Policy Relevance and Sustainable Tourism Research: Liberal, Radical and Post-structuralist Perspectives

摘要

Much of the academic research on tourism and sustainability is concerned with identifying socio-economic, cultural and environmental problems and suggesting short-term ameliorating measures or more substantial longer-term policies. This work is often premised on the notion that the researcher might have some influence on the creation of policy, perhaps even on the monitoring and evaluation of policy. But there has been little debate in the sustainable tourism literature on how academics' views and their approaches to research affect their policy recommendations, on what sorts of involvement researchers should have in policy arenas and debates, and on quite how radical the policy recommendations of academics ought to be. Such debates have occurred in human geography, for example, and the critical dialogue that has taken place in that field (Johnston, 1997) has a direct bearing on the work of researchers concerned with sustainable tourism, especially given tourism's impacts on societal well-being and the global environment. Questions need to be asked about whom we are producing knowledge for and about how we should be trying to influence policies (Hall, 2005a; Ruhanen & Cooper, 2004).