Assembling the socio-material destination: an actor-network approach to cultural tourism studies.

Abstract

This chapter explores tourism through the application of the actor-network theory. This approach introduced a new methodology with which to research and describe tourism entities through a symmetric levelling of the social and material, human and non-human, natural and cultural, hence including matters typically excluded from the social or cultural field of research.

Cultural tourism: A review of recent research and trends

“…In the field of gastronomy, a lot of work has been done in protecting food local products, including the development of labels and certification of origin (Ren, 2010). Such labels can not only help to protect food products, but they also serve as markers for cultural tourism visitation (Benkhard & Halmai, 2017).…”

Researching destination experiences: Themes, perspectives and challenges

“…Linked to this, researchers adopting an actor-network theory (ANT) methodology attempt to examine destinations and touristic experiences through the different (human and non-human) actors or actants, actions, processes and relationships through which things come into being. An ANT approach thus considers the different actors and actants; how the networks and interactions of actants produce knowledge and perform agency, leading to outcomes; how different human and non-human actors and actants are enrolled and the outcomes of those interactions, productions and performances (Latour, 2005;Lugosi & Erdélyi, 2009;Ren, 2010;Van der Duim, 2007;Van der Duim et al, 2012.…”

Mess and method: Using ANT in tourism research

“…Czarniawska and Hernes, 2005), ANT offers the tourism researcher a practical, fieldwork-based orientation (Jóhannesson, 2005), with its emphasis on detailed examination and description of relationships between actors in practice, offering 'examples, cases, and stories of how things work, of how relations and practices are ordered' (van der Duim, Ampumuza and Ahebwa, 2014: 590). It therefore aligns with a body of work which characterises tourism as a process through which places are ordered, performed and produced (Franklin, 2004;van der Duim, 2007a), and offers an opportunity to extend our understanding of the social relations of tourism, challenging our ontological stance by admitting non-human actors, and breaking down preconceptions about the social nature of tourism and its organisation (Ren, 2010a). This focus highlights the processes that work continuously to produce and maintain assemblages of human and non-human actors, characterised in a tourism context as 'tourismscapes', defined as the 'complex relationships across space and through time between networked people and things, offering alternative structures of power and relationships' (van der Duim, Peters and Wearing, 2005: 293).…”

“…Through this data, 'actors and their relations, strength, importance and ability to speak, act and represent is established' (Ren et al, 2012: 20 (Ren, 2010a).…”

“…However, the issues which arise for the researcher in designing and executing ANT research have not, until recently (Ren, 2010a;Jóhannesson et al, 2014) been confronted in ANT accounts in the tourism literature. As a result, several key practical and theoretical issues relating to ANTbased fieldwork remain under-explored.…”