Insights on the Constitution of a Scientific Field: Bordieu and the "New Science" of Tourism

Abstract

The thesis that tourism is a "new science" is the subject of this paper. Supported by Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of scientific field, the authors analyse "scientification of tourism" as proposed by Jafar Jafari. The foundings suggest that tourism is an embryonic scientific field aiming to legitimacy. The intense use of economic and management jargon appears as a strategy to legimate the field, so that the identity between tourism and industry is taken for granted. This identity is then scrutinized, revealing the entailed limits to the project of "scientification". Finally, as a counterpoint to the dominant discourse, the authors suggest that the road to "scientification" should be paved by a critical dialogical perspective.