A (Deleuzian) posthumanist paradigm for tourism research

Ann Tour Res. 2020 Sep:84:102982. doi: 10.1016/j.annals.2020.102982. Epub 2020 Jul 16.

Abstract

Posthumanistic inquiry is young and offers new ways to understand critical and ethical relationships, bringing new axiological perspectives to current debates around travel, mobilities and (post)modernist conceptualizations of tourism. This research note introduces a Deleuzian posthumanism paradigm with ontological, epistemological and methodological directions to approach tourism research from a non-dualist perspective. French philosopher Gilles Deleuze offers a postdualist, process-oriented ontology of difference that is vital to create radical new tourism knowledge, and avoid indefensible 'either-or' binaries in research and praxis. The Deleuzian research paradigm we forward eschews anthropocentric premises and modernist traditions for a situated, immanent style of encounter and relational being with human and non-human others that is vital for a healthy planet and justice in the Anthropocene.

Keywords: Axiology; Gilles Deleuze; Post-dualism; Posthumanism; Relational being; Research paradigm; Tourism.