SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Akin to the parable of the six blind men and the elephant, we all have a sense of what constitutes tourism ethnography, but our understandings vary based on where we are situated. This paper examines this core methodology and writing convention in tourism research. It details ethnography’s roots in colonial-era cultural anthropology and outlines classic elements of the ethnography of tourism. Following an overview of the more recent history of ethnographic work in tourism, the paper traces how tourism ethnography has evolved and expanded to address new research agendas and challenges that have emerged over the past 25 years. Newer interventions discussed in the paper include autoethnography and memory work, netnography, emotion-centered and embodied sensory ethnography, among others. Recent ethnographic strategies designed to decolonize and democratize tourism ethnography are also addressed, including participatory, collaborative, and social-justice-oriented approaches. Additionally, the paper outlines key gaps in the literature and indicates new areas of consideration for tourism ethnographers. These include the need for more penetrating reflections on ethical aspects of emergent permutations of tourism ethnography and the urgent need to develop new genres of ethnography equipped for lending constructive insights into tourism’s entwinement with planetary peril. Creative reformulations of ethnography are essential for producing insights into how tourism and touristic practices are entangled with the ecological and climatic changes that constitute our greatest challenge. While the past 25 years have witnessed considerable advances in critical approaches to tourism, the project of using knowledge culled from tourism ethnography to constructively reckon with current social and planetary challenges is in its infancy.