Reorientation of Uncertainty in Tourism

Keywords

tourism,uncertainty,awe

Objectives

In recent years, much research has been done on the uncertainties and risks associated with tourism with the goal of mitigating them. However, these studies have not always been able to provide effective prescriptions to deal with increasing risks such as COVID-19 and tourism pollution. Perhaps the issue is that, in today’s “risk society,” the “problem-solution” framework for addressing ever-growing risks and uncertainties cannot fully address something like tourism.
From this understanding, the present research distances itself from the view that uncertainties and risks are problems that need to be eliminated. Tourism is both a practice that reflects contemporary social conditions and a phenomenon based on traditional worldviews such as ritual and symbolism. This research shines a fresh light on the latter aspect, which has been neglected in recent tourism studies. By bridging classic debates in anthropology and such contemporary theoretical developments in risk studies and phenomenological approaches, it carries out ethnographic research from a fresh perspective on a world that coexists with uncertainty and risk. From there, we intend to open up theoretical perspectives on tourism practice and tourism research “with uncertainty,” which does not see uncertainty as a problem, but rather as a resource that might be negotiated and accepted through magical/religious procedures.

Research Results

This research project was initially intended to be conducted from 2021 to 2023, but it was extended due to the impact of travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. We consider two of the findings yielded by our research activities to be of particular importance.
First is the reexamination of the cognitive framework for tourism. The research presentations offered the view of looking at tourism from the perspective of “non-labor movement” rather than simply as pleasure or industry. This perspective has a high affinity with the recent tourism studies concept of “mobility turn” and is connected to the rising interest in phenomena resulting from mobility in academia.
The second is an attempt at redefining the concept of “uncertainty.” In the discussions, it was noted that many participants tended to view uncertainty as a concept that is in contrast to calamity and disorder. But when the predecessor to this research project, “Anthropological Study on Risk, Uncertainty, and the Future,” began in 2008, the researchers discussed the latent richness and creativity found within uncertainty. This contrast suggests that the way “risk” and “uncertainty” has been viewed has changed in line with changes in the social and historical context. Shibamiya (2022) argues that “while anthropologists were searching for hope in uncertainty as an alternative to risk society, real-life systems had been moving towards seeing uncertainty (and the entanglement of nature and society) in a positive light, and we have already begun to live in that reality.”
Based on these outcomes, in 2024 we plan to try building a theoretical framework that can be connected to research members’ fields of interest and previous discussions. Lastly, we aim to publish the results of this in a collection of papers.