Abstract

René van der Duim, Wageningen University, the Netherlands
 

In this paper I progressively develop a new research paradigm for tourism studies by translating actor-network theory into the province of tourism, and by introducing the concept of tourisms capes as a scientific mode of ordering of the people and things that make up what we label ‘tourism’.
First I shall take actor-network theory out of the realm of the sociology of science and technology. In the Netherlands, actor-network theory has already passed from the sociology of science and technology to, for example, rural sociology and development sociology. There it has changed, become diverse. However, actor-network theory has not yet entered tourism studies. This paper translates and performs actor-network theory in the province of tourism studies.
To do so I shall clarify ideas of symmetry, relational materialism and translation and introduce the concept of tourisms capes. Analytically, these are the actor-networks within and across different societies and regions connecting together systems of transport, accommodation and facilities, tourism resources, environments, technologies, and people and organizations. Tourisms capes consist of relations between people and things dispersed in time-space specific patterns. Tourisms capes consist of complex processes of ordering of people and things; they all concurrently perform tourism. The study of tourism therefore implies the analysis of the process of association and ordering and of their precarious achievements. This means that one has to follow tourists, tour operators, incoming agents, hoteliers, taxi drivers and guides, and the intermediaries they bring into circulation. One should examine the production of relationships. Doing so will reveal certain patterns in this ordering work of hoteliers, tour operators, incoming agents, guides, airlines and the like. These patterns reflect not only the way they define tourism, but also how they perform it and the way in which they align people and things in order to make a difference. Following John Law, I shall label these patterns as ‘modes of ordering’.
In the final part of this paper, I shall summarize this agenda for tourism studies in seven steps. These seven constituents form a paradigm, a basic set of principles, showing what is worth looking at when studying tourism.

Key words: tourisms capes, actor-network theory, modes of ordering