneity of disciplinary contributions to tourism studies. The paper scrutinizes paradigmatic debates from the last decade. Gibbons et al (1994), in their book The New Production of Knowledge, propose a general approach to types of knowledge which can also shed some more light on the complexity of tourism science. They distinguish between Mode 1 & Mode 2 knowledge. Mode 1 knowledge refers to the academic practices of scientists according to universal rules & procedures. Mode 2 knowledge undergoes the influence of dynamic contexts of application in which changing teams of researchers collaborate in transient environments. In this type of contexts one cannot create experimental scientific conditions. Kunneman (2005) adds a third category of knowledge which is contextualised by 'great' moral societal issues, detached from time-space limited problems within the realm of Mode 2 & offering frameworks of the moral context for Mode 1 knowledge. The proposed approach highlights the understanding of knowledge contexts a 'polycentric' rethinking of the very fundamentals of our scientific tourism knowledge.