Reflecting on the ideology of a mechanisteconomic science: from ontological inconsistencies towards a transformative tourism science
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Matthias Fuchs [1]
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[1] Mid-Sweden University
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- Localización: Transitioning towards the future of tourism destinations: resilient, smart, and green development / coord. por Francisco Femenia Serra, Aurkene Alzua Sorzabal, Zheng Xiang, 2022, ISBN 978-84-1125-632-2, págs. 45-79
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
The COVID-19 crisis has challenged current growth ideology inherited by mainstream tourism science (Gretzel et al., 2020).This chapter discusses major inconsistencies of economic science due to its adoption of the ontologies of modern science which are rooted in classical physics. Philosopher Karl-Heinz Brodbeck (2014) illustrates that economic science is neither value-free nor an empirically exact science because humans do not behave like the mechanical objects of classical physics. Rather, economic science represents an implicit ethics (Brodbeck 2014). The chapter outlines the elements of a post-mechanist economic theory which assigns humans’ creativity a central role and defines ‘The Economy’ as a socio-communicative network for meaning creation (Brodbeck, 2001). Feldman’s (2014) innovative region follows this conceptand is defined as interconnected, open, and free territory which—through its unique history and specific beauty—fosters place makers’ creativity and interactions to transform location features into assets with high symbolic meaning. The applicability of this concept is corroborated by findings from a nationwide survey of Norwegian micro-entrepreneurs in nature-based tourism (Fuchs et al., 2021). The chapter concludes with propositions for a transformative tourism science and criticises the efforts of the European Commission to increase tourism growth in response toCOVID-19 (EU-Commission, 2021).
