Tourism Paradoxes: Contradictions, Controversies, and Challenges

Paradoxes seem to be self-contradictory but often express a possible truth (Dann, 2017). While tourism practices tend to be relational, unstable and messy, both tourism and tourism studies embrace many forms of paradoxical complexities. Tourism is enacted by and within, and itself enacts, broad societal changes, and these changes frequently seemingly encompass new and inescapable paradoxes. Paradoxes are not to be avoided, however, but rather may be unfolded to better understand the contradictory and conflicting practices of tourism and its ongoing dynamics (Çakmak, Tucker, Hollinshead, 2021). Hence, the focus on paradoxes in tourism practices in this session is intended to explain why a seemingly nonsensical or absurd state of affairs exists and why a contradictory ‘thing’ arises or continues.

We invite conceptual papers that look at ways to think with and through paradoxes and empirical case studies of specific paradoxes inherent in touristic contexts. Welcoming contributions to understanding authority, culture, mobility, representations, and misrepresentations, papers might discuss the wider paradoxical roles of a variety of ‘authorities’ in cultural creations, tourism (mis)projections of heritage and traditions, as well as the paradoxical redefinition of identities as new beings and becomings. Taking its lead from the RC50s sub-themes, we invite contributions from a variety of disciplines and their related fields to create space for debating perspectives on paradoxes in the new entanglements of tourism. Topics might include but not limited to:

• Paradoxes in the authoritarian modernization
• Contradictions, beliefs, and post-truth
• Controversies of the post-pandemic “new normal” practices
• Challenges of counter-narratives in international tourism