The Critical Call for Soft Science SAVVY Today: The Demand for 'transient Diversity' in Inquiry within International Tourism Studies / Related Fields

The presenters (of this second of the paired sessions on the need for a regular short course in emergent interpretive and qualitative practices) will argue that such an embedded INTERNATIONAL SHORT COURSE IN SOFT SCIENCE should thus inspect what the fresh turn-of-the-century ventilations in research design and paradigmatic thought possibly mean for Tourism Studies (and Companion Subjects).

They will make the case that such a short course should be oriented principally to the interests of advanced researchers (particularly to in-the-van doctoral students), and that it should trace the new permissibilities (but also the new strictures!!) of Critical Theory, Constructivism / Constructionism, Advanced Qualitative Research, and Advanced Interpretive Critique. They will argue that while the short course ought not be built around instruction in singular methods, per se --- for decent schooling in each individual method amongst the teeming profusion of available methods would conceivably take the whole of a given day!!

Participants on such a short course should expect to emerge from it with an enhanced understanding of:

• new scepticisms which are nowadays held about the mid-to-late 20th century monologics of 'orthodox social science research';
• new intellectual openness of many 21st century SOFT SCIENCE (human inquiry) research designs;
• fresh possibilities newly apparent in 'intimate' / 'emic' / 'locally engaged' styles of inquiry;
• character of recent shifts towards activist and politically-committed inquiry;
• late liberalisations for enhanced forms of 'relationship-research' and 'solidarity-research';
• strong questioning of axiomatic 'expert-driven' research processes, as 'dialogic' forms of inquiry are increasingly cultivated; and,
• the equally strong questioning that has been witnessed recently against conventional styles of 'a priori driven' and 'intensely criteriological' regimes in social science research.