key: cord-0804571-rt91qing authors: Guia, Jaume; Jamal, Tazim title: A (Deleuzian) posthumanist paradigm for tourism research date: 2020-07-16 journal: Ann Tour Res DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2020.102982 sha: c451c7c10f17c198fac3a77c1319704ce6cd66e5 doc_id: 804571 cord_uid: rt91qing 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. under such alternative epistemic conditions." But what is the "that" they allude to, and what are the theoretical building blocks of the relationality that they and others forwarding posthumanism advocate? Posthumanism can bring a new axiological perspective to current debates around travel, mobilities and (post)modernist conceptualizations of tourism. It offers new ontological, epistemological and methodological directions to approach research from a nondualist, relational perspective. However, as various examples above show, posthumanistic inquiry is young and new ways are arising to approach it (ANT being just one, but critiqued for its failure to be critical and embodied, as noted above). Tourism research currently lacks theoretical guidance and much theory building is needed, especially to capture the relational, non-dualistic modes that scholars like Grimwood and Caton advance with such urgency. We offer below a Deleuzian posthumanist paradigm to commence the task of filling the gap on a posthumanistic approach to tourism research and sustainable futures. Deleuze (1990 Deleuze ( , 1992 Deleuze ( , 1994 , and Deleuze and Guattari (1977 , 1987 , 1994 , provide a vitally important ontology, epistemology, ethics and methodology that fully depart from anthropocentric premises. Deleuze's philosophy has remained mostly unnoticed by tourism scholars, despite the prominent role that posthumanistic encounters with the human and non-human other play in his philosophy. In their work, Gren and Huijberns (2011) and Olafsdottir, Huijbens, and Benediktsson (2013) refer implicitly to a Deleuzian plane of immanence to underscore the singular relationality of the social and the material that is inherent in touristic spaces, places and practices. A few other researchers have also used Deleuzian notions like territorialization, rhizomes, milieu, lines of flight, divergent actualizations, affects or multiplicity, to explore transformations of individual hosts and guests (Bone & Bone, 2018; Grit, 2014; Veijola, 2014) , small tourism firms (Saxena, 2015) tourism destinations (Pavlovich, 2014) and tourism research (Matteuci & Gnoth, 2017) . Nonetheless, with the exception of Vejiola, Grit, and Matteuci and Gnoth's work, important Deleuzian concepts such as shown in Fig. 1 have been underrated theoretically and methodologically, omitting their transformative potential for tourism research to redress current anthropocentric dominance and advance relational ways of being and becoming in the "pluriverse" (as Escobar, 2018, puts it). The Deleuzian posthumanist paradigm introduced in Fig. 1 resonates with a different immanent style of encounter with the material world that questions simple dualisms. Deleuze changes the way the material world is interpreted by emphasizing that objects are never settled or original to start with, but are perpetually relational. He offers a valuable new paradigm to think differently about human-environmental relationships and complex human-technological ways of being and becoming. A Deleuzian paradigm provides much-needed direction to approach posthumanistic inquiry in tourism research, to create radically new academic tourism knowledge, to foster and enhance the pedagogical role of tourism for socio-environmental justice, and to bring to light possibilities for responsible and just tourist behavior. The Deleuzian posthumanist paradigm together with unexplored Deleuzian concepts like minor politics, affects, becoming-other, dismantling the face, or immanent rights, offer a valuable start to filling the current gap in theory building on justice and tourism. His critical relational approach offers theoretical guidance to re-think and re-approach research about neocolonial, neoliberal and anthropocentric understandings of tourism; about the moralistic understanding of responsibility, hospitality and care; about essentialist understandings of sustainability; and about modernist framings of representative governance in tourism (all of which constitute different dimensions of justice in tourism, as identified by Jamal, 2019) . Further exploration of the ethical position of posthumanism concerning animal rights is also needed, for some argue that though the posthumanist position seems effective for redressing situations of injustice to animals it continues depending upon basic 'anthropocentric' premises (Soper, 2012) . Our response is that this critique only seems to apply to compensatory approaches to posthumanism (De Waal, 2009), but not to more radical forms of critical and philosophical posthumanism (Braidotti, 2013; Ferrando, 2019) ; these are philosophically grounded on Deleuzian thought and do not fall into the inconsistencies of human exceptionalism. Posthumanism also urges us to question the limits of our research practices and the types of knowledge production enabled and disabled by them. Posthumanist methodology shifts the debate away from "tired epistemological contests" (Lather, 2007, p. 70) towards an examination of "situations which we no longer know how to react to, in spaces which we no longer know how to describe" (Deleuze, 1989, p. xi) . The challenge is to think research and data differently "without simply re-inscribing the old methodology with a new language" (Mazzei & McCoy, 2010, p. 504) , without simply using Deleuzian concepts as metaphors that were never intended as metaphors and then illustrate them with examples, but to "think Deleuzian concepts in a way that might produce previously unthought questions, practices and knowledge" (p.540). Moreover Deleuzian methodology assumes an 'image of thought' that rejects thinking as innate and that liberates thought 'from those images which imprison it' (Deleuze, 1994, p. xv) ; a thought, whose focus is not anymore on avoidance of error, but to give birth to something new through repetition; a thought that "refuses to secure itself with the consolations of foundationalism and nostalgia for presence, the lost object of correct knowledge, the security of understanding" (Lather, 2009, p. 18) . Posthumanist methodologies are thus needed in tourism research if we are to challenge the habitual anthropocentric gaze taken by tourism researchers; to account not only for how researchers works upon data but also for how data work upon the researcher; to rethink our conceptions of tourists' experiences by means of mapping their relationships with the destination as a performativity of the milieus they find themselves in, which slide through, over and alongside those of the hosting communities and tourism operators; to challenge tourists' visual imagery (as well as that of hosts), which tends to reproduce 'everyday banalities', through upsetting the way tourists (and hosts) tend to see and make meaning, and shifting towards the co-production of the new; to understanding tourism transformations as emergent and indeterminate phenomena, producing narratives that focus on the event of becoming, thus resisting the need on the part of researchers for easily recognizable narratives and familiar representations; or to identify and avoid indefensible binaries of 'either-or' commonly used in research projects, from which prescriptions for practitioners are later drawn, and whose results do not often correspond with the outcomes promised. To explore, study and encourage alternaƟve subjecƟviƟes or idenƟƟes to humanism and modernism; to contribute towards alternaƟve economic systems, to forward-thinking new socio-environmental policies and behavior for a healthier planet; and to introduce a new ethical framework and a posthumanist concept of jusƟce for the Anthropocene. Ontology (immanence and intensive difference): A realist ontology whereby actual enƟƟes are produced by processes of individuaƟon without any need for transcendent generaƟve principles. The actual is the product of nothing but an ongoing internal difference of its own self-realizing manifestaƟons, which create ever newer and more complex associaƟons. Universals do not precede mulƟple parƟculars; instead it is a process of intensive differences or mulƟpliciƟes that consƟtute individuaƟons. Essences are replaced by generaƟve, rhizomaƟc and virtual processes in the sense of affecƟve forces and capaciƟes through which something new is actually produced. This 'something new' are events or singulariƟes, which naturally express difference instead of idenƟty or uniformity. It is an immanent and flat ontology, in which dynamic enƟƟes on different 'scales' reproduce, act and react in complex relaƟonships and assemblages, where no one 'level' has primacy over any other. On this account, body and mind are not ontologically separate, and humans and non-humans are entangled with each other in creaƟng new ways of being and knowing. It is a vitalist materialism and process ontology where realism is speculaƟve, materiality incorporeal, and where maƩer is 'alive'. It is also a relaƟonal ontology of intra -acƟons and intensive differences. Epistemology (transcendental empiricism): Deleuze's epistemology is an empiricism that does not rely on any foundaƟon outside experience. Instead, it is a method of empirical observaƟon of each immanent flow of experience or event. It is not an inducƟve method designed to (re)discover the eternal or the universal, but to find the condiƟons under which something new and unstable is produced. Therefore, humans do not mediate knowledge of the world through representaƟon, but instead aƩempt to grasp its fleeƟng and elusive non -representaƟonal nature through mobile and creaƟve conceptual and representaƟonal approximaƟons. Therefore, knowledge is always parƟal, embodied and embedded. Moreover, because humans are part of the universe and entangled within it, they are an intrinsic part of knowledge producƟon as a form of communicaƟon of the world among its parts, but in no case do they have an exclusive right of knowing, thus acknowledging non-human epistemologies and epistemological pluralism. Ethics (relaƟonal virtuosity): Deleuze's ethics is not moralisƟc. Morality presents a set of biding and stable rules that judge acƟons and intenƟons in the light of transcendent values. Instead, ethics is for Deleuze modes of behavior that sustain an immanent mode of exisƟng or way of life. This way, ethical worth can be judged without the need of universal values, by purely immanent criteria like whether modes of behavior increase the capaciƟes to affect and be affected; form assemblages or emergent uniƟes that respect the heterogeneity of their components; and develop and transform self-formaƟon to aƩain a certain mode of being. Responsibility takes a different meaning. It comes before a response, it is becoming-other before the other. It is an ethics of meeƟng other bodies in response-ability (Haraway, 2008) , of touching others without dominaƟon. It is therefore an ethics of relaƟonal virtuosity. Moreover, it is also an affirmaƟve ethics, namely an ethics of willing that which occurs inasmuch as it occurs, in a manner that involves neither resignaƟon nor resentment, but affirmaƟon. Methodology (methodological pluralism): In Deleuze's world the emergence of the new rests on sufficient, but not necessary, causes for the actualizaƟon of the virtual. Language, whether texts, sounds, or images, insufficiently represents the complex interacƟons among society, culture, geology, and ecology, as Deleuze's relaƟonal perspecƟve demonstrates. ConvenƟonal posiƟvisƟc and hermeneuƟc methodologies become restricƟve and cannot account for the insufficiency. Instead of methodologies sustained by exclusive tradiƟons of thought, or indulged in hegemonic and essenƟalist narraƟves, Deleuzian posthumanism embraces methodological pluralism, and engages with pluralisƟc epistemological accounts. Openness towards affecƟve, intuiƟve, and affirmaƟve methodologies are encouraged, e.g. emoƟonal reflexivity, hearƞelt posiƟvity, Bergson's method of intuiƟon, et c. Similarly, instead of dialecƟcal methodologies, openness towards generaƟve methodologies are promoted, like Deleuze's problemaƟzaƟon and concept creaƟon methodologies, from which a wealth of new research possibiliƟes emerge, e.g. the generaƟve approach to grounded theory introduced by MaƩeuci and Gnoth (2017) in the context of tourism research. Finally, openness to indigenous methodologies are also greatly enabled by this relaƟonal perspecƟve. 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