Title UNDERSTANDING AND INTERPRETING TOURISM: A CONSTRUCTIONIST PROBE INTO THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF TOURISM STUDIES
Name Tomas Pernecky
This is a digitised version of a dissertation submitted to the University of Bedfordshire.
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UNDERSTANDING AND INTERPRETING TOURISM: A CONSTRUCTIONIST PROBE INTO THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF TOURISM STUDIES
TOMAS PERNECKY
Ph.D
2009
UNIVERSITY OF BEDFORDSHIRE
UNDERSTANDING AND INTERPRETING TOURISM: A CONSTRUCTIONIST PROBE INTO THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF TOURISM STUDIES
by
TOMAS PERNECKY
A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Bedfordshire
June 2009
UNDERSTANDING AND INTERPRETING TOURISM: A CONSTRUCTIONIST PROBE INTO THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF TOURISM STUDIES
Abstract
The landscape of Tourism Studies has been marked recently by scholars calling for new approaches to tourism and greater levels of transparency, placing the emphasis on the cultural politics of research making, criticality, situated research, and broader levels of theorisation. This composite agenda of issues has been voiced and marked under the umbrella terms The Critical Turn, and “new” tourism research. In the contemporary context of emerging innovative work and an expanding range of research, this thesis asserts that tourism and travel play an important role in today’s world and contribute greatly to the formation of various social phenomena. Tourism Studies as a field is beginning to expand beyond the applied business approach, and critical enquiry is becoming more prominent with increasing numbers of researchers voicing their discontent over deprived tourism theorising. The three broad issues providing impetus for this work are the lack of philosophical research and researchers’ understanding of emic and etic involvement in the process, the poverty of tourism theory, and the lack of critical approaches in the field. In this critical framework of reference, this research study is mainly concerned with examining the process of knowledge production in Tourism Studies.
I employ a constructionist approach to research and present tourism as a social phenomenon that cannot hold meaning independently of cultural interpretations. I highlight that the widespread use of etic, situated, and perspectival voices of researchers leads only to one type of knowledge that tends to disregard other ways of knowing and understanding. I point to the plurality of places and objects and propose that one’s understanding of tourism is the result of our situated being in the world, a philosophical notion proffered by Martin Heidegger. I thus present tourism as a phenomenon that can “tell us” about our being in the world – an act which summons a theoretical shift as to what tourism “is”, what it “does” and what it “can do”.
i With regard to the use of empirical data, I employ hermeneutic phenomenology as the research methodology and focus on the New Age phenomenon to demonstrate the construction of meaning and production of knowledge. Additionally, New Age is relevant in the context of the shifting social, political and cultural climate. I examine some of the emerging works in the field and conclude that travellers (in this thesis, New Agers) not only make, re-make, and constitute places; they also become entangled in tourist performances and use their bodies to learn, to experience and to grow spiritually. I conclude that post-disciplinarity, criticality, and reflexivity are valuable in the constructionist line of enquiry, and I present tourism as a creative endeavour into the understanding of the lived world. The key findings show that there is room for more constructionist and subjectivist epistemologies and further explorations into tacit knowledge, and also the need for researchers to pay more attention to the philosophical assumptions guiding their work.
Key words: Being-in-the-world, Constructionism, Constructivism, Criticality, Culture, Epistemology, Heidegger M., Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Post-disciplinary, New Age, Ontology, Reflexivity, Tourism Studies Theory, Worldmaking.
ii Table of Contents
Abstract...... i Table of Contents ...... iii List of Figures ...... vi List of Tables ...... vii Acknowledgements...... viii
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION: TOURISM STUDIES AND ITS RECENT DEVELOPMENT ...... 1 1.1 Positioning Subject Matter in Tourism Studies ...... 3 1.2 The Shift Towards More Critical Approaches in Tourism Studies ...... 7 1.3 Prevailing Paradigms, Ontologies, Epistemologies and Methodologies (P.O.E.M.s) ...... 11 1.3.1 Paradigm ...... 12 1.3.2 Ontology ...... 12 1.3.3 Epistemology ...... 13 1.3.4 Methodology ...... 13 1.3.5 Positivism ...... 14 1.3.6 Post-positivism ...... 15 1.3.7 Critical Theory ...... 15 1.3.8 Constructivism ...... 16 1.4 The Problem with P.O.E.M.s and Tourism Studies ...... 18 1.5 The Study Problem ...... 22 1.6 The Importance of Hermeneutic Phenomenology ...... 24 1.7 The Importance of the New Age Phenomenon ...... 26 1.8 The Use of Constructionism in this Research Study ...... 31 1.9 Constructionism versus Bricoleurship ...... 36 1.10 Research Assumptions, Limitations and Delimitations ...... 39 1.11 The Organisation of this Thesis ...... 42
CHAPTER TWO
METHODOLOGY AND METHODS (PART ONE): FORMING A CONSTRUCTIONIST STRATEGY ...... 46 2.1 Methodological Considerations: Pros and Cons of Constructionism ...... 46 2.2 Methodological Considerations: Ontology and Epistemology ...... 49 2.3 Methodological Considerations: Qualitative Approaches ...... 52 2.4 Methodological Considerations: Validity, Rigour and Reliability ...... 53 2.5 Methodological Considerations: Criticality ...... 55 2.6 Methodological Considerations: Reflexivity ...... 59 2.7. Chapter Summary ...... 63
iii CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY AND METHODS (PART TWO): PHENOMENOLOGY ...... 65 3.1 Paradigms and Phenomenology ...... 66 3.2 Phenomenology in Tourism Studies ...... 66 3.3 Phenomenology Defined ...... 70 3.3.1 Husserlian and Heideggerian Phenomenology ...... 72 3.3.2 Hermeneutics and Phenomenology: Major Misconceptions ...... 77 3.3.3 Hermeneutic Phenomenology Defined ...... 80 3.4 The Use of Hermeneutic Phenomenology in this Thesis ...... 84 3.4.1 Exploring the New Age Phenomenon through Hermeneutic Phenomenology 86 3.4.2 Methods Employed to Study New Agers...... 87 3.4.3 The Voice of “I” and My Narratives ...... 96 3.5 Chapter Summary ...... 104
CHAPTER FOUR
LITERATURE REVIEW (PART ONE): THE SHIFT IN TOURISM STUDIES ...... 106 4.1 Recent Debates and New Directions in Tourism Research ...... 106 4.2 Tourism Research and Methodologies: Where Are We At? ...... 115 4.3 Contemporary Research in Tourism ...... 121 4.4 A Constructionist Making of Tourism Research: Key Navigation Points ...... 127 4.5 Chapter Summary ...... 129
CHAPTER FIVE
LITERATURE REVIEW (PART TWO): THE NEW AGE PHENOMENON ...... 131 5.1 New Age ...... 132 5.2 Current Tourism-related Concepts ...... 141 5.2.1 Religious Tourism & Pilgrimages ...... 141 5.2.2 The Sacred ...... 147 5.2.3 New Age Tourism ...... 149 5.3 New Age and the Epistemology of Tourism: A Post-disciplinary Approach ...... 157 5.4 Chapter Summary ...... 170
CHAPTER SIX
EMPIRICAL DATA: DEMOGRAPHICS, INTERVIEWS AND REFLEXIVE ACCOUNTS ...... 172 6.1 Co-researchers’ Profiles ...... 173 6.2 Interviews and Reflexive Accounts ...... 177 6.2.1 Jane: Interview ...... 178 6.2.2 Jane: Reflective Account ...... 187 6.2.3 Anne: Interview ...... 191
iv 6.2.4 Anne: Reflective Account ...... 204 6.2.5 Vicki: Interview ...... 208 6.2.6 Vicki: Reflective Account ...... 216 6.2.7 Julie: Interview...... 222 6.2.8 Julie: Reflective Account ...... 239 6.2.9 Catherine: Interview ...... 244 6.2.10 Catherine: Reflective Account ...... 251 6.3 Chapter Summary ...... 258
CHAPTER SEVEN
DATA ANALYSIS: MAKING SENSE OF THE NEW AGE PHENOMENON ...... 259 7.1 Being a New Ager: Making Sense of the Empirical Data ...... 260 7.1.1 Matters Ontological ...... 260 7.1.2 Connectedness with the World ...... 262 7.1.3 The New Age Component of the Co-researchers’ Daily Lives ...... 263 7.1.4 Is There More to Travel for the New Age Adherents? ...... 264 7.1.5 The Different Worlds ...... 265 7.2 Re-conceptualising New Agers in the Context of Tourism Studies ...... 267 7.2.1 A New Age Paradigm: Plurality of Spaces and Objects ...... 267 7.2.2 The Role of Performance ...... 273 7.2.3 The New Age Phenomenon and the Importance of Self ...... 276 7.2.4 Embodied Tourism...... 280 7.2.5 The Out- of-Body Travel ...... 282 7.2.6 From “Being in the World” to “Becoming” ...... 284 7.3 Reflecting on Matters Methodological ...... 286 7.3.1 Constructionism Revisited ...... 287 7.3.2 Phenomenology Revisited ...... 293 7.3.3 Post-disciplinary Modes of Knowledge Production ...... 297 7.4 Chapter Summary ...... 299
CHAPTER EIGHT
SUMMARY AND REFLECTIONS ...... 301 8.1 Reaching an Understanding - Chapters Re-visited ...... 302 8.2 Concluding Reflections on the New Age Phenomenon ...... 306 8.3 Concluding Reflections on Reflexivity and Criticality ...... 310 8.4 Concluding Reflections on Constructionism ...... 312 8.5 Outlining the Future Research Agenda ...... 317 8.6 The Horizons of an Epistemological Crisis in Tourism Studies ...... 322
REFERENCES ...... 325 APPENDIX A: A QUESTIONNAIRE DISTRIBUTED TO CO-RESEARCHERS ... 354
v List of Figures
FIGURE 2.1: THE METHODOLOGICAL PROCESS IN THIS RESEARCH STUDY ...... 51
FIGURE 4.1: JOHN TRIBE’S VIEW ON CREATION OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE FIELD OF TOURISM STUDIES ...... 112
FIGURE 5.1: THE PROGRESSION OF THE NEW AGE PHENOMENON ...... 169
FIGURE 7.1: THE RESEARCHER’S VIEW ON THE CONSTRUCTED MEANING OF PLACES ...... 271
FIGURE 7.2: REFLECTING ON THE PROCESS OF DATA CREATION ...... 292
FIGURE 8.1: A VISUAL PORTRAYAL OF CONSTRUCTIONISM – THE PUTTING TOGETHER OF PIECES ...... 324
vi List of Tables
TABLE 1.1: PARADIGM DIFFERENCES IN REGARD TO ONTOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY AND METHODOLOGY ...... 17
TABLE 1.2: SOME EXAMPLES OF CONCEPTUALISATIONS ABOUT CONSTRUCTIVISM/CONSTRUCTIONISM ...... 20
TABLE 1.3: TEN DEFINITIONS OF CULTURE TAKEN FROM KROEBER AND KLUCKHOHN’S CRITICAL REVIEW ...... 33
TABLE 1.4: RESEARCHER’S CONSTRUCTIONIST VIEW OF TOURISM ...... 35
TABLE 2.1: SIX VICINITIES IN A CONSTRUCITIONIST ENQUIRY ...... 58
TABLE 3.1: KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HUSSERLIAN AND HEIDEGGERIAN PHENOMENOLOGIES ...... 75
TABLE 3.2: THREE MAIN MISCONCEPTIONS IN PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH ...... 78
TABLE 3.3: MY KNOWLEDGE FORMATION IN/OF TOURISM STUDIES ...... 99
TABLE 3.4: COMMUNICATION WITH ANN LAVERTY ...... 101
TABLE 4.1: THE TEN MOST IMPORTANT WORLD TOURISM ISSUES FOR 2009 PRESENTED BY DAVID L. EDGELL ...... 110
TABLE 5.1: COMPARISON OF THE GENERALISED EASTERN AND WESTERN PERSPECTIVES IN REGARD TO NEW AGE ...... 158
TABLE 5.2: SUMMARY OF THE MOBILITIES PARADIGM AND THE ROLE OF PLACES ...... 165
TABLE 6.1: DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILES OF CO-RESEARCHERS PARTICIPATING IN THIS RESEARCH STUDY ...... 174
TABLE 6.2: NEW AGE PROFILES OF SELECTED CO-RESEARCHERS ...... 175
TABLE 8.1: FUTURE RESEARCH QUESTIONS CONNECTED TO OTOs AND LOCAL MARKETING AUTHORITIES ...... 321
vii Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the people who, in different ways, have been part of this research journey. My mother Dagmar and my father Frantisek will never understand the content of this thesis, but for them the triumph is about what turned out to be a surprising life realization of their son. I think nobody saw this coming in my early days! I thank you both for your endless love and support. My supervisor and mentor Professor Keith Hollinshead, on the other hand, paid remarkable attention to the smallest details, thoughts, and claims in this work and it would not be what it is without his guidance. There are not many supervisors who possess the right combination of wisdom, knowledge, care, and wit to make the doctoral journey an enjoyable one. Thank you, Keith. Don’t lose it! My gratitude goes also to my early supervisor, Professor Irena Ateljevic who was the catalyst that led me to pursuing a PhD. Irena, sreco moja, you are a dynamic and inspirational force and I am grateful that our paths crossed. My admiration goes to my partner Andrew for his patience and support and for creating the needed steady environment throughout the inevitable highs and lows. Thank you, Andrew. I would also like to express my thanks to all co-researchers who took part in this research study and shared their lives with me. The Green Man pub in Bedfordshire deserves at least a mention for it provided space to think and talk on several occasions.
viii Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION: TOURISM STUDIES AND ITS RECENT DEVELOPMENT
Man is a rational animal – so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favour of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
======
Tourism is a complex phenomenon based on interrelations and interactions, but the tendency in tourism research has been to focus on the tangible, and arguably the objective and readily measurable interrelationships and interdependencies between people and places, frequently from an economics marketing and/or management perspective (Goodson & Phillimore, 2004, p.40).
This quotation exposes the atmosphere in tourism academia by scholars who have been increasingly voicing their discontent. It also tells a story on its own: about the human endeavour to make sense of the world we live in, and in this case, about the dominant business approaches to producing knowledge in the field of Tourism Studies. Contributors to tourism study call ever more stridently for greater levels of transparency, they are becoming more open about their personal biography and experiences, and there is a strong emphasis on the cultural politics of research-making and legitimisation of interpretive, qualitative, reflexive modes of inquiry (Ateljevic, Harris, Wilson, & Collins, 2005; Hollinshead, 2007a; Phillimore & Goodson, 2004a, 2004b; Tribe, 2005). Tourism
1 research is now following the lead of the social sciences and moving into what Tribe (2004) calls “new” tourism research or what Ateljevic et al. (2005) describe as the “Critical Turn” in Tourism Studies. It means that the boundaries of tourism research are expanding and researchers are starting to move beyond the applied business approach to embrace critical and reflexive enquiry. The adherents of the “Critical Turn” also claim that it stands for an ontological, epistemological and methodological shift, for researchers are building a “new commune that provides a space for shared understanding of more interpretative and critical modes of research enquiry” (Ateljevic et al., 2005, p.25). Consequently, scholars are beginning to challenge the ontological foundations of tourism as well as addressing the need for greater plurality of epistemological approaches and methods (Coles, Hall, & Duval, 2005). Seeing tourism research as a quest for a commodifed tourism product, Wearing, McDonald and Ponting (2005) also call for alternative or decommodified research paradigms.
Hollinshead (2006) opens much of this debate in his paper The Shift to Constructivism in social Inquiry: Some Pointers for Tourism Studies where he identifies ten shifts in interpretative understanding in Tourism Studies. These are for instance perspectivity (or intersubjective understandings, as opposed to objectivity), relativism (as opposed to realism), justification through science (as opposed to verification), situated research (as opposed to objectivity and rigour), value stated research (as opposed to value-neutral), and tacit understanding (inductive and implicit approach to understanding). Hollinshead therefore challenges the traditional Western worldview (positivist/natural science) and introduces the tourism reader to what he calls the “turn towards constructivist/interpretivist thought and practice” (2006, p.43).
Also the recently published book “The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies: Innovative Research Methodologies” and three conferences in Zadar (2009), Split (2007) and Dubrovnik (2005) confirm that what is happening in the field is not just a contemporary “fad” but rather a trend that is acknowledged by over 130 international scholars. Nevertheless, in every social science, with the arrival of the “new” an inevitable question arises as to what extent the “new” is new and what is new about it. Therefore it is
2 apposite to ask how novel this “new” tourism research is and what precisely is the essence of the Critical Turn.
1.1 Positioning Subject Matter in Tourism Studies
In terms of assessing knowledge production in tourism, it is valuable to look briefly at its history of development. According to Graburn and Jafari (1991) it was not until the 1930s that scholars other than historians started to make contributions to tourism, catching the attention of geographers and later, economists and planners. In the 1960s the importance of tourism grew and other disciplines became interested in certain subject matters of tourism: from anthropology to sociology, to ecology, to leisure and recreation studies and political science. In the 1980s tourism slowly begun to gain a rather greater usability as a research topic, and was marked by the establishment of now well known research journals (Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Travel Research, Tourism Management etc.) (Graburn & Jafari, 1991). Therefore since the 1970 and 1980s, so- called “first generation scholars”, have been contributing to, and hence establishing, tourism as a legitimate field (Pritchard & Morgan, 2007).
It is important to note, however, that the review of the tourism field in 1991 by Graburn and Jafari (in the special issue of Annals of Tourism Research) was performed at a point in time when it was still possible to carry out an in-depth assessment of the field in terms of scope and size (there were only 6 journals in the 1980s). Yet in the past sixteen years tourism academia has grown into a very prolific space. Consequently, there has been a tremendous growth in students as well as professors of tourism management (40) and there are now over seventy tourism journals out of which forty are recognised internationally (Pritchard & Morgan, 2007).
Based on these facts, one would presume that after forty years of tourism scholarship the field would have achieved a certain degree of maturity and a plethora of issues would have been explored, theorised, and conceptualised. But some would argue that the
3 opposite appears to be the case. For instance only a little is still known about tourism identities, relationships, mobilities and consumptions, the body, gender and post- structural theories of language and subjectivity (Pritchard & Morgan, 2007). In Pritchard and Morgan’s view, the research has rarely been breaking new conceptual, ethical or epistemological ground and has remained rather confirmatory and reproductive. Tourism sites and experiences are used merely as the context for studies, often driven by positivist industry authority. In their opinion, “positivist discourses and a commitment to empiricism, quantification, neutrality, objectivity, distance, validity, and reliability continue to be the appropriate markers of the authoritative voice in much tourism research” (Pritchard & Morgan, 2007, p.18). Similarly, Jamal and Everett (2007, p.58) confirm that the business or functionalist/applied approach has dominated Tourism Studies and the “economics-externalities camp” (the industry-oriented aspect) somewhat overshadowed the “impacts-internalities camp” (the social and cultural aspect).
With respect to tourism theory, one of the main quandaries still remains that our understanding of tourism has become “fetishized as a thing, a product, a behaviour – but in particular an economic thing” (Franklin & Crang, 2001, p.6). Crouch (2004) underscores that tourism locations are poorly considered only in terms of the word product. He further insists that scholars must move beyond the positivist polarization between tourism business, policy, investors, and hosts on one side as producers and tourists on the other as consumers. Other researchers also propose that in order to conceptualize tourism adequately, academics need to go beyond the economic and appreciate the relationships of tourism, leisure, and recreation with other social practice (Hall, Williams, & Lew, 2004).
This, of course, is not to say that traditional (positivist and recently post-positivist) modes of enquiry and a focus on travellers’ taxonomies do not have their place in Tourism Studies, but there is also great potential in further exploring new avenues of thinking about tourism. Structural inequalities are still predominant in the field (Aitchison, 2007). Nevertheless, tourism researchers are increasingly borrowing from other disciplines and are starting to engage with broader concepts, such as social and cultural theory (Franklin,
4 2004, 2007). In doing so, they move (although not necessarily intentionally) the epistemological boundaries by shifting their focus away from seeing tourism in isolation. According to Franklin (2007, p.132), for instance, there is now also “a relational materialist turn that has pursued previous observations that tourist things matter and that structuralist accounts are limiting”.
This discourse suggests that there is an imbalanced understanding and set ways of seeking knowledge in tourism, but even more importantly, there is a lack of critical approaches in this field. It also resonates with Meethan’s (2002) argument that much of the work in Tourism Studies has been platformed uncritically and the broader effects of tourism in and across societies fail to be evaluated. Ateljevic (2007) in her overview of the field further shows how tourism has been divided between business (tourism management) and social science (Tourism Studies) approaches: with the first often described as objectivist and positivist (also voiced by Franklin & Crang, 2001; Hollinshead, 2003, 2004b; Riley & Love, 2000; Tribe, 2005) and the latter as fragmented and dispersed across an array of disciplines (also argued by Graburn & Jafari, 1991; Phillimore & Goodson, 2004c). She further explains that in the beginnings of tourism social science (in the 1970s), tourism was an interesting social and cultural phenomenon with early “critical” conceptualizations such as: motivations and experiences, impact studies, and media representations. However, the nature of such research was largely modernist (colonial) and the structuralist readings often denied the power of agency: representing tourism from a standpoint of colonial readings of race and ethnicity (Ateljevic, 2007).
Overall, the sociological explanations of tourism have mainly delved into separable life world at a distance from a non-tourist life world (Franklin, 2007). Hannam, Sheller and Urry (2006, p.4) conclude that for the social sciences, travel has been a “black box – a neutral set of technologies and processes predominantly permitting forms of economic, social and political life that are seen as explicable in terms of other, more causally powerful processes”. Looking at anthropology for instance, similarly to other social sciences, it has had its own point of view - treating tourism as one of many cultural
5 phenomena (Nash & Smith, 1991). Nash and Smith further confirm that, through an anthropological lens, tourists are largely seen as sightseers or leisured travellers, taking part in the touristic process, and making an impact on host societies.
When it comes to geography, Franklin (2007, p.133) states that there has been something “quintessentially geographical about tourism” thus predisposing tourism as a spatial phenomenon. In Mitchell and Murphy’s (1991, p.59) review of geography and tourism, we learn that “the environment is the totality of tourism activity, incorporating natural elements and society’s modifications of the landscape and resources". Subsequently, under this disciplinary wing, attention has been drawn mostly to the structure of seaside resorts, tourism-environmental models and resource allocation, the urban-tourism realm, and to social and destination developments.
The study of tourism has therefore been the result of disciplinary orientations: whether it was sociology’s leanings towards producerist society (work, employment, social reproduction of labour power etc.), the anthropological focus on the touristic impacts, or the geographical focus on tourism as a spatial phenomenon (Franklin, 2007). And with respect to the subject field of critical social science in tourism, it has been described as lacking theoretical sophistication (Apostolopolous, Leivadi, & Yiannakis, 1996). Correspondingly, Wearing et al. (2005, p.425) assert that “the full breadth of social science research paradigms needs to be utilized in tourism research”. Perhaps something also Tribe (1997) called for a decade ago: appealing for more interdisciplinary approaches to tourism.
Therefore, in making sense of what is currently happening in Tourism Studies, the “new” tourism research and the “Critical Turn” are not necessarily to be understood as something that is entirely novel, but rather as an evolution of the field. Tourism academia has reached a momentum where old ways of knowledge production and research focus may not be satisfactory for further advancement of the field - a message that is voiced increasingly by scholars endorsing “new” tourism research. There is now a growing body of researchers that call for innovative approaches to tourism (Gale & Botterill, 2005). In
6 this regard, Franklin (2004, p.278) asserts that “tourism is not just what tourists do at tourist sites, it is also how they came to be created as tourists; as a self-ordering as well as an ordered travelling culture”. From this standpoint, tourism can be linked to a variety of globalizing effects such as place making, cosmopolitanism, and consumerism. Tourism and tourists are thus ordered, and tourism has become an important ordering of modernity as well as global society: resulting in an array of ordering effects. Some writers have emphasised the need to further engage with broader theoretical questions about tourism and travel, and new directions have recently been delved into: actor-network theory (Johannesson, 2005; Van Der Druim, 2007), mobilities (Hall et al., 2004), worldmaking and worldshaping (Hollinshead, 2004c), and shaping of destinations and remaking places (Crang, 2004).
1.2 The Shift Towards More Critical Approaches in Tourism Studies
What this discussion amounts to thus far is that tourism scholars are becoming more critical, and it raises fundamental questions about what tourism is, what it does and what other things it may be connected to/with. These debates highlight the necessity and grant the opportunity to examine epistemological matters in the field of Tourism Studies. Contributing to the shift away from a disproportionate focus on tourist sites, and what Franklin (2007) calls touristcentricity, this thesis follows Lincoln and Guba’s (2004, p.284) call for the creation of new texts that break boundaries:
…texts that move from the centre to the margins to comment upon and decentre the centre; that forgo closed, bounded worlds for those more open-ended and less conveniently encompassed; that transgress the boundaries of conventional social science; and that seek to create a social science about human life rather than on subjects.
The development of Tourism Studies has reached an important moment where more researchers are calling for critical approaches (whether individually, or united under the terms “Critical Turn” and “new” tourism research). Nevertheless, its contributors must carefully examine what they understand tourism to be, and more importantly, reflect on
7 the modes of seeking knowledge in their everyday life as academics contributing to this field. More importantly, we (by “WE” I mean a community of scholars who feel they are part of this “new” and Critical Tourism Studies research) also need to be critical of our own work for it does not suffice to be critical of the state of Tourism Studies and neglect our own. In this regard, Hollinshead (2006) warns about the inherent dangers of deploying a constructivist approach to tourism inquiry in a non-critical manner and emphasizes the importance of critical, contextual and inter-subjective matters. There is therefore not only the need for more breadth and depth in the field but also criticality.
Phillmore and Goodson state in their opening chapter to Qualitative Research in Tourism: Ontologies, Epistemologies and Methodologies that the term qualitative research is “something of an enigma” (2004b, p.3). This enigma may have become a well discussed enigma, but remains an enigma to many, and so do some of the other concepts in Tourism Studies. There continues to be a sense of vagueness about terminology, theoretical perspectives and frameworks, and also a lack of clarity. Examples can be traced to the recent book The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies (Ateljevic, Pritchard, & Morgan, 2007a) which is presented by the editors as a platform for interpretative and critical modes of tourism inquiry. The reader comes in contact with many fashionable terms such as “ontology”, “epistemology” and the word “qualitative”. The authors explain their intentions as follows: “our understanding of critical tourism scholarship is that it is more than simply a way of knowing, an ontology, it is a way of being, a commitment to tourism enquiry” (2007a, p.3). However, ways of knowing, how we know - how we seek knowledge is typically referred to as epistemology. Epistemology is concerned with how we know what we do, and our justifications behind believing what we do (Audi, 2003). Ontology, on the other hand, is the study of being: mainly concerned with the nature of existence and structure of reality (Crotty, 1998). Although The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies book marks a significant event in the critical study of tourism, there remains a need for clarity, transparency of used concepts, and a better understanding of philosophical and methodological issues.
8 In assessing some of the chapters in the above book, certain authors such as McCabe (2007) do not appear to be contributing to a particularly “critical” or “new” tourism research nor do they engage in an “interpretative” mode of inquiry (these are the aims of the editors). McCabe (2007, p.236) in his discussion on ethnomethodology lobbies for its use to “observe what is going on in a situated activity without presuppositions by bracketing what we already know” and calls for a focus on “the practical, mundane, observable and describable activities to build conceptualisations that are firmly driven by and located within analysis of empirical data”. In other words McCabe is what Guba and Lincoln (2004) call a positivist (cum post-positivist) and his work is not that far from the aims of Edmund Husserl (whose philosophy I discuss in Chapter Three). Yet in the same book (The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies) Tribe (2007) explains that critical theory is very different from positivism as he links the “critical” in Tourism Studies to the Frankfurt School (Hobrkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse and Habermas). These discordant messages suggest that researchers contributing to critical Tourism Studies are not exempt from better informed and more critical approaches to study tourism.
Most importantly, this also points to the necessity to further delve into the philosophical domains that underscore all work in Tourism Studies: ontology and epistemology. Many scholars, including those who perceive themselves as contributing to the “critical turn” and “new” tourism research, often neglect to probe more deeply into their ontological and epistemological views. Many scholars do not address the fundamental issues of how they arrive at their views, and how that may impact their work and hence the contribution to Tourism Studies. Despite the plethora of qualitative research in the field, most scholars follow other leading commentators in cultural and social sciences such as Guba and Lincoln (1989), and Denzin and Lincoln (2000b; 2003), but uncritically. Consequently, many researchers position themselves largely to differentiate their work from the traditional, positivist approaches to research. In this regard Hammersley (1995) comments on the fact that most references to positivism are dismissive and disparaging and promote other positions. He also warns, however, that “those who dismiss the work of their predecessors are likely to repeat previous errors” (1995, p.19). This research study is therefore not a case of constructionist epistemology being “better” or “best”, it is
9 a case of what resonates with researchers’ views and consequently what other ways can we know about tourism.
The somnolent discourses prevalent in the field on generalisations and the use of quantitative versus qualitative method hold some importance; however they are the result of how the ontological, epistemological and methodological questions are answered. It is precisely this predicament that is neither considered as worthy of attention, nor understood by many tourism researchers. The field of Tourism Studies has been marked and perhaps dominated by positivism (post-positivism) and business approaches to study tourism, nonetheless, in the endeavour to broaden the understanding of what we call tourism, there is a somewhat urgent need to engage in debates on the production of knowledge.
Although, there is a small number of researchers in Tourism Studies pondering important matters such as truth, reality, and matters of interpretation, however much of the work is still in need of expansion and substance. In this regard it is somewhat disappointing to see that even in the latest (and also first of its kind) book Philosophical Issues in Tourism (Tribe, 2009), the discourse on the key philosophical issues does not reach the depth carried in the promise of the title. For instance McCabe (2009) in searching for conceptual and theoretical developments on Who is a Tourist offers simply a post- positivist view of a tourist and focuses solely on the needs of the industry and governments. Although he calls for a philosophical discourse: “debate must be addressed at the philosophical level in order to inform and contribute towards clearer understanding of who is a tourist” (p.29), it appears that all McCabe wants to know is how to categorise what people do because it is “important for the industry and government” (p.29). He thus provides yet another definition of a tourist, but without offering broader philosophical or critical discourse. Similarly, Ayikoru (2009) who delves into epistemology and ontology of tourism gives a basic overview of positivist and constructivist research. Ayikoru, as many other scholars in the field, draws in a very accepting manner on figures such as Denzin, Lincoln, Guba, and Shwandt to describe something that has been thoroughly voiced in other literature (e.g. key differences between positivism and constructivism).
10 Ayikoru paints only one picture of constructivism (not distinguished from constructionism or social constructionism) and other paradigms, as if they were precise and agreed terms. Unfortunately, her work reads as uncritical and falls short of engaging the reader in ontological and epistemological debates in a book where it is precisely these issues that require a much more meticulous treatment. Despite there being other thought provoking chapters in Tribe’s Philosophical Issues in Tourism, it is the “philosophical” and “critical” that is not treated consistently and thoroughly. Therefore in returning to the notion of the Critical Turn and “new” tourism research, the field of Tourism Studies is perhaps turn-ing simultaneously in many directions, and the produced knowledge remains grounded in varied paradigms, ontologies, and epistemologies. Most researchers are in an automatic mode and execute research mechanically without necessarily understanding and/or pondering bigger philosophical issues that underpin their work.
1.3 Prevailing Paradigms, Ontologies, Epistemologies and Methodologies (P.O.E.M.s)
The crucial question in the late 19th century – a very influential time of positivism – was whether social scientists should make use of the methodology of the physical sciences in order to explore humankind (Smith, 1983). This proposal was supported by theorists such as Comte, Mill, and Durkheim who could be labelled as positivists, and rejected by others such as Dilthey and Webber, known as idealists. The idealist movement was interested in understanding (verstehen) and exploring, rather than predicting and searching for series of overarching causal laws.
The discussion of any paradigm involves three major foci (Guba & Lincoln, 2004) that need to be addressed when it comes to research. These are the questions of one’s ontology, epistemology and methodology. Looking back on the history of scientific knowledge, the different methods of enquiry, as well as the perception of what counts as legitimate research, have in recent years been challenged. The motive rests on the fact that for the past several hundred years the conventional paradigm, also known as the
11 positivist or scientific paradigm, has prevailed (Guba & Lincoln, 1989). The paradigms currently competing to be accepted as paradigms in terms of guiding theory (qualitative enquiry especially) are: positivism, post-positivism, critical theory, and constructivism (Guba & Lincoln, 2004).
1.3.1 Paradigm
The question of one’s paradigm is particularly crucial when it comes to the construction of realities, as they can be appropriately judged only by criteria appropriate to the paradigm which the constructor follows and which he uses as a foundation of his research (Guba & Lincoln, 1989, p.143). Therefore the paradigm researchers associate with is essential as it restrains (but also advances) one’s ontological and epistemological position and chosen methodology (Guba & Lincoln, 2004). For example, assuming ontologically that there is one “reality” to be explained, restricts how we epistemologically and methodologically approach the research. Guba and Lincoln (2004, p.21) define paradigm as follows:
A paradigm is a set of beliefs (or metaphysics) that deals with ultimates or first principles. It represents a worldview that defines, for its holder, the nature of the world, the individual’s place in it, and the range of possible relationships to that world and its parts, as, for example, cosmologies and theologies do.
1.3.2 Ontology
Ontology is a branch of philosophy (metaphysics) concerned with issues of existence or being (Guba & Lincoln, 1989), representing one’s set of ideas or a framework of research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000a). Ontology and epistemology are the most essential concepts in the philosophy of science (Blaikie, 1993). The ontological question goes as follows: What is the form and nature of reality and, therefore what is there that can be known about it? (Guba & Lincoln, 2004, p.22). For instance assuming there is a “real” world shapes what can be known about it; how things “really” are, or “really” work. Therefore ontological questions only relate to matters of “real” existence and “real” action. Other
12 questions such as those concerning moral significance don’t fall within the realm of legitimate scientific inquiry.
1.3.3 Epistemology
Epistemology is the theory of the nature of knowledge that underlines all other choices in the research (Crotty, 1998). The epistemological question: What is the nature of the relationship between the knower or would-be knower and what can be known is partially answered in how we respond to the ontological question, as not just any relationship can now be suggested (Guba & Lincoln, 2004, p.22). There are scholars who don’t see the need to be concerned about the quantitative-qualitative debate and believe that “epistemological purity does not get research done” (Sale, Lohfeld, & Brazil, 2002, p.46). However, epistemology has seen its most fruitful phase within the last twenty-five years and according to Pritchard (2004b), epistemology is currently enjoying a renaissance. She suggests that this renewal in epistemological theorising is thriving due to the advent of new theories (such as contextualist theories), but more importantly by application of the latest novel proposals to other areas of philosophy (i.e. the relationship between content externalism and self-knowledge). The epistemological question: What counts as knowledge? should in particular be addressed by practicing researchers as they have more than anyone else to say about this issue (Smith, 1983).
1.3.4 Methodology
The answer to the methodological question: How can the inquirer (would-be knower) go about finding out whatever he or she believes can be known is constrained by the answers given to the two previous questions (epistemology and ontology) as not just any methodology is suitable (Guba & Lincoln, 2004, p.22). For instance, possible confounding factors can be mandated whether using quantitative or qualitative methods, by an “objective” inquirer who works from the ontological position of exploring the “real” and “true” reality. Moreover, it would be a mistake to reduce methodology to methods alone. With respect to methodology, there remains confusion between methodology and methods among academics. The concepts of methodology and methods
13 are often used interchangeably and one is employed when the other is more appropriate (Blaikie, 1993). The way one “approaches” research corresponds to one’s methodology, not a method. It is important to stress that by methods of research in this thesis I refer to techniques or procedures that enable one to gather and analyse data. Methodology, in contrast, represents the approach to how research should proceed; it is a strategy or a plan of actions.
1.3.5 Positivism
When it comes to positivism, there are numerous definitions in the literature; however there is a general consensus as to what it represents. The core of positivism lies in a realist ontology: a belief that there exists a reality “out there” driven by multiple natural laws and mechanisms (Guba, 1990, p.19). Researchers and scientists who adopt this approach aim to discover the “true” nature of reality and its principle (how it works). Within the positivistic approach to research, all phenomena happen as a result of certain laws which adhere to certain assumptions such as the nature of reality. Kraus and Allen (1996) define the assumption of the nature of reality that the world is real, and supernatural aspects such as metaphysics or magic cannot be accepted as reason for events or conditions. They suggest that the scientific method is a three-step process that uses both induction and deduction, with the end process of verification usually to test hypotheses. Guba and Lincoln (2004, p.18) look at conventional science as an effort to verify (positivism) or falsify (post-positivism) a priori hypotheses which are typically stated as mathematical propositions, or propositions easily translated into mathematical formulae expressing “functional relationship”.
As far as “knowing” is concerned, within positivism, this term “refers to the cognitive process and to intellectual or mental awareness of a fact or condition” (Kraus & Allen, 1996, p.14). Although there are many different sources of knowing such as tradition, authority, personal experience and documentation, Kraus and Allen (1996) propose that the scientific method is the most reliable source of knowledge available today. They further define systematic enquiry as a “deliberate, purposeful, and organized effort to
14 gain knowledge” (p.14). It is, however, this way of knowing, that has reigned as “the tribunal of pure reason” and focused merely on the explanation of things (Bohman, Hiley, & Shusterman, 1991, p.2). Bohman et al. explain that this particular epistemology resulted in a positivist philosophy of science, meaning that all sciences including social and behavioural sciences were reduced to the ontology and methods of physics. Hence the social sciences have experienced the demarcation of interpretive disciplines.
1.3.6 Post-positivism
According to Denzin and Lincoln (2003), the appearance of post-positivism can be dated back to what they call the golden age (1950-1970) and blurred genres moments (1970- 1986). In Guba’s (1990, p.20) view, post-positivism can be best characterised as a “modified version” of positivism. He suggests that post-positivists still believe there is one reality to be explained, but they differ from positivists in their belief that the ultimate truth may never be uncovered. In terms of objectivity, post-positivists admit that it cannot be achieved in any absolute sense but trust that it can be reasonably closely attained by striving to be as neutral as possible and by relying on crucial tradition by subjecting inquiries to judgements of peers such as editors and referees of journals. While post- positivists remain in the vicinity of positivism, they “temper very significantly the status they ascribe to their findings, the claims they make about them” (Crotty, 1998, p.40). Post-positivist enquiry and its more modest claims about scientific knowledge can also be referred to as neo-positivism, a more contemporary version of positivism.
1.3.7 Critical Theory
Another important paradigm is critical theory. Denzin and Lincoln (2000b) portray critical theory as a paradigm that encompasses a historical-realist ontology, transactional epistemology and dialogical/dialectical methodology, and its adherents aim to produce practical, pragmatic, structural and cultural knowledge. However, there is no unified description or agreed definition of this paradigm for there are many critical theories, changing traditions and room for disagreement among critical theorists (Kincheloe &
15 McLaren, 2003). Kincheloe and McLaren offer their view of critical social theory as being:
…concerned in particular with issues of power and justice and the ways that the economy, matters of race, class and gender, ideologies, discourses, education, religion and other social institutions and cultural dynamics interact to construct a social system (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2003, p.281)
To contrast it with other paradigms, Tribe (2007) further adds that critical theory challenges the limitations of positivism through active engagement with questions of values and desirable ends. It can also be distinguished from interpretivism by its distrust of “the researched to give a true reading of the world” (p.30). When it comes to constructionism, Crotty (1998) perceives critical theorists to be “more suspicious” of the constructed meanings shaped by culture.
1.3.8 Constructivism
The constructivist paradigm is by some scholars (Guba & Lincoln, 1989) described as the naturalistic, hermeneutic or interpretive paradigm. It was founded within the intellectual traditions of hermeneutics (generally translated as to interpret) and phenomenology (Blaikie, 1993). In contrast to positivism, the naturalistic or interpretive perspective assumes that “knowledge is the outcome or consequence of human activity, rather than an entity that is out there to be discovered” (Kraus & Allen, 1996, p.22). Compared to positivism and largely used quantitative methods, constructivism is frequently associated with the use of qualitative methods. To further compare the variations of the above paradigms: positivism, post-positivism, critical theory and constructivism Table 1.1 highlights the differences between the ontological, epistemological and methodological positions of each paradigm.
16 TABLE 1.1: PARADIGM DIFFERENCES IN REGARD TO ONTOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY AND METHODOLOGY
Ontology Epistemology Methodology Positivist Realist - reality exists Dualist/objectivist – it Experimental/manipulative “out there” and is is both possible and – questions and /or driven by immutable essential for the hypotheses are stated in natural laws and inquirer to adopt a advance in propositional mechanism. distant, non-interactive form and subjected to Knowledge of these posture. Values and empirical tests entities, laws, and other biasing and (falsification) under mechanisms is confounding factors are carefully controlled conventionally thereby automatically conditions summarized in the excluded from form of time- and influencing the context-free outcomes. generalizations. Post-positivist Critical realist – Modified objectivist – Modified reality exists but can objectivity remains a experimental/manipulative never be fully regulatory ideal, but it – emphasize critical apprehended. It is can only be multiplism. Redress driven by natural laws approximated, with imbalances by doing that can be only special emphasis placed inquiry in more natural incompletely on external guardians settings, using more understood. such as the critical qualitative methods, tradition and the critical depending more on community. grounded theory, and reintroducing discovery into the inquiry process. Critical Theory Critical realist- as in Subjectivist – in the Dialogic, transformative – the case of post- sense that values eliminate false positivism mediate inquiry consciousness and energize and facilitate transformation Constructivist Relativist – realities Subjectivist – inquirer Hermeneutic, dialectic – exist in the form of and inquired into are individual constructions are multiple mental fused into a single elicited and refined constructions, socially (monistic) entity. hermeneutically, and and experientially Findings are literally compared and contrasted based, local and the creation of the dialectically, with the aim specific, dependent for process of interaction of generating one (or a few) their form and content between the two. constructions on which on the persons who there is substantial hold them. consensus.
SOURCE: Adopted from Guba (1990, pp.23-27)
17 1.4 The Problem with P.O.E.M.s and Tourism Studies
The more philosophy and the interpretive disciplines proclaim the importance of interpretation in all of inquiry, the less there is agreement about what it is, what interpretive practices presuppose, and how to judge interpretive successes and failures (Hiley, Bohman, & Shusterman, 1991, p.1).
In Tourism Studies, scholars are increasingly grounding their research in, and acknowledging the importance of paradigms, ontology, epistemology and methodology (P.O.E.M.). But much of the work has been done lopsidedly and uncritically. Much work draws on arguments such as Grandall’s (1990, p.221) that “we can no longer simply discuss knowledge but must instead discuss knowledge within the context of a particular paradigm”. Hollinshead (2006) observes that the constructed nature of emic (culture- specific) as well as etic (culturally neutral) understandings have largely received a superficial treatment in Tourism Studies. In fact it can be said that tourism academics tend to focus on the “methodological” and “methodical” without pondering sufficiently the “philosophical” aspects of their work. In this sense knowledge production in tourism is a remnant of functional or applied research. And as Hollinshead (2006, p.49) argues: “no research in Tourism Studies appears to have yet deliberated at any significant length on the immense everyday and everyplace problematics involved in faithfully capturing alien emic understandings”.
With regard to constructivism, in the previous section I purposefully selected the definition of the leading scholars in cultural sciences, Guba and Lincoln (1989) who have together with Denzin and Lincoln (2000b; 2003) in the last decade become somewhat venerated by by those who label themselves as “qualitative” researchers in the field of Tourism Studies. These authors draw extensively on the concept of the constructivist paradigm and propose that constructivism is also known as the naturalistic, hermeneutic, or interpretive paradigm. There are others (Greene, 1990; Lincoln, 1990; Skrtic, 1990) who join them in their attempt to erase the boundaries between the interpretivist, the hermeneutic and the constructivist paradigm and provide a rather oversimplified view.
18 Schwandt (2000) on the other hand sees vast ontological, epistemological and methodological differences between both interpretivism and what he calls social constructionism. According to him, “interpretivists argue that it is possible to understand the subjective meaning of action (grasping the actor’s beliefs, desires, and so on) yet do so in an objective manner” (p.193). Therefore in his view, “interpretivists aim to reconstruct the self-understandings of actors engaged in particular actions” (Schwandt, 2000, p.193). With regard to social constructionism, he further proposes that it rejects a naïve realist view of representation. Therefore while a constructionist constructs knowledge, an interpretivist gains knowledge about the meaning of human action. Table 1.2 looks at some interpretations of constructivism, constructionism, and social constructionism.
Furthermore, while Denzin, Lincoln and Guba present constructivism as ontologically relativist and epistemologically subjectivist, Crotty (1998, p.63), argues that the constructionist epistemology is “perfectly compatible with realism in ontology” and can be both objectivist and subjectivist. In this regard, Slife and Williams (1995) also perceive social constructivist ontology as realist. Crotty also suggests that constructionists are free to use either qualitative or quantitative methods. In other words, Table 1 as depicted by Guba shows the conflicting views as to what constructionism is and its philosophical and methodological grounding.
What is further apparent in Table 1.2 (and this table only shows some works on constructivism/constructionism) is the vast difference when it comes to understanding paradigms and agreement as to what they stand for. Crotty (1998) for instance distinguishes between constructivism and constructionism by seeing constructivism as a sense making activity of human engagement with objects in the world, while constructionism claims that humans are “introduced directly to a whole world of meaning”. Kukla (2000, p.25) who elaborates predominantly on constructivism differentiates between strong constructivism, very strong constructivism and weak constructivism. He concludes that “various positions may be obtained by asserting or denying the constructed nature of different combinations of scientific, social, everyday
19 TABLE 1.2: SOME EXAMPLES OF CONCEPTUALISATIONS ABOUT CONSTRUCTIVISM/CONSTRUCTIONISM
1) GUBA AND LINCOLN 1989 Guba and Lincoln suggest that the constructivist paradigm is the best “fit” for human inquiry. They do not distinguish between constructivism, constructionism and interpretivism. In their view ontology for the adherents of the constructivist paradigm is relativist, meaning that there are multiple, socially constructed realities that are ungoverned by natural laws. The epistemological question is answered by constructivists by affirming that the inquirer and the inquired into are inseparable, hence the epistemology is subjectivist. The methodological questions are determined by how the ontological and epistemological questions are answered. The methodology is hermeneutic and should expose the process of constructions: including dialectic iteration, analysis, critique, reiteration, reanalysis, etc. to produce a joint construction (i.e. emic and etic views). Guba and Lincoln propose that in constructivism the distinction between ontology and epistemology is eliminated as that what can be known does not exist independently.
2) DENZIN AND LINCOLN 2000, 2003 Denzin and Lincoln in their Handbook of Qualitative Research (2000) take the same position as the above text (Guba and Lincoln, 1989).
3) SCHWANDT 2000 Schwandt refers to both social constructionism and constructivism and also uses the term perspectivism (Fay, 1996). He sees vast differences between constructionists and interpretivists. With regard to the first, all knowledge takes place within a conceptual framework through which the world is explained and described. Social Constructionism rejects a naive realist view of representation and denies any interest in ontology of the real. There is no true interpretation.
4) SLIFE AND WILLIAMS 1995 Slife and Williams see social constructionists as being mainly concerned with explaining how people experience and describe the world they live in, and therefore one needs to look for common forms of understanding or what they call common “constructs” which are created by most members in a society. Furthermore, social constructionists see the importance of human experience, but the experience itself is socially constructed. When it comes to ontology, natural objects in Slife and Williams’s view are unaffected by social constructions and language. They use an example of rain – it makes one wet no matter how one thinks about it. They don’t deny the existence of rain -suggesting that the ontology of social constructionism is realist. The world we live in is real but our understanding of it is constructed. Slife and Williams propose that the epistemology of social constructionism is closer to the epistemology of rationalism except that a person’s understanding comes directly from his/her mind but is derived from within the social collective.
5) CROTTY 1998 Crotty distinguishes between all three: constructionism, constructivism and intepretivism. In his view, constructionism proposes that meanings are the result of construction by human beings as they engage with the lived world. Meaning or truth cannot be described as either objective or subjective, instead they are indissoluble and interaction between subject and object is needed. In his view social constructionism is both realist and relativist. The view that reality is socially constructed does not mean it is not real. Furthermore, he compares constructionism to the concept of intentionality (relatedness, reaching out to/into an object). While constructionism takes into account ‘the collective generation of meaning’ and culture, CONSTRUCTIVISM, he suggests, should be used for ‘the meaning-making activity of the individual mind’.
SOURCE: (Crotty, 1998; Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, 2003; Guba & Lincoln, 1989; Schwandt, 2000; Slife & Williams, 1995)
20 (i.e. there is a book on my desk) and noumenal facts (facts about the world inaccessible by any method available to human beings)”. Lynch (1998, p.23) also acknowledges the scholastic variants of constructivism and constructionism and concludes that “although it may be impossible to define what adherents to the various constructivist approaches hold in common, at least they have the word “construction”. On this note, Hollinshead (2006, p.53) notes that “there probably never will be any singular academic approach or conceptual movement that will emerge or coalesce under constructivism/constructionism”. Therefore nothing is fixed - there is no unified constructionist/constructivist position (Gergen, 1998). In fact there seems to be no single stance that exemplifies constructionist enquiry (Velody & Williams, 1998). Researchers who are serious about employing constructivist/constructionist approaches therefore need to carefully examine to which philosophies and to whose constructivism they adhere. They should also be explicit about their approaches and philosophical stance.
To draw on a recent example, Jennings et al. (2009 - a collaboration of six thinkers) claim to employ a social constructionist approach in their study Quality Tourism Experiences, but they portray what they call social constructionism uncritically, as a given, by referring solely to the work of Schwandt (2000; 2001). Without explaining the meaning, they operate with abstract terms such as “careful interpretation” and “careful reflection” yet the paper does not provide much information about their social constructionist approach. It reads as a review of “quality experiences”, without explaining to the reader the philosophy and underpinnings of social constructionism (and their many versions) or the different meanings of the constructed concept “quality” and its origins. Although Jennings et al. deserve to be acknowledged for exploring new areas and drawing on constructionism, they miss the opportunity to inform others in the field of Tourism Studies about this theoretical perspective.1
In this regard, Tribe (2004) has criticized the lack of philosophical discourse in the field: a field that is embedded in human activity and meaning. Despite the number of
1 I am aware that I have been bluntly critical of the work of other tourism researchers; nonetheless critical voices are needed should the field of Tourism Studies spiral out of its deprived theorising.
21 qualitative studies, there remains a limited understanding of approaches to research as well as lack of vigilance and criticality. Hollinshead and Jamal (2007, p.85) who portray travel and tourism as a critical and dynamic field of seeing, being, experiencing, inventing and knowing, argue for more interpretive and qualitative investigations which are inherently related to matters of meaning, textuality and rhetorical power. Although they encourage more flexible and interpretive works, they also highlight the necessity for critically-rigorous approaches. There is a need for more critical engagement in the field - not for the sake of competing with other paradigms or creating “better” knowledge - but in order to broaden the epistemological horizons and understanding of knowledge in Tourism Studies.
1.5 The Study Problem
To summarise my endeavours up to this point, I have highlighted three broad issues that form the purpose of this thesis: (1) lack of philosophical research and researchers’ understanding of emic and etic involvement in the process, (2) poverty of tourism theory, and (3) lack of critical approaches in the field. Although all of the above issues are matters of significant importance, I see the first as being the most pertinent --- for without having a clear understanding of the basic philosophical assumptions that underpin one’s research, academics are constrained from seeing other possible vistas. In other words, the awareness of different approaches to research and understanding of varied epistemological views should lead to more robust, fertile, and critical work in Tourism Studies. Hence I offer a research problem that can be formulated as follows:
I EXAMINE THE PROCESS OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN TOURISM STUDIES BY EMPLOYING A CONSTRUCTIONIST APPROACH TO RESEARCH
BECAUSE:
THERE IS A LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF HOW KNOWLEDGE IS GENERATED IN TOURISM
22
IN ORDER TO:
FURTHER ADVANCE THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF TOURISM AND EXAMINE THE VISTAS OF TOURISM ONTOLOGY.
My main aims are therefore to:
1. Improve the understanding, implication and use of constructionism in Tourism Studies; 2. Challenge the dominant views of what tourism IS/CAN BE and DOES beyond the traditional ontological and epistemological claims; 3. Critique the degree to which tourism is depicted as a “real” phenomenon often attempted to be “truly” described or explained.
In order to execute the set objectives (and taking into account the philosophical/methodological nature of the study) I will employ hermeneutic phenomenology as the research methodology. Furthermore, in order to examine the application of constructionism, I will place my focus on the New Age phenomenon: an emerging special interest group in Tourism Studies. There are also three secondary contributions in this research study that can be formulated as follows:
1. Methodological insights into phenomenology 2. Enhancement of the current use of reflexive approaches 3. Advancement of the conceptual treatment of the New Age phenomenon
This overall significance of this research study is embedded in the need to critique how tourism knowledge is produced within specific story telling traditions/paradigms (Pritchard & Morgan, 2007). Pritchard and Morgan have argued that except for a few leading scholars, the field is dominated by positivist discourses, empiricism, quantification, neutrality, objectivity, distance, validity, and reliability. This has been voiced in the last decade by many academics (Aitchison, 2000; Echtner & Jamal, 1997; Hollinshead, 2004b; Riley & Love, 2000; Tribe, 1997), however, little is known still on
23 the methodologies and philosophy of social research in Tourism Studies (Jamal & Everett, 2007). In this respect the approaches in the field still largely fail to acknowledge that “people make sense of the world, drawing on cultural resources rather than simply responding to external stimuli in a mechanical fashion” (Hammersley, 1995, p.16). Moreover, the field has not yet produced “enough substantive, in-depth analysis of what tourism means socially to different individuals and groups (Hollinshead, 2006, p.50). Research underpinned by epistemological concerns and differences is far from being accepted as a valid nexus of debate among mainstream tourism academia and instead remains the privilege of a few who are familiar with this terminology and its meaning.
With the emergence of critical scholarship, the study is well-timed, for it not only contributes to the plea for greater theorizations and more critical research in tourism, but it examines the process of knowledge production and our understanding of tourism methodologically and philosophically (with regard to ontology and epistemology). In addition, it does not merely respond to the call for more diverse story-telling traditions (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000b; Hall, 1997; Pritchard & Morgan, 2007); it examines how knowledge can be created and made sense of by employing a constructionist approach to research.
1.6 The Importance of Hermeneutic Phenomenology
Phenomenology in general is increasing in popularity as a research perspective to study experience in various humanistic and social science disciplines. It can be seen in professional contexts such as psychology (Amadeo Giorgi), nursing (Patricia Benner), education and pedagogy (Max van Manen). Often mistaken for a qualitative method, phenomenology is more useful when viewed from two perspectives: as a discipline in philosophy and as a methodology in applied research or professional contexts (Van Manen 2000). Different research approaches are guided by different ontological and epistemological settings, resulting in considerably diverse methodologies and methods. Phenomenology is not only an interesting approach to studying the human experience; it
24 is also an important research tool in the field of Tourism Studies. It serves as an avenue towards describing or understanding (depending on the ontological and epistemological underpinnings), the experientially-lived meanings of tourists/guests, locals/hosts, service providers and any other members that take part in the tourism phenomenon. Phenomenology does not merely call for providing an account of the things we “see” in the world (e.g. book, bus, airplane) but shifts the focus to our “seeing” of objects and the world (Cerbone, 2006).
In accordance with my constructionist approach, in this study I will employ hermeneutic phenomenology which sets out to primarily expound the conditions in which understanding takes place (Koch, 1995). I will draw on two main figures in hermeneutic phenomenology: Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Hans Georg Gadamer (1900-2002). Heidegger’s early work is known as existential phenomenology and Gadamer’s elaboration of the hermeneutic aspects in Heidegger’s early and later writings became generally known as philosophical hermeneutics. Hermeneutic phenomenology is by some (Annells 1996) seen as an inquiry arm of philosophical hermeneutics. It is important to stress that for Heidegger, hermeneutics no longer refers to the science of interpretation but rather to the process of interpretation. Gadamer (who was a student of Heidegger) further believed that understanding and interpretation are inseparable. This is an important point of difference when it comes to philosophical underpinnings of hermeneutic phenomenology in comparison to other phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), who strived to produce objective and descriptive phenomenological work. The use of hermeneutic phenomenology therefore promises to be a good fit with regard to the nature of this thesis and the overall constructionist approach to research.
In employing hermeneutic phenomenology it is vital to also acknowledge the researcher’s voice (Jamal & Hollinshead, 2001). This is because the hermeneutic approach considers not only what is being interpreted but also the process of interpretation and the interpreter. Hermeneutic phenomenology is not solely concerned about the phenomenon per se; it is about the process of reaching a particular understanding, it is a process of interpretation. Kincheloe and McLaren (2003, p.286) further assert that “working this
25 domain, hermeneutical scholars attempt to think through and clarify the conditions under which interpretation and understanding take place”. The researcher and his/her reflexive mode of enquiry therefore play a pivotal role.
Pertinent to this study is also Heidgger’s notion of being in the world. Heidegger, whose work is by some scholars (Rouse, 1991) portrayed as social constructivism, was mainly concerned with what he calls “Dasein” (being) - paying attention to human being in particular. The term Dasein translates literally to “being there” (Solomon, 1972), but was meant to represent the “kind of beings we are” – human beings (Cerbrone, 2006, p.42). For Heidegger, to be human means to be embedded in the day-to-day world, to be immersed in the physical and tangible world around us (Steiner, 1978). In this sense the world cannot be separated from people’s lives. Heidegger therefore talks about situated, historical and temporal being in the world. I draw on this concept throughout this thesis and pay attention to people’s being in the world – in this thesis people I conceptualise as New Agers taking part in the New Age phenomenon. It is employed throughout the study as an ontological platform to explore the constructionist view of tourism as a phenomenon that is constructed: something we come to understand (e.g. what tourism is) via our cultural and situated viewpoints. Guignon (1991, p.83) further describes being in the world as follows:
Heidegger’s description of agency as being-in-the-world shows that we are for the most part caught up in practical activities, grappling with contexts of equipment that are “significant” in the sense that things show up as counting or mattering to us in relation to our undertakings.
1.7 The Importance of the New Age Phenomenon
In a broader sense, New Age serves as a research context for exploring the application of constructionism and hence theoretical implications of this approach to research. Additionally, New Age is a complex phenomenon which comprises various activities, rituals, places, objects and beliefs, but is also one that addresses other important issues:
26 from economic and political, to ecological, social and cultural. Hence it has a place and meaning also in understanding contemporary issues in society and culture. In terms of the philosophical nature of this research, the New Age phenomenon also offers an opportunity to enter the world of people who do not necessarily share conventional beliefs. It promises to be a challenging exercise with regard to understanding New Agers’ being in the world and making sense of it in the context of Tourism Studies. It provides a fertile ground for constructionist discourses on how we perceive and make sense of the world we live in.
The term New Age, and its beginning is usually placed in the 1970s and is often seen as not necessarily something new, but something that evolved from occult/metaphysical religion (Bruce, 2002; Melton, Clark, & Kelly, 1991). It has transformed and evolved into a movement that is gaining more popularity than ever before, and Heelas (2006) asserts that the evidence of the growth of New Age is incontestable. Besides the emergence of spiritual retreats and workshops, there is also an abundance of healing techniques and holistic medicines. Most importantly, New Age products and services are now easily accessible. New Agers are active in cyberspace and alongside chat-rooms, major web directories such as Yahoo offer an extensive list of sites dedicated to New Age. In addition to a plethora of New Age related discussions and articles, the World Wide Web also offers clairvoyance services, personal channelled messages and astrology charts. That is, of course, in addition to a number of popular magazines and books. In fact, Bruce (2002) states that most commercial publishers today have a New Age imprint. In terms of consumer book segments, after-media and entertainment books, religious and New-Age books (belonging to an “other” marketing category) represent the second-largest marketing category; being at the forefront of the travel and leisure segment (PQ-Media, 2006). There is now also an increasing number of New Age-themed documentaries, such as “The Secret” (The Secret TV), the upcoming “Time of the sixth sun: A journey of awakening” (Time of the Sixth Sun: A Journey of Awakening), and “The Convergence” (Divine Cosmos), all relevant to the specific context of New Age. Even the most powerful woman in media, the American television host Oprah Winfrey (known as the Oprah
27 Show) now broadcasts classes titled “A New Earth” that are based on the work of Eckhart Tolle (2006), who is often labelled as a New Age author and spiritual teacher.
The topic of New Age is also relevant in the context of global change and the shifting social, political and cultural climate in the world. In their recent extensive survey- research of over one hundred thousand Americans, Ray and Anderson (2000a) introduced a new subculture category of people: the “cultural creatives”. According to them, these Cultural Creatives are concerned with ecology and saving the planet, relationships, peace and social justice, but they are also interested in self-actualization, spirituality and self- expression. Their data (Ray & Anderson, 2000b) shows that these people see nature as sacred, that they believe in religious mysteries, spiritual psychology and holistic health. Furthermore, the core group of Cultural Creatives agree that the human abilities possibly include different types of psychic powers such as telepathy, communication with spirits and knowing the future. The authors estimate that a quarter of the population of the United States and Europe are these Cultural Creatives. In fact, a similar survey was launched by the officials of the European Union resulting in evidence that there are at least as many Cultural Creatives in Europe as there are in the United States. Ghisi (2006) additionally draws on these conclusions and suggests that the Cultural Creatives are creating a global mind change in terms of changing values and behaviour in the world. In his view, these people are in another paradigm, another set of values. Also another study by The Barnia Research Group (Barnia, 1996) indicates that around twenty percent of Americans hold at least some New Age beliefs, representing the third largest religious group in the US. Therefore regardless of whether the above estimates are accurate, they attest to the fact that there are a noteworthy number of people concerned with issues relating to the New Age phenomenon.
In effect, the New Age phenomenon has also penetrated the world of business. According to Auspers and Houtman (2006), renowned management magazines such as People Management, Industry Week, and Sloan Management Review regularly include articles on
28 the opportunities of spirituality for business life.2 They say that large companies such as Guinness, General Dynamics, and Boeing Aerospace have become interested in New Age training and it is not uncommon that practices such as “consciousness-raising techniques” are offered to employees. Furthermore, it is estimated that companies in the US spend at least four billion dollars on New Age consultants every year (Naisbitt & Patricia, 2000). Therefore the study of the New Age phenomenon is not only significant with regard to the current sociology and anthropology curriculum; it is also relevant in the world of business and tourism.
One of the implications of this trend is that it has been reflected in leisure and tourism. There are increasing numbers of tourists seeking sites and destinations that cater to their spiritual development as well as the sacred and healing characteristics of such places. Many scholars also agree (Ivakhiv, 2003; Redden, 2005; York, 2001) that New Age has been commodified and commercialized: ultimately resulting in further products and services. In Tourism Studies, recent works (Attix, 2002; Pernecky, 2006a; Pernecky & Johnston, 2006; Sutton & House, 2003) have somewhat shaped this phenomenon into the concept of New Age tourism, perhaps a sign of Sutcliffe’s (2003a) assertion that a second wave of New Age scholarship is emerging. New Age travellers have been found to engage in activities that bring them closer to their spiritual selves and were recently brought into the vicinity of Tourism Studies. Although scarcely, they have been studied quantitatively (Pernecky & Johnston, 2006) and qualitatively (Pernecky, 2006a), bringing forth not only knowledge about the phenomenon but also an understanding of people’s experiences.
However, apart from New Age tourism – portrayed as yet another “special interest” tourism, it can also be approached from another perspective: by exploring the New Age phenomenon at large3 and exploring New Agers’ being in the world. Emblematic of Tourism Studies, New Age tourism can be seen as becoming a distinct behaviour-based
2One has to be cautious about the usage of the term “New Age” and I will explore the many angles one can take when conceptualising about the phenomenon throughout this thesis. 3 By this figure of speech I mean approaching the New Age phenomenon in general and teasing out possible meanings in in the context of Tourism Studies.
29 phenomenon that is considered in isolation from further theoretical debates that address social and cultural change. As such it has already been conceptualized and its members classified in Pernecky and Johnston’s (2006) specialization index (to be discussed in detail in Chapter Two). Without the intention of diminishing their importance, there are bodies in tourism academia, such as the ATLAS network (Association for Tourism and Leisure Education, 1997) that provide tourism education and research of a similar nature. With over 300 members a variety of thematic issues, and consequently different research groups, are formed in ATLAS: Cultural Tourism Research Group, Backpackers Research Group, Tourism and Gastronomy Research Group, Policy Research Group, Tourism SME Research Group, Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Research Group, Tourism and Socio Identities Research Group, Business Tourism Research Group, and Cultural Festivals Group. Recently, ATLAS also announced the launch of the Spirituality and Wellbeing group. Hence with the arrival (or perhaps re-discovery) of a new phenomenon, it seems that academics (including myself in the past) have been very efficient at employing skills that lead towards the creation of new special interest groups.
If we were to look at the emerging studies on New Age and its relationship to tourism, the focus has remained solely on studying the phenomenon per se: what people do, where they go and why. Scholars studying similar phenomena - whether it is sacred travel, religious travel or pilgrimages - have likewise been constrained by the tourist-tourism bond in an attempt to describe and categorise. Although the identification and classification processes in tourism research have their own value, this thesis is set to disclose a different way of looking at tourism. New Age and New Age tourism have more to offer to Tourism Studies: both theoretically and empirically. By changing one’s perspective, the New Age phenomenon can provide a theoretical lens, through which the role of tourism and travel can further be examined. As such, it offers a space in which various issues from the “Self”, body/embodiment, tourist performance, worldmaking, becoming and mobilities can be explored. The focus is thus shifted from the classification and description of the phenomenon to embracing it as a research context in which certain matters, theories, and concepts can be expounded.
30 Empirically, the complexity of the New Age phenomenon can be further lessened by seeking to understand what it means to be a New Ager, and what it is that New Agers do. Theoretically, this thesis is a reflection upon the ways tourism is increasingly being approached; more fundamentally, in the ways that it is theorized and conceptualized (Hall et al., 2004). Furthermore, the New Age phenomenon is also a social phenomenon that plays a role in today’s world: it is contemporary and relevant. The key aspiration in this thesis is to explore the ways knowledge is/can be acquired in a constructionist manner by drawing on the New Age phenomenon and by doing so delve into the broader issues of knowledge production in the field of Tourism Studies.
1.8 The Use of Constructionism in this Research Study
In section 1.4 I showed that there is an abundance of interpretations on what constitutes constructionism and I highlighted some of the variances (such as constructivism and social constructionism). In this section, therefore, I will examine closely some of the key differences between approaches to constructionist enquiry and outline the constructionist stance in this research study.
As noted earlier, Crotty (1998) makes a distinction between constructivism and constructionism. He suggest the use of the first (constructivism) for “epistemological considerations focusing exclusively on “the meaning-making activity of the individual mind”, while the latter (constructionism) should be used “where the focus includes the collective generation [and transmission ] of meaning” (1998, p.58). This distinction is vital. Based on this understanding, constructionism rejects the notion of an individual’s sense-making process and argues that the ways we make sense of the world comes from culture. Constructionism is therefore about the shaping of our minds by culture. Furthermore, although constructionism is underpinned by subjectivist epistemologies, subjectivism is not necessarily what distinguishes constructionism from constructivism (and its many forms). Constructivists are/can be subjective also. The key difference is culture; it rests on a constructionist view that subjective meaning is prejudiced by culture.
31 Thus “constructionism is not subjectivism - it is curiosity, not conceit” (Crotty, 1998, p.52).
I also need to clarify that the constructionist approach in this thesis does not claim that human beings do not have self-interpreting minds as indeed we are perfectly capable of creating meaning. Nevertheless, human beings never construct interpretations in isolation but “against a backdrop of shared understandings, practices, language and so forth” (Schwandt, 2000, p.197). Constructionism thus stresses the importance of the grasp culture has on us. Crotty (1998, p.52) further explains: “it shapes the way in which we see things (even the way in which we feel things) and gives us a quite definite view of the world”. He adds: “We are born, each of us, into an already interpreted world and it is at once natural and social” (p.57). It is also traditional and historical: “only that which has no history is definable” (Cited in Rouse, 1991, p.56). The self-interpreting mind can therefore never interpret and generate meaning independently of culture.
In regard to culture, there is a plethora of definitions and Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) in their critical review offer one hundred and sixty four definitions from a variety of disciplines. Table 1.3 shows a selection of normative, descriptive but also historical, genetic and psychological definitions of culture. I have selected these ten definitions for they summarise the meaning of culture in this research study. The concept of culture I operate with is a condition possessed by a society rather than an individual and includes the elements of social interaction, history, learning, tradition, and heritage as depicted in Table 1.3. When I discuss culture in this thesis I refer to culture as defined in this section and in Table 1.3.
Another important clarification concerns ontology and epistemology. In regard to ontology, constructionism can be at once realist and relativist. As Crotty (1998, p.63) explains: “to say that meaningful reality is socially constructed is not to say that it is not real”. In other words the world is real, the experiences we have are real, and our being in
32 TABLE 1.3: TEN DEFINITIONS OF CULTURE TAKEN FROM KROEBER AND KLUCKHOHN’S CRITICAL REVIEW
1. Culture includes everything that can be communicated from one generation to another. The culture of a people is their social heritage, a “complex whole” which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, techniques of tool fabrication and use, and method of communication (.p 47);
2. Culture consists in those abstracted elements of action and reaction which may be traced to the influence of one or more strains of social heredity (p. 48);
3. Culture is the sum total of the ways of doing and thinking, past and present, of a social group. It is the sum of the traditions, or handed-down beliefs, and of customs, or handed-down procedures (p. 50);
4. A culture is the way of life of a people; while a society is the organized aggregate of individuals who follow a given way of life. In still simpler terms a society is composed of people; the way they behave is their culture (p. 51)
5. A culture is the embodiment in customs, traditions, institutions, etc. of the learning of a social group over the generations. It is the sum of what the group has learned about living together under the particular circumstances, physical and biological, in which it has found itself (p. 58);
6. A culture is a historically derived system of explicit and implicit designs for living, which tends to be shared by all or specially designated members of a group (p. 61).
7. Culture in a vital sense is the product of social interaction… Human behaviour is cultural behaviour to the degree that individual habit patterns are built up in adjustment to patterns already existing as an integral part of the culture into which the individual is born (p. 64)
8. By culture we mean every object, habit, idea, institution, and mode of thought or action which man produces or creates and then passes on to others, especially to the next generation (p. 65);
9. Culture consists of all ideas concerning human beings which have been communicated to one’s mind and of which one is conscious (p. 66);
10. Culture is all behaviour mediated by symbols (p. 69).
SOURCE: Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952 (pp.47-69)
33 the world is real4. It is the locale of meaning and understanding that vastly varies from other paradigms and pertains to the subject of construction. Thus when it comes to epistemology, all understanding is constructed. “If we seek to be consistently constructionist, we will put all understandings, scientific alike, on the very same footing - they are all constructions” (Crotty, 1998, p.16). Schwandt (2000, p.198) further adds that many constructionists hold the view that “there is no truth to the matter of interpretation”.
I need to stress, however, that these views are not shared by all researchers. For instance Guba and Lincoln (1989, p.145)5 propose that “construction once formed is likely to maintain itself” and that “constructions are thus self-sustaining and self-renewing”. In this instance, one needs to be careful as such a view falls under the wings of realist epistemology where meaning is believed to exist on its own. The type of constructionism I adhere to and follow in this thesis, disagrees with these claims, for meaning/construction is always created by the interpreter. Meaning does not exist on its own nor can it sustain itself or renew itself independently. Rather, the world is understood and interpreted by historically and culturally situated individuals.
To make this constructionist approach relevant in Tourism Studies, it needs to be placed in the specific context of tourism. By doing so, I hope to minimise possible confusion regarding the claims I make in this thesis (in particular when it comes to matters ontological and epistemological). Table 1.4 lists six key caveats that explain the constructionist views of tourism and its knowledge production in this thesis6 .
The caveats in Table 1.4 portray my constructionist stance in regard to tourism. In this framework of reference the world we live in is not imaginary. On the contrary: people
4 I never conceived of tourism as something made up by society – a concept created by academia until I started writing this thesis. I always thought that our knowledge of it was true and tourism was real. Once I delved more deeply into the matters I discuss in this theis, I experienced a fundamental shift in regard to thinking about tourism. There must be other students (and researchers) who still hold the view I once held. 5 Guba and Lincoln also do not necessarily make a clear distinction between the constructionism/vism and portray constructivism as a given or a uniform paradigm. 6 I need to stress that the version of constructionism I refer to in this thesis is based on these caveats. When I use the word constructionism in generic terms I refer to the outline in this section.
34 TABLE 1.4: RESEARCHER’S CONSTRUCTIONIST VIEW OF TOURISM
Caveat 1: Tourism is a created concept: it is a product of social construction based on shared meanings;
Caveat 2: Tourism and how we come to understand it, how we conceptualise about it - is shaped by our culture, history, heritage, education and other forces that play a role in our social lives (see table 1.3 for the description of culture);
Caveat 3: The world is ontologically real and tourism, despite being socially constructed, represents a meaningful reality for those who share it. In other words our being in the world is real. It is a construction of particular society/societies at a particular time and place. What counts as real is determined internally within an interpretation and is not something external to the interpretation that the interpretation is about (Hoy, 1991, p.160);
Caveat 4: Tourism means different things for different people. One’s knowledge and understanding of what tourism is/does/ and can be, is shaped by culture. In this regard Hollinshead’s (2004c) worldmaking, Urry (2000) and Hannam’s (2009; 2006) mobilities paradigm and Franklin’s (2004) ordering are close examples of the changing, contemporary, evolving and culture-bound understandings of tourism;
Caveat 5: Tourism and its knowledge ceases to have real or true quality outside of the cultural sphere in which it was created, recreated and understood. All understanding, scientific included, is constructed. There is no epistemologically distinctive domain or activity of interpretation (Rouse, 1991, p.36). Tourism is a construction and researchers are perhaps best understood as story-tellers or interpreters of the lived world: offering interpretations/constructions of the world and peoples experiences through a situated cultural lens.
Caveat 6: Tourism and what we come to understand it, is a result of a highly creative exercise: human interaction with the world or our being in the world.
35 visit destinations, they touch statues in the hope of being blessed, they can ride elephants in places such as India, and they can even take pictures of places and themselves. None of these meaningful experiences or what I refer to as our being in the world is unreal. Hence the argument is not that our daily lives are imaginary but that the way we make sense of the world is predisposed by our culture, it is shaped by our history, education, and it is the result of our interaction and socialisation with other people. The world is constantly interpreted and reinterpreted, and tourism represents one of many meaningful constructions. What tourism researchers have paid little attention to is that this construction is rooted in traditions, culture and social heritage. Constructionism points to the constructed nature of tourism and by looking critically at how we know what we know contributes to the epistemology of Tourism Studies.
Lastly, when I refer to constructionism in this thesis in a normative or generic voice (e.g. “what ought to be”) I refer to the constructionism I depicted in this section. I acknowledge that there are multiple ways of engaging in constructionist research and this thesis is my take on constructionism and its implication to the field of Tourism Studies..
1.9 Constructionism versus Bricoleurship
In the attempt to make my way through the maze of “qualitative” terms and concepts, I was temporarily attracted by the idea of being a bricoleur - in particular to the interpretation as someone who assembles montages. The concept of bricoleurship has been noted and referred to by many researchers, and increasingly also, in the field of Tourism Studies. Denzin and Lincoln (2000b, p.4) describe bricolage as “a pieced– together set of representations that are fitted to the specifics of a complex situation”. The concept of bricolage later developed by Kincheloe (2001; 2005) is not “a knight on a white horse ready to save the field” as Kincheloe (p.331) states himself. Bricolage, in particular Kincheloe’s (2005) latest version of it, reads as a methodology that draws on many constructionist-related claims. Using Kincheloe’s (2005) views, some of these include the following:
36 - The bricolage highlights the relationship between a researcher’s way of seeing and the social location of his or her personal history (p.324);
- The bricoleur focuses on his or her position in the web of reality and the social locations of other researchers and the ways they shape their production and interpretation of knowledge (p.324);
- The bricolage constructs a far more active role for humans both in shaping reality and in creating the research processes and narratives that represent it (p.325);
- The bricolage is a high level cognitive process involving construction and reconstruction (p.325);
- The bricoleur addresses the complexity of everyday life (p.327);
- The bricoleur understands that diverse epistemologies will develop in different historical and cultural locales (p.329);
- The bricoleur seeks the specific ways cultural assumptions shape knowledge production and their own research process in particular (p.330);
- The bricoleur gains insights into the social construction of knowledge, understanding, and human subjectivity (p.337)
The point I would like to make is that there is not a precise way or agreed terms of how to be constructionist. Denzin, Lincoln and Kincheloe’s understanding and conception of bricolage is by some scholars even perceived as a misunderstood interpretation of the original meaning of the word. Crotty (1998, p.49) argues that the meaning of the term bricoleur which comes from Levi-Strauss’s work (see Levi-Strauss, 1966) and is referred to in Denzin and Lincoln’s (2000b) text, has in fact a very different connotation. Crotty asserts that the original meaning of bricolage is not about performing a range of functions and employing unconventional methods as suggested by Denzin and Lincoln. Nor was a bricoleur, as described originally by Levi-Straus, someone who is self-reflexive (another proposal by Denzin and Lincoln). Crotty (1998, p.50) explains that “nothing is further from self-reflection than bricolage”. He maintains that the self is the last thing Levi- Straus’s bricoleur had in mind, and for instance creativity and imaginativeness are
37 exercised in relation to objects and materials the bricoleur works with. Crotty gives the following example:
An ice cream carton, two buttons, and a coat hanger – I am supposed to make something of that? Self-reflexive? No, not at all… The focus is fairly and squarely on the objects, these materials… True bricoleurs are people constantly musing over objects, engaged precisely with what is not themselves, in order to see what possibilities the objects have to offer (Crotty, 1998, p.50).
The above is an example of the different ways meanings and concepts can be interpreted and understood. From a constructionist stance, I would like to reiterate that concepts are made, constructed and re-interpreted. More importantly, however, the key issue with Kincheloe’s (2001; 2005) work on bricolage is that although he implies that he operates within a socially constructed, his work is filled with many non-constructionist claims. For instance he repeatedly calls for rigour: “bricolage can be rigorously developed” (p.683), “it is important to develop a rigorous understanding”, “bricoleurs subject interdisciplinary to the same rigorous perusal” (p.685). Furthermore, in many instances Kincheloe can be caught off-guard, slipping into the slopes of methodological superiority: he uses words such as “to better interpret”, “most useful bricolage” (2001, p.686), “more sophisticated level of meaning making” (2001, p.691). In his latest paper Kincheloe (2005) continues his undertaking to portray bricoleurs as having “compelling insights into their engagement with reality” (p.327) and hence contributing to a “better informed, more rigorous mode of knowledge production” (p.332).
Kincheloe’s bricolage is therefore a methodological venture that does not resonate with the version of constructionism applied in this research study. In my view, researchers operating with the constructionist paradigm cannot possibly be more insightful, better informed, and engage in a more sophisticated methodology. For instance the words “better informed” imply that one interpretation is better than another. Such claims are contrary to the very premise that underlines constructionism: that all knowledge and understanding is constructed regardless its shape or form. The notion of something being better comes from cultural conviction. One may be a more talented “story-teller” but his or her skills do not warrant a better production of knowledge and understanding. In my
38 view researchers need to be cautious when employing constructionist philosophy for they may fall into the category of scholars who adhere to constructionist claims but “wish to hold on to the remnants of an unconstructed world” Gergen (2001, p.10).
Therefore in returning to the heading of this section Constructionism versus Bricoleurship - despite this work being grounded in constructionist epistemology, it is not necessarily a bricolage. The interpretation of a bricoleur as offered by Denzin and Lincoln (2000b) and Kincheloe (2001; 2005) does not match the constructionist approach in this thesis. I take the position that a constructionist enquiry can never lead to a better or more useful production of knowledge, nor can it generate more sophisticated meanings. What it can do is offer different constructions and different understandings. I further elaborate on the methodological matters of constructionist research in the methodology and methods chapter (Chapter Two) where I discuss other concepts innate to this study such as rigour, criticality and reflexivity.
1.10 Research Assumptions, Limitations and Delimitations
This research study focuses on the understudied subject of knowledge production in the field of Tourism Studies and the key constructionist views underpinning this work have already been exposed in section 1.8. There is no need to manipulate “variables”, control the research environment, nor is my attempt to problem-solve; rather the research process is considered as a creative meaning-making activity that is embedded in culture (e.g. researcher’s and participants’ culture, historical meanings, traditions). Consequently, I do not see the need to produce objective descriptions and value-free facts and as I explained, the outcome of this research study is not to be approached as being “better” in contrast to other approaches, methodologies and methods. On this note, Maffesoli (1996, p.5) states that instead of “fooling ourselves into thinking we can seize, explain and exhaust an object, we must be content to describe its shape, its movements, hesitations, accomplishments and its various convulsions”. Constructionist approaches typically hold that no research can be bias-free due to its constructed nature, and similarly, this study, does not claim it is unbiased.
39 On the contrary, the findings presented in this work are limited to the context of this thesis, the specific focus on knowledge production, and the researcher’s (situated) ability to understand and conceptualise. In other words the focus shapes the outcome and the researcher acts as a story-teller rather than an independent observer who can detach him/herself and objectively/neutrally produce knowledge. In the vein of constructionist research, it is fundamental to acknowledge that no researcher can “fully” grasp something, or have a complete understanding of the subject under scrutiny. The researcher’s understanding is filtered through a situated, cultural lens. The information collated, presented and interpreted by the researcher (literature, concepts, and data) forms the limit for the understanding that will emerge towards the end of the work. Furthermore, as there are not any constructionist studies in/of tourism known to the researcher, nor is there a specific way of engaging in constructionist research, reflexivity plays a vital role throughout the work. Constructionist epistemology sees the researcher as playing an active role in the process: often having to make complex decisions and even face methodological/methodical “unknowns”. Therefore raising questions and voicing researcher’s concerns (e.g. methodological issues) is offered as a reflexive strength in the process of producing knowledge - knowledge that is the outcome of situated inference and reflection.
The focus of this thesis is largely philosophical and theoretical as suggested by the study problem and although empirical data plays a large part in this thesis, its function is purely demonstrative (as opposed to diagnostic, analytical and problem-solving). The New Age phenomenon is used as a research context to demonstrate how meaning can be constructed. Constructionism is not a methodology - it is employed in this study as a philosophical approach that informs methodological choices. In this regard the use of hermeneutic phenomenology was underpinned by the philosophies of Heidegger and Gadamer as I explain in Chapter Three. I was drawn to this methodology largely for its philosophical qualities and the overall fit with the aims of this research study: in particular the focus on understanding and Heidegger’s concept of being in the world. For this matter, the study is not concerned with using or contrasting other methodological approaches (e.g. Grounded Theory).
40 The choice to include the raw data in Chapter Six is unconventional in comparison to other research studies and was a methodological choice. It is included in the main text so the reader has the opportunity to first see what information emerged during the interviews, and consequently examine how I (the researcher) reached an understanding of the New Age phenomenon. The reader should be warned that the data analysis focuses on the process of knowledge production as stated in the study problem and does not aim to provide a full description of the phenomenon or fully exhaust the understanding of the New Age phenomenon. Neither does it serve to generalise to the population at large. The role of the empirical data is to demonstrate the constructionist/hermeneutic process in producing knowledge. In the line of the constructionist argument, the New Age is a concept; it is a label that summons a phenomenon that is captured, outlined and interpreted by the researcher (and other scholars who have done research in this area as shown in the literature review). Therefore although I show how I formed my understanding of the New Age phenomenon and New Age tourism in Chapter Five, I use the term in a general sense: based on certain beliefs, attitudes, experiences, and activities of the participants. To put it figuratively, this research study approaches peoples’ being in the world, who through the researcher’s eyes, are conceptualised as New Agers having meaningful experiences.
When it comes to terminology, the key relevant terms in this research study are paradigm, ontology, epistemology, methodology and method. I assign these words with the following meaning: paradigm = worldview/belief system; ontology = matters of reality and being; epistemology = theory of knowledge/how we seek knowledge and generate meaning; methodology = research strategy; method = research tool/s. Other terms such as true and real are treated cautiously, and in the line of the constructionist argument are approached as a culture bound terminology. Truth is a historical and temporal concept negotiated culturally. Throughout the thesis I also draw on other terms including the New Age phenomenon, the Sacred, disciplinarity, multi-disciplinarity, and post-disciplinarity which I discuss in detail in the relevant chapters. I pay detailed attention to further methodological and methodical issues in Chapters Two and Three.
41 With regard to possible audiences, this work may largely appeal to scholars receptive to new ideas and challenging views on issues of tourism epistemology and ontology. The prospective reader can be anyone interested in broader debates on knowledge production, philosophical, theoretical and methodological issues in the field of Tourism Studies. Despite the focus on knowledge production, I do not endeavour to assess all papers published in the field such as the work of Graburn and Jafari (1991) who edited a special issue on tourism social science and provided a comprehensive review until the 1990s. I pay attention to exploring the process of knowledge creation/production by employing a constructionist epistemology.
1.11 The Organisation of this Thesis
This thesis is structured into eight chapters. In this introductory chapter, I have already outlined the main aims and objectives and explained that my endeavours are placed in the context of larger theoretical debates currently taking place in Tourism Studies, formulated previously as “new” tourism research (Tribe, 2005) and the “Critical Turn” (Ateljevic et al., 2005). I have presented the rationale for the study and highlighted the need to engage more critically in philosophical discourses and I set out to contribute to the epistemology of tourism. I have identified the study problem and explained that I seek to examine the process of knowledge production in the field by employing a constructionist theoretical perspective. I delineated the use of constructionism in this thesis and discussed the importance of the New Age phenomenon and hermeneutic phenomenology. Lastly, I outlined what I deem as possible and not possible on my research journey.
In the second and third chapters I move onto the methodological foundations of this thesis and depict the strategy necessary to fulfil the enduring research objectives. In Chapter Two, I discuss the methodological considerations in regard to constructionism and further examine relevant concepts such as qualitative research, validity, rigour and reliability but also delve into the discourse on criticality and reflexivity. In Chapter three
42 I focus solely on the methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology. I first assess the importance of ontology, epistemology and methodology, for these represent the elemental steps of any research. Next, I review different schools of thought by contrasting Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology, and identify the major misconceptions thereof. I arrive at the promise that hermeneutic phenomenology underpinned by the philosophies of Heidegger and Gadamer is most apposite for its focus on understanding. I outline the methods of collecting data on the New Age co-researchers7 and describe how the research was in three phases: (1) questionnaires, (2) phenomenological interviews, and (3) personal reflexive accounts on being a New Ager. I then explain the methods, techniques and the analytical styles used in each phase. What I need to stress in regard to the structure of the chapters is that the decision behind delineating the study’s methodology without delay serves a greater purpose as every chapter; including the literature reviews (Chapters Four and Five) plays an important role in the process of knowledge production. In other words the literature review (as well as methodology and methods) is considered to be part of the construction process and hence also the object of analysis.
Chapters Four and Five are literature reviews. In Chapter Four I continue the dialogue on the shift that is taking place in Tourism Studies in a greater level of detail. This requires the review of recent work in this field as well as the emerging scholarly texts which contribute to “new” tourism research. This chapter thus predominantly offers my “understanding” of the field of Tourism Studies, but also casts light on the epistemological and methodological move towards more diverse approaches to research. Accordingly, I explore the issues of disciplinarity, inter-disciplinarity and post- disciplinarity, but also discuss some of the emerging works such as worldmaking, placemaking, placeshaping, ordering, and the mobilities paradigm.
7 The traditional notion of a participant is in this thesis replaced by the term “co-researcher”. The interviewees are seen as contributing to and co-creating the making of the research. In this instance Pollio, Henley and Thompson (1997) further explain that co-researchers do not merely function as research subjects.
43 In Chapter Five, I move to a discussion of the New Age Phenomenon and New Age tourists, as well as related issues of spirituality, religion, pilgrimages and the sacred. By covering the above subjects I further build towards the underlying aim of this study: to examine the process of knowledge production and hence the formation of meanings and understanding. By focusing on the major themes in the New Age phenomenon, I discuss Eastern religion and practices which are essential so as to demonstrate the impact of travel and tourism in the New Age phenomenon. This further leads in the direction of tracing the roots of the “Eastern” in New Age. Commensurate with the nature and approach of the study, I also address the issues of globalization, commodification, worldmaking and mobilities paradigm and draw together the key aspects of the New Age progression.
Chapter Six presents the empirical data in a raw form. The data are based on three sources of information: (a) profile characteristics/demographic information, (b) co- researchers’ reflexive accounts, and (c) phenomenological interviews. Underpinned by hermeneutic phenomenology, I present each co-researcher as a separate case by first disclosing the phenomenological interview, followed by the written reflexive account. I thus first reveal the likes, the meaning and the motivation behind the New Age experience, and then depict the process of being and becoming a New Ager from the co- researcher’s perspective. I would like to re-iterate that the use of empirical data is to demonstrate the process of knowledge production and not to exhaust the understanding of the new Age phenomenon.
The data analysis and discussion is presented in Chapter Seven. This chapter is structured into three main sections. I first discuss my understanding of what it means to be a New Ager in ontological terms – in other words I make sense of the empirical data. Second, I draw on the emerging concepts in the field of Tourism Studies and look at the implications of the data in the context of tourism. I examine the meaning of places, worldmaking, the role of body, performances, and the importance of Self. Third, I reflect on matters methodological and revisit constructionism by discussing in detail the
44 constructed nature of this thesis. I also return to the methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology, and ponder the use of post-disciplinarity.
Finally, Chapter Eight concludes this research study. Here I reflect on the investigation and chosen methods and review all of the chapters presented in this thesis. I offer my concluding reflections on the New Age phenomenon and constructionism, and suggest future research agenda.
45 Chapter 2
METHODOLOGY AND METHODS (PART ONE): FORMING A CONSTRUCTIONIST STRATEGY
Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to posses it.
Romain Rolland
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Matters methodological are vital yet often underestimated in the research process; they demand a level of attention and require significant decision making processes. There are two lines that run parallel to each other with regard to methodology in this thesis: the first deals with the overall strategy to execute research embedded in constructionist epistemology, and the second attends to employing hermeneutic phenomenology as a methodology. Both: constructionism and hermeneutic phenomenology are subjects that have not seen much attention in the field of Tourism Studies and I will deal with them separately here in this Chapter Two and again later in Chapter Three.
2.1 Methodological Considerations: Pros and Cons of Constructionism
According to Crotty (1998, p.2), as researchers we must ponder the following question: What methodology governs our choice and use of methods, and need to have a strategy or an action plan that links the choice and use of methods to desired outcomes. This is what is commonly referred to as methodology. In order to examine the process of knowledge
46 production in Tourism Studies by drawing on a constructionist approach to research (see the study problem in section 1.5) several matters ought to be clarified in this Chapter.
This study is different to other research studies for its philosophical and theoretical focus. Most researchers do not properly consider the philosophical underpinnings of their work, nor do they delineate their ontological and epistemological assumptions. In most studies, methodologies and methods are outlined solely to achieve a particular end result (for instance to prove/disprove a hypothesis), and the philosophical/theoretical perspectives are usually deduced by other observers based on the choices made by the author/s (such as one’s use of methodology and methods). However, as I argued in Chapter One, matters concerning the philosophical sphere are important for they can empower researchers and broaden their horizon with regard to making more informed choices (rather than making an “automatic” choice of methodology and methods). Crotty (1998) argues that the philosophical perspectives, or what he calls the “theoretical perspectives”, are what guides one’s decision, including logical processes in the research.
In the previous chapter I explained that constructionism emphasizes the hold culture has on us and that it explores the ways in which we make sense of objects and experiences in the lived world. In this respect constructionism is different from critical theory and as Crotty (1998, p.59) further explains, critical theorists are more “suspicious” of the constructed meanings that culture gives us. Critical theorists can for instance focus on the hegemonic interests of particular groups, power-structures, oppression, manipulation and so forth. Nevertheless, constructionism also fosters the critical spirit (Crotty, 1998). Constructionism does not accept that meaning is generated independently and instead underlines the importance of culture and its grasp over our sense-making activities. It recognizes that cultures are not all alike and that meaning is created/shaped within different cultures (sometimes subcultures) and can vary. Any phenomenon under scrutiny can never escape the social, historical and cultural context. Thus constructionism in itself is critical by probing how we know what we know rather than attempting to maintain a status quo regarding knowledge.
47 In this light, constructionism seems to be a promising approach to study tourism, but it also comes with its pitfalls. For instance, while constructionism looks at the constructed nature of knowledge, it contributes to knowledge (in general) in regard to different ways of knowing. If we then say that constructionism regards knowledge as something that can never be true or real, then not only does knowledge have no true value but constructionism also ceases to have any true or real value (because it can never produce such knowledge). Hence it can be said that ipso facto constructionist research has no true or real value. In other words, similar to other types of knowing, constructionism is a construction we come to understand as one form of epistemology (theory of knowledge). Some can therefore claim that as a theory, constructionism undermines itself from the very beginning. However, constructionism recognises that there can be no “truer” or “better” knowing and knowledge is something that is created, shared and accepted culturally. When it comes to this research study and its value, it becomes an issue of engagement in constructionist research that merits respect (Crotty, 1998) in the academic community. It is how a research study is guided by a constructionist philosophy: how it is performed, executed and presented, so it broadens the horizons of the many ways of knowing within the field of Tourism Studies.
The second budding problem with a constructionist approach to research is that it does not provide a step-by-step guide to methodology and methods - what it does is to loosely cluster a set of assumptions (in the likes of other paradigms) which are not necessarily in agreement one with another. The researcher’s role is to determine the most appropriate strategies and tools, while knowing that there can never be any one most appropriate strategy or tool to begin with. The constructionist researcher needs to carefully ponder how he or she will tell the “story”, and be clear and consistent about the choices made. Hence matters methodological in a constructionist research should not be treated lightly.
48 2.2 Methodological Considerations: Ontology and Epistemology
Methodologies are underpinned by philosophical assumptions, whether one is explicit or implicit about it. When it comes to ascertaining one’s epistemological and ontological position, some propose that ontology has supremacy over epistemology. According to Guba and Lincoln (1989, p.87), how the epistemological questions are dealt with “depend, in the first instance, on how the ontological question has already been answered” and “taking either a realist or a relativist posture with respect to ontology places constraints on the ways in which the epistemological question can be answered”. Therefore from this standpoint, it is our understanding of the nature of reality that dictates further epistemological and methodological choices. In other words, ontology comes first.
Nonetheless, there is an opposing view and Slife and Williams (1995, p.82) see the process of knowing differently: “what we know…is how we understand, and how we understand is a product of historical and social discourse”. They indicate that it is the ways of seeking knowledge (or epistemology) that determines what we know and claim to be “real”. Similarly, Crotty (1998) argues that epistemology, as the theory of the nature of knowledge, underlines all other choices in research. The position in this research study aligns with these latter views and epistemology is placed above ontology as shown in Figure 2.1. Any research project or academic activity that results in the production of knowledge is not independent of the knowledges already present and integrated in the researcher’s worldview. Every researcher already has an understanding of what counts as knowledge. We have an epistemological predisposition that tells how to carry out research so it is acceptable as scientific knowledge (e.g. what is suitable, reliable, verifiable, and methodologically appropriate). Researchers thus cannot “bracket” what has already been culturally “given” to them. In other words, one is not born knowing the world autonomously but comes to agreement and understanding of the world culturally. Researchers go through years of schooling, specialising in various fields and disciplines so they can contribute to particular ways of knowing. The study of tourism is a result of
49 already gathered researcher’s understanding of tourism: the concepts and theories (epistemology) which then determine what is to be studied in the realms of tourism, and hence perceived as real (ontology). Bohman, Hiley and Shusterman (1991, p.13) propose that “theories are instruments for transforming reality, rather than mirroring representations of its putative essential and invariable features”. Theories and concepts (epistemology) serve to inform us about what we determine as real and true (ontology), and the epistemological therefore precedes and informs the ontological. “Everything that human beings experience is selected, arranged, and priced by the intellectual and moral judgements and linguistic practices of a social world” (McCarthy, 1996, p.2).
Moreover, I do not see one’s methodology as an immediately apparent set of procedures. Engaging in research is an evolving course of action that includes constant interaction among all processes involved. For instance one’s epistemological position may inform the choice of a particular method, however, a researcher may discover throughout the execution of that method that it does not resonate with his/her view. Scholars (in particular those adhering to constructionism) may want to remain reflexive throughout the process, critically assess all steps they take and they may even need to adjust their previous views.8 Figure 2.1 portrays the understanding of the methodological process applied in this study. It shows that one’s research strategy is not a simple exercise but the process of coming to understand the research on different levels (represented by the grey arrows in the figure). It requires a great level of vigilance and constant attention to ensure that all components align with the aims and philosophical underpinnings of the research study.
8 While completing my Masters thesis at The Auckland University of Technology, my understanding of the importance of the philosophical and methodological issues was minimal. I was convinced that I was engaging in constructivist research solely because I used phenomenology (which is often linked with constructivism as in Denzin and Lincoln’s text). I took Denzin and Lincoln’s views for granted. Today, I can see that not only can phenomenology be used by either positivist or constructivist/constructionist researchers as I explain in Chapter Three; it is the philosophical questions one has to answer first, that precede matters methodological.
50
FIGURE 2.1: THE METHODOLOGICAL PROCESS IN THIS RESEARCH STUDY
HISTORY CULTURE PARADIGM
EDUCATION EPISTEMOLOGY
ONTOLOGY
METHODOLOGY
METHODS
Composite Research Strategy/Action Plan (METHODOLOGY)
This figure shows that the “composite research strategy” or an action plan refers to a reflexive and critical construction. It involves acknowledging the different voices and influences that take place in the production of knowledge.
51 2.3 Methodological Considerations: Qualitative Approaches
As with most terminology, qualitative research can be and has been interpreted and used in different ways; often to combat what its adherents perceive as the “evil” positivist mode of enquiry. For instance Gough (2003) voices her discontent with allegiance to realist epistemology in qualitative research and criticizes the attempt to improve transparency, accountability and general trustworthiness via techniques such as triangulation or member checking for they are a quest towards truth-seeking: “a quest for an interpretation to which all parties can subscribe”(2003, p.28). Nonetheless, what Gough fails to recognise is that there can be different users of qualitative methods. Although I see this research study as falling within the vicinity of qualitative research, I associate the word “qualitative” with a set of methods. There is nothing that stops either a positivist (post-positivist) or a constructionist researcher from using qualitative methods and still adhere to his/her philosophical stance. In fact both can use even the same qualitative methods. In this regard Crotty (1998) notes that it is not unusual to find methodologies known today as qualitative research that have in the past been carried out in an empiricist and positivist manner. He explains:
There is plenty of scope for qualitative research to be understood positivistically or situated in an overall positivist setting, and, therefore, for self-professed qualitative researchers to be quite positivist in orientation and purpose…What turns their study into a positivist piece of work is not the use of quantitative methods but the attribution of objectivity, validity and generalisability to quantitative findings (Crotty, 1998, p.41).
The term “qualitative research” is therefore not self-explanatory and does not have one general meaning. The philosophical assumptions, the ontological and epistemological views of a researcher determine whether one is constructionist or positivist or something else, but they can all claim to be qualitative as they set out on their research journeys. Critical tourism researchers should therefore be cautious about elevating qualitative research to a paradigm status and be explicit when using terms that lend themselves to be ambiguous.
52 2.4 Methodological Considerations: Validity, Rigour and Reliability
In Chapter One I brought up the issue of rigor in discussing bricolage while drawing attention to the work of Denzin and Lincoln (2000b) and Kincheloe (2001; 2005). Rigour, validity and reliability have received a lot of attention in the sphere of so-called “qualitative research” and are determined by how the ontological and epistemological questions are answered. Positivist research for instance traditionally strives for objectivity, sound and verifiable data, a carefully selected population, and the ability to generalize. In constructionist research that stresses the constructed nature of concepts, the issues of rigor, validity and reliability become complex. Lather (1994, p.675) observes that validity in the discourses of the social sciences has never been the solution but the problem which has been challenging “in a deep theoretical sense, rather than as a technical problem”. By the same token, other criteria (particularly those advocated in much “qualitative” work) such as goodness or authenticity are also open to serious questions on who decides what goodness is and how one achieves something that is authentic.
There is no doubt that the words rigour and validity and their meaning in regard to intellectual life and discourse, have had bad connotations associated with positivist and later post-positivist approaches to research. However, the issue in regards to constructionism is not grounded as much in resistance as it is in a different philosophy and theoretical vies on knowledge production. The idea that one’s interpretation and construction of meaning can be reliable, sound and rigorous is likely to be rejected by many constructionists. While reliability and validity can be dealt with by asserting that interpretations are only valid and reliable temporarily (and culturally) to the interpreter, the matter of rigour is more sensitive. Constructionist research, if to be taken seriously, also needs to demonstrate its salience: there needs to be substance to it so it is accepted by members of the academic community.
53 Some tourism researchers such as Botterill (2006, p.127) express their scepticism over the use of interpretivism and constructivism in critical research and argue that by adopting these approaches, as he says: “anything goes”. He portrays constructionist/interpretivist researchers as unable to distinguish between “crazy and practically adequate accounts of tourism” (p.127). Botterill’s view is an example of his philosophical assumptions and theoretical views on knowledge production that inform his academic activities in regards to what counts and should count as knowledge. In this case, Potter (1998) would point out to Botterill that such statements about the nature of causal relations are fundamental, timeless, and contextless. Potter (p.34) insists that what “goes” (to use Botterill’s words) is not just anything but “is at stake for people; it is what is constructed and argued over”. He adds that different positions, cultures and theories “have different (any)things which go, or don’t go, or go a bit” (Potter, 1998, p.34). And this is precisely why delving into philosophical issues in the field of Tourism Studies is important: in order to move towards an advanced understanding of how knowledge is/can be produced.
What also comes into view is the importance of not only cultures but audiences also. Researchers operate within an academic culture and often many different subcultures. Accordingly, this research study is aimed at an academic community that shares some principles, rules, values, and practices. And within the academic community there are inevitably researchers with different views and understandings, and to those a constructionist research may never be scientific enough. To draw on Botterill’s views discussed above, constructionism may never be an option for someone who has vastly different views about the theory of knowledge (epistemology). The question is therefore how a constructionist study can have substance to researchers who are open to constructionist and perhaps even subjectivist epistemologies. In this respect Crotty (1998, p.13) states that all social research should result in outcomes that merit respect. In his view this means that:
(1) One needs to be concerned about the process he/she has engaged in; (2) One needs to lay that process out for the scrutiny of the observer;
54 (3) One needs to defend that process as a form of human inquiry that should be taken seriously.
The words merit respect perhaps convey what a constructionist research is about in a methodological sense. Not just “anything goes” as Botterill would say - constructionist researchers need to produce work that is well-built, well argued and strong in its own right and expose the creativity that is inherent to knowledge production. In saying that, constructionist work is shaped by the researcher who needs to ponder how to accomplish something that does merit respect and what that means. This may indeed be one of the weakest areas of constructionism, and one that has the potential for most disagreement among researchers with opposing epistemological views. And obviously even to researchers who may be epistemologically very close and incline toward this approach as demonstrated by my disagreement with Kincheloe in Chapter One. In this thesis I operate with the notion that a constructionist researcher should be explicit (rather than reigirous) about the constructions that take place in the research process. The two pillars that hold the promise of fulfilling this requirement and creating the needed substantiation9 are criticality and reflexivity.
2.5 Methodological Considerations: Criticality
In Chapter One I made claims about the lack of critical approaches in Tourism Studies hence I ought to delve further into what I mean by criticality. Tourism researchers are increasingly drawn to critical modes of enquiry and more literature is now available on this subject. The gathering of like-minded scholars at the Critical Turn Conferences in Croatia (2005, 2007 and 2009) which resulted in the publication The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies: Innovative Research Methodologies (Ateljevic et al., 2007a) serves as a good example. Nevertheless, the success of this latest “critical” endeavour remains under
9 The use of the word substantiation is not employed here in the sense that constructionist research can be bullet-proof or represent a solid interpretation. It refers to a well argued and well- built discourse. Furthermore the use of criticality and reflexivity is the researcher’s methodological choice not a procedure that should be followed by all constructionist researchers.
55 scrutiny. For instance Mason (2008) in his review of the book questions the contributors’ criticality and asserts that he is left uncertain of the use of critical theory. He shares that “it is not always clear how researchers are actually being critical” and upon reading the book asks:
Will I want to make use of critical theory in my research? This answer is far less clear as those who engage in critical research will almost inevitably challenge the status quo and they may not want to be labelled as outsiders, rebels or mavericks. Paradoxically they may not see themselves as potential members of the editors proposed “academy of hope”. If they are about to embark on the increasingly popular use of “mixed methods” in their research, they may be in a state of confusion over whether the intended quantitative part of their research can actually be critical (Mason, 2008, p.1046).
Critical research comes with its own pitfalls and often can be complex and messy. Hammersley (1995) warns us that it is not at all clear what meaning should be given to critical social research. He argues that “it does not represent a single, coherent approach, and that philosophical presuppositions on which it is based are open to serious questions” (p.42). Moreover, in his view many critical social researchers often proceed as if the foundation of their work was beyond doubt, ignoring matters of epistemological grounding. This is perhaps one of the problems with critical work in Tourism Studies. Critical Theory understood as a paradigm (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000b; Kincheloe & McLaren, 2003)10 is not only about delving into the issues of injustice, power and inequalities. Critical theorists, and constructionist also for this matter, ought to be critical in their modes of producing knowledge.
Tribe (2007, p.32) states that critical theory is in a broad sense about “uncovering implicit and sometimes hidden rules in research and therefore one measure of critical tourism is its ability to escape the bounds of such rules”. In this case one can argue that the constructionist researcher does precisely that. He or she accentuates how knowledge is produced and points to its constructed nature and its cultural, social, and historical predisposition. However a constructionist would question one’s ability to “escape” any
10 This is but one view of Critical Theory and critical researchers should not take it for granted. They should remain open to other possibilities of interpreting as well as doing critical research.
56 rules which are inherent to cultures and traditions. Furthermore, “escaping” is not necessarily more virtuous than not escaping and exposing any bounds of rules. A different matter is where this escape is taking us to. All researchers operate within rules, theories and concepts which are the possession of communities (cultures or subcultures) and shared by its members and transmitted from generation to generation (Kuhn, 1991, p.20). Thus perhaps critical research is not as much about “escaping” as it is about actively evaluating, assessing, exposing, and voicing. It is an active and situated process that demands vigilance within and outwith. Fisher and Scriven (1997, p.71) explain that “the heart and soul of critical thinking is not the knowledge, important though that is: it is the analytic skills which we use to do something with the knowledge”. Critical research in Tourism Studies is therefore far from a clear-cut approach to research and still represents many unknowns in the field. In further contemplating the modes of criticality, in Table 2.1 I offer six loose vicinities as having merit to a constructionist mode of enquiry. These vicinities inform the constructionist approach in this research study.
A reminder embedded in a constructionist thought, one that aligns with the aims of this thesis, is that criticality or “criticism can be appropriate or inappropriate depending on the circumstances, but it is not a good in itself” (Hammersley, 1995, p.43). It is as good as the skills and understanding of its user; it is part of a methodological repertoire that enables one to produce a different type of knowledge. This repertoire - criticality included – too derives from people’s cultural heritage. Bell (2008) provides a good example in his latest book China’s New Confucianism where he describes an examination of a doctoral student at a Chinese university. Bell as an examiner thought the work he was assessing lacked critical evaluation (something Bell himself learned in the Western society) but his view was opposed by the members of the examination panel. The following is text from his book that describes the instance:
… but than the panellist said something more surprising to me: that according to traditional Chinese ideas, the task of the student is to learn about the world until age forty or so, and only then try to critically examine that world (Bell, 2008, p.107).
57 TABLE 2.1: SIX VICINITIES IN A CONSTRUCITIONIST ENQUIRY
Vicinity 1: BEWILDERMENT Bewilderment is described by Slife and Williams (1995, p.211) as “beginning to organize and make sense of the various approaches to the behavioural sciences”. Critical researchers including constructionists should not take things for granted and make themselves familiar with a variety of approaches and concepts. The opportunity in being and seeking bewilderment lies in broadening one’s vistas.
Vicinity 2: OPENNES Openness in a constructionist vein is explained by Crotty (1998, p.51) as research that invites one to approach the object in a “radical spirit of openness to its potential for new or richer meaning - it is an invitation to reinterpretation”. A constructionist study should be open to many possibilities and what is required of the researchers is to voice them as he or she may find appropriate.
Vicinity 3: POSSIBILITY Possibility is intertwined with openness. It refers to the type of assumptions that have no “must” in it; it rests in knowing that events as observed and constructed by the behavioral/social sciences do not have to happen as they do (Slife & Williams, 1995).
Vicinity 4: TRANSPARENCY Transparency comes with consistency. Constructionist researchers not only work with meaning, it forms the main argument of constructionism. It is therefore important to be clear about the meaning (or many meanings) of things. The concepts and terms used are not self explanatory but are embedded in culture and practice, and therefore can hold multiple and temporary meanings. Meanings can be interpreted, re-interpreted but also misinterpreted.
Vicinity 5: CONSISTENCY After transparency comes consistency. Consistency throughout one’s work is important and researchers ought to explain their position and adhere to it. Crotty (1998) for example explains that to be consistently constructionist we should treat all understanding (whether scientific or non-scientific) as constructions which cannot be objective, absolute or truly generalizable. Although there may be variations of constructionist approaches to research, scholars ought to explicate their views and carry out the work in accordance with those views. Oscillation throughout one’s work can undermine quality.
Vicinity 6: CONSCIENTISATION Conscientisation is a concept introduced by Brazilian theorist and educator Freire (1976). Conscientisation refers to the development of critical consciousness through the process of reflection and action while stressing the importance of praxis. It stands for understanding one’s present situation or as Crotty (1998, p.152) explains “critical self-insertion into the reality of one’s own situation”. In this view the world is not a static reality but a “reality in process” (Crotty, 1998, p.152). A constructionist researcher should be reminded that when offering interpretations and engaging in story-telling practices he or she should see, think and voice through a situated and reflexive stance.
58 2.6 Methodological Considerations: Reflexivity
Finlay and Gough (2003, p.ix) propose that reflexivity in research has in recent years turned into “academic consciousness”. It has been appraised as an important part of the evolution of (so called) qualitative research and described as a “project of examining how the researcher and intersubjective elements impact on and transform research” (Finlay, 2003, p.4). According to Davies et al. (2004) reflexivity is inseparable from language and forms an inevitable part of our everyday lives - as the way we use our language, the way we know how to use it and with what effect - is how we create meanings and constructions in the lived world.
Although language is a topic large enough for a research study in its own right, it has been troubling a number of philosophers including a post-war philosopher Gille Deleuze, and therefore deserves at least a brief notion. Deleuze in contrast to other thinkers offers a different philosophy of language, and instead of making it a climax of an inevitable progress, he treats language as “a sequel or epiphenomenon to images” (Lecercle, 2002, p.253). For him texts are about memory and established traditions of interpretations – a view that is close to the constructionist approach in this research study. Lecercle further comments on Deleuze’s thoughts: “we find in his work a joyous affirmation of the creativity of language, embodied in the concept of style, and the construction of alternative, and entirely positive, philosophy of language”(2002, p.254). Lecercle suggests that Deleuze’s philosophy of language also reveals several antonyms such as history (as opposed to synchrony), external (as opposed to internal), creativity (as opposed to rules), and maxims (as opposed to laws). These concepts, he finds, are important for they enable one to abandon the generality of research programmes and move towards constructing new and external form of linguistics (Lecercle, 2002).
In this regard, Lather (1994, p.676) highlights the importance of interrogating representation of stories about science – calling for “reflexive exploration of our own practices of representation”. This involves maintaining a dialogue with the reader/s about the construction and nature of reality. Lather further elaborates:
59 It is not a matter of looking harder or more closely, but of seeing what frames our seeing – spaces of constructed visibility and incitements to see which constitute power/knowledge (Lather, 1994, p.675).
Underpinned by these notions, reflexivity seems to fit well within a constructionist approach to research. The problem, however, is that reflexivity and the execution of it, is far from clear in the field of Tourism Studies and also across other disciplines. Davies et al. (2004) for instance battle with reflexivity and engage in Collaborative Biography which they describe as a research strategy developed from memory-work (Haug, 1987). They explain that:
Memory work involves the writing and subsequent analysis of remembered stories that women can collectively use to generate their own critiques of theory that writes women out (Davies et al., 2004, p.368).
They describe the Collaborative Biography as reading their “embodied, constituted, and constituting selves” and producing “spoken and written texts based on that reading” (p.368). They explain that they employ a “strategy of retrieving memories and using those memories as data that can be analyzed to produce insights into the process of subjectification”(p.369) and hence engage in a different kind of writing - a “strategy of removing clichés and (value-laden) explanations from our writing” (p.372). Furthermore they pose questions such as:
What might I say about what I have thought and done during the day that does not in some sense re-create the day as something other than the thing we took it to be at the time? (Davies et al., 2004, p.374)
The constructionist mind boggles! First, the data that is produced by the researcher or a group of researchers, or research subjects still remains data. Data always needs to be interpreted as it does not hold meaning on its own. Second, the interpretation of oneself is already an interpretation. One can not go back to a lived moment without interpreting it. Interpretation is never complete; it is temporary and ever subjective based one one’s culture. “Interpretation is always applied to something, because it is always an interpretation of something, even if that something is itself a prior interpretation”
60 (Bohman et al., 1991, p.10). Furthermore, one can never fully explain him or herself (nor his/her interpretations) and the world we live in. Third, it is not clear what is reflexive about removing what the authors call clichés. From a constructionist view the question that should be asked is who decides on what a cliché is and whether clichés can be removed. The constructionist answer is likely to be that these clichés are inherent to culture/s and hence can never be “escaped”. But they can be addressed, voiced and problematised. Slife and Williams (1995, p.82) further describe the process of knowing through the social constructionist lens as follows:
The way of knowing does not occur simply through sensory experiences, such as observations or experimental data, nor through logical reasoning, such as through experiments or mathematics alone. This way of knowing does not occur within an individual at all. It occurs in the relations among individuals as they converse and negotiate and share their world with one another.
In this regard Steier (1991, p.5) shares his view that “taking reflexivity seriously in doing research is marked by a concern for recognising that constructing is a social process, rooted in language, not located inside one’s head”. Reflexivity as a methodological matter - as part of a research strategy - can vary depending on by whom it is utilised and how it is understood. Lynch (2000, p.36 cited in Finlay 2003) argues that “what reflexivity does, what it threatens to expose, what it reveals and who it empowers depends upon who does it and how they go about it”. What seems necessary is that researchers ponder for themselves the ontological and epistemological assumptions that underline their work. Reflexivity should not be approached as practice based on reliable methods, but instead it requires “deep inspections of the tensions involved in how “I”/”WE” constitute the world” (Hollinshead, 2008, p.3). A reflexive mode of enquiry therefore extends beyond examining one’s reflexive processes and the different Selves (researcher’s, participants etc.). Reflexivity can and should also lead to issues such as acknowledging the possibility of the researcher’s dominance in the research (a frequent argument against reflexivity). It is an active mode of vigilance in the research process and can be used in a critical manner. It involves a critique of all stakeholders taking part in the process of producing knowledge. In fact it can be said that reflexivity is one mode of critical research for it points out the complexity of knowledge production.
61 When it comes to applying reflexivity, there are a variety of innovative styles depending on the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of one’s research, but also based on the aims and function of a research project (Finlay, 2003). Furthermore, reflexivity can concentrate only on one stage of the research or it can be used throughout the whole process (Gough, 2003). Wilkinson (1988) for instance differentiates between personal, functional and disciplinary reflexivity. Gough (2003) draws on Wilkinson’s concept and explains that in the first instance it may reveal the researcher’s individuality and her or his effects on the research process. Functional reflexivity on the other hand examines the effect that the researcher has on the research process with the key issue being power and status throughout the research process. The last, disciplinary reflexivity requires broader debates about theory and methods and also the concepts and traditions that shape the research project. From a constructionist view all of the above come into play and are highly relevant in regard to the constructed nature of knowledge.
Wasserfall (summarised by Hollinshead & Jamal, 2007) for instance distinguishes between what he calls weak-form reflexivity and strong-form reflexivity. The first suggests general self-awareness of the relationship between the researcher and informants and calls for insights into the construction of knowledge. The second, strong-form reflexivity is a more thorough self-awareness exercise which requires in-depth discourses on matters such as power differences and the researcher’s authority. While a constructionist researcher may draw on the first, a critical theorist may welcome strong- form reflexivity in digging deeper into the issues of power for instance.
In pondering the level of reflexiveness in this research study and given the need for criticality, it appars that a constructionist approach to research requires a critically- reflexive mode of engagement, perhaps what Taylor (1991) calls radical reflexivity. By radical reflexivity Taylor does not merely refer to the focus on oneself, but promotes one’s subjective experiences. He further explains:
To be interested in my own health, or wealth, is to be reflexively oriented, but not radically. But when I examine my own experience, or scrutinize my own thinking, reflexivity takes a radical turn (Taylor, 1991, p.304).
62 In the pages to follow, I will strive to pay attention to all three: personal, functional and disciplinary reflexivity as identified earlier by Wilkinson (1988). I will offer reflexive insights and use my active voice (“I”) in order to acknowledge my active part in constructing this work. I do not see reflexivity as a tool for “improving” one’s research, nor do I see a reflexive engagement as a set-in-stone procedure. On a philosophical/methodological note, Gough (2003, p.28) warns scholars that reflexivity is sometimes used by qualitative researchers in order to “warrant data analysis as truthful or rich, thereby falling back on positivist notions of objectivity (but ironically through subjectivity)”. Also Hollinshead (2008) and Denzin (1997) warn against slippage into realism. MacMillan (2003) further states that there should not be a general model for reflexivity for that would result in another set of methods. What needs to be underscored in regard to constructionsim is that reflexive knowledge, as any other knowledge, is constructed. There is no better way of being reflexive: reflexivity is a different mode of producing knowledge. In this research study, reflexivity is employed for its ability to acknowledge different voices and influences that play a role in producing knowledge: knowledge.
Throughout the thesis I reflexively ponder issues that I feel are in need of more attention. I use my voice actively, and I present the influences I find important in producing knowledge not only in the text but also by means of footnotes at the bottom of a page11. Moreover, the choice of hermeneutic phenomenology as a methodology calls for different levels of reflexivity and in that sense I follow Gough’s (2003, p.25) suggestion to promote reflexivity in the co-researchers. The reflexive accounts of the co-researchers are offered in the empirical chapter, Chapter Five.
2.7. Chapter Summary
This chapter has dealt with my strategy to carry out a research grounded in constructionist epistemology, and delve into the issues of knowledge production in the
11 This an example of my reflexive voice by using footnotes.
63 field of Tourism Studies. The focus in this chapter has therefore been placed on the methodological aspects of constructionist research. I explained that methodology is not a procedure that is set in stone and instead researchers need to chew over their views, available methods and the most suitable (e.g. resonating with their philosophical views) approach to tackle their study problems. I also attended to what I presented as methodological matters and clarified my position in regard to concepts such as qualitative research, criticality, reflexivity, validity and rigour. By suggesting that constructionist research should embrace a more reflexive and critical mode of knowledge production I proposed that constructionist studies should gain in substance and eventuate in work that merits respect. In the next chapter I will continue the discourse on methodology and methods and explain my intentions in using hermeneutic phenomenology.
64 Chapter 3
METHODOLOGY AND METHODS (PART TWO): PHENOMENOLOGY
I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I’ve got.
Herman Hesse (1877-1962)
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The main purpose of this chapter is to continue the dialogue on the methodological foundations that underpin this study and to delineate the methodical decisions that are to take place in the pages to follow. As indicated in the title above, attention will be largely directed towards phenomenology in general and hermeneutic phenomenology in particular. First, I remind the reader of the importance of one’s ontological and epistemological views for this will be shown to play a significant role when selecting a phenomenological approach, and I then move to asses some of the phenomenological work in Tourism Studies. I compare classical phenomenology (based on the work of Husserl) and contrast it with hermeneutic phenomenology (based on the work of Heidegger and Gadamer) in order to reveal the discrepancies that exist among phenomenological research. Next, I explain how I aim to utilise hermeneutic phenomenology and what tools I will employ to explore New Agers’ lived experiences and their being in the world.
65 3.1 Paradigms and Phenomenology
In the previous chapter I stressed the importance of ontological and epistemological assumptions in one’s research. When it comes to paradigms and the use of phenomenology, scholars who are serious about utilising phenomenology need to consider the philosophical grounds of chosen research tradition and explore further the historical context and methodological practices inherent to that tradition. Phenomenology played an important part in the 20th century anti-positivist response which saw positivism as neglecting the sphere of meaningful experiences, i.e., the defining characteristic of human phenomena (Polkinghorne, 1983). Positivism was not interested in investigating the human added realm and disregarded the sphere of reality that exists because of human beings. Most phenomenological approaches serve to undertake interpretive research that seeks to represent the lived experience. Despite apparent similarities, approaches to phenomenology differ significantly in their foci, and can be situated in different research paradigms ranging from positivist (Husserl), post-positivist (Merleau-Ponty), to interpretivist (Heidegger and Gadamer) and constructivist/constructionist (Richard Rorty). Phenomenology is comparatively new to tourism scholars and the application of this methodology in the field of Tourism Studies has been varied and often confusing.
3.2 Phenomenology in Tourism Studies
When it comes to tourism research and the use of phenomenology, we speak of an area that is largely unexplored, a methodology that remains for many ambiguous. Most publications dedicated to tourism research methods either avoid the discussion of phenomenology (Ritchie, Burns, & Palmer, 2005; Veal, 1992) or provide only a brief and inadequate account of phenomenological approaches (Jennings, 2001). In fact there is no information with respect to guidance through phenomenological research in tourism and this is perhaps part of researchers’ struggles. In general, many tourism readers fail to offer clear methodological guidelines (in regard to their approach and use of
66 phenomenology) and focus only on the periphery of the subject. In fact the link to phenomenology in most studies is unclear and often perplexing.12
The first and perhaps foremost known work that uses the word “phenomenology” is Cohen’s (1979) Phenomenology of Tourist Experiences published in Sociology. Cohen presents a theoretical framework and a typology of tourist experiences, however there seems to be no relation to the tradition of phenomenology and this paper appears as a theoretical exercise that categorises tourists. Unfortunately Cohen’s writing does not resemble a phenomenological study that is either underpinned by the philosophical traditions of phenomenology, or as an applied methodology. There are other studies, which in a similar fashion, use the term phenomenology (Cohen, Yeshayahu, & Almagor, 1992; Mannell & Iso-Ahola, 1987) but neither elaborate on the philosophy of phenomenology, nor employ phenomenological (applied) research13.
Masberg and Silverman (1996), in their work on Visitor Experiences at Heritage Sites: A Phenomenological Approach, likewise fail to provide a clear account of the methodology employed. In fact the use of phenomenology resembles a method rather than a methodology. In this study they distributed sixty questionnaires to students and asked the following key questions: (1) What was the latest heritage site you visited, (2) Where is it located, (3) What does the term “heritage site” mean to you, (4) Please describe your visit in as much detail as possible, and (5) What did you get out of the visit. Although the authors briefly mention both Husserl and Heidegger, it is not clear what phenomenological approach they aimed to follow and their work reads more as an analysis of questionnaires and lacks the philosophical substance of a phenomenological study.
12 With regard to one’s understanding – this suggests that there are many different interpretations of phenomenological research. Many researchers tend to adopt prescribed methodologies and methods to often reveal the “true” meaning of people’s experiences. 13 This is why it is important to establish what researchers mean by phenomenology, what they plan to do, and most importantly whose phenomenology are they adhering to. In this regared in Chapter Five in section 2.5 I called for consistency (vicinity #4).
67 In a different work, Uriely and Belhassen (2005) follow Cohen’s phenomenological typology of tourists’ experience and focus on drug related tourist experiences. Here the authors interview thirty participants and apply interpretive analysis in order to classify each interviewee into one of Cohen’s modes. The work merely draws on Cohen’s (1979) earlier work and does not seem to follow any phenomenological tradition. In fact Uriely and Belhassen (2005, p.242) express clearly that their aim was to “classify each interviewee into one of Cohen’s modes” typologies. Therefore there is no linkage to phenomenology per se. Uriely’s earlier study with Yonay and Simchai’s (2002) is, similarly, based on Cohen’s writing and does not resemble phenomenological research that perhaps should/could draw on phenomenological traditions which I explain later in this chapter.
Reisenger and Steiner (2006) strive to implement pieces of Heideggerian work in discussing authenticity and interpretation, but seem to fall short of discussing deeper issues and meaningfully engaging in a thorough discussion of his philosophy. In their paper Reconceptualizing Object Authenticity (2006) they read into Heidegger’s work and explain that it does not matter whether representation is “objective, constructed, or denied legitimacy; it is the world as pictured through one’s idea or eidos of it”. Things are as they are. Reisinger and Steiner further propose: “if Heidegger is right, everything that tourists experience, what they see, touch, hear, smell and taste, is real and authentic in itself” (p.80). And they conclude that object authenticity should be abandoned. However, Heidegger stressed the concrete situation of the interpreter and the influence of one’s culture, history, practice and language all of which determine the meaning and also authenticity of objects and experiences. Things have meaning and may be authentic not in themselves but in cultures (which are formed through practice, language, history and so forth). It is important that one does not read into the Israeli tour guide as providing a “better” or “correct” understanding in regard to truth, for understanding is always situated.
In their other paper Reconceptualising Interpretation: The Role of Tour Guides in Authentic Tourism, Reisinger and Steiner (2006, p. 493) run into the danger of confusing
68 the reader by concluding that the most Heideggerian types of tour guides can be found in Israel. According to them these guides can be seen as agents of education and culture as they interpret scenes and meanings. Although one’s background and history was important to Heidegger, he did not aim to reveal the most accurate description or the most accurate understanding. A tour guide, whether or not more informed and culturally aware, still produces a prejudiced interpretation which is context-bound. What Reisinger and Steiner perhaps need to emphasize, is that the Israeli tour guides may be more reflexive and draw on their individual backgrounds to produce descriptions and interpretations. Nevertheless, one could argue that most tour guides do that whether they are in Israel, UK, or anywhere else in the world.
Also related to phenomenology and hermeneutics is Obenour’s (2004) paper Understanding the Meaning of the “Journey” to Budget Travellers. Here the author claims to draw on philosophical hermeneutics; yet the methodology bears no resemblance to the writing of Heiddeger or Gadamer, and Obenour fails to address his methodological intentions and the theory informing his method. The use of semi-structured narrative interviews and a software program to identify meaning units (phrases/sentences) deserves a more informed discussion and rationale.
At the other end of the spectrum stand researchers who more or less provide clear methodological directions but do not address the philosophical underpinnings of their work. For instance, Curtin (2006) seeks to gain an insight into the human-dolphin attractions and asks “what is it like to swim with dolphins?” Her study is based on the methodological model of Moustakas (1994) and Van Manen (1990). Pernecky14 (2006a), Ingram (2002) and Li (2000) correspondingly apply phenomenological approaches that are descriptive and empirical, and they aim to portray the essences of participants’ experiences. Hayllar and Griffin (2005) also follow the work of Van Manen (1990) in order to examine the experience of visitors to The Rocks in Sydney, Australia. And
14 This was my understanding of phenomenology in my Masters thesis. I will explain later in this chapter that at that time I did not know phenomenology can be carried out in many ways. I was looking for a clear methodology and methods to do phenomenology. I refer to this in my thesis as the automatic/mechanical approach to research - when researchers don’t think critically enough for themselves and merely adopt methodologies and methods from the works of others.
69 recently Andriotis (2009) also drew on the work of van Manen and Moustakas to study sacred sites. Although it is encouraging to see that the lived experience is becoming a worthy topic in Tourism Studies, these texts refer to phenomenology as if it were a universal methodology, or in some cases, a mere method. In this respect Van Manen (1990) and Moustakas (1994) do provide a clear step-by-step guide that is somewhat convenient: hence it is not surprising that many scholars and students resort to drawing on their work. Nevertheless, van Manen and Moustakas offer a rather post-positivist approach to phenomenology, which most researchers do not realise and therefore it is vital to ponder precisely what phenomenological approach, and hence what philosophical foundations may be most appropriate in one’s research. There is a need for more criticality in researcher’s choices.
All in all this brief review shows that phenomenology as a concept is interpreted and re- interpreted differently by a number of scholars and hence it is no surprise that phenomenology remains a mystery to many. Overall there is a lack of clarity and consistency on the researchers’ part and researchers should ponder the philosophical roots of different phenomenologies and the critically assess its suitability in their research. In the next section I look at the definitions of phenomenology and examine more closely the differences between phenomenological approaches.
3.3 Phenomenology Defined
The term phenomenology is derived from two Greek words phainomen (an appearance) and logos (reason or word) which translate into reasoned appearance where appearance stands for anything one is conscious of (Stewart & Mickunas, 1974). The word phenomenon similarly originates in the Greek phaenesthai and means to appear or show itself (Moustakas, 1994). Hence the task of a phenomenologist is to study the contents of one’s consciousness, to study things within human existence (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). Phenomenology is often depicted as the study of essences (as by Merleay Ponty, 1962), the science of phenomena (Van Manen, 1990), and the exploration of human experience (Polkinghorne, 1989).
70 When it comes to a chronological assessment of phenomenology, Spilegelberg and Schuhumann (1994) identify three core historical phases and its most influential thinkers: (1) the preparatory phase with Franz Brentano (1838-1917) and Carl Stupmf (1848- 1936), (2) the German phase with Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and (3) the French phase with Gabriel Marcel (1889-1974), Jean-Paul Satre (1905-1980), and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961). Phenomenology in the 20th century has been shaped by several major thinkers, amongst which Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty were most prominent (Macann, 1993).
Most phenomenological approaches serve to underpin interpretative research that seeks to represent the lived experience in as raw and un-elaborated a way as possible (Van Manen, 2000). Phenomenology today is increasing in popularity, and as a research perspective it is utilized by scholars from various disciplines. Phenomenology or “how we experience” can typically be approached from two angles: (a) phenomenology as a discipline in philosophy, and (b) as a methodology/method in applied or professional contexts (2000). Hence different phenomenological approaches such as descriptive phenomenology, existential phenomenology or hermeneutic phenomenology can be applied to one’s research (Welch, 2001). Van Manen (1990) further explains that the use of phenomenology by human science scholars (rather than from a philosophical point of view) applied to their professional practice is an eclectic approach to the tradition of phenomenology and can be labeled as phenomenology of practice. It can be seen in professional contexts such as psychology (Amadeo Giorgi), nursing (Patricia Benner), education or pedagogy (Max van Manen). Nevertheless, what needs to be articulated is that van Manen’s work, despite offering useful methodological guidelines, deploys positivistic terminology and can be seen as a post-positivist tendency to bring the work of Husserl (positivist) and Heidegger (interpretivist) together. Therefore the philosophies that underlie different phenomenologies matter.
71 3.3.1 Husserlian and Heideggerian Phenomenology Traditionally, phenomenology refers to the work of German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1931; 1970; 1971) who is known to be the founder of twentieth-century phenomenological philosophy and is regarded as the central figure of the phenomenological movement (Cohen, 1987). Both Husserl and Heidegger are two key figures in phenomenology and serve as a good example to demonstrate the vast differences in approaches to phenomenology.
Husserl’s work can be divided into three main periods: (1) pre-transcendental or epistemological phenomenology, (2) fully transcendental phenomenology, and (3) genetic phenomenology. Husserl’s aim was academic in the sense that phenomenology for him meant a rigorous and unbiased study of things as they appear to be, in order to come to an essential understanding of human consciousness and experience (Valle, King, & Halling, 1989, p.6). In his early work, Husserl demanded that objectivity of “even the most logical of objectivities be traced back to the structures of consciousness in and through which it first became possible” (Macann, 1993, p.3). Husserl saw phenomenology as a rigorous human science and his contemporary exponents such as Amadeo Giorgi still pursue the criticism of the interpretive approaches to phenomenology (Van Manen, 2000). The methodological implications include techniques such as phenomenological reduction or bracketing, meaning suspending one's beliefs in the reality of the natural world in order to study the essential structures of the world. It is the essences or inner, true nature of a thing that were important for Husserl (Dowling, 2005).
Employing Husserl’s phenomenology is therefore rather rigid and descriptive, and some would say it has a post-positivist tendency. In fact, Husserl did proclaim himself to be a positivist and his view is recognized as being based on Cartesian duality, a culmination of the Cartesian tradition (Koch, 1995). Gadamer (1976, p.146) once announced: “Husserl’s idea of phenomenology claims to be true positivism. He means the return to the phenomenally given as such, which renounces all theory and metaphysical construction”. For the most part, however, it was Husserl’s aspiration and belief that he had developed a
72 method that would advance philosophy to the status of rigorous science. What is important to note from a constructionist perspective is that Husserl’s phenomenology seems to clash with many of the constructionist claims. And unless constructionist researchers ponder the different philosophies that underlie various phenomenologies they can mistakenly draw on the methodology of phenomenology hoping to engage in something “truly” qualitative. From a constructionist stance, the researcher’s role (when employing a constructionist approach) is not to find the best method to explain something as nothing can be fully or objectively or truly explained/depicted.
One the other hand is Heidegger with a different view of phenomenology. Heidegger, as one of the most influential modern philosophical hermeneuticists expanded the study of phenomenology to what would become hermeneutic phenomenology. Hermeneutic phenomenology represents an approach to research that is existential-ontological and views the person as a self-interpreting being that is shaped by her/his culture, history, practice and language (Gadamer, 1976, p.xlvi). The question that motivated Heidegger’s thought from the very beginning was: What is the meaning of being? (Gadamer, 1976). In Gadamer’s view (1976), Heidegger shows that all interpretation, including scientific interpretation is governed by the concrete situation of the interpreter. “There is no presuppositionless, prejudiceless interpretation, for while the interpreter may free himself from this or that situation, he cannot free himself from his own facticity, from the ontological condition of always already having a finite temporal situation as the horizon within which the beings he understands have their initial meaning for him” (p.xlvii). Moreover, according to Polkinghorne (1983, p.224), Heidegger saw the basic form of human existence in understanding:
It is not the way we know the world, he said: it is the way we are. For Heidegger, hermeneutics was not a method which, once designed, could be learned and employed by researchers concerned with the human realm, and he did not address the issue of why one interpretation is better than another. He maintained that to be human is to be interpretive, for the very nature of the human realm is interpretive. Interpretation, then, is not a tool for knowledge; it is the way human beings are. All cognitive attempts to develop knowledge are but expressions of interpretation, and experience itself is formed through interpretation of the world.
73 However the task of hermeneutics is not to develop a procedure of understanding but rather to elucidate the circumstances in which understanding takes place (Koch, 1995). Therefore the hermeneutic question asks: What does it mean to be? Heidegger condemned as “abstraction” any attempt to detach oneself from what is being inquired into in order to know it better (Polkinghorne, 1983, p.225). Accordingly, hermeneutic theory is not concerned with accurate descriptions, as it is in Husserl’s phenomenology, for understanding is performed for us by the world in which we exist and through the social meanings contained in language. The task of hermeneutics is to unveil how understanding comes about. For him it was not a search for an absolute truth, for an absolute truth cannot be achieved through methods. In Koch’s (1995) view, Heidegger resists the epistemological assumptions of Husserlian phenomenology that emphasizes epistemological questions of knowing, and instead focuses on experience. Heideggerian hermeneutics, on the other hand, emphasizes ontological-existential questions of experiencing (Wilson & Hutchinson, 1991) and knowing (Koch, 1995) so there is a turn from consciousness to existence. In order to demonstrate the main differences between Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology, Table 3.1, following, developed by Koch (1995) and later adapted by Laverty (2003) compares these two traditions.
Laverty (2003) further explains that it was the exploration of lived experience proceeds where Husserl and Heidegger most disagreed. While Husserl focused on understanding beings or phenomena, Heidegger focused on Dasein, which translates as the mode of being or the situated meaning of a human in the world (Annells, 1996; Laverty, 2003). Da-sein (the human beings we are, often translated from German as “being there”) is a situated, historical and temporal being-in-the-world (Heidegger 1989). Husserl’s interests lay in acts of attending, perceiving, recalling, and thinking about the world. Human beings were understood and considered largely as knowers. In contrast, Heidegger perceived humans as being primarily concerned creatures with an emphasis on their fate in an alien world (Annells, 1996; Laverty, 2003). Therefore rather than focusing on the essence experience (the aim of Husserl), Heidegger was concerned with illuminating the phenomenon of what he called the “world” - the purposes, activities, and significance of the objects that surround us (Cerbone, 2006).
74 TABLE 3.1: KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HUSSERLIAN AND HEIDEGGERIAN PHENOMENOLOGIES
Husserlian Phenomenology Heideggerian Phenomenology
Transcendental phenomenology Philosophical hermeneutics Hermeneutic phenomenology
Epistemological Existential-ontological
Epistemological questions of knowing Questions of experiencing and understanding How do we know what we know? What does it mean to be a person?
Cartesian duality: mind body split Dasein (situated being in the world)
A mechanistic view of the person Person as self-interpreting being
Mind-body person living in a world of Person exists as a 'being' in and of the world objects Ahistorical Historicality
Unit of analysis is meaning giving subject Unit of analysis is transaction between situation and the person
What is shared is the essence of the What is shared in culture, history, practice, conscious mind language
Starts with reflection of mental states We are already in the world in our pre- reflective states
Meaning is unsullied by the interpreter’s Interpreters participate in making data own normative goals or view of the world
Participants' meanings can be reconstituted Within the fore-structure of understanding in interpretive work by insisting data speaks interpretation can only make explicit what for themselves is already understood
Claim that adequate techniques and Establish own criteria for trustworthiness of procedures guarantee validity of research interpretation Bracketing defends the validity or The hermeneutic circle (background, co- objectivity of the interpretation against self- constitution, pre-understanding) interest SOURCE: Adopted from Koch (1995, p.832)
75 Although here I solely focus on comparing the work of Husserl and Heidegger, there are other contemporary phenomenologists such as Van Kaam (1966), Giorgi (1975) and Colaizzi (1978) who have become the source of inspiration for much phenomenological research. They draw on the basic themes of philosophical phenomenology of Merlau Ponty and Husserl in order to produce accurate descriptions of human experience (Ehrich, 2005). Hence with regard to “doing” phenomenology, it is not surprising that the most comprehensive (how-to guides) phenomenological approaches come in the form of descriptive (positivist) phenomenologies with established methods/procedures as in the case of Van Manen (noted earlier). For instance phenomenological psychology and the writings of van Kaam, Giorgi and Colazzi, according to Polkinghorne (1989, p.55), resemble similar procedures in regard to doing phenomenology: (1) the original protocols/descriptions are divided into units, (2) the units are transformed by the researcher into meanings that are expressed in psychological and phenomenological concepts, and (3) these transformations are combined together to make a general description of the experience. Here we therefore have a post-positivist model of phenomenology.
Seemingly, there are major differences in employing phenomenology. To bring this discourse into the field of Tourism Studies, scholars need to treat phenomenology more conscientiously and ponder whether their scientific objectives and philosophical assumptions are “in sync” with a particular phenomenological approach (and if so explain why). Phenomenology can be used by a “qualitative researcher”15 but with very different results from those obtained by a post-positivist researcher. Hence there is a need for more criticality as I argued in Chapter One and not just a mere “mechanical” approach to methodologies and methods. 16 In the next section I will identify some of the misconceptions about phenomenology that we seem to be currently facing.
15 I use quotation marks here and there when speaking of the qualitative research/researchers because the word “qualitative” in my view, is more relevant to methods and is not a unified political stance or a paradigm as I explain in Chapter Two. 16 Tourism scholars (including qualitative researchers) often have a very mechanical approach to research. It seems to me that they like to follow other people’s ideas and steps in order to get a “successful check” for completing the methodology and methods “properly”. There is a lack of criticality in applying methods that are taken from other disciplines.
76 3.3.2 Hermeneutics and Phenomenology: Major Misconceptions There are several issues in need of clarification when it comes to phenomenological research. These are summarized in Table 3.2, following. The terms phenomenology and hermeneutics are used interchangeably but do not always refer to the same philosophical ideas (Koch, 1995; Van Manen, 1990; Wilson & Hutchinson, 1991). It is the position of the researcher, the process of data analysis, and issues of rigour that contrast between phenomenologies (Laverty, 2003). Therefore the foremost incorrect assumption to be clarified is that not all phenomenological research is grounded in the same philosophy, which inevitably leads to methodological differences. As shown earlier, there are major differences between Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology.
The terminology used in phenomenological and hermeneutic research can at times appear to be complicated. Husserl’s and Heidegger’s works are referred to as phenomenology, but Heidegger (and later Gadamer) are also associated with hermeneutics and philosophical hermeneutic. While hermeneutic phenomenology is seen as an inquiry arm of philosophical hermeneutics (Annells, 1996), when we speak of Heideggerian phenomenology, it is sometimes described as existential phenomenology or (following Gadamer) philosophical hermeneutics (Koch, 1995). Van Manen (2000) asserts that phenomenology becomes hermeneutical when its method is taken to be interpretive. Schwandt (2000, p.194) further explains that:
Philosophical hermeneutics challenges this classic epistemological (or more generally, Cartesian) picture of the interpreter’s tasks and the kind of understanding that he or she “produces”…understanding is interpretation.
In the academic literature, one can often find general statements such as asserting that an essential task of phenomenology is description. Perhaps, that would be correct if we were to talk about phenomenology founded by Husserl and practised by his followers. However, when it comes to hermeneutic phenomenology, such a statement would be misleading for its centre of attention is not description but interpretation. For instance, Polkinghorne (1989, p.50) elaborates on phenomenological methods and explains that the
77 TABLE 3.2: THREE MAIN MISCONCEPTIONS IN PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH
FUNDAMENTAL ISSUES TO BE CONSIDERED WHEN “DOING” PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH:
1. Different philosophical paradigms guide phenomenological research: phenomenological techniques and procedures are grounded in different philosophies.
i)This means that one can study the same phenomenon and apply Husserl’s or Heidegger’s phenomenology but the nature of each study will be fundamentally different (including data analysis and the presentation of findings). It is important to note that the aim of phenomenological research is not necessarily to create theories, concepts and to test hypothesis.
2. Hermeneutic phenomenology (based mostly on Heidegger’s and Gadamer’s work) is a distinctive methodology comprising methods that are different from what is generally known as phenomenology (based mostly on Husserl’s work).
ii) As shown earlier in the review of phenomenological work in Tourism Studies, phenomenology is often referred to as if it were a universal methodology. Phenomenology is often mistaken and understood merely as a qualitative technique; however, it is more appropriate to conceive of phenomenology as methodology.
3. Researchers need to address their ontological, epistemological and methodological position in order to employ the most apposite phenomenological approach.
iii) It is essential to understand how we as researchers are situated within a study and address our philosophical (ontological and epistemological) assumptions for these influence every step in the research process. This is even more the case in utilising phenomenology for its indissoluble link to philosophy.
78 aim of phenomenological inquiry is to “reveal and unravel the structures, logic, and interrelationships that obtain in the phenomenon under inspection…creating an accurate, clear, and informative structural description”. He states that the essential structure is made up of the elements or constituents that are necessary for an experience to present itself as what it is, resulting in something called a general structural description or synthetic description (Polkinghorne, 1989, p.51). Ostensibly, these endeavours offer clear, accurate descriptions; and essential structures of experiences are grounded in Husserlian phenomenology but are the contrary to the work of Heidegger and Gadamer, also phenomenologists. Researchers employing phenomenology should therefore be cautious in accepting others’ views and critically assess the theories and concepts they operate with.
Koch (1995, p.828) in her overview of Husserlian phenomenology states that the hallmark of its inquiry is that its task is a “matter of describing”: placing an emphasis on description of experience – an empiricist conception of knowledge. In this respect one of Husserl’s directives to phenomenology was to make it a descriptive psychology, hoping to unveil the ultimate structures (essences) of consciousness. Hermeneutic phenomenology, though, does not strive for accurateness or clearness of descriptions. It seeks interpretation while grounded in a belief that a definitive interpretation is never possible (Annells, 1996). Therefore from a hermeneutic standpoint, what Polkinghorne describes above as phenomenology is perhaps best seen as essences of shared historicality of people who come from a similar cultural and historical background and who share some commonalities in terms of their values, beliefs, lifestyles, education etc. Koch (1995, p.832) hints at her constructionist inclination and explains that “Husserlians claim to describe the phenomenon as it appears, but I would suggest that one cannot separate description from one’s own interpretation”.
Another misconception is that phenomenology is often perceived as one of many methods in so called “qualitative research”, yet phenomenology stands for the research strategy (Willis, 2001). When engaging in hermeneutic phenomenology, “clearly describing procedures, e.g. theoretical notes, methodological decisions, plans for analysis
79 and interpretive frameworks, is an essential part of this research process” (Koch, 1996, p.178). Thus even though “phenomenological interview” corresponds to a method or technique, one needs to acknowledge phenomenology in a broader sense and address the issues related to ontology, epistemology and methodology – i.e. the philosophical underpinnings of phenomenological research. In this regard hermeneutic phenomenology is rightly called philosophical hermeneutics.
Lastly, unlike other approaches to research, phenomenology is not concerned with identifying causes, generating abstraction, concepts, hypotheses or theories (Willis, 2001, p.4). Some argue that phenomenology does not problem solve; it does not describe actual states of affairs; it does not allow for empirical generalizations, the production of law-like statements, or the establishment of functional relationship (Van Manen, 1990). The best tenet of generalization in phenomenology is to never generalize, for it may prevent us from “developing understandings that remain focused on the uniqueness of human experience” van Manen says (p.22).
3.3.3 Hermeneutic Phenomenology Defined Annels (1996, p.708) argues that for hermeneutic phenomenologists the ontological is primary: “meaning lies in the individual’s transaction with a situation such that the situation constitutes the individual and the individual constitutes the situation”. The aim is not to develop a procedure of understanding, but rather to elucidate the conditions in which understanding takes place (Koch, 1995). Hermeneutical research is considered to be a writing and thinking activity (Wilson & Hutchinson, 1991), with research and writing being aspects of one process (Polkinghorne, 1983; Van Manen, 1990). Hermeneutic phenomenology is also defined as a human science which studies persons rather than subjects (Van Manen, 1990, p.6). Laverty (2003, p.15) defines hermeneutic research as follows:
Hermeneutic research is interpretive and concentrated on historical meanings of experience and their developmental and cumulative effects on individual and social levels. This interpretive process includes explicit statements of the historical movements or philosophies that are guiding interpretation as well as the presuppositions that motivate the individuals who make the interpretations.
80 The original use of the word hermeneutic refers to a process of Biblical interpretation. The word itself is derived from the Greek word hermeneia, which means speech or interpretation (Annells, 1996). Hermeneutics and Phenomenology are both part of the modern era of philosophy, and from a historical point of view Gadamer was carrying on the tradition of hermeneutics set out by Schleiermacher (in biblical studies), by Dilthey (in historical studies), and by Heidegger (in ontological studies) (Silverman, 1991). In the 20th century the focus shifted from interpretation to existential understanding and today, hermeneutics is much more than symbolic communication: it is an area of human life and existence. 17
When we speak of hermeneutic phenomenology, we mostly refer to the work of Heidegger and Gadamer. Heidegger’s discovery of the ontological significance of understanding is a major turning point in hermeneutical theory and Gadamer’s work can be conceived as an attempt to work out the implications of the new starting point provided by Heidegger (Gadamer, 1976). For Heidegger, hermeneutics no longer refers to the science of interpretation, but rather to the process of interpretation that is an essential characteristic of Dasein. Da-sein translates to “being there” and corresponds to a situated, historical and temporal being-in-the-world. Cerbone (2006, p. 42) further explains that Heidegger used the term Dasein for “the kind of beings we are” in order to exclude presumptions and prejudices that are present in other terms (e.g. Homo sapiens and man).
Gadamer, who is often considered the most prominent figure in hermeneutics, believed that definitive interpretation is never possible and saw “bracketing” (used in Husserl’s phenomenology) as absurd (Annells, 1996). For Gadamer (whose mentor was Heidegger), a core tenet was that understanding and interpretation are indissolubly bound up with each other. This is perhaps the most important aspect of hermeneutic phenomenology, for unlike the positivist approach to research, the hermeneutic approach
17 This suggests how concepts evolve and their meaning changes. Nothing is fixed. The researcher always works with meanings and is historically and culturally situated.
81 considers not only what is being interpreted but also the process of interpretation and the interpreter.
The key notions in Heidegger’s thinking are historicality of understanding, and the hermeneutic circle (Koch, 1995). For Heidegger, historicality of understanding as one’s background or situatedness in the world was crucial (Koch, 1995; Laverty, 2003). “Historicality, a person’s history or background, includes what a culture gives a person from birth and is handed down, presenting ways of understanding the world” (Laverty, 2003, p.8). It is through this understanding, that one decides what is real. It is important to say, however, that Heidegger did not believe one’s background can be made completely explicit. He saw all understanding as interlinked with certain fore-structures of which historicality is part. These interpretive influences are an important part of the hermeneutic circle which translates to moving dialectically between the part and the whole (Koch, 1996). It means moving “from the parts of experience, to the whole of experience and back and forth again and again to increase the depth of engagement with, and the understanding of, texts” (Laverty, 2003, p.9). Koch (1996, p.179) further describes the practice of the hermeneutic circle in nursing research and gives an example:
Getting into the hermeneutic circle properly means using my own experience as data and being aware of my background, and whenever possible, showing how these interact with patients’ stories.
Another important aspect of hermeneutics is language. Both Gadamer and Heidegger see language and understanding as inseparable structural aspects of human being-in-the- world (Gadamer, 1976). Gadamer in particular, places stronger emphasis on language, claiming that language and history supply the shared sphere in the hermeneutic circle. “Our possession of language, or better, our possession by language, is the ontological condition for our understanding of the texts that address us” (Gadamer, 1976, p.xxix). Therefore language plays an important part in understanding/relating to reality.
There are other terms such as pre-understanding, an expression used in hermeneutics that stands for the meanings and organization of a culture already in the world before we
82 understand, therefore part of our historicality of background (Laverty, 2003). Another important term is co-constitution which stands for a person and their world as co- constituting each other (Heidegger, 1962). Koch (1995) adds that it refers to the philosophical assumption of indissoluble unity. In regard to undertaking phenomenological research, Van Manen (1990, p.30) suggests that it may be seen as a dynamic interplay among the following six research activities:
1) Turning to a phenomenon which seriously interests us and commits us to the world; 2) Investigating experience as we live it rather than as we conceptualize it; 3) Reflecting on the essential themes which characterize the phenomenon; 4) Describing the phenomenon through the art of writing and rewriting; 5) Maintaining a strong and oriented pedagogical relation to the phenomenon; 6) Balancing the research context by considering parts and whole;
Nevertheless, it is fundamental to be aware that there is no general hermeneutics; there are no strict rules of interpretation - for the hermeneutic field is at variance with itself (Koch, 1995). Furthermore, as explained earlier van Manen’s work can be perceived as a post-positivist take on phenomenology. Neither Heidegger nor Gadamer provided a step by step method of doing hermeneutic research. In fact, in hermeneutic inquiry the emphasis is on the ontological not the methodological (Gadamer, 1976, p.21). According to Polkinghorne (1983), Heidegger did not see hermeneutics as a method that could be designed, learned, and employed, neither did he address the issue of why one interpretation is better than another. For him to be human was to be interpretive, for the very nature of the human realm is interpretive. Interpretation should therefore not be understood as a tool for knowledge, but the way human beings are. “All cognitive attempts to develop knowledge are but expressions of interpretation, and experience itself is formed through interpretation of the world” (Polkinghorne, 1983, p.224). Moreover, in Heidegger’s view, there is no pure truth that lies outside human engagement with the world; truth occurs in our engagement with the world (Gadamer, 1976). Hermeneutic phenomenology therefore resonates with some of the constructionist claims I discussed in
83 Chapter One: emphasizing subjectivist epistemology, the importance of culture, and the concrete situatedness of the interpreter. Furthermore, although interpretive understanding plays a key role in hermeneutic approaches to research, this does not mean that researchers have to “reconstruct the past in and for the present” (Hughes, 1990, p. 138). The role of a researcher is to mediate the past in and for the present.
To sum this section up, if the main features in classical phenomenology (Husserlian) are (a) intentionality (directing the mind toward objects), (b) essences (ultimate structures of consciousness), and (c) bracketing (elimination of all preconceived notions), in hermeneutic phenomenology these are (a) the hermeneutic circle (moving dialectically between the part and the whole), (b) dialogue, and (c) fusion of horizons (continuous fusion of the historical horizon with the horizon of the present) (Koch, 1995, 1996). What has been established about hermeneutic inquiry thus far is that it is primarily ontological, subjectivist, seeking to provide an understanding of the constructions that exist about a phenomenon and to bring them into consensus (Annells, 1996). The next section will discuss in detail the use of hermeneutic phenomenology in this study.
3.4 The Use of Hermeneutic Phenomenology in this Thesis
To this point, hermeneutic phenomenology has been shown to possess some of the qualities voiced under the constructionist approach to research. Perhaps the key notions are that hermeneutic phenomenology (also known as philosophical hermeneutics) sees humans as self-interpreting beings (Schwandt, 2000), and that it acknowledges the importance of situated knowing, historicality and culture. In other words, one’s understanding of the world consists of a set of interpretations as opposed to realist ways of knowing. The world is ontologically real to both Heidegger and Gadamer and as I explained in Chapter One, this fits well within the constructionist approach in this research study18. It is our understanding of the world, our sense-making activities that are
18 While working on this thesis I also started to write a paper with Prof. Tazim Jamal on phenomenology (for Annals of Tourism Research). Professor Jamal had a strong view that hermeneutic phenomenology should be situated only within the interpretivist paradigm as
84 important in hermeneutic approaches, and from a constructionist stance, these understandings can never produce real or true knowledge.
I also explained that there is a variety of constructionist (also constructivist) approaches to research and that there is no single, unified way of “doing” constructionism/vism. Another pitfall hides in the fact that with regard to understanding Heidegger’s work, there are many interpretations and re-interpretations.19 For instance Dreyfus (1991) calls Heidegger realist or plural realist while Rouse (1991) sees Heidegger as a social constructivist.20 In the opinion of Dreyfus (1991), Heidegger was a realist when it comes to entities discovered by natural science. He suggests that Heidegger was not a physicalist, reductionist or materialist and rejected all forms of metaphysical realism. “Heidegger thus holds a subtle and plausible position beyond metaphysical realism and antirealism. Nature is whatever it is and has whatever casual properties it has independently of us” (Dreyfus, 1991, p.39). Dreyfus further states that “what counts as real for a culture depends upon the interpretation in its practices, but this does not make what is thus understood any less real”. He therefore calls Heidegger a plural realist and explains this term as follows:
For a plural realist there is no point of view from which one can ask and answer the metaphysical question concerning the one true nature of ultimate reality… A plural realist looks like an idealist or relativist only if one thinks that only one system of description could correspond to the way things really are… For Heidegger different understandings of being reveal different realities or domains of intelligibility, and since no one way of revealing is exclusively true, accepting one does not commit us to rejecting the others .(Dreyfus, 1991, p.37)
opposed to constructivist/constructionist paradigm. This was an interesting exercise that pushed me to research constructivism (constructionism) and interpretivism more in depth (I have outlined the key differences in Chapter One). Professor Hollinshead stimulated my search for making sense of these concepts when he asked me one day at the Green Man (a pub close to the university of Bedfordshire) “Whose constructivism are you talking about?”. I did not think to think that there may be more than one version. This ultimately impacted the shape of this thesis. 19 In this regard the book The Interpretive Turn (Bohman, Hiley, & Shusterman, 1991) is a good source of information for researchers interested in his phenomenology. 20 This suggests how we negotiate our understanding of other peoples’ understanding and are doubly, triply, and even quadruply hermeneutic.
85 Dreyfus (1991, p.41) concludes that although Heidegger rejects the notion of there being a correct description of reality, he holds that there may be many correct descriptions and natural sciences can get it “righter and righter” about how things work. This, however, may be a point of difference for some constructionists (and constructivists) as not all may be prepared to agree with this view when it comes to doing constructionist research (see Chapter One). Nevertheless, the key strength of hermeneutic phenomenology lies in its philosophical approach to understanding (hence sometimes called philosophical hermeneutics). Therefore research is about skilfully “interpreting” -and the story-telling component in one’s research should not be disregarded. As Guignon says:
We can always make our current views look good by cooking up some story about how those views supersede the older ones, but this fact shows us more about our skills at storytelling than about the validity of our beliefs (Guignon, 1991, p.89).
3.4.1 Exploring the New Age Phenomenon through Hermeneutic Phenomenology In section 3.2 I concluded that the use of phenomenology in Tourism Studies is minimal and the papers that draw extensively on this methodology comprise only a few works (Cohen, 1979; Hayllar & Griffin, 2005; Ingram, 2002; Li, 2000; Pernecky, 2006a). Moreover, these studies were underpinned by the more widespread descriptive or “positivist” phenomenology and no literature was found using hermeneutic phenomenology.
I chose hermeneutic phenomenology as a methodology largely for its philosophical qualities and correspondence to constructionist views21 and its focus on the process of interpretation. And although I acknowledge that there may be other suitable methodologies and methods offering different strategies to constructionist research, I perceive hermeneutic phenomenology to be complimentary within the realms of my constructionist approach to research. Annells (1996) confirms that when research is
21 A constructionist reminder: when I speak of constructionism I refer to the concept I defined in Chapter One.
86 performed using hermeneutical phenomenology, the inquiry falls ontologically, epistemologically and methodologically within the constructivist paradigm.22
When it comes to the researcher’s involvement in the process, Koch (1996) asserts that the Heideggerian-Gadamerian position is that interpreters participate in making data, precisely because the hermeneutic circle cannot be avoided. Koch thus believes that researchers “bring their interests to the data, whereby meaning and significance may be read into it (Koch, 1996). In her view it is important to know how researchers interpret their reality and the way in which they give a credible account of it. Although I present my views in regard to reality (as well as tourism and the New Age phenomenon), I conceive it impossible to offer a “credible” account of it. What I do present is my interpretation (self-reflexively) of myself and my views. I hold that researchers can never explain their reality fully (in other words one can never explain himself/herself fully) and can only proffer interpretations.
3.4.2 Methods Employed to Study New Agers To be able to study a lived experience, a study needs research subjects. The term “research subjects” however suggest that the researcher can detach from that which is studied. The participants in this study were therefore considered to be “co-researchers” for interviewees do not function merely as research subjects (Pollio, Henley, & Thompson, 1997) and are instead turned into informants or co-researchers (Atkinson, Coffey, Delamont, Lofland, & Lofland, 2007). This approach also corresponds to the constructionist nature of this thesis where both the researcher and the researched contribute towards a particular construction.
The data collection in this thesis was structured into two major phases: (a) through phenomenological interviews and (b) by asking co-researchers who participated in the interviews to write reflexive accounts on what it means to be a New Ager (these are
22 In this instance it is not clear what Annells regards as constructivism and as I explained in Chapter One there are different versions of contructionism/contructivism.
87 presented in Chapter Six and are additional to the researcher’s ongoing reflexivity throughout the study). Prior to these steps (“a” and “b”) a survey was presented to all participants in order to collect information on co-researchers’ New Age interests, demographic information and their view on the New Age phenomenon (see Appendix A).23 This was done to confirm participants’ level of interest, knowledge and involvement in the New Age phenomenon and provided the researcher with other demographic data. The survey thus served as a “filtering” tool in order to target New Age adherents who could provide necessary in-depth data. In other words it allowed me to talk to New Agers who held strong New Age beliefs or who had vast New Age experiences (according to my subjective concept of a New Ager). In social sciences, the use of more than one method to double or triple check result is called triangulation (Decrop, 1999). It is based on the analogy of a triangle suggesting that “a single point is considered from three different and independent sources” (p.158). The combination of questionnaires, phenomenological interviews and co-researchers’ reflexive accounts fit the idea of triangulation. Different sets of methods are generally found complimentary in research (Riley & Love, 2000).
In regard to the questionnaire, respondents were also asked about the importance of spirituality in their life and this information was collected by the means of a five-point Likert scale (see Appendix A). The survey also required all co-researchers to comment and tick a “box” to indicate their preference of being labelled as New Agers. All data is provided later in Chapter Six. Although all co-researchers preferred to use their real names in this research study, for ethical reasons the co-researchers names were replaced arbitrarily by the researcher (myself).
While thinking through the data collection, I had to face a methodological decision as to whether I should draw on a sample of New Age travellers – a concept grounded in the view that these are people who travel to New Age places) or pay attention to the New Age phenomenon and New Agers at large. Many tourism researchers are often drawn to
23 This was to make sure that they “qualify” as New Agers. With regard to constructionism, this is another example of how researchers shape the research process and that any objectivity in this exercise is untenable. I further discuss the issue of defining and conceptualizing in Chapter Five.
88 the first option and select samples based on visitation of/to places (i.e. stand on sites with questionnaires) and then conceptualise about that sample and offer generalisations about that sample. However, in following some of the new works in Tourism Studies (i.e. Hollinshead’s worldmaking) I decided to focus on the New Age phenomenon in general and explore the lived world of a New Ager. The impetus behind this decision was to tease out the theoretical implications of co-researchers’ (New Agers’) lived experiences in the context of Tourism Studies. In other words, I did not want to limit the study by pre- selecting what we/I label as only “travellers”24 and instead sought to explore New Agers’ lived experiences in general. I wanted to focus on co-researchers lives and see how their experiences and being in the world may (or may not) be meaningful within the vicinity of tourism. This situates the research in a wider epistemological context that rests on the view that tourism is not an “ephemeral aspect of social life” (Hannam, 2009) but constitutive of everyday life (Edensor, 2007; Franklin, 2003). Hence the aim was to broaden the focus from New Age traveller to New Ager on the whole25. As a result, the co-researchers that were selected for this research study possessed various interests, skills and experiences: ranging from meditation, Reiki and channelling, to Out-of-Body travel, and shamanism. These skills and experiences were considered by the researcher as part of their being in the world; they were part of their reality – also shaping their understanding of this world.
In regard to sampling, Tashakkori and Teddlie (2003) state that one of the goals of research probability sampling is generalizability in order to produce an estimate of the population at large. The purpose of this thesis is not to draw inferences from the
24 Nontheless I still had to coneceptualise the New Age phenomenon and New Agers (discussed in Chapter Five) 25 At the beginning of this research I particularly wanted to avoid selecting only New Age travelers because I didn’t want to limit myself to study only people who would get a “tick” for visiting a particular site. Therefore I decided to study New Agers in general and see how their experiences (and being in the world) can be brought in, and conceptualized, in Tourism Studies. This approach to selecting data seemed more fruitful/meaningful but was also in line with my constructionist approach to research. If we decide that we will only study travelers, then will we not by making such decision limit the results (understanding) - what we might find? Although the same question can be applied to New Age in general, by focusing on people’s being in the world (see section 1.7 and this chapter for definition), we are not necessarily limited by the concept of traveler and can examine peoples experiences and theorise in different ways (e.g. Hollinshead’s woldmaking and Franklin’s ordering).
89 population but to explore what it means to be a New Ager though a constructionist lens. The method used in this research study falls into the category of purposeive sampling (Kerlinger, 1986) where a researchers uses some criterion or purpose to replace the principle of cancelled random errors (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003). In other words generalisations beyond the sample are not possible. The aim in this thesis was to select information-rich cases, which forms one of the characteristics of purposive sampling. Purposing sampling accrding to Lincoln and Guba (1985, p.40) also “increases the scope or range of the data exposed, as well as the likelihood that the full array of multiple realities will be uncovered”.
The co-researchers were recruited by means of advertising in spiritually oriented magazines (www.rainbownews.co.nz) which agreed to publish a research notice. Additionally, I contacted online New Age communities (yahoo.com), placed advertisements in New Age forums (www.nderf.org) and e-magazines (www.outofbodytravel.org). I also encouraged all participants to inform other like- minded people about this study. Several people expressed interest in the research, however many saw is as time-consuming and preferred not to participate. In fact several co-researchers cancelled or were unable to complete the study for they did not find time to: fill-out a survey, participate in an interview, and complete a reflexive account. Nevertheless, all steps were necessary in order to achieve consistency in data.
In regard to the study sample, the fact that I targeted particular online communities and spiritual magazines (I personally found relevant) shows the constructed nature of the research process with scholars making key decisions and influencing the type of knowledge produced. I could have selected a completely different sample of people and used different methods of recruiting what I saw conceptualise as New Agers. However, a constructionist researcher should acknowledge that all research and related decision making processes are subjective and simply result in different interpretation. Therefore, although some may perceive the sample in this study as having biases, from a constructionist view, there cannot be bias-free research. It is the researcher who decides who takes part in his or her study. He or she commands how the research story evolves.
90 When it comes to the detailed process of gathering data, the combination of phenomenological interviews and reflexive accounts was found to be complimentary, as participants not only shared their experiences (phenomenological interviews), but were given the opportunity to reflect (individual reflexive accounts) on how they have become who they are today: people having particualr New Age experiences (and conceptualised by the researcher as New Agers). Therefore the aim was to select participants who lived the experience of the New Age phenomenon. The use of the reflexive accounts was also found relevent in regard to the concept of historicality in hermeneutic phenomeonology.
With respect to interviews in a phenomenological study, Pollio asserts that the method of ‘dialogue’ has an extensive history, and the phenomenological interview is an almost inevitable procedure for attaining a “rigorous” and significant26 description of human experience (1997). The use of phenomenological interviews was therefore considered to be the key method of collecting data. The phenomenological interview involves an informal, interactive process and utilizes open-ended comments and questions (Moustakas, 1994). An example of an open-ended question can be: Can you tell me more about your experiences?
In the course of the phenomenological interviews, I tried to make the co-researchers feel comfortable and engage in conversations rather than shower each person with a list of questions. Although I prepared generic areas to be discussed and I indeed had a list of possible questions at hand, the interviews were not structured and I let the co-researchers share as much information as they needed to (however this is can be judged by the reader in Chapter Six). Often, I wanted to learn more about their experiences and hence the interviews took different course with each person. In this regard, the hermeneutic experience is characterized by the openness of the exchange (Gadamer, 1976) which is described by Koch (1996) as focusing on the process of attentive listening and not necessarily asking specific questions. What I did find was that it was crucial to make the co-researchers feel more at ease as some of them seemed apprehensive about the
26 Calling for rigourous and significant descriptions is a traditional view of executing research. I need to stress that in this research study I do not see any method as being more rigourours or significant and I use this terminology in order not to misconstrue Pollio’s views.
91 formality of the process - a researcher discussing personal experiences that are not always received well by people who don’t believe in the New Age phenomenon (or share similar experiences). I found that it was important not to be dismissive or judgemental and instead focus on what they had to say and enter their world and learn about their views and lived experiences.
Furthermore, in a phenomenological study that comprises interviews the number of participants is recommended to be around six (Jennings, 2001) but also between one and ten depending on the nature of the research (Becker, 1986; van Kaam, 1966). Taylor and Bogdan (1998) suggest that the sample in an interview-based study is something that should be determined toward the end of the research, and one should stop when what needs to be known has been found out. Following these guidelines, and based on the richness of the data collected, this study comprises five co-researchers. I reached a point where I felt that I collected enough information and did not see the need to interview ten, twenty or thirty people. In regard to my constructionist approach, the quantity did not matter as much as the richness of the information provided. Furthermore the nature of this thesis is theoretical/philosophical and the aim is not to collect and present empirical findings high in volume.
As far as individual reflexive accounts are concerned, each co-researcher was asked to reflect on his/her life with respect to their New Age interests. The aim was to look back and reflect on how they became who they are today; in other words, how they arrived to this point in their life of being a “medium”, a Reiki practitioner, a shaman and so forth. This part of my research therefore focused on their individual process of being and becoming New Agers. The co-researchers were asked to write between five and ten pages; however there were no strict regulations and each person was to reflect according to his/her particular needs. Furthermore, they were to compose/reflect freely, and only some examples were suggested as to what information could be included. The researcher (I) suggested that they could - but didn’t have to - focus on their values, development, key-triggering events, spirituality, visiting places and so forth. Nonetheless, these suggestions offered by the researcher could have impacted the co-researchers’ reflexive
92 processes and for instance make them focus only on the information I had suggested.27 The co-researchers’ reflexive accounts are presented in Chapter Five after each interview.
Given that interpretation and understanding (following hermeneutic phenomenology) are the key notions this research study, I had to ponder how to deal with presenting the data and decided to expose the co-researchers’ experiences by including the transcribed interviews as well as the reflexive accounts in the main text (as opposed to an Appendix). Van Manen (2002, p.8) asserts that reading interpretive texts replicates the process of reflective writing: “the reader must write what the author forgot, overlooked, could not see or hear or remember”. The problem therefore was how the reader knows what the writer forgot if the writer only represents a summary of the interviews or a selection of emerging (subjective) themes which are selected by the researcher. I therefore decided to present the data in a raw form (Chapter Six) - transcribed by the researcher (myself) before interpreting and making sense of it (Chapter Seven). In this matter appendices are not necessarily regarded as necessary to read and due to the focus on interpretation and understanding in this thesis, the decision was also methodical.
I also need to stress that this decision does not promote avoiding the discussion of the empirical data for I hold that data has no meaning without interpretation. However, I wanted the reader to see what I based my interpretations on by making him/her read the raw data first. Gough (2003, p.30) puts it rather nicely when he says: “avoiding interpretation strikes me as somewhat pointless, and seems to rely on a realist repertoire where the data somehow speaks for itself”. But showing the reader how I reached my conclusions and understanding of what I studied instead of presenting mere findings, was important. Most phenomenological studies focus largely on creating essences or themes (see Husserl’s work discussed earlier in this chapter) but do not expose the “making” of
27 Some of the co-researchers asked about what I meant by “reflecting” or “being reflexive” thus I had to give some examples. In regard to constructionism, this suggests that even a simple task of asking a participant to reflect requires that: (a) the researcher has an understanding of what it means to reflect and how it should be done, and (b) the participant also has an understands of what it means to reflect and how it should be done. In other words they both work with meaning and the researcher in this case already pre-shapes the information he/she receives or wants to receive. And all of this is done in order to construct his/her research in accordance to particular methodology and methods.
93 the research: they do not expose how the researcher interprets the text in order to reach that particular essence or theme. The reader never has the opportunity to see for him/herself. Presenting the reader with the transcribed interviews therefore compares to telling a richer story (but not better or more rigorous) and perhaps leads to a more critical stance where the researcher is willing to expose not only how he/she works but also what information he or she works with. Heidegger emphasized thinking over research, because research is analytic while thinking is less restrictive and keeps possibilities and dialogue open (Wilson & Hutchinson, 1991). Including the raw data, in my view, encourages the reader to think for him/herself and enhances criticality.
In terms of data analysis, Laverty (2003) argues that in hermeneutic phenomenology the process of analysing data is different from classical phenomenology where the aim is to work toward meaning through a structured process (that is predetermined, although influenced by data). That way the goal is to reach a place of understanding of the experience through the development of an integrated statement about the experience. In hermeneutic phenomenology, it is a process of co-construction with the participants, resulting in self-interpreted constructions of the researcher and each participant. In her view hermeneutics does not provide a set methodology and there cannot be a finite set of procedures to structure the interpretive process, for “interpretation arises from pre- understanding and a dialectical movement between the parts and the whole of the texts of those involved” (Laverty, 2003, p.21). What Laverty perhaps omits to acknowledge is that there is always some type of structure in one’s research: sometimes precise and rigid (i.e. post-positivist approach) and at other times it can be more loose and creative (i.e. hermeneutic phenomenology). Additionally, researchers develop principles on which their interpretation is based. Whether one is a positivist or a constructionist he or she cannot escape methodologies and methods (having a strategy to execute research). This (constructionist) argument does not deny what Gadamer had to say about methods - maintaining that no method will lead to a complete transcendence of the observer’s own understanding and arguing that an absolute truth cannot be achieved through methods (Polkinghorne, 1983). However constructionist research is not about finding absolute truths or escaping methods, it is more about exposing how constructions emerge. In this
94 regard it would be naïve to think that one’s research can just happen without methodology and methods – something researchers who employ phenomenological research do not always appreciate (while arguing that that is what hermeneutic phenomenology is about).
The actual data analysis is not grounded in the belief that there is/can be a “bullet proof” method for assessing the information provided by the co-researchers. This chapter has shown that such notions prevail to research underpinned by realist epistemologies (i.e. Edmund Husserl). Instead I will offer several loose themes that emerged as I moved through the text. In the context of constructionism, the identification of these themes was carried out subjectively (by the researcher) and was shaped by the researcher’s cultural and social heritage. The themes are presented in the data analysis in Chapter Seven.
When it comes to the issue of validity and trustworthiness in regard to hermeneutic phenomenology per se, Koch (1996) asserts that the application of bracketing in Husserlian phenomenology, and the hermeneutic circle in Heideggerian phenomenology are mutually exclusive. In hermeneutic phenomenology acknowledging the researcher and his/her reflexive account gives a study what Koch calls “rigour” and “trustworthiness”. On this note, Guba and Lincoln (1989) offer “authenticity” in a constructivist paradigm as a measure of trustworthiness to achieve “rigorous” research practices. Authenticity, trustworthiness and rigour, however, do not hold much meaning for a constructionist researcher (myself). I discussed this issue in Chapter One and delineated my position in detail Chapter Two.
There is another point I would like to make with regard to treating the literature review as an important element that allowed me to construct this thesis. Therefore the literature review is part of what I earlier described as Heidegger’s pre-understanding (fore- conception) shaped by cultural and social heritage (in regard to constructionism). This is also the reason why the methodological Chapter Two and Chapter Three were placed before the literature review in this thesis. Therefore the following chapters represent my understanding of tourism and the New Age phenomenon (and related concepts) which I
95 portray as meaningful constructions. Thus both Chapters Four and Five, form the research context in which I conceptualise about the co-researchers’ lived experiences.
3.4.3 The Voice of “I” and My Narratives
Researchers bring with them their own emotions, intuitions, experiences, meanings, values, commitments, presuppositions, prejudices and personal agendas, their position as researchers and their spontaneous or unconscious reactions to subjects and events in the field (Maso, 2003, p.40).
The discussion of one’s subjectivity varies from scholar to scholar depending on the scientific training and the paradigm one adheres to. Despite the fact that researchers across the social sciences have largely sought to produce knowledge that is free of human subjectivities, reflexivity has its place in understanding the social world (Goodson & Phillimore, 2004). Although I have outlined my views in Chapter One, I am oblidged to further unveil and expand on my views. Therefore apart from being reflexive in regard to the politics of research making and other forces I pay attention to, I also bring my Self into this research study.
In a constructionist approach to research, reflexivity becomes an important part of the process as the researcher-constructionist acknowledges his/her predisposition and bias and exposes all that takes place in the research process. Hence reflexivity can be seen by some scholars (Ellis & Bochner, 2003) as a form of “interpretative validity”. I expressed my view in Section 2.4 that interpretations are only valid and reliable temporarily to the interpreter and hence “interpretive validity” is not what I am aspiring to in this research study. Nevertheless, I support with Ellis and Bochner’s (p.211) view on reflexive autoethnography where researchers are not only focusing on cultures or subcultures but use their own experiences in the culture “reflexively to bend back on self and look more deeply at self-other interactions”.
Ellis and Bochner (2003, p.228) also state that “the truth is that we can never capture experiences”. However, we can portray them as our own and as researchers can recognise
96 the fact that we are an integral part of the social world we live in and that we study. It is also important to acknowledge that it is impossible for a researcher to remove herself/himself from the social world in order to study it as she/he plays an instrumental role in shaping the context (Hayno, 1979, p.101). In this regard Goodson and Phillimore argue that individual identities that researchers bring with them into the field should not be masked. On the contrary, in order to advance what they call “qualitative research” in tourism, they propose that text and images about others must be related to one’s identity and culture. That, however, assumes that (1) the identities can be known, (2) the masking can be known, and (3) that the masking can be “unmasked” easily or completely. Therefore the issue is much more complex and the researcher is not working with anything “fixed” but with different interpretations. It is not entirely clear whether Goodson and Phllimore suggest that by following their advice one can achieve something “better”, “truer” or perhaps something that Ellis and Bochner above called “interpretive validity”. Constructionist researchers (according to my take on constructionism) would be likely to oppose such notions.
According to Ateljevic et al. (2005, p.30), self-reflexivity allows researchers to “acknowledge themselves as living, breathing, embodied human beings, who brought their previous experiences and worldviews to their project inquiries”. It is an acknowledgement of the agency of researchers, the researched, academic audiences, students and others. Furthermore, to be reflexive means “looking and reflecting inwards upon ourselves as researchers and outwards upon those we research” (p 30). Hence reflexivity may stand for more open and collaborative tourism knowledge contribution. Reflexivity is also important for it questions how we see ourselves and others, and it gives a researcher the opportunity to voice possible influences he or she sees as important in producing knowledge. Nonetheless, it needs to be re-iterated that still, one can never explain him/herself fully and there no such thing as a “complete” reflexivity. That would mean explaining one’s being in the world which is by a constructionist seen as impossible. Therefore, in providing my own reflexive insights, I largely focus on the thing and experiences I find most relevant to this research study. But I acknowledge that there may have been experiences, cultural customs and other forces that have shaped my
97 views and the ability to understand the way I do. And some of these I may never even be aware of. Reflexivity is selective, it is time specific and always temporary. As I gain more experiences throughout my life I can reflect on the same experience in many different ways and it is always me (or the person who is being reflexive) who decides how, when and where (in text) to reflect.
If I were to reflect on my personal academic development and understanding of tourism, I now see major differences between my master’s thesis and my Ph.D. studies. Based in the Faculty of Business (at the Auckland University of Technology), my masters studies, and hence my thesis, were largely business oriented. Despite the fact that I completed papers on Research Methods including qualitative research methods, there were areas that were considered by the lecturer or the institution (I am not sure) as unnecessary to delve into. For example there was never any talk of the difference between the positivist and naturalist/constructionist schools of thought. Other topics, be they paradigms, ontology or epistemology were confusing to me and in my understanding of tourism then, not hugely relevant, even unimportant. Tourism throughout my master’s studies therefore remained a field driven by business and applied approaches to research.28 This was underscored by the fact that that even in a module on qualitative research methods, the paper involved gaining skills on using a software package called NuDist (which helps to analyse data). This is something I see today as an attempt to quantify and justify the use of qualitative methods, a post-positivist approach to using qualitative methods. Although there is nothing wrong with doing that and as I explained earlier qualitative methods can be used by both a post-positivist and a constructionist researcher, I never knew otherwise. In regard to constructionism and my aim in this thesis to examine the process of knowledge production, this is an important notion. It demonstrates how we are taught how to make sense of things and what things are. We are deep-seated in practice and culture.
Therefore in retrospect, I can see that my knowledge of tourism during my earlier academic years was somewhat limited and I was in a “bubble”- as shown in Table 3.3.
28 This points to the fact the power institutions and universities hold over what we know and how we know what we know.
98 TABLE 3.3: MY KNOWLEDGE FORMATION IN/OF TOURISM STUDIES
Tourism Studies
Paradigm Tourism Planning Gender Mobilities Tourism Concepts Ontology Self Tourist/Host Epistemology Ordering Destination Constructivism Becoming Sustainability Phenomenology Reflexivity Triangulation Methodology Qualitative (NuDist)
BA MBus PhD
This table shows that during my BA and MBus studies I had a limited understanding of what tourism was (i.e.Tourism Planning and focus on destinations). During my PhD studies I was exposed to new concepts and their meaning (i.e. Paradigm, Constructivism, Ordering etc.).
99 My knowledge then consisted of tourism planning; tourist behaviour and a mere focus on tourist destinations – topics prevalent in most tourism programmes. I did not think about tourism in a wider context. Tourism was about people consuming, going to places, about the rise and fall of destinations, and sustainability. Embodiment, ordering, worldmaking, becoming, Self, and other concepts were either on the periphery of Tourism Studies or non-existent throughout my earlier tourism education.
My academic “metamorphosis” came towards the end of my master’s degree when I met Dr. Irena Ateljevic (I started my PhD with Irena Ateljevic and then transferred to the University of Bedfordshire and became a student of Prof. Keith Hollinshead) who was to become my PhD supervisor. I was given readings on a number of subjects from positivism and post-positivism, to critical theory, ontology, and epistemology. I had to make sense of these concepts in my own time, as well as expand my knowledge and understanding of other topics such as phenomenology, hermeneutic phenomenology, constructivism and so forth. The reason I find this important to disclose in my reflexive account is that what I see today tourism IS and how I approach my research, is fundamentally different from my master’s thesis. Furthermore, when I started to work under the supervision of my current supervisor Keith Hollinshead, my understanding of the above concepts expanded even further and I gained what I see as a deeper meaning of the terms and what they stand (and can stand) for.
Therefore my passion for this research is underpinned by my own experience of knowing how little I knew, and by not knowing (or feeling the need to ponder such things) that matters of knowing are very complex. Much work in the field of Tourism Studies still seems to operate rather “mechanically”; with researchers only following what they have been told, taught and so forth. There is a need for more critical approaches and it is my aspiration that this constructionist study offers more information and to some, perhaps even alternative options.
To continue my reflections, during the process of making sense of hermeneutic phenomenology I contacted one of the authors cited earlier - Ann Laverty (Laverty, 2003)- and Table 3.4 shows the response I received. I include it in this section for it
100 TABLE 3.4: COMMUNICATION WITH ANN LAVERTY
Dear Tomas, First, many thanks for your most kind e-mail. It was a lovely surprise to receive such feedback and gratifying to know one's work is of benefit to others. Your research sounds most interesting and the questions you ask, while seemingly simple, are actually quite complex. I will try to address them to some extent - and according to my understanding, noting that others may have other understandings, I am sure. You ask -
Is there a step by step description of how to do hermeneutic Phenomenology (HP)? No. While HP is similar to phenomenology (P) in that both are interested in lived experience, HP positions itself with the understanding that lived experience is co-created through an interpretive process while P positions itself by seeing experience as something that exists 'out there' and one just needs to grasp it for it to be understood. HP is more fluid and dynamic (post-modern to me) while P is more concrete and static (modern to me). So, with HP, you allow the data to inform the process you need to undertake. In essence, as you live with the data, it will tell you what to do with it. How might this happen, you ask? Well, it can be scary but it is a lesson in trust.
Do you develop themes? What do you do with the data? Do you analyze and conceptualize once you have collected the data? In HP, the researcher does not use bracketing as in P. Rather, the researcher selects particular philosophical positions that will guide their interpretation of the data (e.g. post-modern, feminist)as well as spelling out his/her own assumptions about the topic at hand. Once you have done this, you utilize writing (e.g. hermeneutic circle) that is circular rather than linear as part of your reflective process. A key is to ensure that the philosophical positions you have claimed can be seen in how you are interpreting your data. So, perhaps themes will emerge or perhaps some other form of understanding will emerge - as I said, that will be figured out as you go. You don't start by saying "This is what I am going to do" but rather you say "Here we go, let's see what we might find."
Aside from interpretation and writing, a third key element of HP for me is deconstruction. HP seeks to destabilize taken for granted assumptions about the topic - to challenge the way we see the landscape. You might ask yourself, how can I shake up the taken for granted views - the way in which something is generally understood. In essence, what 'everybody knows' about this topic is what generally gets us into trouble - and this is what we want to destabilize.
Do you discuss other literature or is that out of the scope? Yes. I have included other literature and seen this done broadly - other texts might include fiction, poetry, music, art - that speak to the topic. This can be a fun and creative part of the process. Well, I have likely rambled long enough. I hope some of this might make sense and be useful to your process.
101 demonstrates my process of uncertainty and bewilderment at the early stages of dealing with hermeneutic phenomenology and my need to reach an understanding on “how to do” do it “correctly”. Three years later I have reached a different knowing that there is no such thing as correct hermeneutic phenomenology.
When it comes to the subject matter of the New Age phenomenon, I consider myself to be somewhat an insider with the ability to empathise with and get close to the participants. In this respect, the method of autoethnography also comes into play for I regard myself (to some extent) be a member of the New Age community and I am in fact open to a variety of experiences. Ellis and Bochner (2003) identify a variety of names under which autoethnography has been known for the last two decades, such as personal narratives, narratives of the Self, personal experience narratives, self-stories, first-person accounts and many more. Ricci (2003) further defines autoethnography as the practice of attempting to discover the culture of Self, or of others through Self. It is based on the writer’s personal experience within a culture by using self experiences in order to gather insights into the culture or subculture the writer is a part of (Goodall, 2000). Hayno (1979) further proposes that an autoethnographic researcher is one that possesses the qualities of “often permanent self-identification with a group and full internal membership, as recognized both by themselves and people of who they are a part”.
Although my experiences with the New Age phenomenon are vastly different from the participant’s in this thesis, I consider myself as an insider for spirituality has played an important role in my life for the past thirteen years. I have completed meditation courses, and have read a multitude of books on spirituality (including a variety of topics such as auras, death, near-death experiences, clairvoyance, energy work, telepathy, astral travel, Out-of-Body experiences etc). I have also travelled to places of spiritual importance such as the New Age-hub Glastonbury (UK) to make sense of these “New Age” places (despite the fact that I didn’t feel or see anything “special” or “unusual” – but then I was not quite sure what to feel or see). I was also intrigued by the concept of out-of-body travel and tried a number of techniques to “leave” my body and float in the air as described in the many books I read on this subject. Unsuccessfully, however. I wanted to experience it in order to understand what people mean by being out-of-body. As I
102 discussed (Pernecky, 2006b) in the Critical Turn in Tourism29 studies book, researcher estimations of out-of-body experiences vary from 10-50% of the general population depending on the definition of the concept and variations in research studies. I will pay more attention to the out-of-body experience in the discussion (Chapter Seven).
In regard to my cultural and geographical background, what I find interesting about me writing this thesis is the fact that English is my second language and thirteen years ago I could not speak any English. What is perhaps most ironic is the fact that although I was born in the Czech Republic and I am fluent in Czech, I cannot even begin to explain or translate ontology or the concept of constructionism into the Czech language. In fact I do not even know what the exact translation is (and there is bound to be one). In this instance, Guignon (1991, p.85) is right in saying that “language is the medium which orients us within the shared life-world”. Without language it would be hard to share meaning. I could never explain what I am writing about if the other does not share the same understanding and if I and the other do not share a common language?
What Heidegger has thought us is that we are self-interpreting beings who draw our self-understanding from the language games circulating in our culture (Guignon, 1991, p.87).
I would like to close this section by revisiting the seventeenth century, a time of the Czech Kingdom – part of my historical and cultural roots. During those times a Czech brethren priest Jan Amos Komensky (also known as Comenius or the “Teacher of Teachers”) led a difficult life after the death of his wife and children. He was not necessarily popular then, but is a compulsory part of the curriculum for Czech students today. He spent most of his life in hiding and eventually fled the kingdom because of his protestant beliefs. The motive behind mentioning him is not for his unfortunate circumstances but for his reforming philosophical writing at the time. His work Schola Ludas – meaning School Through Play proposed making the process of learning more attractive and enjoyable for children. Centuries later, we have learned to apply this
29 In reflecting on my reflections, reading the book chapter today, I must admit that there is not too much critical about it - perhaps a reflection of the fact that this was written at the very early stages of my PhD work.
103 philosophy also in academic writing which until recent years has been largely impersonal and to most people distant. It is, although not solely, by employing the tools of autoethnography, reflexivity, and diverse approaches to research that scholarly work can become more approachable, more relevant to our lives, more diversified and more creative. Constructionism voices the creative nature of producing knowledge and our sense-making activities – in this regard we are creative and imaginative creatures “playing” in the world .
3.5 Chapter Summary
This chapter has revealed several important matters of interest: there are many ways of doing phenomenological research and it is important that researchers understand the philosophical underpinnings that guide different phenomenologies; hermeneutic phenomenology focuses on understanding and is grounded in ontological and epistemological assumptions that are poles apart from descriptive phenomenologies such as the work of Edmund Husserl; the use of phenomenology in Tourism Studies is still limited, and no study was found using hermeneutic phenomenology.
I have outlined the methodology in this thesis and shown how I will use hermeneutic phenomenology to study New Agers. The New Age phenomenon provides a fertile ground as to understanding New Agers’ being in the world and teasing further theoretical implication with regard to Tourism Studies. I have explained that I will use phenomenological interviews in order to explore co-researchers’ lived New Age experiences and their being in the world, but also to draw on their reflexive accounts. By using both the interviews and the reflexive accounts, the co-researchers are given a voice through which they can individually “flavour” the meaning of the data and contribute to a richer construction.
The most important issue that deserves re-introducing is the philosophical/methodological nature of this study. This thesis is positioned in a constructionist setting and it is important to stress that it is not only the data that is argued
104 to be the construction: it is also one’s historicality of understanding, one’s pre- understanding, background, and culture that contribute to a particular view/construction. This applies to the literature I review also. Therefore my understanding of tourism (what it is and how it works) as well as the New Age phenomenon (and anything and everything that has to do with this research study) are not and cannot be objective. In the following chapters I will draw on more literature to make sense of tourism and New age while exposing my understanding of these concepts.
105 Chapter 4
LITERATURE REVIEW (PART ONE): THE SHIFT IN TOURISM STUDIES
Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.
Nadine Gordimer
======
In the introductory chapter, I briefly delineated the theoretical context which provides the grounds for this research. In a sense, this chapter is a much greater account of assessing the shift that is occurring in Tourism Studies; an exercise important for this thesis’ theoretical contribution. First, I focus on the recent debates in tourism and the works that led to the origins of what has been called the “new” tourism research and the “Critical Turn”. I provide an overview of the key studies that have contributed towards the novel modes of understanding tourism and I spend some time discussing the shift from inter- disciplinarity to post-disciplinarity. Lastly, I summarise the key literature and draw on the main works that serve as the navigation points informing this study.
4.1 Recent Debates and New Directions in Tourism Research
Although Chapter One briefly touched on the current state of affairs in Tourism Studies, the matter of tourism scholarship requires further attention and a deeper understanding given the theoretical focus of this thesis. Under the notion of the “Critical Turn” and “new” tourism research, scholars are increasingly calling for new modes of knowledge
106 production, although Ateljevic et al. (2005) acknowledge their surprise that broader philosophical and theoretical issues began to be incorporated only recently (Franklin & Crang, 2001; Johnston, 2001; Pritchard & Morgan, 2000b; Riley & Love, 2000). In their view, the recent contributions to the issues of power, othering, gender, race, sexuality, embodiment, and subjectivity, as well as alternative methodologies, are the evidence of moving beyond the straight-jacketed perspective of applied business. Nevertheless, that does not necessarily mean that the field reached a critical point or turned, nor that tourism theory is blooming in its variety.
The notion of tourism research lacking substantial theory has been underlined by several scholars (Dann, Nash, & Pearce, 1988; Hall, 2000; Hall & Butler, 1995) over the last decades, acknowledging that it has been in isolation from other fields (Farrell & Twining- Ward, 2004). Undergraduate students are largely exposed to the most renowned theories that focus on the business side of tourism, providing some practical implications: be it the use of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1954), popularity of destinations (Plog, 2001), expectancy theory (Witt & Wright, 1992), the concept of wanderlust and sunlust (Gray, 1970) or other motivational theories (Butler, 1980; Gray, 1970; Leiper, 1979). Understandably, the field of tourism research has undergone a remarkable expansion and the theories thus reflect the association of tourism merely with the word “industry”. It is therefore not surprising that, for instance Hunt and Layne (1991, p.9) in their review of the evolution of travel and tourism terminology focused purely on commerce-related matters posing the question: “Are definitions now explicitly articulated and understood to the satisfaction of the industry?”.
In an attempt to deal with the issue of “poor” tourism theorising, nearly twenty years ago Jovicic (1988) pleaded for the establishment of “tourismology”: a distinct science of tourism. In his view, only the emergence of a distinct discipline would allow for progress with an integrated theory of tourism. He and other scholars (Comic, 1989; Rogozinski, 1985) who shared a similar vision, predicted that tourism would suffer from a lack of depth and totality because research would become fragmented among various disciplines. Hence they stressed the importance of integrating various branches of tourism research,
107 in order to create general theories, models and concepts. Similarly, Echtner and Jamal (1997) highlighted the importance of inter-disciplinary research to ensure strong and cohesive theoretical foundations for Tourism Studies.
The issue with employing other disciplines, however, is that researchers tend to limit their discussions to only certain subject such as the social impacts of tourism: resulting in the issues of employment, foreign investment, undesirable activities and social disadvantages. The implications of Urry’s (1990, p.11) argument that “tourism results from a basic binary division between the ordinary-everyday and the extraordinary” is still present in tourism research. Hence, according to Johnston (2001), the effect is that tourism has been largely studied and defined by the means of these hierarchical and polarised oppositions: Self/Other, tourist/host, same/different, and work/play. In this context of limited approach to tourism research, Johnston argues that although the academic community may choose to study for instance gay tourism, the focus is still on classifying gay tourism by the means of economic possibilities such as the “pink pound/dollar”.
Aramberri (2001) summarised in his claims that the most fertile tourism theories contributing to the general, theoretical study of tourism are: the host guest paradigm, tourism as non-ordinary behaviour, and the theory of the life-cycle of attractions. The other, important issue is to understand that integrating concepts across different disciplines does not necessarily solve the emblematic way of seeing tourism. Picken (2006, p.160) explains that through human sciences the tourism discourse has been “variously conceptualised’ and “loosely categorised” as follows:
Anthropologically: ‘host/guest’ and ‘local/tourist’ Economically: ‘production/consumption’ and ‘service/customer’ Geographically: ‘origin/destination’ and ‘home/away-from-home’ Sociologically: ‘everyday/non-everyday’, ‘ordinary/extraordinary’ and ‘work/leisure’
108 It is through these oppositional relations that disciplinary tourism work is largely performed, resulting in certain patterns becoming more prominent (Picken, 2006). Additionally, these divisional arrangements also work if combined together across disciplines such as tourist/consumer/away-from-home. These tenets have shaped the discourse in tourism and have become the general understanding of the field. Although the wave of “new” tourism researchers are challenging these ontological and epistemological views of tourism, it is important to note that the common understanding of tourism has hardly changed over the year and tourism is still driven by business, management and system oriented approaches as shown recently on TRINET (Tourism Research Information Network). Table 4.1 shows David Edgell’s (2008) summary of the most important tourism issues for the year 2009, and it is apparent that people, culture, societies, governance and many other issues are still not important. They pushed aside by the business end of tourism which keeps dominating the field. Therefore the call for “new” tourism research is in my view about expanding these strictures and also engaging with relatively novel concepts in Tourism Studies such as gender, identity, the body, Self, performance and also expanding our understanding of what tourism IS and DOES and delving into issues philosophical. In this respect Ateljevic (2007) sees it as an inter/multi- disciplinary field that has much to offer with regard to the study of: identities, relationships, mobilities, consumption, embodiment and subjectivities. However we need to distinguish between “inter” and “multi” disciplinary approaches. The term multi- disciplinarity stands for knowledge that is produced, inspired by and grounded in other already established disciplinary arenas while the term inter-disciplinarity stands for blending philosophies and disciplines, or working between disciplines (Coles et al., 2005; Coles, Hall, & Duval, 2006). Coles, Hall and Duval (2009, p.83) further clarify:
A multi-disciplinary approach recognizes and incorporates information derived in other disciplinary areas without scholars stepping beyond their own boundaries… By contrast, interdisciplinary approaches require (temporary) forays outside ‘home’ disciplinary boundaries in order to advance knowledge production.
Relevant to discourse of disciplinarity/inter-disciplinarity/multi-disciplinarity, is Tribe’s (1997) model which exposes the epistemological characteristics of Tourism Studies. Although Echtner and Jamal’s (1997, p.880) do not deny that there are “indications” of
109 TABLE 4.1: THE TEN MOST IMPORTANT WORLD TOURISM ISSUES FOR 2009 PRESENTED BY DAVID L. EDGELL
1. Repercussions of the global economic slowdown on tourism.
2. Continued concern for safety and security in tourism.
3. Impact of fuel costs on tourism.
4. Increased interest in the management of sustainable tourism
5. Upswing in the use of electronic and other technologies in tourism.
6. Greater interest in the debate on climate change and tourism.
7. Influence of mega events (including festivals) on tourism.
8. Strategic tourism planning for communities and nations.
9. Introduction of new tourism products; e.g. space tourism.
10. Effect of natural and other disasters on tourism.
SOURCE: Edgell (Published on TRINET 14.10. 2008)
110 tourism becoming a discipline (such as the emergence of textbooks, scholarly journals, professional associations, specific study pathways of Tourism Studies), they also conclude that there are many “practical and philosophical reasons that hamper its evolution”. Tribe (1997) suggests that rather than a discipline, Tourism Studies should be approached as two fields: (1) tourism business studies (including marketing of tourism, tourism corporate strategy, tourism law, tourism management, etc), and (2) non-business Tourism Studies (environmental impacts, tourism perceptions, social impacts). The latter, he argues, is more atomised and lacking unifying framework other than the link with tourism. This very issue has become one of the matters addressed by the academics contributing to the “Critical Turn” as discussed earlier.
In Figure 4.1 the two fields of business and non-business studies are labelled as TF 1 and TF 2 surrounded and influenced by other disciplines such as psychology or sociology. Band K is the most pertinent to the present circumstances in tourism research. Band K does not just represent the interface between a single discipline and the field of tourism but is also a “place where disciplines interact with one another and the field of tourism” representing a “powerful area for generation of new ways of analysing the external world of tourism” (Tribe, 1997, p.651). In this light, Tribe’s combination of disciplines to create knowledge signifies an interdisciplinary approach: interdisciplinary activity in the field of tourism. This interdisciplinary approach has been noticeable in some tourism works, nonetheless,. Coles, Hall and Duval (2009) point out that disciplinary knowledge is dominating higher education nowadays.
Despite the fact that not all research in tourism has been positivist or business focused, under the umbrella of interdisciplinarity, delving more frequently into different disciplines and utilizing different ways of theorising serve the purpose of further pushing the boundaries in Tourism Studies. Hence it is not about other disciplines, whether it is psychology, anthropology or sociology where tourism is often treated as a research context or as a good example for testing theories to better other disciplines. It is about placing tourism at the centre of learning, and employing theories and concepts (also from other disciplines) to better the field of Tourism Studies.
111
FIGURE 4.1: JOHN TRIBE’S VIEW ON CREATION OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE FIELD OF TOURISM STUDIES
The Creation of Tourism Knowledge. Outer Circle=Disciplines and Subdisciplines; Middle Circle=Fields of Tourism; Inner Circle=World of Tourism, TF1=Business Interdisciplinarity; TF2=Non-Business-Related Tourism; bank K = place where disciplines interact with one another and the field of tourism.
SOURCE: Adopted from Tribe (1997, p. 650)
112 Nevertheless, interdisciplinary approaches are not the only way to look at knowledge production in the field. “There is the danger that we may be attempting to address contemporary subjects (such as tourism) through outdated and ageing frameworks for scholarly activity and academic administrations” (Coles et al., 2009, p.81). With regard to further assessing tourism from an epistemological perspective, there is another important and significant concept that surfaced recently in the sphere of Tourism Studies - post- disciplinarity. With the realization that inter-disciplinarity “needs” to be applied at a broader level to produce more varied and richer knowledge, working towards elevating the “inter” to “post” can broaden our vistas even further. In this regard Coles and Hall (2006, p.291) state:
The approaches to post-disciplinarity are intended to provoke greater scholarly reflection on our practices of knowledge production rather than be definitive and (ironically) run the potential risk of being restrictive in their own, newer manner.
In Coles, Hall and Duval’s (2005) view, to expand the understanding and theory of tourism, it is essential to move past the constraints of disciplines, otherwise perceptions of tourists and tourism will remain conditioned by conventional approaches reminiscent of earlier times. Coles et al. (2005) therefore suggest moving away from inter- and multi- disciplinary approaches to more flexible forms of knowledge production: post- disciplinary modes of investigation. According to them post-disciplinarity necessitates more flexible and creative approaches to investigating and defining objects than inter- disciplinary approaches. This is mostly because it removes what they call the “hang-ups” associated with disciplinary parochialism. Furthermore, “post-disciplinary studies emerge when scholars forget about disciplines and identify with learning rather than with disciplines” (p.32). They offer the following definition of post-disciplinarity:
Post-disciplinarity develops more flexible and creative approaches to investigating and defining objects through its insistence on overcoming the intellectual inhibitions associated with disciplinary parochialism” …and post- disciplinary approach rejects the discursive and organizational construction (and worse, the fetishisation) of disciplinary boundaries (Coles et al., 2006, p.295).
113 The post-disciplinary approaches to study tourism therefore call for removing disciplinary boundaries. Instead, one is challenged to draw on a variety of theories, concepts, and methods to produce a wide-ranging knowledge of the studied subject. In such endeavours researchers are “much less reliant on the spin-offs from other disciplinary endeavours in their work” (Hollinshead, 1996, p.72). This way the researcher may immerse in the study problem and deploy tools and whatever means necessary in his/her commitment to broaden the knowledge of the subject under scrutiny. The question is how well researchers can do so without having to sacrifice depth and criticality and produce work that merits respect.30 In fact Coles et al. (2009) acknowledge that scholars do not necessarily want to stretch their “intellectual comfort zones”. And although they should be able to orient themselves in regard to ontology, epistemology and methodology, it has been noted that such skills are often absent (Coles et al., 2006, 2009). In accordance with the aims of this research study, delving more deeply into how knowledge is/can be produced should result in more clarity within the complex discourse on epistemology and ontology.
Furthermore, the created knowledge does not only become the possession of a particular academic group shielded by disciplinary boundaries, the construction-come-knowledge is in an intrinsic relationship with the subject matter (or what is studied). In regard to constructionism (and its many forms), the one claim that brings its adherents together, is that all knowledge is constructed. Breaking the disciplinary boundaries therefore somewhat resonates with constructionism. Coles et al. draw on the work of Goodwin (2004) and state that in regard to post-disciplinarity and tourism, researchers need to go beyond current and established disciplinary boundary to make use of new modes of knowledge production. Post-disciplinarity offers an alternative to knowledge production in the field of Tourism Studies – a field that is after all a blend of a number of disciplinary wings. Hence the future of the epistemology of tourism does not lie as much in confining it as a discipline, its potential rests upon the move across and beyond – leaving disciplinary divides aside. It also encourages greater specialisation of tourism researchers and fosters their ability to contribute in a broader variety of contexts (Coles et
30 I have discussed producing knowledge that merits respect in Chapter Two.
114 al., 2009). In this context, tourism scholars are starting to call for the boundaries of disciplines to be blurred, with researchers moving from “either/or” thinking to embracing more “both/and” thought (Ateljevic, Pritchard, & Morgan, 2007b, p.3). Coles, Hall and Duval (2009, p.80) see the relevance of such debates characterised “by more reasonableness, flexibility and freedom from the constraints of established and orthodox disciplinary boundaries and dogmas”. And perhaps such endeavours will become more and more necessary in an increasingly complex world.
Ultimately, such attempts encompass the use of novel concepts and theories but also mean embracing a variety of methodologies and methods. The problem is whether this is something that is easier to voice than to accomplish in the current state of tourism academia. The next section will therefore explore the methodological issues in detail.
4.2 Tourism Research and Methodologies: Where Are We At?
In further assessing the field, the first and foremost observation is that research techniques with origins of logical positivism, statistical investigations and the scientific method have prevailed (Walle, 1997). According to Wearing, McDonald and Ponting (2005), the research paradigms in tourism research are reflective of the commodifying processes in Tourism Studies. This is something that has been voiced throughout this thesis and hence it is not surprising that this trend is also reflected in applied methodologies.
Not surprisingly, Jamal and Hollinshead (2001) claim that qualitative research31 still struggles to gain legitimacy in other academic disciplines and fields. They say that this is particularly the case in human-social phenomena where many scholars relentlessly fight for the acceptance of the scientific community, clinging to the “shadows of valid and
31 It needs to be re-iterated that the term qualitative research does not hold a paradigmic meaning and qualitative methods can be used by either a positivist (post-positivist) or a constructionist. In this research study the term qualitative is reserved for methods (as explained in Chapter Two), however many researchers connect it with particular paradigms (constructivism, constructionism and critical theory).
115 objective research” (p.78). In Tourism Studies, the combat is apparent in the recent emergence of more critical journals (Tourism and Cultural Change, Current Issues in Tourism, Tourist Studies) that go beyond the specific focus on management, sustainability and so forth and address the theoretical, critical and methodological work in this field.
Riley and Love (2000) explored the paradigmatic influences and the use of qualitative methods within tourism research by focusing upon articles published within four major tourism journals (Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, and Journal of Travel Research). What they found was that the first, in nature qualitative, papers were published in non-tourism journals and monographs such as the American Journal of Sociology (MacCannell, 1973) and later those adopting a colonialist perspective such as Cohen’s (1982) research in Thailand. Despite the fact that Annals of Tourism Research has always been more open to non- business and qualitative studies, their findings endorse the fact that the dominant paradigm in tourism research has been positivist. Accordingly, the reasons for lower production of qualitative research can, according to Riley and Love (2000) be categorised into three different problems: editors and reviewers not being familiar with qualitative research, non-qualitative researchers having difficulty with accepting and fully understanding qualitative findings, and tourism being a field with a heavy focus on generating dollars and thus preferring easily translatable data by employing quantitative techniques. This is, however, only one perspective of addressing the problem and one may argue (more critically) that the community of “qualitative” researchers should not rely on reviewers’ familiarity with qualitative research. Also, researchers used to quantitative methods may not necessarily accept and fully understand qualitative findings, and reversely qualitative researchers may not appreciate number crunching exercises. Most importantly, “qualitative” researchers should be more critical of their own work. Despite the fact that the above points do have merit, the word “qualitative” means many things even to those who see themselves as qualitative researchers (as shown in Chapter One and Chapter Two).
116 Reading the work of Hall, Williams and Lew (2004), we are presented with a review of CABI leisure, recreation and tourism abstracts between 1976-2002. The findings show that sustainability, heritage and history were the major themes, while other concepts such as post-modernity, globalisation, sexuality and gay related issues appeared to have less or no impact on Tourism Studies. Although there is a substantial body of literature on these subjects, Hall et al. (p.17) argue that these have not become “central unifying concepts in tourism”. Thus even though new themes in tourism research have emerged; a significant consolidation of the contribution has not been achieved. This claim is confirmed by Boterill, Gale and Haven (2002) who reviewed doctoral thesis in the UK and Ireland between 1990-1999 and found that few works had been influenced by critical theory.
Tourism academia is still dominated by the positivist/scientific paradigm as confirmed by Xiao and Smith (2006) in their recent historiography of tourism research. However, it is also important to distinguish historically between the business studies that have been pushing for positivist and post-positivist approaches in tourism, and the non-business studies and social science approaches of what is often described as “qualitative research” that remained rather structuralist.
The shift that has been taking place in “qualitative” tourism research - moving towards deconstructing the cultural politics of research and knowledge creation - demonstrates some elements of what Denzin and Lincoln (2003) call the “Seventh Moments” of qualitative research. These Seven Moments were examined by Riley and Love (2000) who focused on the period prior to 1996, and by Phillimore and Goodson (2004b) who conducted the analysis of post-1996. In short, the first moment, known as the “traditional period” was exclusively positivist in nature. The second moment or “modernist period” lead up to the seventies and included attempts to formalise qualitative research. The third moment or “Blurred Genres” refers to a period up to the mid-1980s when researchers started to recognise multiple approaches to research and used more artistic/creative tools such as personal experiences or photographic media together with the traditional qualitative techniques. The fourth moment also called the “Crisis of Representation” disputed that the researcher is the all-knowing creator of knowledge. Accordingly,
117 questions of gender, class and race were raised. The fifth moment, according to Riley and Love (2000, p.17) represented the end of “grand narratives aimed at explaining supposedly universal phenomena for everybody and focused instead on specific, delimited, local research”.
If we choose to work with Denzin and Lincoln’s categories, it can be said that it was at this stage when new research began to emerge and investigations into embodiment, the Self (Crouch, 2000; Pritchard & Morgan, 2000a, 2000b), the importance of a subjective approach and individual interpretations (Ateljevic & Doorne, 2002), and narratives of travel and feminine subjectivity (Fullagar, 2002), started to gain further attention. The problem with Denzin and Lincoln’s Seven Moments is that it is not as clear-cut as it seems. The field of Tourism Studies as a whole has not reached any particular moment and is rather going through all of them at once. Perhaps some are more prominent than others; nevertheless there is no clear line.
In their view (2000b), the Sixth or post-experimental, and Seventh (the future) moments are happening in “qualitative” research currently. They state that for instance fictional ethnography, ethnographic poetry, and multimedia texts are other ways of seeking knowledge that are now being used legitimately. Denzin and Lincoln (2000b) further recognize the Seventh Moment as a term that describes the trend which opens the doors to new ways of studying and looking at human behaviour, attitudes, and conditions. It is a period of “ferment and explosion” where one needs to pay attention to previously silent voices (p.12). At this point, it needs to be reminded that what they call “qualitative research” is not something that is unified across all disciplines and fields, and Tourism Studies is (in my opinion) far from the so called Seventh Moment. Rather, as I said earlier the field seems to be experiencing aspects of all of the moments and much of the knowledge is still accrued by traditional (positivist/post-positivist) means. Denzin and Lincoln’s view is only one point of view of the evolution of “qualitative” research and should not be taken for granted. Hence what matters most is not the use of poetry or multimedia texts and speculating whether one has reached a particular moment – it is how one approaches his/her research, what one does with the information/data he or she
118 collects, and how that information is presented. These questions go back to the aim of this research study - to examine how knowledge is produced and critically ponder issues of ontology and epistemology.
The “Critical Turn” and “new” tourism research also call for transparency of methodologies. Some scholars (Phillimore & Goodson, 2004a) emphasize the fact that there has not been adequate critical reflection of methodological issues, or even a basic insight into the methodological approaches adopted. Phillimore and Goodson themselves, however, do not appear to offer a particularly in-depth critical reflection in their work. They too simply follow Denzin, Lincoln and Guba (1998; 2004) and promote qualitative research as a paradigm, without delving into the complexities of the many ways of knowing. Although they state that “there must be an awareness of the researcher’s position and practice within the research process” (Phillimore & Goodson, 2004c, p.40) – this is precisely what is in need of critical assessment. There are many positions one can take and as I showed in Chapter One there is nothing fixed but disagreement and variation.
With regard to the terms qualitative research and qualitative researcher, it is pertinent not to forget that one can use qualitative methods, employ interviews, and even draw on phenomenology as a methodology (as I have shown in Chapter Three), yet still carry out research that aims to describe the tourist experience in a rigid and positivist/post- positivist manner. These very important issues are largely overlooked by most of those who call themselves qualitative researchers. From a constructionist point of view, neither qualitative nor quantitative research is superior. They are different tools for approaching research that emerge from the researcher’s paradigm and his/her ontological and epistemological assumptions. Indeed, there is a place for both qualitative and quantitative research in Tourism Studies, and quantitative methods have their advantages. For instance statistical insights into aspects such as migration trends or income generation are important parts of tourism research (Phillimore & Goodson, 2004b). Phillimore and Goodson are also right in saying that qualitative research (I would say methods) offers
119 immense potential when it comes to understanding the human dimensions of society, which is very important in tourism research. They (2004b, p.4) state:
With qualitative approaches, the emphasis is placed upon studying things in their natural settings, interpreting phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them, humanising problems and gaining an emic, or insider’s perspective.
The only problem with this statement is that it only applies to those who adhere to subjectivist epistemologies - it may not be applicable to all researchers who employ qualitative techniques. The recent publication of The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies: Innovative Research Methodologies (Ateljevic et al., 2007b), shows that there is now an assembly of researchers who do not need to justify the use of qualitative methods, and who freely employ the mechanisms of phenomenology, reflexivity, diaries and other tools to enrich research in tourism. Ateljevic et al. (2005, p.5) perceive the Critical Turn as “a shift in thought that serves to provide and legitimise a space for more interpretative and critical modes of tourism enquiry”. The present difficulty with this space is that it is not critical enough, researchers use terms and concepts in ambiguous ways and much research still lacks depth.
In this respect, Hollinshead (2004b) proposes that reflective ontological settings must be of concern in Tourism Studies, and methodological-level decisions in which ontological concerns of ‘being’ as well as epistemological concerns about ‘knowing” should be primary to methods-level decision making. He calls for “more situationally sympathetic and more contextually pertinent thinking about the issues of being, seeing, experiencing, knowing and becoming” (p68). Although I explained in Chapter Two that I place matters epistemological over ontological, such debates are still needed.
The methodological shift therefore moves away from tourism which tends to base its research on a universalized, restricted and rational subject (Johnston, 2001). It unites many voices calling for a change: Wearing & Wearing’s (2001) call for fundamental focus on subjective experience in tourism theorizing as well as more post-structuralist approaches (Wearing et al., 2005); the need of reflexivity in tourism research (Ateljevic
120 et al., 2005; Ateljevic & Swain, 2006; Botterill, 2003; Hollinshead, 2008); the use of new methods of investigation such as discourse analysis (Hannam & Knox, 2005), and beseeching researchers to be more self-critical and adventurous (Phillimore & Goodson, 2004a). But in having to come up with the answer to the question posed in the heading of this section (Where are we at?), I remain rather disillusioned that tourism academia has reached any turn and instead, we are perhaps still battling to produce what can be seen as “new” tourism research. I will draw on what I see as “new” research in the next section.
4.3 Contemporary Research in Tourism
The present-day initiatives of the budding community of scholars uniting under the Critical Turn are to further promote, incorporate and unite broader philosophical and theoretical approaches. According to Tribe, the recent texts that reflect this turn are Aitchison’s (2001) Theorizing Other discourses of Tourism, Gender and Culture: Can the Subaltern Speak (in tourism)?, Botterill’s (2003) Autoethnographic Narrative on Tourism Research Epistemologies, Fullagar’s (2002) Narratives of Travel: Desire and the Movement of Feminine Subjectivity, and Hollinshead’s (1999) Surveillance of the Worlds of Tourism: Foucault and the Eye-of-power. An essential part of the turn is also Phillmore and Goodson’s (2004c) Qualitative Research in Tourism: Ontologies, Epistemologies and Methodologies, a text that signals a mainstream publisher’s interest in new approaches to tourism research.
Scholars also need to pay more attention to how we frame the relevance of tourism in the world (Franklin, 2007). It can be said that the “new” research in tourism arose from mainly a qualitative mode of inquiry and is underpinned to a great extent by debates from sociology, anthropology and cultural geography (Ateljevic et al., 2005). A good illustration is the recently published Blackwell Companion to Tourism edited by Hall et al. (2004), bringing together a variety of critically engaged tourism research. Some of these topics grounded in social science theories include: post-colonialism and tourism (D'Hauteserre, 2004), gender and sexuality (Pritchard, 2004a), reflexive mode of postmodernity (Oakes & Minca, 2004), cultural geographies of tourism (Crang, 2004),
121 cultural circuits of tourism (Ateljevic & Doorne, 2004) and problematizing place promotion (Morgan, 2004). Additionally, other authors have confirmed and emphasised the need to engage with broader theoretical questions about tourism and travel. Consequently, new directions have recently been delved into: actor-network theory (Johannesson, 2005; Van Der Druim, 2007), mobilities (Hall et al., 2004), ordering and becoming (Franklin, 2004), worldmaking and worldshaping (Hollinshead, 2004c), and shaping of destinations and remaking places (Crang, 2004).
The so called “new” tourism research perhaps symbolizes a time of greater awareness of the fact that tourism is a diverse field which occupies significant academic space. The prospect of tourism research resonates with the view of expanding, encouraging innovative and radical lines of enquiry: showing signs of organization and dissemination through journals, texts as well as conferences (Goodson & Phillimore, 2004; Tribe, 2006). As such, tourism is increasingly being assessed by scholars with regard not only to policy and other applications, but also the ways in which the subject itself is theorized and conceptualized (Hall et al., 2004).
Johnston (2001) for instance argues that critical social theory on embodiment can provide new challenges to, and exciting possibilities for, tourism research. “The study of tourism within the social sciences has been built on Western hierarchical dualisms and tends to produce hegemonic, disembodied and masculinist knowledge” (p.181). She focuses her attention on two gay parades (the Hero parade in New Zealand and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade) in order to discuss the tourist “gaze” and bodies in Tourism Studies; deconstructing acts of tourism, pleasure and politics lived through the bodies. The result is an important concept of the hierarchical relationship of Self (the tourist bodies), and the Other (the host bodies). Similarly, Aitchison (2001) develops a post- structural/postcolonial feminist perspective acknowledging the structural and cultural power relationships and delves deeper into the concept of Other and Othering, defining where one belongs and who one is through contrasting other places and people. Aitchison can therefore be seen as contributing to the theoretical development of interdisciplinary studies in gender, tourism and cultural theory.
122 Wearing and Wearing (2001) map the conceptual picture of the relationship between tourist experience and Self from a sociological perspective, arguing that much of the sociological/social psychological work in tourism focused on the individual tourist and the role of holidays in establishing identity and a sense of Self. They centre their attention on people involved in tourism interactions and the construction of meanings with regard to the sense of Self from these interactions. To do so, their interest lies in constructing a “person-centered sociology of tourism” rather than paying attention to only marketing, management or economics (p.144). Therefore by presenting a person-cantered conceptualization of tourism they not only move away from solely viewing the “other”, but give the “other” a voice to be heard in tourist interactions. Also challenging the cultural hegemony, they (Wearing & Wearing, 2006) work further towards de-stabilizing the tourist-host relationships, arguing that tourist spaces have been largely commodified and constructed by those with power (i.e. corporate tourist marketers).
Acknowledging the individual is therefore important in order to understand the phenomenon of tourism, for people construct their “own material semiotics of places through their bodily encounters” (Crouch, 2004, p.90). In this light, rather than as a group of consumers of similar demographics, tourists are perceived as individuals with unique subjective experiences. The shift of focus to the individual and the embodied offers new dimensions and perspectives with respect to the contexts of representations of events, activities, places and the role of mediators in their construction (Crouch, 2004).
It is therefore not surprising that the body/embodiment has become a “buzz-word” in recent academic writings (Ateljevic & Swain, 2006; Hall, Swain, & Kinnaird, 2003; Wilson & Ateljevic, 2007) and as such should not be detached from any debate concerning the tourist performance and experience among those involved in socio- cultural analyses of tourism. After all, the “body” has become the centre of a range of tourism experiences (Franklin & Crang, 2001). In embodiment, the human individual is seen more as a producer (of meaning) rather than consumer (Crouch, 2000, p.63): “embodiment denotes the ways in which the individual grasps the world around her/him and makes sense of it in ways that engage both mind and body”. Crouch further claims
123 that it is concerned with the body as the subject of practice rather than the object of practice/policy. Embodiment thus sees humans as the subjects in the world engaging space through experiencing, making sense, and knowing through practise. But bodies are not just human or social bodies. As Grosz (1995, p.84) states: “the sex assigned to the body makes a great deal of difference to the kind of social subject, and indeed the mode of corporeality assigned to the subject”.
In leisure studies, the body and living with/through the body as a place for cultural performance, sport, hedonism, and constraint to leisure experience have gained respectable attention (Crouch, 2000; Frederick & Shaw, 1995; Henderson, Bedini, Hecht, & Schuler, 1995; Little, 2002; Perkins & Thorns, 2001; Theberge, 2003; Yarnal, Chow, & Hutchinson, 2005). The body is thus seen as a powerful source of learning through and about the Self (Yarnal et al., 2005). Embodiment is also often captured through different concepts of social performance. Doorne and Ateljevic (2005), for instance, pursue the concept of tourism as a performance and explore tourists in Fiji. They distinguish them as performers acting on different stages that provide a context through which broader socio- cultural and political issues that structure tourism can be exposed.
Hollinshead (2003; 2004c) contributes to the claim that tourism is an under-theorised subject and discusses the concept of worldmaking/worldshaping and the need for tourism scholars to delve into the projective worldmaking authority of tourism. In his opinion tourism not only routinely makes worlds but also de-makes and re-makes them. In this context, tourism as the subject of research evolves around people travelling and “making” the world. People who travel but also work in tourism redefine and reconstitute that very universe. Therefore under the inspection of worldmaking, the focus lies in examining not only the world as it is but reflecting on the world as we (in tourism management and studies) “make” it. Here Hollinshead shows signs of constructionism.
Crang (2004) argues that tourism produces, as well as transforms, destination and tourist cultures. According to him, tourism is not merely about consuming places and should be examined as a dynamic force that creates them. Additionally, one needs to study the
124 cultures of tourists and their historical evolution. Crang thus joins Hollinshead in a dialogue not only on the shaping of destinations, but also about tourism as inventing, making and remaking places. “Places are made, done, and performed, and through making, doing, and performing them tourists become, well, tourists” (Crang, 2004, p.82). Therefore tourists form their identities through processes of identification and self- creation rather than having pre-given identities.
Hence, looking back at the more traditional ways of theorising, Franklin (2004) states that one of the problems with structuralist approaches is that they omit the link between the structural logic: what happens and how it happened. Instead he proposes looking at tourism as ordering:
…that has quite explicit and often surprising twists and turns and unintended consequences; that once formed and unleashed on the world it took on a life of its own as an ordering, a way of making the world different, a way of ordering the objects of the world in a new way – and not just human objects (Franklin, 2004, p.279).
At its basic level, Franklin (2004) sees orderings as attempts at control or management. They are a materially diverse set of arrangements and procedures that involve not only people but also documents, codes, texts, physical devices and architectures. He suggests that as an ordering, tourism creates ordering effects that involve organizing humans and non-humans. Moreover, tourism as an ordering is always on the move: ordering new places and registering new objects. It is unstable because it becomes subject to other orderings, yet it can also bond onto other orderings. Franklin makes an observation that tourism cannot be a purely social or business activity: it is linked with non-human objects, systems, machines, bureaucratic process, times, timetables, sites, photographs, tents, flows, desires, visitors, locals and others in a complex materially heterogenous assemblage. In his view, it is more useful to think about tourism as re-shaping the way we live and the manner in which an individualized and consumerised society has been restructured. Hence tourism as an ordering embraces the question of what tourism does. “The key point is that it has reconfigured the way we live, the manner in which an individualised and consumerised society has been reshaped” (Franklin, 2007, p.138).
125 Related to this discourse is also Johannesson’s (2005, p.134) Actor-Network theory which in a similar way approaches the world as consisting of “heterogeneous relations where humans and non-humans alike are treated as possible actors and are thereby ascribed agency”. Actor-Network theory also known as “sociology of translation” (Law, 1992) was recently further examined by Van Der Druim (2007) who theorizes between tourism, materiality and space, and develops a new outlook on processes of ordering in tourism. He thus also contributes to the body of knowledge about “how” tourism works, but also on how it is performed and how it produces space. From a broader perspective, these scholars also reflect the relational materialism shift in social sciences. Murdoch (1998) for instance nearly a decade ago proposed that the relational view of space was to become the overriding paradigm in human geography, given that relationalism rejects any fixed conception of space.
Lastly, another important access to knowledge production in Tourism Studies is through the emerging work on mobility. “Tourism constitutes just one form of leisure-oriented temporary mobility, and in being part of that mobility, it is also both shaped by and shaping it” (Hall et al., 2004, p.5). The recent launch (March 2006) of the journal Mobilities by Routledge shows that there is indeed an audience and thus scholars keen to explore a variety of issues relevant to mobilities: from travel and communications, migration diasporas and families to new social networks, new social exclusions but also transportation and communication technologies (Hannam et al., 2006). Broader perspectives on mobility in tourism research are nevertheless rare and little connection has been made (Coles et al., 2005). According to Coles et al. there is a need to understand tourism in a different light, such as one form of human movement in a wider spectrum of mobilities. In their opinion, recent developments in tourism and mobilities in fact show the lack of theorizing, modelling and situating in a highly mobile world. For them tourism represents a “leisure oriented continuum of mobilities that stretches from commuting and shopping through to what is usually categorized as migration, diaspora and transnational social relations” (p.31). They stress the need to employ more post- disciplinary enquiries in order to understand tourism’s role in the globalised world and produce temporally relevant knowledge.
126 4.4 A Constructionist Making of Tourism Research: Key Navigation Points
The tourism world (sites, attractions, landmarks, destinations, landscapes etc.) is a place of power, identity, meaning and behaviour that are being negotiated and re-negotiated with respect to socio-cultural dynamics (Pritchard & Morgan, 2000b). Tourism is also relationally linked to objects, machines, texts, spaces and systems (Franklin, 2004). It has been already established that the centre of Franklin’s (2007) attention is placed on the relevance of tourism in the world or what tourism is/does: offering a new perspectives on tourism. In a similar fashion, Van Der Druim (2007, p.151) argues that whether it is material resources, objects, spaces and/or technologies, these are more than a mere protrusion of human intention and action, for “they structure, define and configure interaction”. Therefore what we can see starting to emerge in the field of Tourism Studies tourism are new tourism epistemologies that are re-defining what we understand tourism to be. From a constructionist view, this also shows how creative researchers can be when conceptualising about the phenomenon we call “tourism”.
The Mobilities Paradigm (Urry, 2006) challenges the reader to think about places in a different way and requires critical and reflexive approach to thinking about the meaning and realness of a place. Urry does not see places as authentic “entities” that are always there waiting to be visited by tourists. Instead, they are entangled with people who produce performances of that place. In fact what Urry indirectly shows us is the constructed reality of tourism through studying places and mobilities. He uses the metaphor of sandcastle to discuss the role of a place in relationship to mobilities:
The sandcastle is a social project involving face-to-face, body-to-body proximity among the family who both construct it and act as impressed audience… The sandcastle, the sea, and the sun are central to staging a carefree, “timeless”, not to be forgotten, experience of place (Urry, 2006, p.ix).
Urry also pays attention to the movement of people, things and objects all of which make places what they are, or as he puts it they have a ‘role’ to play:
127 …there are such mobile objects as fish, stones, and mussels at the shore or on the beach that may have travelled thousands of miles, waiting for their starring role. The tools for building, such as buckets and spades, are brought in the family car (maybe from abroad) but will have been manufactured and transported from a low-wage country (Urry, 2006, p.xiii).
Hollinshead presents tourism as an agent of change - a “worldmaking agent” that makes, re-makes, but also de-makes places. It is a concept or as he calls it “angle of vision/s” that reveals the many things that tourism does (or is involved in) and what it is or can be (2008). In his view:
Tourism can play an immense role in not only the symbolic representation of peoples, places, and pasts, but in constituting (or ‘making’) the very world that a space/city/region becomes (Hollinshead, 2007a, p.185).
He further describes the worldmaking activities like breathing:
If you are in the business of tourism, and you are “sentient”, you are engaging in it: if you have wandered through into tourism--- even by accident, for instance, from some safe haven of ecology or otherwise from some usual bolt-hole in local history, perhaps--- you are inescapably already indulging in it (Hollinshead et al., 2008, p.5).
This view of tourism is important for it pushes us to further think about tourism: what tourism does/is, what we do as agents of tourism, or what is one’s role in this complex process of making/changing/shaping. However, tourism does not just happen on its own and it is also the humans (besides machines, texts etc.) that are responsible for creating what tourism is and how we understand it. Hence Hollinshead’s earlier statement is important for it tells us that tourism is part of our being in the world. We all contribute to and create the world we live in and researchers make sense of it in many ways.
The innovative works on mobilities and understanding of places (Coles et al., 2005; Crang, 2004; Urry, 2006), Hollinshead’s (2004a; 2004b; 2008) conception of wordmaking and worldshaping, Meethan’s (2002) work on places, culture, and consumption, and Fanklin’s (2004) vision of tourism as an orderding therefore serve as broad navigation points in this thesis. They move beyond the common and accepted
128 views of tourism and challenge readers to be more critical about epistemological matters in Tourism Studies. Most importantly, they all point to the constructionist view of tourism that is “re/de and” - constructed, made, invented, created, but also performed and lived through humans who make sense of their actions by simply being in the world. And it is this being in the world and the use of hermeneutic phenomenology as discussed earlier in Chapter Three that offers the promise of tapping into people’s lives. The attention in this thesis (in regard to data presented in Chapter Six) is therefore turned towards the individual and his/her being in the world and the exploration into meaning and understanding in the context of Tourism Studies.
4.5 Chapter Summary
To conclude this chapter, in the attempt to cast light on the epistemological foundations of this research study, I have clarified my view on how the “new” tourism research relates to this thesis. I have shown that tourism has been largely understood as a businesses/management/system oriented field and that there is a move towards more critical and reflexive approaches. I have also shown that we have started to see the tendency and even the abandonment of disciplinary focus and instead some scholars are calling for post-disciplinary approaches to research. Various studies forming the knowledge base of “new” tourism research have been discussed and it is important to note that the works were largely selected for they serve as navigation points informing this thesis - in order to explore other ways of theorising about, and, understanding tourism. What has been portrayed as “new” research goes beyond the straight-jacketed view of tourism and promises novel directions for exploring what it is and can be and what it does. Therefore the literature in this chapter has shown that our understanding of tourism is expanding and can lead towards varied and interesting knowledges about this phenomenon. This is an important notion in regard to constructionism, for its main argument rests on the constructed nature of knowledge. In other words, tourism is not something that is self-explanatory: it is meaningfully interpreted as “something” by the researcher. And this “something” varies on one’s cultural situatedness which determines how meaning is/can be generated. For example what we now conceive to be tourism was
129 not associated with mobilities and worldmaking when the term was first introduced. From a reflexive-constructionist view, this chapter also shows how I (the researcher) make sense of the concept of tourism and the production of knowledge in the field. In other words I have to some extent explicated the current academic climate, practices and culture. This is important for it shapes the understandings that will emerge in this constructionist study. The use of empirical data in this study is largely demonstrative to explore the process of knowledge production. In this respect the New Age phenomenon becomes a fitting research context in which matters related to mobilities, travel, Eastern religion, globalization, and also New Age commodification can be explored (I will delve into the above next, in Chapter Five). Furthermore, it provides room for teasing out the “HOWs”: How New Agers create/make the world of New Age and How a place becomes New Age. In the next chapter I will engage closely with the topic of New Age and the studies thereof.
130 Chapter 5
LITERATURE REVIEW (PART TWO): THE NEW AGE PHENOMENON
I would like to spend my whole life travelling, if I could borrow another life to spend at home.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830
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The New Age phenomenon is imperative in this thesis as it provides a research context for exploring the issues highlighted in the previous chapters. The main purpose of this chapter is therefore the review of literature on New Age and New Age tourism, but also the related concepts of religious tourism, pilgrimages and sacred sites. This is important for exploring the different understandings of these phenomena. I trace the emergence and development of New Age and examine relevant views and definitions. In my endeavours to make sense of the New Age phenomenon from a tourism perspective I also focus on the issues of mobilities, the “Easternization” of the West, New Age consumerism, commodification and the Self. Overall, this chapter forms a significant part of the thesis for it seeks to show how knowledge is/can be constructed. In other words before a researcher (I) gathers data, he or she must first select literature and draw on readily known (constructed) concepts in order to build the pillars for further conceptualisation. In regard to constructionism, there is no true or real knowledge, as I explained in Chapter One.
131 5.1 New Age
There are different interpretations of New Age among social scientists (Hollinger, 2004). The ambiguous peripheries of New Age have stirred many discussions in order to label and frame this phenomenon. It has gained a lot of attention from scholars of different disciplines and has taken on a variety of names such as the Human Potential Movement, The Aquarian Conspiracy, and Cosmic Humanism (Anderson, 2002). It has even been termed the “New Age nature religion” due to the focus on a shared landscape and valued natural features (Ivakhiv, 2003). The New Age and its relationship to religion, faith and God have been seen from various perspectives: as religion (Kyle, 1995; Sutcliffe, 2003b), a “new religiosity” (Heelas, 1996), new religious movement (Riches, 2003) “religious phenomenon” (Helve, 1999) stressing individual experience (O'Neil, 2001), as an “expression of contemporary Anglo-American popular religion” (Sutcliffe, 2003a), “post modern religion” (Bauman, 1998) and a form of “folk religion” (Hall, 2003). Contrary to affiliation with religion, Hess (1993), questions whether New Age can be accommodated within the category of religion at all. Others rather view it as a “countercultural movement” (Green & Aldred, 2002), or even perceive it as a fad (Bainbridge, 1997).
One of the first disciplines applied in a systematic way to New Age was sociology and it still remains the grounds for the “plethora of recent studies on New Age” (Kemp, 2003, p.141). However, regardless of perspective, be it sociological or theological, Kemp states that there is no definition agreed upon for the New Age phenomenon. It is the New Age boundaries that prove to be difficult to define. According to Sutcliffe (2003a, p.18), several studies have failed to find falsifiable boundaries to New Age for as a collective field of practice “it lacks a singular corporate body, a legislative mechanism, a developed historical consciousness, organisational infrastructure, membership criteria and, crucially, unambiguous self-identity and concrete goals”. Moreover, The New Age is seen as amorphous, both ideologically and organisationally (Redden, 2005), and its practices under-examined and under-theorised (Ivakhiv, 2003).
Nevertheless, the concept of New Age has not been superseded (Kemp, 2004). It
132 continues to draw the attention of diverse academics and new studies are slowly emerging. Riches (2003), for instance, found similarities between certain types of hunter- gatherer societies and New Agers, while Steyn (2003, p.78) suggests there is a parallel between New Age thought and African religion. According to her, it is the “holistic world view in which the inter-relationship and interdependence of all the dimensions of a person and of the humans, nature and the Divine are emphasised” (p.78). Additionally, the belief in a spiritual world with its entities able to guide and assist the living is another commonality between African religion and New Age.
When it comes to defining this phenomenon, Hess (1993) believes that there is a level of ideological commonality in New Age; personal and collective transformation, holistic conceptions of nature and the cosmos, and the sacralisation of the inner Self. Hall (2003, p.11) lists activities that are “undoubtedly” a part of New Age culture: workshops and seminars on yoga, visualisation, neuro-linguistic programming, Feng Shui, re-birthing, sacred song and dance, prosperity, various healing techniques (Reiki, polarity bodywork, Bach Flower Therapy, aromatherapy, reflexology) and so forth. Hollinger (2004, p.292) assigns the acceptance of esoteric methods, such as astrology, I Ging, Reiki or transpersonal psychology, to be facilitated by the “psychologisation of esotericism and the demystification of these methods by means of explaining their effects in the language of modern psychology”. Redden (2005, p.241) defines New Age as referring principally to “a set of dynamics in a socio-cultural field – precisely those dynamics that ensure the continual instability of its constituent elements”. New Age can also be seen as a replication of many different philosophies and practices; sometimes integrating certain Christian theological movements in conjunction with Hindu or Buddhist beliefs (Bunkers, 1999). Therefore defining the New Age phenomenon can be a difficult task, for different disciplines focus their attention on various aspects of this phenomenon. From a constructionist view, this suggests that it can be conceptualised in multifarious ways depending on one’s situatedness, understanding, and culture including academic practice (or academic cultures/subcultures).
The New Age phenomenon is not something fixed in time and it appears to have
133 transformed and evolved over time. According to some several distinguished periods can be discerned. Sutcliffe (2003a) proposes that the New Age phenomenon between 1930 and 1960 was a radically different version (ascetic, puritanical and other-worldly) from what it became in the 1970s and in the years to follow (emotionally expressive, humanistic and ‘this wordly’ practices and beliefs). The adherents of New Age in the 1960-70s were concerned about social and political problems and therefore participated actively in political movements of that time (Hollinger, 2004). Melton (2001) sees the New Age movement of the 1970s and 1980s as a “new revivalist religious impulse directed toward the esoteric/metaphysical/Eastern groups and to the mystical strain in all religions”. 32
Today, New Agers focus more extensively on the individual Self and spirituality, for the “individuality” component plays an significant role in New Age (Clarke, 2002). “New Agers believe that the Self is divine or, if it is not yet, then it can become so with the right therapy, ritual or training”(Bruce, 2002, p.82). Individual personal transformation (Green & Aldred, 2002) and individual spiritual development are thus dominant themes in New Age (Luckmann, 1996). Faber (1996, p.6) further suggests that the New Age movement stresses individual development, improvement and transformation, and it is a religiously synergetic effort that evolved out of 1960/70s counter-culture. For Houtman and Mascini (2002) the popularity of the New Age phenomenon as well as the decline of the Christian churches can be attributed to an increase of moral individualism. Hall (2003), for example, argues that all traditions are subject to reinterpretation, for New Agers accept tradition on an individual basis with personal experience being at the forefront.
The topic of Self and one’s individuality leads to another indispensable theme in regard to the New Age phenomenon: the Self-spirituality relationship. Spirituality itself is a difficult term to define and little effort has been made to distinguish between spirituality and religion (George, Larsons, Koeing, & McCullough, 2000). As a result, the two
32 This suggests the many ways we can conceptualize about the New Age Phenomenon and why researchers perhaps struggle to produce the most comprehensive definition. This tendency of conquering new phenomena is also evident in Tourism Studies - still largely dominated by disciplinary and post-positivist ways of producing knowledge.
134 concepts are often intertwined in their cultural meaning. Wuff (cited in George et al., 2000) argues that:
Both spirituality and religion focus on the sacred or divine, beliefs about the sacred, the effects of those beliefs on behaviour, practices used to attain or enhance a sense of sacred, and experiences of spiritual or religious states of consciousness.
Similarly Spaniol (2002, p.321) does not limit spirituality only to God and defines spirituality as follows:
Spirituality involves relationship - a relationship with someone or something beyond ourselves; someone or something that sustains and comforts us, guiding our decision making, forgiving our imperfections, and celebrating our journey through life. This someone or something can be another person, a spiritual guide, a belief in the goodness of human nature, and/or belief in God.
In Vaughan’s (2002, p.16) view, spirituality is something that is present in the hearts and minds of men and women universally, regardless of religious traditions. Likewise, for Mattis (2000, p.101), significant overlaps exist between religious and spiritual experience, and empirical evidence suggests that “lay people” see an important distinction between these two constructs. He is in agreement with Zinnbauer et al. (1997) that there is substantive difference between spirituality and religiosity. In their study (Zinnbauer et al., 1997, p.549), religiousness was found to be associated with “higher levels of authoritarianism, religious orthodoxy, intrinsic religiousness, parental religious attendance, self-righteousness, and church attendance”. Spirituality, on the other hand, was associated with a different set of variables: “mystical experiences, New Age beliefs and practices, higher income, and the experience of being hurt by clergy” (p.549).
With regard to the New Age phenomenon, Heelas (1996) asserts that the notion of the New Age movement is Self–spirituality, which assumes that the Self is sacred and that spirituality lies within the person (Frisk, 2000). Self-perfection can be achieved by means of spiritual exercises and alternative health methods (Hollinger, 2004). However, not all academics share this outlook and Greedon (cited in Attix, 2002, p.51) for instance
135 perceives the whole concept of New Age as a “smorgasbord, a cafeteria approach to spirituality”.
Another issue, pertinent to understanding the New Age phenomenon, is the dispute over whether it is or is not a movement. There are academics who do not regard the New Age phenomenon as a movement despite the fact they acknowledge a certain level of evolution and distinguishable periods. For Sutcliffe (2003a, p.13), when portrayed as a movement, “New Age is an inadequate category; represented as an historical period, the formulation simply assimilates practitioners’ agendas: astrological, millennialistic and utopian”. Instead he suggests that by removing New Age as an arena of cultural practices from the field of movement studies and relocating it within debates on small group practice, auto/biographical identity construction and popular discourse on spirituality, New Age can be defined as:
…popular or vernacular religion: that is, the necessarily incomplete and ambiguous – but no less potent – practices and beliefs of ordinary, lay practitioners as they are expressed, negotiated and contested in everyday life settings” (Sutcliffe, 2003a, p.19).
Correspondingly, the Southwest Institute for Orthodox Studies (The New Age Movement History, 2000), states that the New Age Movement is not officially a movement because there is no identifiable leader or a shared ideology required for a movement. They perceive the New Age phenomenon as “an unorganized grouping of groups and individuals sharing the belief that humans are either divine or have divine potential” (p.1). Heelas (1996) takes it a step further and argues that the New Age movement is neither a “new religion” nor a “movement”. However, in reviewing Heelas’ work, Wright (1999, p.97) suggests that Heelas is “confused” about what constitutes a movement in a sociological sense. In this regard, one of the criteria for dismissing the New Age phenomenon as a movement, according to Heelas, is the “lack of organization”. Wright, however, argues that scholars of social movements have long known that movements do not have to be well organized. More specifically, he says that the New Age is a “movement industry with many different types of movement organizations (MOs)” (p97). Wright thus suggests that these various movement organizations “run the gamut between
136 world-rejecting and world-affirming belief systems which explain why devotees are drawn from both countercultural and mainstream populations” (p.97). Other scholars (York, 1995) solve this issue by portraying New Age as a sub-category of the holistic movement that includes amongst others Neo-paganism, the ecology movement, feminism, the Goddess movement, the human potential movement, Eastern mysticism groups, liberal/liberation politics and the Aquarian Conspiracy.
In regard to the New Age phenomenon lacking organized leadership, there are important personalities and celebrities that are often associated/taking part in the phenomenon. These people constitute significant individuals from the past along with writers, spiritual gurus, chanellers, and people with psychic potential. According to Steyn (2003, p.83) New Age adherents want to be in contact with someone who is “attuned to the forces of nature”, someone who can demonstrate “deep and broad perception into the mysteries of this world and the entire cosmos, and who has attuned to a mystical depository of knowledge of the universe”.
Madame Helena Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy who “drew up an evolutionary scheme while she caricatured Darwin by keeping in her study a stuffed, dressed baboon holding a manuscript of a lecture on his Origin of Species”, is another example (Wood, 2004, p.159). South African Credo Mutwa is celebrated locally and internationally as an author, prophet, visionary, painter, sculptor, traditional healer, and custodian of traditional wisdom, and “it is in New Age circles, in particular, where his light burns brightest” (Steyn, 2003, p.69). According to Steyn , Credo Mutwa is even more unique for his experiences and personal contact with extraterrestrial life. Credo Mutwa claims he has been abducted, as well as physically examined by extraterrestrials, and even forced to have sexual intercourse with one. Another well-known New Age personality is Deepak Chopra who is by many (including the media) described as a “New-Age Prophet”:
Deepak Chopra is America's head cleric of the soul. He's a one-man diversified conglomerate on a mission to reveal a spiritually-infused vision of the good life… Chopra weaves Hindu tenets into strains of quantum physics and biology. The result is a mesmerizing discourse on how we can "reinterpret our bodies" to slow
137 aging and cure disease, find God, live in harmony and accumulate wealth. In short, we create our own reality (Raz, 2006, para. 1).
Further noteworthy aspects of the New Age phenomenon are the concepts of reincarnation and karma. It is central to some New Agers, and traditional religious beliefs have much in common with this phenomenon (Sjoberg & Wahlber, 2002). New Age promotes positive thinking, self-improvement, self-esteem, and transformation (O'Neil, 2001). In comparison to conventional rituals and rite, it sanctions techniques such as meditation, yoga, astrology, tarot cards, chants, crystals, fortune telling and channelling. “In seeking wholeness it supplements conventional medicine with faith-healing, vegetarianism, and macrobiotic cuisine. In many respects it carries ecumenicalism to its logical extreme” (O'Neil, 2001, p.460). New Age practises are also often compared to religious rituals. However, despite the fact that certain structural affinities exist between the New Age phenomenon and Roman Catholicism – such as the emphasis on sacramentalism, ritualism, mystery, and the attempt to re-spiritualize life (Dinges, 2004), the representatives of the church seem to disagree. According to Dinges (2004, p.274), a document released by the Vatican called Jesus Christ the Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the ‘New Age’ portrays New Age thinking in general as containing “heterodox ontological and epistemological positions that run counter to Christian revelation and must be rejected as such”. The document further states that the New Age movement here is presented as “an alternative to the Judaeo-Christian heritage” and Christians choosing New Age alternatives opt for “a complete break with the tradition that formed them” (p.282). From a constructionist view, here the understanding and portrayal of the New Age phenomenon takes on a different role: one that is charged by strong political motifs, dominance and issues of power.
When it comes to religion, Melton (p.282) perceives New Religions as “relatively new religious organizations distinguished by their intrusion into a dominant religious community from which they make significant dissent”. In contrast, the New Age Movement, he asserts, was never a single organization, but originated as an idea spread by a group of theosophical organizations that shared a common lineage in the writings of
138 Alice A. Bailey. Sutcliffe33 (2003a) too traces the roots of New Age back to the writings of Alice Bailey (1880-1949) – who was a member of the Theosophical Society in the USA, propagating an eschatological Theosophy in the early 1920s, and whose writings include 285 passages referring to New Age.
Another interesting aspect of New Age is its survival. According to Campbell (1972), it is kept alive by magazines, periodicals, books, pamphlets, demonstrations and informal meetings that serve for disseminating beliefs and practices. Also Redden (2005) stresses the importance of the concept of “network” that is so frequently discussed among the commentators of New Age. Some even call it the “leaderless network” (Ferguson, 1980). Moreover, a number of methods and activities contribute to propagate the new consciousness of New Age: therapies for improving one’s health, and psycho-physical well-being (e.g. Yoga, Tai Chi, Zen); methods based on ‘paranormal’ powers (e.g. geomancy, telepathy); methods for predicting events and analysing the personality of human beings (e.g. astrology, Tarot cards) (Heelas, 1996; Hollinger, 2004).
This discussion portrays the many different views that take place in conceptualising about the New Age phenomenon, and points to academics’ aspirations to categorize or label this phenomenon within the diversity of various disciplines. It seems that scholars, in their endeavours to solve the conundrum of whether New Age is a religion or a movement, tend to over-generalize and often construct definite claims. Consequently, for decades scholars have been producing categorization systems - that are only becoming progressively more complex in order to clearly define some boundaries but without acknowledging that there are many ways of understanding the New Age phenomenon. With regard to constructionism, what New Age is and can be, is rooted in different meanings that are historical and cultural and filtered through the researcher’s subjective focus. According to Sutcliffe (2003b) for instance, what he calls New Age religion is entrenched in particular material contexts – ethnographic, historical, textual,
33 A constructionist reminder: It is important to note that with regard to constructionism, here the researcher (I) accepts (builds upon) other people’s definitions/classifications of the New Age Phenomenon. Therefore researchers are active story-tellers who decide where to draw the line (so to speak) and how to conceptualize.
139 geographical, political – and thus can only be properly understood in relation to these. He (p.3) further states:
New Age is most fruitfully approached not as an end in itself – a sui generic object of study – but as a portal into seams of cultural practice that are rich in comparative theoretical possibilities: far too juicy to be left to a specially demarcated discipline of New Age studies
This view resonates with Coles, Hall and Duval’s (2009) call for post-disciplinary approaches whcih I discussed in Chapter Four. Although there may be general New Age trends of belief, “there is also the issue of how apparent elements fit the broader milieu or whether they may be more usefully analysed under different rubrics” (Redden, 2005, p.232). From a constructionist stance the disciplinary battles for the best classification are the reflection of current practices and academic cultures. Yet paradoxically, New Age itself seems to be an eclectic, liberated phenomenon that in a way rebels against order and rigidity, constantly evolving and making it increasingly difficult for scholars to grasp (that is if they have the need to place it within clear boundaries). Post-disciplinary approaches to research do not necessarily have such strictures and Coles et al. (2009, p.87) explain that researchers are freed from “the intellectual shackles applied by disciplinary policing”. They say:
Freedom encourages the valorisation of knowledge produced elsewhere. It allows ideas and connections to be followed to their logical conclusions, not to some contrived or preordained and point determined by artificial disciplinary strictures (Coles et al., 2009, p.87).
Furthermore, Ezzy (2003) suggests using the words New Age as an adjective to describe New Age aspects in contemporary spirituality. As such, New Age can be thought of as similar to fundamentalism, liberalism, mysticism and asceticism, for these are all adjectival descriptors of spiritual practice, crossing a variety of religious traditions. The New Age phenomenon as conceptualised today is perhaps something that arose from a variety of cultures, political and “sacred” beliefs: it is historical and may be framed in the post-modern reference of being spiritual. This also means that it has fashioned certain commodities. And another reason why it may be difficult to fix the boundaries of this
140 phenomenon is because the “business actors are always pushing them forward, refashioning the lingua franca to create new products, giving it a new spin so that it cannot settle down into an orthodox doctrine encoded in a fixed canon” (Redden, 2005, p.241). As a consequence, more New Age products, services and places are being created, re-created and consumed. In regard to Tourism Studies, this has caught the attention of some researchers and the phenomenon has been recently conceptualised as New Age tourism. However, in the typical fashion of Tourism Studies, New Age tourism contributes merely to the assemblage of special interest tourism34 . The next section will look at the current New Age-related concepts in Tourism Studies.
5.2 Current Tourism-related Concepts
Thus far I have suggested the different ways in which the New Age phenomenon has been conceptualised and theorised, arriving at an outlook that there is no consensus in regard to an all-inclusive definition that would bridge all that which encompasses the New Age phenomenon. In order to examine the existing concepts in Tourism Studies, this section looks at other related phenomena that are often linked to the phenomenon: such as religious tourism, pilgrimages and matters regarding “the sacred”. Despite the fact that these seem to possess distinctive attributes, I will accentuate that the boundaries are often blurred and intertwined.
5.2.1 Religious Tourism & Pilgrimages Many authors have been drawn to studying religious tourism (Boisvert, 1997; Cohen, 1998; Hitrec, 1990; Hut, 1997; Morisset, 1997; Nolan & Nolan, 1992; Prasad, 1994; Rinschede, 1992; Santos, 2002; Selwyn, 1994; Vizjak, 1993; Vukonic, 1992, 1996, 2002) and many more have dealt with pilgrimages. When it comes to tourism and its relationship to religion, travel and tourism are not generally recognized as significant
34 I largely focused on conceptualising New Age tourism in my Masters Thesis and as I explained in Chapter Three at that time I was driven by management/business-like approaches to study tourism.
141 issues by theologians, and neither “travel” nor “tourism” are listed in the indexes of the two major encyclopaedias of religions (Cohen, 1998). Nevertheless, Cohen (p.2) argues that: “tourism is a complex phenomenon, and this complexity also marks the relationship between tourism and religion”. Tourism and religion are thus closely related but also diametrically opposed modalities of social conduct. As Cohen says, they are historically related to a pilgrimage from which modern tourism developed. Also Rinschede (1992) believes that religiously motivated tourism is as old as religion itself and is consequently the oldest form of tourism. He suggests that “religious tourism distinguishes itself, as do all other types of tourism, by a dynamic element – movement in space, a journey – as well as by a static element – a temporary stay at a place other than the place of residence” (1992, p.51).
There are different forms of religiously motivated tourism which can be characterized through the visitation of religious ceremonies and conferences that take place at regular intervals (Rinschede, 1992). A slightly different form, “pilgrimage tourism”, places primary emphasis on the secular aspects of travel, including the social aspects of group participation, with religion being secondary (Jackowski & Smith, 1992, p.93). The term religious tourism is often used by officials of the Roman catholic church in Europe to describe systems that “encompass a range of holy places, from the grandest cathedral to the smallest rural chapel, the service facilities associated with them, and the spectrum of visitors from the devout to the secular” (Nolan & Nolan, 1992, p.77). According to Vukonic (1992, p.75), religious tourism appears in three forms:
as a pilgrimage, a continuous group and individual visit to religious shrines; as large-scale gatherings on the occasion of significant religious dates and anniversaries; as a tour of, and visit to, important religious places and buildings within the framework of a tourist itinerary and regardless of the time of the tour.
Nolan and Nolan (1992, p.77) share a similar perception of religious tourism and conclude that the system of religious tourism in Europe consists of pilgrimage shrines,
142 sacred places of artistic and or historic significance without pilgrimage associations, religious festivals, and various blends of these basic components. Rinschede (1992, pp.51-57) goes further by differentiating between long-term and short-term religious tourism. She sees religious tourism as being strongly motivated for religious reasons. Short-term religious tourism, she believes, is distinguished by excursions to nearby pilgrimage centres or religious conferences. Long-term involves visits of several days or weeks to national and international pilgrimage sites or conferences. According to her, the goal of short-term religious tourism is to go to a religious centre with a local, regional, or supraregional catchment area (pilgrimage sites) or to participate in a religious celebration, a religious conference, or a church meeting. In the context of long-term religious tourism, tourists visit religious centres for several days or weeks. Economically speaking, pilgrims generate a lot of money and according to Vukonic (2002), it is publicly admitted that the arrival of pilgrims and other tourists to an area has direct economic benefits for the local population. Therefore, visits to sacred shrines are important to the economic well-being of the local population.
The relationship between tourism and religion, especially when it comes to pilgrimage, is an intimate one. “Pilgrimage often invites tourism, while tourism entertains the possibility of pilgrimage experiences” (Rountree, 2002, p.477). Pilgrimage also satisfies the need to travel “with a purpose” (Bowman, 1994). Beginning in the 1960s, scholars have described pilgrimages as either pilgrimage tourism or religious tourism (Jackowski & Smith, 1992). Pilgrimage is often strictly related to religion, and discussions of pilgrimage as a social movement have almost exclusively focused on traditional religious pilgrimage in the world’s major religions. Pilgrimage is common to all religions and is an essential part of belief (Vukonic, 1992). Some may define pilgrimage as a religious phenomenon, but it has now assumed a more complex character, including a good dose of leisure, constituting a kind of leisure with meaning (Santos, 2002, p.41). To Robichaud (1999) pilgrimage is essentially a journey into the unknown. According to him, “the beginning act of a pilgrimage is to place oneself into the hands of God and through this act of faith, a pilgrim goes in search of the holy away from the structures of everyday life”. In Poland, for instance, a pilgrimage has traditionally been described as a
143 religiously motivated journey to a sacred place, locus sacer, because of the special activity of God or a deity at that site (Jackowski & Smith, 1992).
Some relate pilgrimage not only to religion but also to spirituality in general. Digance (2003, p.144) for example believes that “one of the prerequisites for pilgrimage is a consecrated sacred space that sets the journey apart in both place and time; a sacred site where an individual finds access to God or the divine figure(s) in their cosmology”. Pilgrimage thus refers to a journey that is motivated by religion or spirituality and plays a significant role in almost all world religions (Jutla, 2002, p.65). Furthermore, the act of pilgrimage in the Sikh religion provides spiritual satisfaction and reaffirmation of faith. In regard to tourism, Bowman (1994, p.6) suggests that the difference between pilgrimage and spiritual tourism is that in the latter, people are simply “notching up” spiritual sites without getting involved with the place: explaining that spiritual tourists are not always involved with the landscapes they visit. Attix (2002) proposes that there is a world-wide boom in pilgrimages today, and in the same way that a sub-category of mass- tourism exists within the tourism industry, the pilgrimage, for example, can be subdivided into mass pilgrimage and alternative pilgrimage.
According to Jackowski and Smith (1992), true pilgrimage takes two forms depending on the aims and mode of travel. One motive is religious, and the other is knowledge-based. They believe that true religious pilgrimages are most frequently associated with Latin American countries and with Poland. However such notions raise questions as to whether pilgrims in India or Mecca are lesser versions of pilgrims.
According to Vukonic (1992), believers go on pilgrimages largely to fulfil their spiritual needs. He also believes that pilgrimage is primarily a religious act, and in any holy site there is usually a shrine in which, and around which, believers gather. Jackowski and Smith (1992, p.93) observe that pilgrims often spend their time in meditation and prayer, “performing religious rites, and while en route, their stops are usually associated with specific sanctuaries”. The primary purpose of their travel is the “special pilgrimage” or a worship centre, where miraculous healing or salvation and entry to “paradise” may be
144 attained. Robichaud (1999) has even suggested that pilgrims should be given the “tools” and “orientation” to take on the role of pilgrim and prepare for the trip. He suggests that one should also keep a journal while undertaking pilgrimage, as well as explore alternative prayer forms while visiting Roman churches.
However, a variety of pilgrims exists (depending on researchers’ ability to conceptualise) and a pilgrim does not necessarily have to be a religious person. Such is the case for a New Age Pilgrim. Bowman (1994, p.6) has studied the pilgrims in Glastonbury and introduces the term “conscious” and “unconscious” pilgrims. He explains that “the conscious pilgrims come to Glastonbury with a purpose or a need that they recognize or wish to address, while the unconscious pilgrim is drawn to Glastonbury without knowing why”. Rountree (2002) further writes about Goddess Pilgrims who express, through travelling to sacred sites, both religious identity and political consciousness. Such pilgrims, however also share characteristics in common with other religious pilgrims and middle class tourists. According to her, Goddess pilgrims “recognize a universal wisdom and value in a great diversity of spiritual traditions which offer insights and benefits desperately needed by today’s world” (p.478). Furthermore, Goddess pilgrims are often eager to meet the local people and taste local culture in the places they visit. They also believe in the earth’s power to heal body, mind and spirit to create an uninterrupted and whole Self. By making the journey to the sacred place and by consciously engaging bodily with it, women enact “self-healing” (p.574).
As we can see, the description and definitions of a pilgrim vary across scholars and disciplines, pointing to the diverse story-telling traditions that are set in different contexts. For instance, the activities and aims of religious pilgrims are different from Goddess or New Age pilgrims. Should one accept the view of Jackowski and Smith (1992) about “true pilgrims” (discussed earlier), then the New Age, Sikh and Goddess pilgrims are not “true pilgrims” because they do not go to Poland or Latin American countries and in some cases, their motive is not “religious” or “knowledge based”. Digance (2003, p.147), on the other side, suggests that every person visiting a sacred place such as a Cathedral is “a possible pilgrim, and it is the task of the church to draw
145 him into the spiritual dimension of the experience of visiting a cathedral”. The difficulty of trying to classify all pilgrims and throw them in one “box” becomes even greater as pilgrims vary from destination to destination but also from one historic moment to another. According to Santos (2002) a pilgrim in Santiago de Compostella is anyone who, prompted by religious or cultural motivation, covers on foot at least a 100km stretch of the Route to Santiago through any of the officially recognized pathways, or over 200 km if on horseback or cycling. Every pilgrim who fits this unique definition receives a certificate handed out in the town of Santiago after proving, through submitting the “route book” duly stamped, that they have covered the required distances. He explains that these stamps can be secured at lodges and churches along the way. The meaning of a pilgrim is therefore set in a cultural and historical context.
The decision in regard to who is a religious tourist and who is a pilgrim is ever more intricate. Different academic camps have attempted to grasp this problem, but in today’s highly mobile, gobalised, and post-modern world, the categorisation and classification exercises become increasingly impractical and unworkable. According to Rinschede (1992), the proximity between pilgrimages, religious journeys and other types of tourism is higher than ever before and religious tourism is now often connected not only to holidays but also to cultural tourism. For example, pilgrims visiting Fátima may also stop to see the Atlantic coastline and other culturally interesting cities in the neighbouring area. This means that scholars are presented with ontological, epistemological and methodological challenges. Moreover when it comes to actual sites and geographical areas in makings sense of practices and cultures, these do not necessarily hold an enduring and real character. In Apparudai’s view:
Large regions that dominate our current maps for area studies are not permanent geographical facts. They are problematic heuristic devices for the study of global geographic and cultural processes. Regions are best viewed as initial contexts for themes that generate variable geographies, rather than as fixed geographies marked by pre-given themes. These themes are equally “real”, equally coherent, but are result of our interests and not their causes (Appadurai, 2001, p.8).
146 So, to recap this section, along the lines of a constructionist enquiry, not only researchers operate with a different set of meanings (that are not fixed), they also have to filter these by the means of their cultural and situated lens of reference (for instance a disciplinary focus). The knowledge that is the result of such enquiry (or all academic enquiries from a constructionist point of view) is a construction of the researcher who applies meaning subjectively (while drawing on his/her cultural repertoire) and tells a story of the world that simply cannot reveal ture or real knowledge. There is no “fixed” point of reference, there is only meaning which is constructed by humans. Geary (1986) asserts that the creation and circulation of sacred “prestige” objects always takes place withing a complex traditional society:
Relics of saints, whether particles of clothing or objects associated with them during their lives, particles of dust or vials or oil collected at the site of their tombs, or actual portions of their bodies, had no obvious value apart from a very specific set of shared beliefs (Geary, 1986, p.174).
5.2.2 The Sacred Tourism has also drawn academics who are interested in the meaning of sacred space. According to Wolfe (2002, p.400), humans have had a need for sacred gathering places since the dawn of civilization – spaces designated for worshipping the “omnipotent force or forces to which we all inevitably succumb”. He believes that these places were originally open and integrated into the natural world in relation to the movement of the moon, stars and sun, such as at Stonehenge in England. Sacred places and ceremonial events are among the most ancient of travel destinations (Nolan & Nolan, 1992).
There is a variety of typical sacred places such as churches, temples, tombs, shrines, sites of apparitions or miracles, sites of particular significance in the natural world (including sacred mountains or rivers), and places associated with the life of a prophet or religious founder (Shackley, 2001a). Jackson and Henrie (1983, p.94) perceive sacred space as “that portion of the earth’s surface which is recognized by individuals or groups as worthy of devotion, loyalty or esteem”. Shackely further suggests that sacred sites exist within sacred space and they too contain sacred spaces within. The sacred site may
147 function for the visitor as witness to a message or value system. She also proposes that sacred sites perform different functions for different people (Shackley, 2001a). Worshippers or adherents of a particular religious tradition may visit them because of an encounter with the numinous or an interesting artefact. Nevertheless, great works of art, architecture, setting or atmosphere may also be reasons why tourists visit sacred sites.
Nonetheless, not only sacred places can draw tourists: as literature suggests that there is a variety of “things” that are considered sacred. Tomlinson (2002), for example has studied the “sacred soil” in Kadavu, Fiji while Gulliford (2000, p.43) talks about sacred objects in Native American culture, defining them as “specific ceremonial objects which are needed by traditional Native American religious leaders for the practice of traditional Native American religions by their present day adherents”. Jocks (1996) uses the term “sacred knowledge” to label the American Indian spiritual practices. In India, some cows are considered sacred among Hindu groups (Behrens, 2000). For most Westerners, however, cows hold no sense of the divine, and they “are bought and sold, milked and slaughtered without a thought as to their embodying a divine status in other parts of the world” (Behrens, 2000, p.2).
In America there are over 150 sacred tribal museums and cultural centres with elaborate and simple exhibits, public programs and collections of prehistoric and historic materials. An example is the Zuni War Gods placed in Zuni shrines in 1897. They are considered communal tribal property and represent continuing religious traditions vital to Zuni spiritual health (Gulliford, 2000). According to Gulliford (2000) young Zuni athletes often visit the remote shrines before participating in athletic events off tribal lands. Sacred sites may therefore represent historical cultures or religions that no longer exist or they may still be actively used today (such as temples and cathedrals). Additionally, sacred sites may have been transformed over time, such as Machu Picchu in Peru or Rapa Nui in Easter Island (Shackley, 1998, 2001b).
In order to conclude this section one may wonder whether sacred tourism is different from New Age tourism. According to Vaughan (2002), spiritual practices can be defined
148 broadly as intentional activities concerned with the sacred, including activities such as meditation, prayer and contemplation. With regard to the New Age phenomenon, sacred sites may be places where people undertake activities such as meditations or prayers, but also places that hold a particular spiritual meaning. The problem is that the meaning of a sacred place will vary from Christians to Muslims to New Agers. And in this case a New Age place/site may have a “special” (cultural and spiritual) meaning for the New Age adherent, but not necessarily for someone who is oblivious to the New Age phenomenon. Hoys (1991, p.160) reminds us that what counts as real “is determined internally within an interpretation and is not something external to the interpretation that the interpretation is about”. In other words what matters is culture, which tells us how to see things and on what things we should place what value.
5.2.3 New Age Tourism What I conceptualise in this research study as New Agers, like other people, they go to places but they also visit sites for particular spiritual interests. Only recently, a special issue in Tourism Recreation Research was dedicated to wellness and wellness tourism, including papers on yoga tourism (Lehto, Brown, Chen, & Morrison, 2006), holistic tourism (Smith & Kelly, 2006), and New Age tourism (Pernecky & Johnston, 2006). The second publication, also brought out in 2006, was an interdisciplinary journal Tourism with guest editors Yoel Mansfeld and Alison McIntosh who put together a Special Issue on Spirituality and Meaningful Experiences in Tourism. In order to understand the New Age tourism phenomenon, in the first, Pernecky and Johnston (2006) approached the subject of New Age tourism quantitatively with the intention of differentiating between various levels of specialization. In the latter, Pernecky (2006a) sought to understand the New Age experience by employing a phenomenological study of New Age travellers in New Zealand.35 Another, more business focused, was a paper by Attix (2002) who conducted a study on New Age Tour Operators in the United States. Other scholarly
35 Both of these studies were published out of my Masters thesis and my aim then was to classify New Agers. At that time I did not really understand what constructivism/constructionism meant and philosophical issues such as ontology and epistemology were foreign to me.
149 work in Tourism Studies has focused mainly on religious tourism and pilgrimages - discussed in the previous section.
When it comes to identifying the New Age traveller, we cannot escape some of the classification pitfalls highlighted earlier. According to Ivakhiv (2003, p.94) when visiting New Age places such as Sedona, Arizona or Glastonbury, the New Age adherents “mix and mingle with Neo-Pagans, extraterrestrial contactees, theosophists, occultists, liberal Christians and others, resulting in a hybridisation and cross-breeding of alternative spiritualities”. Therefore the first issue concerns methods. Measuring samples based solely on visitation of certain sites is likely to lead to problems with identifying these samples (in particular should one strive for rigourous and unbiased research). In one of my earlier (published) papers, I have identified six major areas of the New age tourism activities: (1) Power/Sacred Places; (2) Divination; (3) Workshops/Seminars/Festivals; (4) Wellness & Holistic Health; (5) Greenery and Eco-Spirit; and (6) Other – including New Age retreats, crystals, UFO, and so forth (Pernecky & Johnston, 2006). To decide on the study sample the boundary had to be drawn somewhere, and consequently, people involved in these activities were considered to be New Age tourists. This is a common practice in most research studies and it is the responsibility of the researcher to ponder matters pertaining to methodology and methods. What is important in this study and to reflect upon is that when I wrote those papers I did not hold the constructionist view I have today. I truly wanted to define the New Age phenomenon in the best possible way and drew on both quantitative and qualitative methods in order to describe what New Age really means. Researchers in Tourism Studies regularly attempt to conquer new phenomena and put their mark on it. I wanted to do the same with the New Age phenomenon.
The result was that in the quantitative study on New Age travellers in New Zealand, I (Pernecky & Johnston, 2006)36 proposed that New Age tourists can be specialized according to their experience, centrality of lifestyle and investment. I differentiated among low, medium and high specialised New Agers based on a specialization index.
36 Charles Johnston was the supervisor of my Masters thesis.
150 One group differed from another in terms of their values on organic foods, alternative medicine, satisfaction with their experiences, personal interest in New Age and importance of spirituality in their lives. I then suggested that the low specialized New Age tourists might be driven by curiosity whilst the high specialised New Age tourists are more dedicated, have more experience and look for specific New Age experiences.
In the qualitative paper I also argued that New Agers’ experiences remain individual and differ one from another. I said (Pernecky, 2006a, p.144) “New Age travellers connect with the universe”, hug stones, meditate, channel energies, tone – and they create unique experiences. I proposed that for many, visiting New Age sites is an important experience and an integral part of their existence. Although this was a qualitative study I then perceived my findings as a real explanation of what New Agers do and who they are. I also used a very definite voice in both of those studies.
The reason for reflecting on my previous work is to underscore that what this thesis argues for, in regard to constructionism, is that meaning and peoples experiences although they may appear solely subjective/individual, are embedded in culture. In other words people do not just wake up one morning and think for themselves independently of anyone and anything else: “I think I am a New Ager and I will go and channel spirits and feel some energies in Sedona, Arizona”. Here, I am not denying that there may be people who do have spontaneous experiences and may indeed experience the out of the ordinary in the world we live in, however, they also cannot escape their social heritage for they make sense of such experiences within culture/s.
Borrowing further from cultural and religious studies, in Ivakhiv’s (2003) view, places and landscapes are an important locus for spiritual practice. He suggests that places can be experienced through the bodily and sensorial activities involved in encountering landscapes: “sacred sites hold the promise of a beneficial energy connection with the Earth, a connection that is activated in part by the pilgrim, who travels to the sacred site purposefully” (p.104). In this regard it is not uncommon to see websites that promote places and offer “manuals” for New Age pilgrimage providing guidance detailing not
151 only the sites to be visited but also the activities to be performed and attitudes to be cultivated in the process.
In regard to places, Ivakhiv (2003) further shares his view that the idea of a “power place” fermented for two decades within the hippie and New Age counter-culture, and was launched into popular consciousness with the ‘Harmonic Convergence’ of August 1987 (the largest ever simultaneously coordinated act of prayer). In order to celebrate several New Age events: (a) the beginning of the final 26-year period of the Mayan Calendar’s 5200-year Great Cycle, (b) the dancing wake of 144,000 Sun Dance, and (c) a “grand time” in the astrological fire signs, convergers (including celebrities like Shirley MacLaine and Timothy Leary) gathered at these sites they considered important (or powerful) to worship and meditate. These included: Sedona, California’s Mount Shasta, Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, the Black Hills of South Dakota, New York’s Central Park, Glastonbury and Stonehenge, Machu Picchu in Peru, the Great Pyramid in Egypt, and Mount Olympus in Greece.
If we were to look at religious attractions, according to Nolan and Nolan (1992, p.70) these can be conceptualized in terms of three overlapping categories: (a) pilgrimage shrines, defined as places that serve as the goals of religiously motivated journeys from beyond the immediate locality; (b) religious tourist attractions, in the form of structures or sites of religious significance with historic and/or artistic importance, and (c) festivals with religious associations. Although it can be said that in this light, certain similarities seem to exist between religious and New Age attractions, places and events of New Age interest can be more diverse and do not necessarily always involve travellers with spiritual aspirations. Many New Age power places are valued for their natural features, others, such as Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, and the Great Pyramid of Giza, are valued for their cultural significance and built structure. Also, one of the reasons these places may be attractive to the New Age visitors may rest in a belief that these sites have been built in coordination with the natural energies present in other New Age power/sacred sites. Therefore such places may have a different (spiritual) meaning to some New Age adherents.
152 To further delve into the understanding of a New Age tourist, Attix (2002) notes that an increasing market for “New Age” spiritual travel has been evidenced since the 1960s. She observes that this type of travel has been supported by directories of holistic retreat centres, formally organized tours, and guidebooks about power sites. Nevertheless, data on the New Age population and its demographics date back only to the 1990s, indicating that personal growth, non-traditional spiritual practices and pilgrimage have been increasing since the 1980s. For instance in the United States alone, the New Age population is estimated to be between a conservative 28,000 people up to over 25 million. However, such numbers should be approached cautiously as it depends on what/who counts as a New Ager. In Chapter One I mentioned a study by The Barnia Research Group (Barnia, 1996) which indicates that around twenty percent of Americans hold at least some New Age beliefs.
Obtaining numbers on the New Age population can however be more difficult than it seems and to put a New Age person in a ‘box’ with specific demographic features is quite a complex (if not impossible) task. In their study of “Who Buys New Age Materials?”, Mears and Ellison (2000) conclude that the purchase of New Age materials, among Texas residents, such as books, magazines and tapes is surprisingly common and is distributed evenly across most segments of the population. Additionally, New Agers do not necessarily want to be associated with the term New Age. Heelas (1996) believes that New Agers go through a radical change in self-understanding, and Attix (2002, p.52) states that many people who would previously have defined themselves as New Agers may no longer feel comfortable with this label (owing to negative press). Another issue is that New Age is becoming (or some aspects of it) is becoming mainstream and as I discussed in Chapter One, even the American television host Oprah Winfrey (known as the Oprah Show) now broadcasts classes titled “A New Earth” that are based on the work of someone who can be conceived of as a New Age author: Eckhart Tolle (2006) 37. Possamai (2003, p.31) further explains that many New Age objects have become quite common:
37 In fact one of the co-researchers mentions his books during the interviews.
153 They consume products for gathering and enhancing sensations. They can visit a New Age healing centre for a few days, participate in a ‘vision quest’ and be initiated in shamanism, buy crystals and indigenous paraphernalia, and learn astrology. Typical objects for sale - books, tarot cards, crystals, CDs, aromatherapy products – have become common products. New Age festivals and psychic fairs proliferate. Consultants, tarot card readers, clairvoyants, and so on, offer their services not only in specialist shops and fairs, but also in more conventional shops – craft shops and galleries and craft markets as well as from private homes. Many conventional book and music shops often have a stall specifically for New Age books and recordings.
If we were to accept a market model solution to the New Age phenomenon and assume that New Age tourists are people who consume New Age products and services, then it may be useful to adopt Redden’s (2005, p.240) view: “If seekership is the dominant mode of participation, it is - in material terms – primarily effected through selection and consumption of commodified goods and services made available by New Age businesses”. Redden suggests that the New Age seekership is facilitated predominantly through appropriation of goods and services, for providers charge participants to access ideas, products, and technologies. In this respect, when it comes to New Age tourism, landscapes and nature are commodified in consumer capitalism (Ivakhiv, 2003). Although New Age tourists can connect with nature and travel to places that are not commercialised and heavily marketed as New Age destinations, major New Age sites such as Sedona in Arizona are crowded with tourists queuing to experience the energies manifested at that site (Lindbergh, 1998). Although this might be a disturbing reality New Agers have to face - becoming just another tourist to see yet another attraction, this is what New Age (mass) tourism appears to become as it slowly penetrates mainstream tourism. And the problem with the New Age phenomenon penetrating mainstream tourism is that if it penetrates fully, it is in danger of disappearing in the world of tourism. The following are some examples of New Age products marketed on the World Wide Web: ------It’s been said of travel that it is the “exploration of inner space – the losing of self in order to find oneself.” If so, then sacred travel would be the only kind of travel there is…the kind of voyage, journey and quest where buildings and art have their place but with much more profound meaning. At SACRED TRAVEL, we offer you a different type of wonder and experience that goes beyond a traditional
154 historical tour… So prepare yourself to travel the world over. In a state of ‘spirit,’ we open up to the flow and gifts of the universe, allowing all that shall pass, to enter (Sacred Travel & Authentic Asia, 2003).
If you have always dreamed of meditating in the Great Pyramid of Egypt, learning shamanic rituals at Machu Picchu, or watching dawn break at the mysterious Stonehenge monument, then Time Travel is what you’ve been looking for (Sacred Travel, 2006).
Just as the ancient Toltecs did here at Teotihuacán, we will practice the three masteries: Mastery of Awareness, of Transformation and Intent. Become the true manifestation of Spirit that you really are! These are very profound and heartfelt journeys designed to allow you to connect to the divinity within you. (Sacred Earth Journeys, 2005). ------
New Age tourism is not limited to the major attractions such as the Great Pyramid of Egypt; and new and innovative packages are being invented to satisfy the New Age traveller. An example is the “Scottish Highlands Sacred Sites Tour” which is portrayed on an online site that specialises in New Age travel as: ------A magical journey to the land of mysterious mountains, lochs, and ancient standing stones and castles, home of saints and legends, ancestors and heroes (New Age Travel, 2006). ------
Therefore, by looking at New Age products and services as a commodity, they can be provisionally defined as objects of economic value (Appadurai, 1986). Nonetheless, the New Age commodity is not something permanent. In Appadurai’s view, commoditization lies at a complex junction of temporal, cultural and social factors:
Commodities are things in a certain situation, a situation that can characterise many different kinds of thing, at different points in their social lives. This means looking at the commodity potential of all things rather than searching fruitlessly for the magic distinction between commodities and other sorts of things (Appadurai, 1986, p.13).
To bring the discussion to constructionism, this notion resonates with the constructionist approach in this research study, underlying the cultural and temporal meaning of things,
155 objects and experiences. In this regard Apparudai (1986, p.17) also proposes that commodities can be perceived as having life histories and further explains that “the commodity phase of the life history or an object does not exhaust its biography; it is culturally regulated; and its interpretation is open to individual manipulation to some degree”. Kryptoff (1986, p.64) adds that commodities must also be “culturally marked as being a certain kind of things”.
Therefore when it comes to theorisations about the New Age phenomenon, the world of New Age (including New Age tourism) is to some extent a “conceptual mess”, crossing the boundaries of religious tourists, pilgrims and the sacred - all intertwined with a mixture of historical and cultural meanings. In reinforcing the constructionist nature of knowledge production, not only do researchers navigate through this maze of meanings, they also make sense of it based on their ability to conceptualise and their own cultural situatedness. We thus assemble knowledge based on several layers of constructions and interpretations and the researchers can never portray knowledge that can be marked as unbiased and true. Guignon (1991, p.85) reminds us that:
Our grasp of the things around us is always pre-shaped by a general mastery of the meaning of the entire context. And so there is no way to drive in a wedge between “what things are really like in themselves” and the interpretations we bring with us to situations.
Furthermore, it is not only academics who cannot quite figure out how to make sense of the phenomenon, as there are for instance New Age travellers that identify themselves as Christians but also describe themselves as New Age believers (Pernecky, 2006). And it is at this cultural intersection where the New Age tourist (or for this matter any other tourist) - from a constructionist stance – is a product of the researcher’s interpreting and story-telling abilities anchored in his/her cultural and cognitive processes.
156 5.3 New Age and the Epistemology of Tourism: A Post- disciplinary Approach
Up to this point, I have proposed that the New Age phenomenon as we (I) understand it today, is a multifaceted phenomenon bringing together a number of activities, rituals, objects, services, and places. Bruce (2002, p.83) for instance illustrates the range by looking at the number of New Age books that start with the words “elements of” followed by phrases such as: Aborigine Tradition, Alchemy, Astronomy, Buddhism, Chakras, Christian Symbolism, Creation Myth, Crystal Healing, Dreamwork, Earth Mysteries, Feng Sui, Goddess Myths, the Grail Tradition, Herbalism, Human Potential, Meditation, Mysticism, Natural Magic, Pendulum Dowsing, Prophecy, Psychosynthesis, Qabalah, Shamanism, Sufism, Taoism, Visualization and Zen, and so forth.
The New Age phenomenon can also be broken down into many different aspects. One of which can be the eastern religious theme (from philosophies, to meditation to Reiki) often seen as forming an essential component in the New Age phenomenon. Table 5.1 provides a summary of Eastern perspectives which are, according to Bruce (2002, p.16), becoming popular in New Age circles at the expense of the Western perspectives. Nevertheless, a number of things come into play when discussing the Eastern/Western perspectives, beliefs and traditions.38 Table 5.1 raises many questions with regard to accuracy, representation, class, gender and other issues. In fact it could be argued that this is yet another western middle class fashion in which an American New Ager, exposed to seminars, teachings and practices in the United States may have a more Eastern perspective compared to an underprivileged Indian or Tibetan woman who never left her farm – who never channelled or meditated. Kopytoff (1986, p.84) who also deals with the concept of the West points out that “The West” can also be perceived as “a unique cultural entity, with a historically conditioned set of predispositions to see the world in
38 An important question arises: Does it make someone an “Easterner” because he/she comes from an Eastern country? For instance a critical theorist would probably point out that most Buddhist monks are men and he/she could question whether a poor Tibetan woman in fact understands highly spiritual matters such as the concepts of karma and reincarnation. The “Eastern” is a concept created by researchers who construct theories and conceptualize the East in the West – while writing for Westerners.
157 TABLE 5.1: COMPARISON OF THE GENERALISED EASTERN AND WESTERN PERSPECTIVES IN REGARD TO NEW AGE
EASTERN WESTERN Humans and nature are one. Humans have characteristics that set them apart from nature and the spiritual.
Spiritual and physical are one. Humans are divided into a body, a spirit and a mind.
Mind and body are one. There is a personal God who is above humans.
Humans should recognize their basic oneness Humans must control and manipulate nature to with nature, the spiritual and the mental rather ensure their survival. than attempt to analyse, label, categorize, manipulate, control or consume the things of the world.
Because of their oneness with all existence, Rational thought and an analytical approach to humans should feel ‘at home’ in any place and problem solving should be emphasized. with any person.
Science and technology, at best, create an illusion Science and technology have given us a good life of progress; enlightenment involves achieving a and provide our main hope for an even better sense of oneness with the universal; it is a state future. where all dichotomies vanish.
Meditation, a special state of quiet contemplation, Action and the competitive spirit should be is essential to achieving enlightenment rewarded. SOURCE: Adopted from Bruce (2002, p.122)
CAVEAT: This classification is based on Bruce’s (2002, p.122) generalisation and presents a rather oversimplified view of the matter.
158 certain ways”. Therefore there is a need for more vigilance and criticality when working with information such as that presented in Table 5.1, in particular when employing a constructionist approach to research.
However, the table does provide noteworthy conceptual ideas: it suggests that the Eastern practices play their role in the New Age phenomenon. When it comes to finding answers for this cause, Bruce (2002) argues that this is not a result of a greater contact or better knowledge about these alternatives, as knowing about something does not necessary lead to adopting it. He provides an example where he states that knowing about Islam would not make him become a Muslim. Bruce also refutes the recent improvements in international communication and travel to explain the popularity of Eastern themes in the West. These claims, however, can be challenged at several levels. For example, although knowing about Islam would not make one to become a Muslim, information, culture and experiencing a phenomenon can be a powerful catalyst. The globalization and commercialization of New Age practices means that it is accessible to vast numbers of people. Therefore albeit that one will not become a Muslim or New Ager overnight, it cannot be disregarded that, in some cases, the “seeds” of New Age interests can be planted by becoming familiar with the subject. Greater contact with New Agers and better knowledge of what they do can have greater impact on individuals. Someone who goes along to a psychic or a medium and receives a card reading may be completely shaken by the information he/she receives and is challenged at that time - having to re- think what his/her views are. Below is a snipet of an article on Colin Fry who is regarded as TV’s “most successful medium”. It was published on the BBC website and demonstrates how someone who has been previously sceptical of the New Age phenomenon (or mediums in this case) can be impacted by the information received:
Sometimes though, the toughest sceptics can turn into his biggest spectators. …The particular man in New Zealand said he didn’t want to come, but his father connected [this means that the medium- Collin Fry - communicated with the spirit of the sceptic’s father]… He said to me, “I’m now angry, because I have to go away and re-think” (Little, 2008).
159 Therefore in returning to Bruce’s argument, knowing about something or gaining a new perspective can indeed impact how one sees the world and how he or she makes sense of it. Perhaps what Bruce fails to acknowledge is the fact that things do not happen overnight – people “become” and change as they are exposed to information, knowledge and experiences. It is a continuous and evolving process and in this case a matter of stepping out of one’s culture and believes and having to resist/give in/negotiate with other cultures.
In order to further ponder the understanding of the Eastern influence on New Age, it may prove useful to briefly re-visit the history of this phenomenon and return to some of the important figures. According to Melton (2001) the origins of New Age take us back to theosophical organizations that followed the writings of Alice A. Bailey. Sutcliffe (2003a), supports this argument and suggests that Alice Bailey (a member of the Theosophical Society) and her work between 1880-1849 were the original source of what had later become known as New Age. Hanegraff (1999) similarly perceives New Age as a form of “secularized esotericism” which took root in western esoteric traditions and underwent a process of secularization during the 19th century, before being adopted by the New Age movement in the 1970s. By embracing such views, it appears that in some stage the Eastern philosophies and practices became incorporated in the New Age phenomenon.
Farias and Lalljee (2006) argue that many ideas in New Age are already found in its historical predecessor, the Theosophical Society: in particular those regarded as an adaptation of the Hindu concepts of karma and reincarnations. In the New Age circles, it is known that the founder of the Theosophical Society, Madame Blavatsky, moved to India where she studied Eastern religion. Hence the New Age phenomenon in the 1970s, and as we know it today (evolved and transformed), has to some extent built on those traditions, practices and understandings. In this light the “Eastern” can be perceived as one of many aspects taking a part in the progression of the New Age phenomenon.
If we were to look at the contemporary New Agers, there also seem to be a “spiritual
160 drive” to learn and experience. In fact many New Age practitioners consider it as an important part of their being in the world to visit places such as India. Often, in the commercialized space of New Age, it provides them with a competitive advantage such as in marketing themselves and what they have to offer. The following are examples of practitioners advertising on the World Wide Web:
------The primary teacher of this "Science of Yoga" is Yoga Master David Goulet. He has been a certified international yoga teacher since 1972. David began his studies of Yoga in 1969, motivated by a curiosity in psychology. On his way to India he stopped in Japan and lived in Kyoto for a few months studying Buddhism. This greatly helped him realize the role of Mind and consciousness in spiritual development. In India he studied with Dr. Swami Gitananda for two years, to receive an in-depth understanding of the whole yogic educational system (Chakra Yoga Center, 1995).
The past 9 years Marina has been a principal instructor in the Chakra Yoga Teacher’s Training. During her visit to India Marina studied classical Hatha Yoga, Iyengar Yoga, the Philosophy of the Science of Yoga as well as Indian classical Voice & Tanpura. Marina’s background in physical movement includes Hatha Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong as well as various forms of improvisational, creative dance (Jazz, Ballet, African & Belly Dance). Marina is also a classically trained vocalist. (Chakra Yoga Center, 1995). ------
The interest of people in the authentic practices can also be seen in the increasing number of practitioners coming from East to West:
------Come discover the art of yoga with a traditionally trained yoga master from India. Srivatsa Ramaswami began studying directly with Sri Krishnamacharya at the young age of 15 and continued as his student for over 30 years. Yoga is honoured to welcome him as an esteemed guest and teacher. He will be with us for 16 days teaching intensive workshops, trainings, and specialized classes in asana, pranayama, meditation, Vinyasakrama, yoga philosophy and yogic anatomy! (The art of Yoga with Srivatsa Ramaswami, 2006) ------
This suggests that the New Age market is a very competitive one, and consumers are perhaps demanding more “raw” and traditional (local specific) knowledge and
161 experiences. It also highlights the fact that New Age practitioners consider it to be important to voice and inform people/clients about their skills and gained knowledge (or part of it) in the East – if not coming directly from the East. This seems to validate what they do and possibly provides them a competitive advantage in the New Age market. The “Eastern” therefore becomes an important agent in the New Age progression with its knowledge and practices increasingly disseminated across the globe. The “Eastern” perhaps even plays a role in the image or brand of the New Age phenomenon.
One important observation - with regard to the New Age phenomenon and the discourse on image – is that there is not as much anxiety as tehere is with the typical images and brands we face in our daily lives. Buchanan (2008) underscores the paranoia and litigious protection of images such as Coke and Disney. He gives an example: if Coke were to lose its sense of fun and Disney its image of homeliness, people may indeed stop buying these produces. The image of the New Age phenomenon seems to have “wheels” of its own, with the driver/s being those who take part in the phenomenon. The New Age phenomenon can spin in various directions and it can have many meanings.
According to Introvigne (2001, p.58) the New Age phenomenon has often been described as the ultimate globalized religious phenomenon; she suggests that “New Age is the most typical case of religious McDonaldization, and results in a simple Americanization of previously distinctive national religious scenarios”. And Rothstein (2001, p.16) sees the globalization of New Age spirituality as an aspect of global Americanization. He compares the American values of democracy and religious freedom to the New Age phenomenon of a “spiritual supermarket” where “customers pick and choose the spiritual commodities they fancy” (p16).
The first and foremost question is whether globalization actually matters when it comes to the New Age phenomenon. Depending on the angle of one’s research, the collapse of communism in the 1980s, the power of West and western consumer goods, global brands, and the increased number of travellers may have something to do with New Age (Bruce,
162 2002).39 Meethan (2004) draws attention to the fact that there is often confusion over whether or not globalization is the cause of change or the consequence of change. According to him “globalization is not a monolithic entity in itself, but rather a term used to describe a number of converging developments that are technological, economic, political, and also social and cultural” (p.118).
Some propose that we live in a world of flow that can be characterized by objects in motion: which according to Appadurai (2001) include ideas and ideologies, people and goods, images and messages, technologies and techniques, but also structures, organizations and other social forms. Appadurai however stresses the importance of the various flows we see - of objects, persons, images and discourses which he argues are not “coeval, convergent, isomorphic, or spatially consistent” (p.5). Instead they are in “relations of disjuncture”, meaning that the paths of these things have “different speeds, exes, points of origin and termination, and varied relationships to institutional structures in different regions, nations, or societies “(p.6). Therefore in his view globalisation is a “world of disjunctive flows” and can also produce problems that manifest in local forms while having global contexts. In regard to the New Age phenomeon, globalisation does not necessarily cause local “problems” (such as riots being a result of media portraying images of wellbeing in other across the boarder but cannot be met under a current regime) but it can help one to imagine things.
The role of imagination in social life (Appadurai, 1996) is far more relevant than it seems. One example Appadurai gives is that imagination for instance allows people to consider migration and can result in leaving the national boundaries. Imagination as a social and collective fact of globalization is also “the faculty through which collective patterns of dissent and new designs for collective life emerge” (p.6). He explains that as the imagination “as a social force itself works across national lines to produce locality as a spatial fact and as a sensibility, we see the beginnings of social forms without either the predatory mobility of unregulated capital of the predatory stability of many states”(Appadurai, 2001, p.7). Imagination is therefore a powerful agent in social life and
39 From a constructionist point of view this depends on the researcher’s story-telling ability, knowledge of concepts and his/her cultural situatedness.
163 in regard to knowledge production, Appadurai (2001, p.14) proposes that globalisation in fact should be marked “by a new role for the imagination in social life”.
In further assessing its impact on the New Age phenomeon, Urry’s (2000) view on globalization may lend us an interesting outlook. Based on concepts of structure, flow, ideology, performance and complexity, Urry (2000, pp.4-7) distinguishes between five different theories in globalisation: (1) The structural notion of the global, (2) The Global as flows and mobilities, (3) Globalization as ideology, (4) Globalization as performance, and (5) Global complexity. The structural notion of the global stands for globalisation perceived as an increased density of interactions caused by various factors such as the liberalization of world trade or globalized consumption of goods and decline in transportation costs. While this theory may be relevant to New Age, it may also be applied to New Age tourism: perhaps experiencing a plethora of New Age tailored goods and services including the increased number of visitors to New Age sites.
However, perhaps even more important is the second theory noted by Urry - The global as flows and mobilities. Urry (p.4) sees these flows as “moving along various global ‘scapes’, including the system of transportation of people by air, sea, rail, motorways and other roads”. Besides the transportation of objects, there is also the flow of information, messages and images. Although most attention is paid to the technological aspect of information flow: be it via microwave channels, mobile phones or satellites, information is also spread via human beings.
Mobilities or what Sheller and Urry (2006) call the new mobilities paradigm (see Table 5.2) is gaining more awareness amongst academics in social sciences (predominantly). D’Andrea (2006) for instance discusses mobilities with respect to economic strategies and expressive lifestyles while focusing on self-marginalized groups such as hippies or New Agers in Ibiza and Goa (India). Classifying them as global nomads, he pays attention to the socio-cultural patterns and the embodiment of a “specific type of agency informed by cultural motivations that defy economic rationale” (p.98). According to him,
164 TABLE 5.2: SUMMARY OF THE MOBILITIES PARADIGM AND THE ROLE OF PLACES
POINT OF DIFFERENCE: The notion of Mobilities challenges social science both ontologically and epistemologically by changing the objects of inquiry and methodologies for research. It calls for a reflexive mode of investigation about places.
STAKEHOLDERS: mobile groups, academics, tourists, travelers, environmentalists, retired people, students, business people and others.
KEY ASSUMPTIONS: - Places are toured - Places are intertwined with people through systems (networks of hosts, guests, buildings, objects, machines etc) - Places are not authentic entities - Places are material, embodied, contingent, networked, and performed - Pleasure of place linked to connoisseurship of difference (i.e. the involvement of bodies, images, information, movement, reflexive monitoring of places though abstract characteristics etc.) - Places change as they are toured, performed and experienced
SOURCE: Urry (2006, pp.vii-xi); Hannam, Sheller and Urry (2006)
165 looking for an alternative lifestyle, these global nomads abandon their urban hubs, leaving income, stability and prestige behind.
When it comes to New Age tourism and mobilities, Coles, Hall and Duval (2005, p.36) argue that “tourism has been arbitrarily separated from other forms of human movement though it may be successfully identified as but one, albeit highly significant form, of human circulation and mobility”. According to Hanham, Sheller and Urry (2006), the notion of mobilities involves daily transportation, movement through public space as well as large-scale movements of people, objects, capital and information throughout the world. With regard to physical and virtual mobilities, Flamm and Kaufmann (2006) suggest that by combining these two, new forms of mobility emerge leading to “new, mixed forms of daily, residential and travel mobility” such as multiple residences, frequent excursions or very long-distance commuting. Franklin and Crang (2001, p.12) further see the role of mobilities in tourism as follows:
The excitement of mobilities in these highly mobile times, structured as they are by the language and practice of tourism, is that they generate new social relations, new ways of living, new ties to space, new places, new forms of consumption and leisure and new aesthetic sensibilities. It is surely to this wider sociology and geography of tourism that future research must itself move.
Besides the actuality of being able to move from one place to another, mobility, when it comes to the New Age phenomenon is significant not only for the freedom and prospects for travel, but also in regard to learning and experiencing. People can for instance visit new Age sites, experience various spaces and learn new techniques. More importantly, mobility in the New Age phenomenon also translates into opening of channels of information. New Agers’ journeys may have a deeper spiritual meaning for as discussed earlier they look for places of spiritual importance. In this respect D’Andrea (2006, p.99) argues that “mobile subjects are internally differentiated in terms of motivations and life strategies”. This is when Appadurai’s earlier notion of imagination comes into play perhaps as a catalyst for people to consider visiting places when seeking experience.
Looking back in time, the impact of mobilities and travelling is evidenced through the
166 propagation of learning and religion (beyond the boundaries of empires and countries) through missionaries. For instance, looking at Britain in the nineteenth century, Christian missionaries travelled to different countries to convert the world, an act Bruce (2002, p.119) calls “a net exporter of religious goods”. Nowadays, not only are there businesses specializing in ministry and missionary travel (MinistryTravel.com, 2006), there are also companies that focus solely on the New Age market (New Age Travel, 2004) and pilgrimage travel (Pilgrim Tours, 2001).
Another angle to study and make sense of the New Age phenomenon is to tackle it though the lens of “tribes”. Although there is not a great deal of literature in Tourism Studies on this subject, Maffesoli (1996) sees tribes as the key social fact of our experience of everyday living. He uses the term tribes and tribalism in a metaphorical sense and mainly focuses on:
… social sharing of values, places or ideals which are entirely circumscribed (localism) and which can be found, in varied forms, at the heart of numerous social experiences. It is this constant interplay of the static (spatial) and the dynamic (becoming), the anecdotal and the ontological, the ordinary and the anthropological, that makes the analysis of the collective sensibility such a potent tool”(Maffesoli, 1996, p.19)
Furthermore, humans also have “customs”; something Maffesoli calls “an expression of the collective sensibility” that permits “an ex-stasis within everyday life” (p.25). He explains that things such as having a few drinks or chatting with friends enable “an exteriorization of the self and thus create the specific aura which binds us together within tribalism” (p.25). In regard to the New Age phenomenon, tribes and the process of binding together do not take place necessarily only at the local level. They are global also. For instance the technology readily available today makes it possible for tribes to form in “hyperspace”. The number of chat forums and social networking communities online is on the rise and what I have conceptualised as New Agers take part in this phenomeon. An example is a website called Lightworkers (www.lightworkers.org) designed for those seeking to connect with other like-minded individuals. Here people can talk to each other, participate in workshops and online seminars, exchange ideas, read “channelled” messages and even comment and critique them. Therefore in regard to the
167 New Age phenomenon and epistemological matters, the concept of tribes too can contribute towards a richer understanding.
To bring my understanding of the New Age phenomenon together - including the flow of people, objects and information, tribalism and globalization - I conceptualise it in Figure 5.1. in a visual form. Based on my overall knowledge and education in Tourism Studies, Figure 5.1 represents New Age “progression” by addressing the impact of travel/mobility and the East/West influence.40 Here, by looking at the evolution of the phenomenon, I also attempt to make sense of the role of travel and tourism. Besides books and modern technology (such as the Internet) Figure 5.1 takes into account that knowledge could have been spread by gurus/teachers and people traveling from East to West and vice versa. The figure suggests that travel and mobility have played an important role in the New Age phenomenon, for New Agers have been able to travel, learn and experience, as well as “transport” information. The notion of globalisation (in terms of travel) has enabled people to travel wherever and whenever they desire, and commodification perhaps represents the fact that there is more to experience in the variety of New Age labelled commodities. Not unexpectedly, the New Age phenomenon is thus described as a “religious consumer supermarket” offering various religious commodities and ever seeking new sources of marketable goods that expand profits (York, 2001, p.367). In this respect New Age tourism may be perceived as a temporary cultural (conceptual) response to these occurrences, mainly because the New Age tourism product did not exist on the scale it is available today.
Joining earlier discussions on worldmaking/wordshaping (Hollinshead, 2007a, 2007b), New Agers not only dialogically help make places (agents of making/re-making/de- making places), they also become who they are partially because of what they do: travel. Traveling also can be perceived as an agent in New Ager’s being in the world. From this point of view one can argue that tourism sustains New Age and New Age sustains
40 This is an example how my knowledge of tourism and the newly emerging theories (such as the mobilities paradigm) impact upon the process of my making sense of the phenomenon. Regarding constructionism, we constantly re-invent and re-conceptualise the world around us and use theories at hand in order to “understand” – in order to understand within current cultural and historical contexts.
168 FIGURE 5.1: THE PROGRESSION OF THE NEW AGE PHENOMENON
This figure shows the researcher’s (subjective) interpretation of how the New Age phenomenon came to be what it is today – it offers the researcher’s understanding of the phenomenon in the context of Tourism Studies.
TRAVEL & MOBILITY EAST/WEST INFLUENCE NEW AGE
- Elite classes, rich & - Romanticism & fascination - The pre-New Age stage powerful with Orient (based on current - Growing segment of the - Colonialism understanding/definition) middle class - Uses of personal & scientific - Spiritualism - Women began to travel research in Orient - Theosophical Society (found - Thomas Cook & mass - Slight exaggeration in travel in 1875 by H..P. Blavatsky) tourism (1841) writings - Esoteric traditions adopting - Revolution in the - Superior attitudes of Eastern concepts i.e. Karma transportation of people. Europeans towards the people (Blavatsky moved to India & - Sea tourism, train travel of the Orient became interested in studying - Orient perceived as exotic Eastern religions)
- WTO 1921 - Occultism - Terms tourist and tourism - Independence & fall of - Secularization of esotericism were first used (1937) colonialism (adopted by New Age) - Air Travel - People travelling to East to - New Age movement in - Early drifters and Hippies learn meditation, to practice 1960s (primarily amongst the (1960s) and experience younger generation) - Urry’s tourist gaze - Gurus travelling from East to - Transcendence, meditation, - Fall of communism West self-realisation, yoga etc. - Globalisation - Influence of Struct. rediscovered and practised. modernity
- Globalization & - Commodification of New - New Age & holistic health commodification. Age growing faster than ever - Cheap Air travel - People able and willing to - Plethora of New Age - World has become a small experience, see and visit products & services place easily accessible, people places themselves. - New Age is evolving: new can go wherever whenever - Travel is sustaining & products and services (people - Internet has become growing the New Age travel to sacred places, power essential tool for marketing, phenomenon sites, retreats, new techniques selling, promoting - New Agers sustaining travel - The body becomes is an researching, and sharing - New Age Tourism important tool places - Local and global tribalism
169 tourism – they are in a dialectic relationship. On this note, New Age tourism should not necessarily be regarded merely as an outcome, a result or a product of New Age. It is rather one of many aspects contributing to New Age progression, partially “responsible” for what New Age has become and evolved into. This is where the new ways of theorising I discussed in previous chapters can offer novel epistemological outlooks.
5.4 Chapter Summary
In summary, this chapter has offered “a” view on how travel, mobilities and the Eastern religion can be perceived as agents contributing to the progression of the New Age Phenomenon. I have suggested that the New Age phenomenon approached as a research subject (but also as a research context) offers the potential of addressing the phenomenon in a post-disciplinary manner - what Coles et al. (2009, p.89) describe as “new hybrid, more flexible forms of knowledge production”. The New Age phenomenon can be tackled from many directions in the process of generating knowledge and conceptualising about what it may be and what it means (can mean) to us today. The New Age phenomenon in this thesis is conceptualised by the researcher in order to make sense of our being in the world. It comes from the notion that tourism is part of our daily lives and experiences can be meaninfuly interpreted in different contexts – in this case by the investigator who makes sense of them in a specific cultural setting.
From an empirical perspective, the New Age phenomenon further offers an interesting gateway with regard to the social and cultural curriculum. It has proved to be difficult to describe; with different disciplines battling over defining clear boundaries. In the field of Tourism Studies, the New Age phenomenon has been addressed by few scholars and in reflecting on my previous work I pointed out the limited and one-sided approach to research that is often grounded in classifying new interest groups. The New Age phenomenon, however, makes an interesting subject of study not only because it has been relatively unexplored in Tourism Studies, but because it is highly relevant in our contemporary culture. It provides the opportunity to examine how meaning can be created in the context of Tourism Studies while drawing on this phenomenon.
170 In returning to the discourse on post-disciplinarity I presented in Chapter Four, what I sought to show in this chapter was that once we go beyond disciplinary strictures, we get access to more interesting vistas of the phenomena we study. We are exposed to the complexity of meanings and can gain richer understandings. In this regard, post- disciplinarity can be argued to be complimentary or perhaps even more useful in a constructionist enquiry. What I mean by this notion is that constructionists are aware of the constructed nature of meaning and therefore restricting their focus to the boundary of disciplines is somewhat fruitless. Post-disciplinarity offers the potential to break these strictures and engage in a multitude of meanings.
With respect to the epistemological claims of this thesis, this chapter has also sought to demonstrate how the researcher (I) makes sense of the available concepts, and underscore the creativity in the process. The constructed understanding of the New Age phenomenon presented in this chapter is not entrenched in an objective or true portrayal of the phenomenon, it has been constructed by the researcher (myself). I drew on the tools and concepts available to me to create this particular understanding (i.e. mobilities, worldmaking, globalisation etc.). The world we are born into is a world that is at once natural, social and cultural, and the way we see things and make sense of the world is not independent of these forces (Crotty, 1998). Therefore the various meanings I have explored, entwined and re-created should not be regarded as existing independently on their own – they are the product of a historically and culturally situated individual (the researcher – myself). From a constructionist perspective, the implications of these actions are far greater for every scholar makes sense of the world from a situated culture- constrained stance. This impacts the methodologies and methods researchers choose as well as the philosophical underpinnings of their research. In the next chapter, I will present the “raw” empirical data in order to give the reader the opportunity to see how I make sense of/conceptualise the information in Chapter Seven.
171 Chapter 6
EMPIRICAL DATA: DEMOGRAPHICS, INTERVIEWS AND REFLEXIVE ACCOUNTS
I will go lose myself, And wander up and down to view the city.
William
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In Chapter Four I engaged in a broader discussion on phenomenology and established that the methodology (and methods) in regard to data collection and analysis, falls under the umbrella of hermeneutic phenomenology. This chapter contains the empirical data collected by the means of (a) surveys, (b) co-researchers’ written reflexive accounts, and (c) phenomenological interviews. I first draw on the information provided by participants in the surveys, and establish their profiles with respect to demographic information, their New Age skills, experience and involvement. I then present each co-researcher as a case on its own by first disclosing the phenomenological interview followed by the written reflexive account. Since all respondents were chosen for their particular New Age skill or activities, by first engaging in phenomenological interviews I reveal the nature of particular experiences, peoples motivation, the meaning in it for them, and the contentment it may represent for the co-researchers. Followed by the written reflexive account, each case then offers a richer picture revealing more not only the phenomenon but also the individual narratives of being a New Ager.
172 6.1 Co-researchers’ Profiles
The information gathered by means of questionnaires (Table 6.1) shows that all five participants are women, representing all age groups with the exception of the “twenty or younger” group. One co-researcher labelled herself as Israel-Yemen, three as New Zealand Europeans (born New Zealanders) and one as Other European (to differentiate between Europeans living in New Zealand). They are all High School or University educated and their income level varies from less then ten thousand up to seventy thousand New Zealand dollars annually. In terms of religious beliefs, two respondents are without religion, two adhere to a personal belief system (such as “acceptance of all religions” or “New Age Religion”), and one respondent belonged to the Jewish religion.
To ensure that all participants were New Agers with an extensive history of skills and/or experiences, they were asked questions on their New Age interests, activities and involvement. Table 6.2, following, shows their New Age profile. All co-researchers are involved in New Age/spiritual courses from Yoga, to meditation, to attending spiritual circles and a variety of workshops. The table also shows that they are involved in a New Age activity on a regular basis and possess items related to their particular New Age/spiritual interest such as crystals, Tarot cards, books and CDs. Additionally, they all participate in a number of other New Age-like activities from Out-of-Body experiences, to channelling, to visiting spiritual retreats. Overall, this information indicates that all of the selected co-researchers have a “sound” record (as far as my concept goes) of New Age skills/experiences, they own New Age items that show their interest, and they are involved in New Age activities on regular basis. It is important to note that this quantitative exercise mainly served as a tool for gathering initial information on participants’ New Ageness in order to qualify them as skilled New Agers. No other scientific inference is drawn from these data.
173 TABLE 6.1: DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILES OF CO-RESEARCHERS PARTICIPATING IN THIS RESEARCH STUDY
Co-Researcher Jane Anne Vicki Julie Catherine
GENDER Woman Woman Woman Woman Woman AGE 21-30 51-70 31-50 31-50 71 and older EDUCATION University University High School Undergraduate High School RELIGION No religion No religion Jewish Other 2 Other 3 $10,000- INCOME $50,001-70,000 $10,000-20,000 p.n.a. 1 $10,000 or less 20,000 RESIDENCE New Zealand New Zealand Holland New Zealand USA ETHNIC Other NZ European NZ European Israel-Yemen NZ European GROUP European
KEY: 1 Prefer not to answer 2 Acceptance of all religions 3 New Age “religion”
174 TABLE 6.2: NEW AGE PROFILES OF SELECTED CO-RESEARCHERS
Co- Have you completed any Are you involved in any Do you have any Other involvement in Researcher spiritual/New Age spiritual/New Age items/tools related to spirituality/New Age Courses? activity on regular your particular interest? basis? Jane Vipassana Meditation1, Daily meditation Books “I’ve been to many spiritual Yoga, Heart Power – Yoga CDs4 retreats, to psychics and Workshop2, Deeksha3 Crystals mediums. I also go and see my Workshop, Christian Touching Light- Crystal5 Magic Man who is an Healing Seminar Alchemist”. Anne Deeksha Workshop, Meditation CDs, “Marriage & funeral celebrant Meditation "Being in silence"6 Books who uses New Age philosophy in Visits to Alchemist Crystals practice”. Angel Tarot Cards, Pictures of Saints7, Alchemic tools: wands, necklace, metal plates for water8 etc. Vicki Healing Tao Daily contact with spirits CDs “I treat people with Shamanism Yoga and guides in meditation Books and Sound Healing. I organize a Shamanism, and through writing. Crystals meditation group and teach how Shiatsu Body Work Shamanic drum to heal through voice” Rebirthing (Past Lives) Dance Healing Massage Active Visualisation. Julie Meditation, Reiki, Self Meditation Books “I do House Clearing (spirits) development, Spiritual Healing Tarot Cards Massage table. and whatever comes my way and Circles, Magnetic Healing Spirit Cleansing Teaching I agree to". Reiki
Catherine Development classes, Development Classes CDs Meditation, Out-of-Body travel, Spiritual Circles, Active in Past Life Regression Books UFO, channelling, teaching and Metaphysical Church. Catherine reads many Crystals sharing knowledge/wisdom. New Age books and used "I see myself as New Age to do readings at a teacher". Spiritual Festival in California (USA)
KEY: 1 Vipassana Meditation focuses largely on self observation 2 Heart Power Workshop focuses on healing the soul through the power of heart which is seen as a generator of electromagnetic energy 3 Deeksha Workshop focuses on energy transfer and healing. It originated in India. 4 CDs and books with New Age theme 5 Touching Light Crystal is a special type of crystal one needs to touch to receive energy 6 “Being in silence” and observing represents a type of meditation for this participant 7 Theses are stand-up pictures of Saints that Anne takes with her when she travels. They bring her inspiration, create peace and harmony. 8 The “metal plates for water” were described as metal disks/place-mats to place a glass of water on (more information is provided in the interview).
175 Additionally, all respondents were asked about the importance of spirituality41 in their life. The data was collected by the means of a five-point Likert scale (see Appendix A) and indicated that spirituality is “very important” in all participants’ life. Another interesting observation concerns the label “New Age”. When co-researchers were asked whether they consider themselves New Agers, only three ticked the box Strongly Agree, one Neither Agree nor Disagree and one Strongly Disagree. They were given the opportunity to comment on this label and asked how else they would describe themselves. All co-researchers preferred to use their real names and the following are their responses: I am a New Age Teacher. (Co-researcher Catherine)
I also have a strong interest in spirituality, I am searching for truth. (Co-researcher Anne)
I am interested in self development and consider myself to be spiritual rather than New Ager. The term New Age has connotations. (Co-researcher Jane)
I am just me. I strongly disagree with the term New Age because people like me have been around for as long as people have been on this planet, it is definitely not new. (Co- researcher Catherine)
I consider myself as a New Ager (Co-researcher Julie)
The above information presents an interesting paradox for this research is concerned about the study of New Agers and their experiences that are of New Age character (as conceptualised by the researcher). Yet not all co-researchers want to be associated with this term, nor do they perceive themselves as New Agers. This, to some extent, demonstrates that the concept of New Age does not have a fixed meaning and rather represents a heterogeneous phenomenon which comprises various activities, but also objects, spaces, places, and beliefs but is also interpreted by the co-researchers42. The meaning is assigned by the actors who meaningfully interpret experiences: be it the co-
41 In reflecting on the process from a constructionist point of view, spirituality was not defined by the researcher (myself) for the co-researchers and could mean anything in their view. The same goes for other terms such as New Ager/New Age. 42 In reflecting on the process, a different way of obtaining this information would be by making the co-researchers define what the term “New Age” means for them and then ask if they associate themselves with it. The issue however remains, that nobody can explain him/herself fully – this would be a lenghly and impossible taks. The researcher always makes assumptions and interprets the co-researchers’ interpredations.
176 researchers or the researcher. This is therefore a demonstrably constructionist “moment” where the people I interviewed have some type of experiences – they are simply being in the world – which are conceptualised and interpreted by the researcher. Therefore, when it comes to the subject of definitions; these are created and reflective of one’s discipline as well as one’s particular approach to research. They are created by the means of cultural “disciplinary filters”.
The following sections present the “raw” data. From here the reader is presented with the lives, views, experiences and beliefs (or paradigms) of five New Agers: ranging from a practicing psychologist, astral travellers, to a shaman/performer and an ex-catholic nun. The data is indeed varied and interesting in regard to getting a glimpse of what it means for some to be a New Ager. It opens the door a crack - into understanding how these people who share the same world, often the same spaces and places see and do things from a quite different perspective. It takes us into a different world of meaning.
6.2 Interviews and Reflexive Accounts
In writing this thesis in a constructionist manner (not that there is a set way of doing so) I envisaged going beyond the ways most research is presented: often in an objective and impersonal style of writing. Hence, to break this pattern, the data in the pages to follow is arranged to create a story in which the reader can immerse him/herself, and form his/her understanding of the co-researchers’ stories – their being in the world as a New Agers. Disclosing the raw data therefore serves a methodological purpose in regard to hermeneutic phenomenology. Most phenomenological studies only present the findings. In this research study I sought to expose the “making” of the research rather then presenting only the summary of themes or parts of the texts, I (the researcher) would have found relevant or worthy of further discussions. Therefore forcing the reader to read the interviews (rather than putting it in an Appendix) was found as the most appropriate way to expose the construction of knowledge that takes place in this thesis. It also resonates with my attempt is to expose the constructing in a critical and reflexive fashion by revealing as many aspect of the process as possible.
177 6.2.1 Jane: Interview Jane lives in New Zealand. She works as a counsellor and is a trained psychologist. She completed her PhD in psychology more than three years ago, a time she described as a turning point in her life which let her to discovering the world of New Age. Jane has visited numerous New Age/spiritual retreats and participates in some activities (such as meditation and yoga) on a regular basis. She is interested in motivational speaking, life couching and has recently founded her own company in Auckland, New Zealand. The following interview with Jane took place in her office.
You have told me that you have been very active in the New Age phenomenon: from Reiki, to meditation, to going to spiritual retreats and so forth. What would you say is your main interest?
At the moment my main interest would be meditation. That is something I practice on a daily basis. But I have done a lot of other things in the process of finding what I wanted to do. So all of the things we discussed before and I sated in the questionnaire like the Heart Power workshop, the Deeksha and the “magic man” (a person Jane earlier described as an alchemist) have happened in the last year or so. Whereas some earlier experiences such as Healing workshops - that was when I was very into the Christian Movement, which was quite a few years ago.
You were into the Christian Movement?
Yes. I was brought up Catholic and then kind of got little bit disillusioned when I was about fifteen and then I went overseas and lived in England for a bit until I was about eighteen. At that time I went quite fundamentalist Christian and hanged out with a lot of fundamentalists. Which was quite freaky at the time because I was buying it and was all into it without realizing how scared I was becoming, and the reason I was there was because I was quite scared of judgement and things like that. So it was not really me, but it provided a structure and gave me some friends when I didn’t have friends (laugh) in this new country… and all of that because it was more community based. Then I found it was not a good fit.
So would you say that you discovered the New Age phenomenon only recently?
Yes, in the last … probably about 3 years. And basically that was precipitated by failing my PhD. Well, not failing it but it had been turned down. I put it in and my supervisor rang me and said it is not going to pass. And everything about that was devastating. And one of the things that came out of that thought was this interest in that I am not my mind.
What do you mean by saying you are not your mind?
I will give you little bit of background which is that when I was ten I had a stroke and so I realized pretty early on in my life that I could not rely on my body. So one of the things I was good at was intellectual stuff so I became very good at intellectual stuff and was very academic and so on and then, you know the PhD is the pinnacle of your academic achievement and to get to the end of it and have it turned down was devastating. You know, because, if I am not my body and I am not my mind then who am I?
178 Did you feel you failed on the physical level as well as the intellectual?
Yes. Well it was not so much about failing on the physical level but just knowing where my strengths lay and so I thought “ok there is a lot that I cannot do physically”… I can’t ever be an Olympic athlete or anything and so if I am going to excel in any field what that’s going to be? Well it was going to be a mind field rather then physical... So that is how that happened.
So what happened after your PhD was turned down? Have you started going to workshops and retreats?
Well it was a very gradual process and it was very much about….because I didn’t know who I was anymore at that point because I thought …well here is my life… at this point it has been all about academia and mind and intellect and yet is that really that important? So I started thinking. I started reading books like by Eckhart Tolle, like “The Power of Now” and “Stillnes Speaks” - all of those types of books that are about who you are at the deepest level which has nothing to do with your intellect or nothing to do with the surface stuff. That interested me and so I then started reading more and got into the Wayne Dyer (different New Age author) stuff and then I started thinking “ok who else is interested in this”?
Do you mean in terms of finding similar people to you or in terms of belonging somewhere?
Not so much that but …share it with someone. I lived in this quite narrow world for a long time but there is this other world that I had not known much about so… How do I get in touch with that world? Who are these people that go there? My brother had actually done a Vipassana meditation course a couple of years before me and had said “oh yes it is very good” and I have never done any meditation before so I thought well that sounds like a good way of getting into it which was a ten day, 12 hours a day, intensive – no talking, no reading, no anything, just meditating. So I just chucked myself into that and it was the hardest thing I have ever done. So it was also one of the most beneficial things I have done.
Why was it the hardest thing you have ever done?
Because you are alone with what comes up in silence. And so for the first few days it was all about this surface chatter about all sorts of things like “I wonder what is going on in the real world”… but then your mind starts becoming more still and you start thinking about stuff. Or not so much thinking about stuff but things just rise up and it was just a really, really difficult thing to stay in one place and not react to any of those thoughts and just try to focus on breathing all that time or focus on sensations or whatever the thing was to do at that time. So it was incredibly disciplined. I mean you are getting up at four o’clock in the morning and you are still meditating at 9 pm that night. There are some breaks during the day but it was so intense and not being able to talk to anyone or have any distractions…that’s pretty intense. That was the fist time and from then on I started practicing meditation and reading much more about meditation and working out what worked for me in terms of “Can I sit two hours a day – one in the morning and one at night, or am I better to notice what is going on in the moment on a moment by moment basis”
You mean during all day?
Yes. So now I do both.
Would you say it has become very important for you? Do you now meditate daily?
179 Yes, yes, yes.
In terms of the other activities – you mentioned yoga, going to retreats and so on. Would you say meditation is the most important of them all?
Definitely at the moment. Because it is a way… it is practical, it calms my mind, it is a really, really brilliant way of noticing what has just come up and then I can use whatever psychological techniques I might have to help out to deal with some of the stuff that has come up. So let’s say if I am with a client in a work session and the client has given me a whole bunch of information and it is quite disturbing and I start noticing what is going on internally for me like…what reactions I am having.
Do you mean you apply this at work?
Yes, when I am doing counselling I will use kind of mindfulness - not so much meditation (laugh). But I am very aware of my body, my reactions, and all of that in the session and I use that as information for the client but also for me.
What do you mean by that?
Well it is a delicate balance between what the client is saying to me and how I am experiencing it. And what I feed back to them. So I am aware in the moment of what is going on within me as well as listening to them. And I know that kind of sounds like divided attention but it is not so much – I think you can be right there and be aware of what they are doing and what they are saying so I find that really, really useful. So basically what that allows you to do is that you come out of a session knowing how the client’s story has affected you and so therefore you are able to deal with what has come up for you. And then also know about whether that is about you or about them or ….it is hard to explain but it works (laugh).
You say you monitor what happens within you, do you think the sessions with your clients are giving you something as well?
Oh… someone said recently to me - actually another psychologist… “we are in this field not because we want purely to help someone else, we are in it for us”. And at that time I though it was so completely true. It is very much about you know… I am getting a lot from every single interaction that I have and my philosophical belief is that there are no chance encounters and so that you can learn from every person. I definitely get a lot from the interactions and it is not only about giving. Mindfulness and meditation really make a big difference to the way I work. So I am little bit different to probably other counselling professionals.
In terms of meditation, you say it is very important for you. Why so?
Because it is a way of being in the world but not reacting to it and so you… you know meditation is about noticing what is coming up in terms of thoughts, feelings, sensations or whatever else and not rushing up to fix it or distract from it or do anything but just to allow it to be. And just to notice it and to notice that that though will just actually disappear at some point and then some other thought might come up. So we are just, on one level, just a mixture of thoughts and feelings and beliefs that we don’t have to respond to and so if you can see yourself as the observer of all of that, then you are in a different position than if you are just reacting to all of that. Which is, what I think, a lot of people get caught up in. In fact most of the people that come and see me as a psychologist are having problems with that exact thing. So they are reacting to everything that is
180 happening in their world rather than having any time for them and looking at themselves from the outsider’s perspective. And I guess meditation gives me the outsider’s perspective on myself and so I can look in on myself and go “wow you had a really strong reaction to that, what was that about?” So it just gives me that space and the time, I guess, to just notice that and either change it or not.
Can you tell me more about the experience itself? What does it feel like to be meditating? What is the experience of meditating like?
I guess it is different on daily basis. Sometimes it is incredibly frustrating and you know… I notice that I am really agitated and I just don’t want to do it and it is hard to focus and it is just a very hard process. At other times it is really calming, it gives you a sense of peace, it kind of reminds you of all those things that you don’t really observe. You don’t have to buy into your thoughts, your feelings, your sensations, and I guess on balance there must be more of the peace and calmness than the agitation. So yes, that’s how it feels.
So if you go into the meditative state, can you tell me more about the process? What is the whole experience like? Do you use any special techniques for instance?
I just generally sit down at the same place on a yoga mat every day at home and start by focusing on my breathing and the rising and falling of my stomach. I focus on that for a while and that would calm me down and stop the incessant thoughts or at lest slow them down. So sometimes I might just, especially if I am agitated, I might just focus on breathing the entire time for like half an hour or so. At other times I would just focus on what comes up. Like I would just notice there is a thought going by about “oh I need to do this” and that thought is connected to this feeling of anxiety of “I need to rush around and to stuff” and so all of that just kind of settles after a while and then there is this kind of calm and peace.
Would you say the aim of the mediation is to be calm and peaceful?
Yes I guess so, although sometimes as I say, you don’t get that and it can be harder.
Do you get anything else out of meditation?
I think it is just a space of not reacting. And I think you get a few things from meditation. You get to focus your mind so you get to notice you are jumping all around the place and so this is the chance to focus which is always good. Secondly, you get that feeling of calmness and peace, and at other times you just have the space away from no more rushing about. So whatever comes out of it, and to be honest that is one of my main issues with it – when I am suggesting to people to meditate, I know if they are short term focused they are not really do it for a very long time because it can be quite frustrating and it can not produce many results. But I think the long term benefits are worth it.
Have you ever experienced anything extraordinary while meditating?
Oh I don’t know. No… Except I do feel that sometimes like the incredible peace descends upon you - it is kind of out of this world. And so it does not necessarily happen just when I am on my yoga mat, it might be during the day, and that incredible peace is there. Or the feeling of bliss and that it does not matter what happens in the outside world but I am going to be peaceful and blissful anyway and I think for me that is pretty incredible. So it might not be extraordinary but it’s pretty good.
181 So what does the moment of peacefulness feels like. Can you tell me about that moment and the feeling?
Oh, it is so hard. It’s like…. hmmm. It is a sense of happiness that is not dependant on external things. It is a sense of bliss, a sense of contentment a sense of everything is ok… Often that everything is one, everything is interconnected … like a transcendent view of life.
When you say everything is one, what do you mean by that?
Oh, it is hard…again I am not very good with words when we talk about that kind of stuff. Hmm… maybe it is the sense that … I have read something recently that said everything that we have, everything that is in reality used to not be in reality and will return to the formless dimension. So everything we see is form at the moment but will return to the formless. And so seeing everything in that way makes it that ….everything is … what we see now is impermanent, it’s a particle that may or may not have been around since the beginning of time and I guess it’s just this sense of ever lasting and transient at the same time… Oh, I am not making any sense I am sure (laugh). The sense there is a cycle and that we all or everything come from the same thing and go back to the same thing.
And where do you see yourself in that cycle?
Just as part of it I guess. Come from nothing, return to nothing and life will carry on. But the spirit or the spiritual side will never die. It is like… we all go back to the one, the one life in the formless dimension but then kind of separate into forms… I don’t know… it is hard to explain. I see myself as part of that cycle.
If we were to talk about the other activities you do, what do the other activities give you in terms of spirituality New Ageness?
Yoga is, I guess, a way of achieving the same thing but becoming more body focuses and so you know it is about moving into those positions and breathing in a certain way… I don’t know it is quite grounding and it enhances the meditation. In fact yoga is a meditation, isn’t it? I guess I would see it as another activity in being spiritual.
If you were to compare yoga and meditation would these be very different in terms of what they give you?
Hmm…they are very similar.
So the experience of yoga would be similar to the one of meditation?
Yes and I guess at the end of yoga there is always the meditation phase so it is almost like a physical way of getting out from the tension but in a regulated way. But both return you to the same point – that same peace, that same bliss...
You say the yoga exercise is just another activity in being spiritual, would you see the meditation as being the core and then you have other additional spiritual activities?
I guess I would say that if I … you know it is that whole cliché that we are spiritual beings having a human experience rather than human beings having a spiritual experience. So from that perspective, everything that you do in terms of these New Age experiences, are about connecting
182 you back to yourself. So if you assume that you are spiritual to begin with then all of these things connect you back to yourself.
So the all the New Age activities you do help you to connect you to…?
Spirituality… Because if you are a spiritual being, and this a very temporary form that we are inhabiting, then being as spiritual as possible in this human form is the aim. And so whatever works for you to do that, and for me it is meditation at this stage, helps me to live this human life. Does it make sense?
So going to New Age/ spiritual retreats would be part of your connecting?
Yes, definitely. So it is more of a chance of getting out the usual hum drums like “oh I have to get promoted in my career, or what about my relationship or partner, or family into”…or “ok what do I need to resource myself, how can I connect back to who I really am”. So it provides a space for me but then in doing that then connecting out to others once I have done that. So the retreats are just a way of resourcing me so I can go out and hopefully resource others form a spiritual perspective.
What happens in the retreat? What do you experience there?
I guess a couple of retreats have been to are quite similar. They are quite small groups – maybe twenty people and there are usually a couple of leaders. You know, there is really soft music playing and you do a lot of meditation – some are guided, some are not. And the ones I have been to have been about the Deeksha process about which I talked before. Basically these people from India have this energy or something that they then pass onto various people who then take it to their own country and pass on the energy kind of thing. So there is the meditative aspect to it and then there is the laying on of hands in order to transfer the energy.
So how would that work?
You would like down or sit in a meditative state and they come along and put their hands on your head and various people feel quite a lot of different sensations. I generally don’t feel anything (laugh) but you know… there are differences in people. I have never felt anything … it’s kind of a pain...
You wanted to feel something but you did not?
Yes I guess so (laugh). It is kind of like the old….. I don’t know if you have ever been to Christian circles, but when I was a fundamentalist Christian, people in these circles would fall over in the spirit all the time. Have you heard of that?
No, I have not.
Ok, so in fundamentalist circles, if you put hand on people often they will fall over in the spirit and kind of lie on the floor and be blessed out in God’s space kind of thing... So anyway, so that is the same sort of thing, I think, but again it has never happened to me (laugh).
You didn’t manage to fall in the Christian circle?
No, I didn’t (laugh).
183 Going back to the Deeksha workshop and lying hands on you, what did that feel like?
Well, I think to me it was similar to meditation because you get into that relaxed state anyway and so whether or not the energy flew or was transmitted or not, it was still valuable because you are in a meditative state … so that’s how I see it.
During the time of that retreat you would mainly focus on transferring the energy?
Yes, that was generally the idea. Maybe five or six Deeksha giving experiences…
Giving experiences?
Yes, Deeksha giving – that is what they call it. The Deeksha Givers come on put their hands on you and then you make a break for lunch and then you have another meditation and they do another Deeksha and it goes on for the weekend… five or six times.
You talk about energy giving; can you tell me more about what do you mean by that?
So, again it is … I guess to other people it sounds quite flaky, but this couple in India they somehow got this gift and then they started sharing it and so the idea is that it causes a change in consciousness.
The energy causes the change?
Yes, the energy does. And by that I think they mean … into this more loving, soulful, spiritual being that becomes more and more as they go on… so it is kind of a process. So the process starts when you go and see the first Deeksha and then as you go along you still experience ups and downs but it does not affect you the same so you are somewhat removed in some ways from the trivialities of life where you find yourself you are dealing with it better or that you are not getting as reactive. And so they would say that is the energy working.
So would you say that your consciousness has changed after these experiences?
I don’t know, I mean the whole process started from reading these books and doing the meditation. I think I am more open to all of that stuff now. I used to be completely judgemental and write it all off.
Do you mean write off New Age?
Yes, if you had spoken to me the day that I have put in my PhD the first time…I would have gone “ah you have gone crazy”. If you expected me to go to these workshops and listen to “this crap” I would have laughed. But I think when you have an experience that is devastating as feeling just …what you have worked for has come to nothing, you do reach out for other things. That’s where I have had it. And you know psychology is very much… they talk about being a “scientist practitioner”, and you cannot do anything that is not evidence based so I guess in some ways I am going completely against my training by exploring this stuff, but I am ok with that.
So with regard to possible changes in your consciousness, would you say you are much more open to spirituality?
184 Yes and I am much more likely to include it in my practice as well. I know it might sound flaky but waking up in the morning and dedicating the day to the good of all being. Or before having a client, dedicating the session to the good or enlightenment of that person and myself and anyone that client is going to impact. So I guess it is more then jut thinking it is just me and the client, but it has far reaching consequences of what I am doing.
What do you mean by dedicating your day to the good of all being?
You know you just say it, or say it in your mind. One of the things I have been doing for few months… is I am being grateful for a lot of things that come may way. Everything basically... Sometimes I go for a walk in the morning and wonder about and dedicate that day to all the good and then be thankful for everything that comes into my life. It might be… “Thank you for this beautiful day, and thank you for the sun, thank you that I can walk and talk and I have this mind and this beautiful flat and flat mates and two jobs”. So you kind of put yourself in a very open appreciative space and offer everything that comes up to the good of others as well as yourself.
Given you are involved in many New Age activities, what would you say is the experience of being a New Ager or spiritual like?
I think it adds a whole dimension into your life that otherwise you are not aware of. So it adds a sense of peace, of stillness, of positivity, of hope, of … it just impacts everything in your life and it is about purpose and being here on purpose rather than kind of random “oh I am here and people suffer and the world sucks”… and all of that, which I choose not to dwell on. I choose to dwell on the spiritual, the good, and the good things. Not to say that the suffering is not important, but you know if you have an overall philosophy that makes life easier to deal with…
When you say “being here on purpose” what do you mean by that?
I would say that, again from this perspective, that we are spiritual beings having a human journey and there are certain strengths in each of us that if we follow, life becomes purposeful and meaningful.
What do you think your purpose is?
I think it can be quite general, but my purpose at the moment seems to be able to connect to others in a way that can help them through the difficulty. And I guess that comes from this sort of thinking as well. So I kind of identify four values that want to live my life through. One is acceptance of the present moment and so that’s kind of being here now. One is connecting to that spiritual energy and others, and then generally through that connection I get inspired to be who I am. And the fourth one is to be joyful and appreciative and so it is acceptance, connecting, being inspired and then through that inspiration becoming joyful and being appreciative and laughing and playful. For me that is the way I live and the way it is working for me… to live that way. It pervades everything.
So in terms of your work – being a psychologist, do you think it is related to your purpose?
Well, I mean it definitely helps, you know I guess I like to think of my life as seamless so what I do in my private life and in my friends life and whatever life – are all completely related, so it all makes sense. So my purpose is about connecting – personally for me to connect to intention or to source energy or God or whatever you want to call it and then to use that to connect to others. And so the way I do that is through psychology.
185 You mentioned connecting to Gods and energy, what exactly do you mean by that or what is the process of “connecting” like?
I guess through each of those things. Through workshops, through meditation, through being appreciative, through being… you know kind of praying… that is connecting to me. That is connecting to something greater than myself. And allowing myself to think of myself as a part of what there is.
So your New Age experiences are a way of connecting to what?
To whatever that is… I don’t know what I call it. Sometimes I call it God, sometimes I call it energy, and sometimes I call it Source…whatever. But it is something greater than me. And you see it all to be the same thing?
Yes and I think where my difficulty was in my earlier beliefs which were all the very restricted fundamentalist views, it was too restrictive for me. For me the whole New Age thing is about – we all talk about the same thing in many ways, all looking for that other and whatever you call it, we are all searching so it does not really matter if you follow Christ or call it Buddha or who else. To me it is all the same.
So would you say that New Age provides you with the right philosophy?
Yes. It just feels more open than the traditional “this is how it is” religion.
If you were to summarize your New Ageness or spirituality in terms of what it gives you, what would you say?
In summary it is about connecting to who I am and it provides me with philosophy, life purpose, activities to engage in, and a real sense of peace.
Is there anything else you would like to share or think is important/relevant?
Not really, I think you have covered it pretty well (laugh). I know that a lot of people from what I hear have had kind of visions or way out experiences and part of me thinks that if I had that I would discard it anyway. You know from my training and my scientific background… I am actually pretty happy just with the peace and the bliss and the happiness that comes from these beliefs.
Do you mean you are not necessarily wanting to experience anything extraordinary like seeing spirits or being able to do channelling?
No, not necessarily. If it comes along at some point …cool. But it is not hugely important to me to have all of that. I am happy the way it is (laugh).
Great, thank you for your time!
186 6.2.2 Jane: Reflective Account
WHO I AM TODAY
I work as a clinical psychologist and have spent years of my life training to be in this profession. However my work is very much influenced by who I am and what I believe spiritually. I use meditation/mindfulness in my work for my own self awareness and my awareness of others. I like to dedicate my day to the betterment and enlightenment of myself and all humanity - psychology with a spiritual dimension.
I guess we are all looking for inner peace, joy and love. I have found that this peace comes from acceptance of each moment as it is, not wishing it to be otherwise (not that I can do this as often as I’d like!!). In many ways I think that if I am accepting of the moment, and relaxed in session about whatever they bring up, my clients will also learn to be like this. Without my spiritual beliefs I don’t feel that I would be as effective as I am. I am usually able to meet people where they are and I practice moment by moment awareness throughout the day. Eckhart Tolle has said: “to meet everyone and everything through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the universe. I call it stillness, but it is a jewel with many facets, that stillness is also joy and it is love.”
This is what I try and do while interacting with my clients: I listen to their stories, I talk and teach them the scientific methods that have been shown in the literature to be effective with their particular disorders/problems, but I also incorporate another dimension of stillness (whether the client is aware of it or not).
My work as a clinician is very meaningful: essentially it is about helping others through their pain/struggles and listening in awareness, knowing that the story is not who that person is at the deepest level. My reading of works by Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Neale Donald Walsch, and Eckhart Tolle all essentially give the same message: we are not the thoughts, emotions, sensations, experiences, behaviours that we have, we are much deeper than this which we sometimes sense: a sense of beingness.
187 HOW DID I GET TO THIS POINT?
Early experiences: I was raised in the Catholic religion and remember going to Sunday school as a child. My brothers didn’t seem to take it all as seriously as I did, they stopped going to church long before I did. I saw God as a judge, making sure people did things in the right way. I made my first communion at age 10 (4 days before my stroke) and my confirmation when I was 15 or 16. I was very much “the good girl” – the oldest in the family (3 younger brothers), and the model student, so it kind of fitted to have a strict moral code.
I certainly never tried smoking cigarettes or drugs, and rarely drank alcohol. I think this was largely based on the values/moral code of my parents but also was influenced by the events of my life which included a stroke at age 10. This necessitated becoming dependent on my parents as I learned to walk and talk again – and so at a time when my peers were experimenting with drink, drugs and boys, I was not interested in these activities which I thought at the time were trivialities. From age 10 I was immediately aware of what I could and couldn’t do. In fact there was a lot I had to accept including not being the athlete/sportsperson I had once been, not playing piano and violin as they required two hands, and coping with rejection at school based on my appearance/changing capabilities. In these years I was out to “prove myself” – even though I had had a disability I was determined not to let it stand in the way.
When I was 12 my family moved from the country to Auckland which was a massive change and had consequences for my entire family – including unemployment for my parents and truancy from school for my brothers as we all adjusted to a very different way of life. Stress was a big part of our lives for a number of years and I think we were all coping day to day. Certainly I don’t remember faith helping me through.
My teenage years were all about forging my own path, independence, and becoming competent in academic areas. I did the international baccalaureate diploma instead of the usual bursary system again to prove that I could excel in my chosen field/s. University and OE in England followed, and then I returned to NZ to apply for the clinical psychology program.
Turning point: The huge turning point in my life/career/spiritual direction came in 2004 when I submitted my PhD. In June 2004 my primary supervisor phoned and told me that my thesis would not pass but that I would have to do the oral viva exam knowing that the outcome would not be favourable. I lived through that month (which was
188 difficult!), did the exam, and the recommendations included that I spend another 3 years on top of the 3 I had already spent, so essentially start again. This was a heartbreaking experience, and there was a high chance that I would not come out with a higher degree after all that work. This experience splintered/broke my belief that who I was, was connected to how well I did academically (but took months of soul searching). Incidentally the university decided to let me convert the degree to a doctorate (after months of negotiation) and change the thesis accordingly requiring only about 1 year’s extra work.
It has been an evolving journey toward my current spiritual beliefs: from Catholicism through to Christian fundamentalism (when I was in England) to more ‘New Agey’ things like being open to psychics, retreats of various kinds, healing of various kinds.
I think with the experience of my thesis not passing, I re-evaluated my life in a major way. I had always thought of myself as playing by the rules, and thought that if you did this things would work out (I once learned that as humans we generally have a “just world” hypothesis whereby we get what we deserve – maybe I was operating according to this). Clearly in 2004 even though I had done all that was required by my supervisors, I learned that sometimes things don’t go according to plan. It took a long time to start noticing the wisdom in that experience. In fact, being faced with the possibility of not even come away with a masters degree despite having done a number of years of academic study was devastating. It was the search for meaning in this experience that led me to explore who I was if I wasn’t an academic and possibly not a psychologist.
One of the first things I did before I began work on the doctorate again was to enrol in Vipassana in early 2005– a 10 day retreat north west of Auckland where there was no talking, reading, writing – just 12 hours a day meditating. For someone who had never meditated this was very intense but I felt strongly that I should do it. My brother had recommended it and I was also looking for a cheap holiday (the 10 days was free, but certainly not a holiday!) This experience helped me see that I could “watch” myself – my emotions, thoughts, sensations and not react. This was a new beginning for me and being still/watching my mind became part of my awareness.
I continued searching for answers to who I was/ what my purpose was and in November 2005 I went to the Bay of Islands for a weekend retreat (called Heartpower). This was a different approach to anything I had heard before but included sections of past life regression (which I struggled accepting) but also lots of meditation and awareness in the moment activities. These people had been to India to be trained in the way they heal and travel the world promoting their
189 message. I continued practicing meditation after this and it renewed my energy for other ways of looking at life.
In 2006 I started seeing a healer (I called him the magic man because of the weird and wonderful things he used to aid in healing e.g., wands, energy, massage, potions) and again although I didn’t take on everything he advocated I noticed my reactions/judgements and believe that he also was important to help me get to where I am today.
Certainly it has helped having my mother be open to these spiritual/New Age adventures as well as we often discuss our thoughts/reactions to new insights and ideas. I’m not affiliated with any specific spiritual group but am open to explore what comes up if I happen to come across retreats/events/talks on this topic.
What is great is that mindfulness is gaining prominence in the field of psychology as an intervention, so I’m able to teach this skill to clients to hopefully broaden their awareness.
190 6.2.3 Anne: Interview Anne is another intriguing co-researcher and the mother of the previous respondent Jane. She used to be a nun in a convent who later married and had four children. Today, Anne is divorced and works as a marriage and funeral celebrant and as a part time teacher. She published two books about herself and acts in her own play (which is also about her life). During this particular interview, I started recording our conversation after my arrival to Anne’s place while she was talking about her New Age experiences and the information she had filled in the survey. The reason for this pre-interview recording was the fact that Anne started to describe some of the New Age items she possesses, which I considered to be important in understanding her as a New Ager. Hence the interview started spontaneously and in an unstructured manner:
…And do you have any crystals, books or other New Age items?
Yes I have got the alchemist things. I have got books, those two little disks in front of you (Anne was pointing at the table where the disk sat) – see those little Bagaban disks, what you do is you just put a glass of water on that and if you put it on the disk that says “Voice Master”, that means that I am a speaker out there speaking all the time. So before I go, I put a glass of water on that disk and I take three sips of the water breathing in that energy that I believe the disk facilitates and I pray that my voice and the words that come out of me will touch other peoples hearts and that they will be empowered to be true to themselves… that they will be empowered to be who they are and take charge of their own thoughts and actions. Then I take the other disk called “Fame” because now I have become a person who is well known in New Zealand and I am not interested in celebrity fame, I am interested in spreading the light of truth. So I do the same with that. It is a conscious focusing on “Why am I doing this” – using those tools to centre myself to open my Self to the universal source, divine energy and then to go out. Every night before my play, I stopped everything and worked with those tools to make sure that I was totally focused on what I was about. And that is crucial for me. So when I go to Whanganui (town in NZ) for instance to speak to the Theosophical society, I will have done that preparation. It is not about Anne, I am an instrument. And I believe that I am here to be a catalyst to help people take charge of their own life. And I feel so strongly about it because I have spent 56 years of my life trying to please other people, living up to other people’s expectations, holding onto beliefs that no longer served me. And as I began to see the truth of who I am, I knew that I have lived the type of life I have led in order to go out and touch people’s hearts. And that is what has happened all over New Zealand, amazing…
Where do all these things/items come from?
They all come from a person who is an Alchemist. When I went to the Alchemist I said to him: “I had this experience with three people who have said to me that I had to release a veil of poverty. So he said: “I want you to say to me what comes straight into your head when I say certain words”. So he said: “affluence, wealth”, and repeated “say the answer without thinking, don’t ponder it, just say it”. So he said that to me and I said: “It’s easier for a camel to go through the
191 eye of a needle then for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven”. And then he said something again about affluence, wealth… and I said: “blessed are the poor in spirit”. And then he said something else again and I said: “take up your cross and follow me”… And I thought where is all this coming from? And he said: “so you still have this deep, deep believe in yourself that poverty is good. And you took a veil of poverty in 1965 and you are still holding onto it” (1965 is when Anne joined the convent). So he then got a piece of paper and said: “do you want to proceed?” and I said “yes”. So he said: “I Anne release any veils of poverty I have ever had in this life or in past lives because they are not helping me as a person to grow”… and he said: “Do you agree with that?” and I said “yes”. He then said: “read it for me”. Ok, so I read it and he said “you are happy with that”? and I said “yes, I am”. Then he said: “so sign it!”… I could not. And I thought “sign it Anne”… and I could not…
You could not sign it?
I could not sign it. He got up, he put on Dalai Lama chanting, he began to massage my shoulders from behind and he began to chant with Dalai Lama. It is a beautiful music. And I began to cry… And I thought “this is stupid Anne, just sign it!” … I could not. I totally resisted signing the paper.
You resisted mentally?
Mentally and physically. I could not do it. I was so entrenched in the veil of poverty from 1965 – forty years of entrenchment deep down in my soul, that I could not release it. It took an hour an a half. I wept and wept and wept. He would say something and I would quote the bible at him… I didn’t even know it was even in me!!! It was years since I was taught all that stuff. Eventually, it was after an hour and a half, I was able to sign it. He worked all the time with the sort of alchemic tools, giving me different energies to help release fear, anxiety, and all that sort of stuff. Extraordinary freedom afterwards! Extraordinary! It was like I was floating on those clouds up there and didn’t have a care in the world.
And did he manage to release that veil of poverty?
Yes, through a loft of work on his part. A lot of chanting, a lot of working with which energies were blocked. Then he worked on all the different chakras – the crown charka and the other chakras… I have been sitting on this conditioning, if you like, for forty years. Now, nothing else could have released that for me… I am absolutely sure of that, because I didn’t ask any of those people to… I didn’t go to them and said: “oh did you know I had a veil of poverty once?!”… it came from out there.
You were told by other people about the veil of poverty?
Yes, it was not of my making.
When you say “veil of poverty”, what exactly do you mean? How would you explain it?
Well in my play the veil of poverty meant that you give up everything. You give up your name, your birth day, you give up ever owning everything. No watch, no radio. You were allowed to have your shoes, your underwear, and your toothbrush. That was it.
That was when you were a nun?
192 Yes. You never had anything because anything would take away your focus on God and on spiritual things. That’s what they taught. So there is a story in my book “Beyond the Veil” when my mother sent me a very feminine bra for my twenty first birthday. I looked at it and it was lace and feminine and nice, and you could never have anything… so I took it to the superior. I said: “mother look what my mom gave me for my twenty first birthday!”. And the nun said “I will take that, you might get attached to it”. I never saw the bra again… everything material was not good. So that was where it came from.
So you have had that belief in you for forty years?
Yes. But I didn’t know I did. I wondered why…. we were always poor, we were always in solvent, we never had any money, it was all struggle… and when I look back, I had this deep seeded belief that wealth is not good. And it took a lot to get rid of it. And I still have to watch it. But now I notice it.
Why did you think only this alchemist man could have helped you?
Well he… obviously the institutional church could not help me, because the institutional church teaches or interprets the bible in a certain way. So who was going to help me? But what has happened for me was quite amazing. I left my husband after twenty three years of marriage. I was fifty five, I never lived on my own ever - he knows why I married him – I was sexually abused by a priest and he knew that and he saved me from the priest and that’s all in my play. And I could not pretend any more so I left him. And I found it unbelievably hard because I had been pretending for twenty three years that I was happy, but I was not. And everybody expected me to be married forever. And so did. And he still rings up and says: “What happen to your marriage vows, for better for worse, for richer for poor”… so it is so entrenched in our generation that you don’t leave a marriage. I walked away in February 1998. Late 1999 I moved in here and I was struggling…living along, making decisions, all the things I have never done. Always… I have been clinging to him and I began to think “I wonder if I should go back to him and just compromise”, even though I knew it was wrong. Everything in me said: “you don’t do that!”, but it was a much easier option. Nobody knew I was thinking it but me… “Will I go back? I think should I go back, I can’t cope, I need to go back. At least when I am with him I have someone to talk to”… “What? What? What?”
One day an older couple in Orewa (place in New Zealand near Auckland) rang me up and said: “we are going out tonight” - they were in their eighties and they said: “would you like to come with us?”. So I said: “thank you, I would!”. When I got in the car they had another lady in the car. She was eighty five. So I met her, and we went to the function and then we were coming home from the function and it has just been small talk you know... But suddenly this old lady of eighty five –we were both sitting in the back seat – she leaned over and said to me: “Excuse me, a nun got into the car with you just now. She was dressed in blue, she told me to tell you to walk in your own shoes. She has got an unusual name, but I am sorry I did not get her name”. I looked at that lady as she was nuts! And then I just scoffed at her and said: “Ha ha, you have got it all wrong; I used to be a nun in this life”. And she said: “no I did not get it wrong. A nun got into the car with you now. She told me to tell you to walk in your own shoes!”. I looked at her and said: “well, there is only one nun I ever loved in my life. She knew everything about me. She died ten years ago and her name is Sister Xavier”. And the eighty five year old lady next to me said: “that is the name, it was Xavier!”.
Did this lady have psychic abilities?
193 Yes. She is a psychic. So I said: “Xavier… Xavier… she is here?!”. So they dropped me off and I came home and I sat here and I thought… “Xavier… somehow you are still here”. I loved that woman! She was a woman of integrity. She was an amazing lady. I saw her just before she died and I told her who the priest was who had been abusing me, because nobody knew... She was the first person I ever told, and she died the next day. So then I thought… “All my life I have been taught that you don’t go to psychics”. That is what nuns taught. That is what my family taught. So here is a psychic I have never seen in my life telling me about Xavier… so I rang her up… Her name is Mary. I said: “Mary what do you do when you have a reading?”. And she said “oh there is nothing to it”.
Did you know this person Mary?
No, I did not know about her but I did find out who she was from the old couple. So I rang her up and I was shaking. I said: “Mary I don’t know much about psychics, tell me…”. And she said “there is nothing to know. Since I was a young girl I became aware that I had a gift and I have someone who channels called Ching – an ancient Chinese soul”. And she said: “if you come to me, I have a tape recorder and we pray, and then I listen to Ching and he tells me things that go on the tape and you take the tape home. I don’t know what I say to you”. So I said “can I come for a reading?”. And she said: “of course, come on Wednesday at 10 o’clock”. Tomas, I was terrified! I was driving up to Orewa thinking: “please God, I don’t want to do anything bad, I want to be enlightened with energy and power and love”. I was terrified. I was terrified.
Well, I have now had about five readings from this lady. I have had the most amazing experiences from the psychic world, which is totally different from my institutional Catholicism. For years I had fear about not being a Catholic, not practicing the Catholic faith, not going to church, and all of that is gone! I am so free in my heart. And it is a whole new journey. But in order to get there I had to take risks. I had to stand alone, I had to accept ridicule and laughter from people, but I know it is right for me. And now I have just come back from a month on the road around New Zealand talking about my life experiences and I have seen thousands of hearts being touched. And it is because - not because of any institutional beliefs, it is because … as time goes on I am more open to truth as a light and energy and love and vitality and wisdom.
When you say light, energy, God… how would you explain these terms given you had been in a convent, then practiced Catholicism as a married wife, and now you are open to New Age philosophy?
I explain it by being true to yourself. Being totally honest with what you are doing. So much of my life I was not honest, in the sense of inner truth. I stayed married because I thought I should and people expected me to. I hid behind the habit of a nun, because everybody would say: “hello sister, how are you sister, will you pray for me, oh God bless you sister, oh sister you are chosen by God…” Now I know, that if I judge anybody, if I look out there and think: “she is a dick, or he is a dork, or God she is fat, or what a stupid driver…”, I know that I am not in what I call Divine Energy or Universal Energy of love. If I ever put any other human being down, I am not on the right path. Recently I was asked to go to a jury service and I looked at this thing and I knew I cannot judge. So I wrote to them and said “my spiritual beliefs are such that I cannot judge another human being” and they let me off! I feel that I cannot now… I had so much time in my life judging others in order to boost my own ego. I saw it especially when I was in the institutional church… I have nine brothers and sisters (siblings), so I was myopic in the church – I knew all the answers, I had the truth… So when my own sister started having sex with her boyfriend, or my other sister got a Guru in India, or another sibling started studying astrology - I thought: “I am holier than them, I love God”.
194 Do you think you were more judgemental while you were a nun?
Yes, I did it all the time. I did not even know I was doing it.
Did you feel more superior to anyone else?
Yes. I lived it… “I am chosen, you are not!”. I did not even know that that was the conditioning if you followed this path. And I see people out there doing it all the time now. Especially in the fundamentalist churches and I think it is part of their journey and they have to work through it. One day they will see that you don’t judge anybody because you don’t know the path they have walked. We cannot judge anybody. If we see people in love, then they can grow. So to answer your question, for me God, light, energy it is that inner truth, that knowing your own heart and listening to that still, small voice within you. God is not out there, but you know yourself and you are feeling… just on top of the world. Just light, at peace, one with everything… you are not resisting anything. You have a dimension that is very precious. And the more you work on maintaining that, the more peace you get.
With respect to your New Age/ spiritual experiences, do you consider them to be important in your life?
Totally important! Every day, the only thing I am really concerned about is loving my neighbour, the people I meet, being there for people – not in a sense of “oh I must do good”, but in a sense of emptying out the ego that wants to put yourself up better than other people. So I would go to the supermarket and I will be in a queue and thinking: “for God sake hurry up…why did I have to get into this queue… Gee do you have to be so slow!”… and now I notice myself and I say to myself: “Anne, send love and light to these people!”. So I stand there and I consciously send love to these people who are holding the queue for whatever reason or to the kid who sits behind the till and cannot do it. Or when I am coming home and somebody gives me the fingers because I am driving, instead of giving the fingers back, I just send them love and peace. And it has changed my whole life.
So this philosophy or attitude has become part of your every day life?
Oh, definitely. It’s everything… I can turn the news on and it will be about Saddam Hussein being hung and so I would say him light and love and peace so he may be at peace with himself that he may know that nothing matters except his own inner peace. Whatever anybody does to you, nobody can touch you’re your heart and yours soul. It is hard work, it is daily work. All my life I will have to work on it because I have been such a judgemental person and so critical of people. So this is what I notice of myself – I can hear something on the telly and I think “what a loser” or “do I have to listen to that crap”… because now the psychic lady who is now 89 and a very dear friend taught me that thoughts are things going somewhere to happen. Every thought I have is going to have an impact somehow on this universe. So if I am thinking negative all day, if I am thinking critical all day, if I am thinking unkind all day- that will impact. It will impact not only on me but also on the people I deal with.
Do you believe in that?
Absolutely, I have proven it.
You have proven it?
195 I go across the road to the private school, I walk into that staff room - and I go into many staff room because I do relief teaching – and I sense the energy immediately. This group of teachers is moaning and groaning about whatever, this teacher is sounding off about the principle, this teacher is sounding off about the students… and if I go and sit with them I get into an energy that is draining. If I deliberately remove myself from them and go and sit with somebody who is positive, I am strengthened. I will not sit with negative people.
Consciously?
Yes I remove myself consciously from them.
When you say you can feel the negative energy, what do you mean or how does it feel?
I can… I feel the negative energy. In 2001 I have decided I would no longer mix with negative people, or mix with negative energy. And the reason was because I had somehow got sucked into the Christian belief that you take up your cross and follow Jesus. So when people are shitty and moody and unhappy, you listen to them for hours and try to help them. Now I know that the only person who can help them is themselves. They have to make the changes.
At this point the interview stopped as Anne wanted a quick break. Anne made us a cup of tea and few minutes later, the interview continued 43:
If we were to go back to some of the New Age/spiritual items you possess, what is their role in your life?
They… from my sort of temperament which has always been reactive… all these new ways of thinking have enabled me to stand back and to say “what is, is”.
By which you mean?
What is, is. So this has happened, it is a shock, I did not expect this to happen but it has happened. Now, How am I going to handle this – as opposed to this has happened – that’s not fair, why did it happen?... I have to go away… it cannot possibly happen! So it is totally different. It is like just being still…. still surprised, still hurting, still bewildered - but not being so reactive. Not resisting it. Like somebody rang me today and they have heard that I have to move from my home (Anne lived in a leaky building) and they said: “it is just not fair, you have had so much in your life…” so I just said: “excuse me I have to go now, I cannot talk to you at the moment”. And I got of the phone and I knew that I must not talk to that person again because that sort of energy is not what I need. I need people like somebody else who were talking to me today and said: “Well Anne, you are going on a new adventure – giving up your home!” Do you see the differences? One is just over and over “poor me, poor me, poor me”. And the other is “wow what an adventure”. And a third person said to me “well the only reason for doing it is to protect your investment”. So the practical “What Is, Is”, is that I have to find 80 thousand dollars because I am an owner here… that what is. I can rave and ravel all you like but the fact is that if you don’t have it you will be sold out. So, needs get on with it. Does it make sense?
43 Some of the interviews took a long time and there was a sense of ease and enjoyment throughout the process - shared by both the co-researcher and myself. (Using these footnotes seems to enable researchers depict more clearly what happens during the interview process).
196 Yes. In terms of the spiritual or New Age activities, you said they give you the sense of peace and are important in your life. If we were to focus on one of them, which one would be the most important for you?
Silence… stillness and silence.
Would you be silent in your daily life or would you achieve it by meditation?
Stillness within me… For example if I go to that school to do relief teaching and I am teaching young people... no matter what is happening over there, they can be cheeky, arrogant, laud, and noisy and exuberant but they don’t have to affect my stillness inside. I can let them – I can think who needs these kids… they are driving me nuts… I can go down that path, or I can go down the path of …they are jut being kids, that’s the way children are - I am at peace. In other words I am not resisting their behaviour. You just keep that inner stillness. I think it is about being in charge of your own thoughts and actions. It is about being more in control. In the past, in the end of the day I would be absolutely exhausted with nervous energy, where this whole new approach has helped me almost like stand back from myself and see that I can go over the top very quickly. So I have become an unobserved observer of my own behaviour and I watch that a lot now. I have always gone over the top, overreacting… I didn’t know that I did. I know also, that I react to wrong energy.
What do you mean by wrong energy?
Well, I had an amazing example of this the other day. Extraordinary, it was a gift. My ex-husband rings a lot - we are very good friends and we have a lot to do with our children. But he is a dominant, laud, naturally aggressive person. He is a very good man but he has got those trades about his personality and that’s just who he is. And he will always hurt that I left him. So whenever he rings, I am always just finding the fine line to keep the peace and not go into any anger. So the other day, I was watching a couple walking towards my place from my window as I was to interview them for marriage ceremony (Anne also works as a celebrant). And I saw them coming and the phone rang and I thought “I have got time to answer the phone”, so I answer the phone and it was my ex-husband. “Hi Andrew, look I cannot talk now because I am just about to interview a couple for their wedding”, I said. And he said “oh ha, ha, ha… what do you know about weddings and marriages, you took your vows and you broke them”… And so he went on and on... So I said: “look I cannot talk now so I will be in touch later”. By then the young couple were walking up the stairs. So I went to the door, opened it, sat them at the table, went through everything – normal, professional… went through the details. They liked me, I liked them and said to the couple what I said to other couples for seven years: “if you get home and you find yourself thinking… No, Anne is not quite right for us… just tell me and get another celebrant. This is your day and you must choose the right celebrant to marry you”. So off they went … “oh we think you are lovely” and so on, and that night I got an email from tem. It said “Anne, you are not quite right for us”. I looked at that email and…. nobody has ever said that to me. So I went through the interview and thought … “this is interesting”. So I emailed back and thanked them for being honest, wished them all the best and asked whether they would mind telling me why I was not suitable. And this email came back saying “you are not suitable because we were looking for someone with a bubbly personality”…. Bubbly personality! I looked at these words and thought… I have been punished all my life for being bubbly and over the top… So I thought… “what has happened here?”. And I can tell you Tomas, that as I walked from that phone to that door my head went… “oh you caused your husband so much pain, you caused your children pain, you should have stayed in your marriage, the Catholic church says you don’t leave your marriage…” and in a flash across there I must have had a hundred negative thoughts about how
197 bad I was… I opened the door and I was in the wrong energy. And to me that is a very good example of what I mean. I took it on….. Andrew (Anne’s ex-husband) didn’t do anything – he always does that but I took it on. And that impacted on that couple who decided I was not right for them.
When you say you react to bad energy do you mean you take in on rather than fighting it?
Well I should have stood there by the phone and noticed my thoughts which were … “I caused him so much pain, my children suffered…” and stop them immediately and said “I release all that negativity, I embrace divine light – energy from source, I think about the sun, the power of the sun, the universal energy that keeps this whole planet going”. Imagine if I thought that when the couple opened the door! I would have shifted! Do you agree with me?
Yes, I think I do.
So I have had nearly sixty years of thinking certain way. And Jane my daughter used to say to me when I was struggling with stuff: “mom just because you have a thought, it does not mean it is true. Just because you think you made life difficult for dad, it does not mean it is true. Just because you think oh my poor children have suffered, it does not mean it is true. It is just a thought. You don’t have to believe every thought you have”. She has been very wise, very wise woman!
Can you tell me more about your New Age/spiritual activities? For instance about your experiences with the Alchemist the objects he gave you?
I think the psychic experiences have been much more powerful. The alchemist has just given me tools which I find very necessary because I suffer from nerves before each play and I would go into ego – “oh what if I forget the lines, what if I am not good enough, oh what if the audience don’t respond”… all that ego stuff. So that alchemist has given me specific tools that work for me. They may not work for somebody else. That purple wand (Anne was pointing on a glass tube with purple liquid in it) is called the “Touching Light”. I have that in a little pendant as well which goes around the neck and whenever I wear that I just feel connected to the light that dispels all darkness.
And does it work?
Yes, absolutely. I have just proved it. I have just come back from a national tour. I have never been on a stage all my life and I have done so many shows and all the reviews are just phenomenal.
Can you tell me more about these wands?
Well the alchemist in Australia – there is an alchemist in Australia who is obviously a very spiritual man and he has a deep understanding of different metals and different energies. So when I first held this “Angel of Fear” wand (a different glass tube with dark purple liquid), I was telling this alchemist how frightened I was of something that was coming up for me. I said: “I am really anxious, I am afraid…”. I think it was about the play … I cannot remember. And he just gave this wand to me to hold and I began to cry… and I cried, and I cried, and I cried. I did not cry until I got the wand though. And that released al the fear. He has got all sorts of …there are hundreds of them but I just got these ones. When I have gone into situations, particularly around when I do funerals, and there is a lot of pain and anger and anguish and judgement and people not agreeing
198 with each other and I can feel the tension the minute I walk into the room….if I have this with me and I might even get it out and just be fiddling with it – nobody knows if it is a pen or what, somehow, I don’t take on the crap all around me. I am distant from it. I am a touchy person – so these have helped me.
Recently I met my niece who is thirty two and a very successful business woman – she was in a flat and had been in a relationship where awful things had happened. And the relationship is finished and she just felt that her whole flat has somehow become sordid and awful and she asked me if would I go in and cleanse it.
Cleanse it?
Yes, cleanse the place. So I wrote a little ceremony and took these wands with me and did that.
How did you do the cleansing?
It was just by going from – using words that were appropriate what she told me had happened there like negativity and stuff – and tapping each room with Touching Light wand and Big Black hole Soak to get rid of the horrible stuff. And she had a lot of fear about the place so I just use these three wands. I got everybody who was there to have a glass of water and to tap each glass with each wand and to sip the water believing that new energy would come into them and into the place…and then tapping the walls of each room. We have been through every room in the flat and I used a lot of candles and beautiful music and it was very powerful, very powerful. She said from that day on she has never had a problem. And you could say “this is just crap”… but even if it is it worked. Someone wanted it, someone believed it worked and it worked. Someone is living it.
So these tools –these alchemic tools are important for you?
Yes for me they are because I am a tactile person. When I was always on the trip, I was on my own, it is a one woman show, I am sixty one years of age and I have to make it work. It is a big responsibility. And I knew I could not do it if I just rely on Anne because Anne is anxious by nature, gets worried, gets fearful, want to please – all those things that have been dominant in my life want to come back. And sitting down and using actual tools, something concrete I was able to have an amazing tour. And nobody can believe it. People would say “where did you get your energy from, how did you do it? We thought you would come home and be absolutely shot. And you have come home with a whole new level of energy”. I know why, it is because I focused in on all those things – the cards, the disks (these were disks one puts under a glass of water and the water is impacted by the disk), the readings, the wands... I also take Yogananda who is a wonderful guru.
So you took books with you as well?
Yes I took the self realization books. There is a yogi called Yogananda who brought Buddhism to the West. Every year I buy his diary. So I would have the diary with me and then I have these fellows here (Anne was pointing on something that looked like a long card and had several portraits on it Jesus, Buddha and others), they are all ancient yogis or gurus or Jesus here. So I had these things with me on my journey and I felt energised, I felt in presence of oneness…
The phone rang, we took another short break and the dialogue continued:
199 If we were to come back to the psychic readings and to your experience of having those, can you tell me more about it? What happens then?
Well what happens is that when she begins, she prays first that she will be open to divine energy and divine light and the right messages will come through for the person sitting there. And she gives you a pile of cards and you shuffle them, and as you shuffle them you eventually give them back to her and she turns one over at a time and only you can shuffle them. And only you decide how you give them to her. So I don’t know how I shuffle them I just shuffle and after a while I just give it to her. Every time I have had a reading with her, she says “Oh, some of those who have gone before you are coming in to be with you today”. And on one particular day I went she said “oh you have a very special guest today”… so I thought who is it? Who is the special guest… “oh it is James Lynch, he is now on a higher echelon and he is coming to be with you”, then she said “your mother has just come in and she said to tell you”… and then the psychic would say something that only my mum would know. Dad also comes in, Sister Xavier also comes in.
In other life times I have been in monasteries and I have been entrenched in Catholicism in Europe and in Britain… in other lifetimes. That has come through. And that is why I now know I find it so difficult to let go of that poverty. Because I have come in to let it go and I still chose that path to go back into the security of the convent as a child of seventeen. The things that have come out of her readings – she is not foretelling the future and saying this and this will happen, she is really affirming the path I am on. So really it is saying “believe in yourself, remember that every thought you have is not isolated, it will manifest somehow”. That has been a very strong message all the time – another words “watch your thoughts”. Hmmm…. hope, always the messages are always full of hope. Last year, one of my sisters was dying of cancer and in my heart I was hurting terribly. Out of the blue in the reading, the psychic said “be at peace about your sister because your mom and dad are waiting to welcome her over”. Stuff like that….
Hmm…. My mother said before she died “over my dead body will you ever write anything about a priest…ever”
Your mom said that to you?
Yes, she said that to me. She was sixty years; she was an outstanding woman of faith – catholic faith…
Did she know you were writing your book about your experiences in the past?
She knew I had written it and she knew Penguin Books had it and they were waiting for me to sign it…. I said to her “mom I have to do it”…
Did she know you were sexually abused?
Yes, but she said that I flirted. Because that is how they thought in those days…. So I said “mom I have to do it” and she said “no, over my dead body”. And she told my siblings… “over my dead body she will ever publish anything about a priest”. And then she died… unexpectedly. We knew she was going…I sat on her bed …saying “please mom”… nothing. She came back though the psychic. She said “I am sorry I didn’t understand, now I support you all the way, I support you with your play, I will be with you”… She came back.
That must have been a great relief for you
200 Well I had accepted it anyway that it was a part of my journey. And whether she wanted or not, or whether she died angry with me or not… I had to do it. I had to do it for my journey, for my soul, for my living… I was at peace with it. I knew I had to do it. I didn’t know that I was the first woman - ex-nun to ever expose sexual abuse from priests to nuns. It wasn’t until the book came out. I got letters from all over New Zealand …. “Was that father Andrew, because everything you wrote happened to me”… I did not know that. I am touring the country and last week these little old nuns, short like me sixty, seventy, eighty years of age came up to me crying and said “can we hold you, I have never told anyone that I was abused by him as well”. The priest had responsibility for young nuns in the seventies and eighties and early nineties. He had a field day for twenty five years but nobody believed me. Now ten years on it is almost like I am a hero. But I am no hero; I wrote what I had to write. And I was condemned, outright by everybody. My extended family would have nothing to do with me for two years! My children and my husband were fine. So that is why the psychic and the whole world of the psychic has opened up another whole dimension. I thought psychics were wrong. I thought they were on a wrong path. I judged them.
And now you believe in the psychic world?
Oh absolutely! There is no question in my mind! The psychic world… I am going to do the psychics funeral when she dies. I am one with her. I have a love for her that goes far beyond just the psychic planned arrangement. She has released huge stuff in me… extraordinary. She is a part of my soul, yeah… just amazing. So the psychic experiences have been….and it is the knowing now, the inner knowing…. Before I did things because the church taught me to them, because the Catholic Church said “this is what you must do”. Even though in my heart I felt I could not do it… I should not do it. For example the Catholic Church teaches you that you don’t use contraceptives. I was terrified to use contraceptives so I did not use them. It nearly killed me…
Just to clarify something about the psychic experiences, when you say “people come in” to talk to you, what do you mean, how does that work?
They don’t talk to me. Like in the Catholic Church we were always taught that when a person dies depending on the choices they have made in life they go to heaven or hell. All my life I could not accept hell. I did not believe in such a thing. Even when I was in the convent I could not accept that there could be such a place. I just feel that people are intrinsically good and people try to the right thing. But I met many people in my life who have had a hell of a life and who had no love and therefore how can they make right choices if they never known love? So I always had trouble with that. When I began to meet the psychic and to get to know her and began to read widely on the Buddhist philosophy which is that we have many lifetimes, it began to resonate with me. I began to see how in fact in order to grow and to become the best we can be, to become true to the inner self –I am not talking about Anne here but about the essence and soul of Anne. So in the past life I might have been called Jimmy Jones and running a farm in America and I might had to learn how to be compassionate. The next life I might have had to learn how to be a business person and how, or integrity or something. And this life I belief I have had to release stuff that I have accumulated in other lifetimes for security. Like, you tell me what to believe and I believe it… I obey all the rules. You know in my play the superior say, which is true: “If you speak at the wrong time, or if you make a noise and drop those books, or slam the door, or if you raise your eyes out of curiosity, you must be punished! You will kneel before me and ask for a penance. And you will kiss the sister’s feet”. Now I did that for years, I kissed the sister’s feet because I was bad and broke “the rules”. Even as I did those things which were part of the convent life, I had conflict with it. … How can these little things - like kissing your feet….where does that fit? ….So there were about four hundred and twenty rules we had in the rule book and if
201 you obeyed the four hundred and twenty rules you were a good person. If you did not, you were not a good person. So my journey though life seems to be to learn that it has nothing with rules. So to go back to the contraceptives… I had four babies in three and a half years and so my body is about to break and I am about to break and I am close to death, but I must obey the rule of the church which is “you must not use contraceptives”… That is how I thought. So when the day came and I said I would have sterilization I was terrified because I was breaking the laws of the church. Now I am a woman with four babies and a husband and I am terrified of the churches teaching! When do I begin to say I am responsible for my own life!
So you were still practicing catholic?
Yes. I left the convent way of life, I left the monastic life and I still stayed the catholic until 1996 when the book was published. Then I was condemned and criticize and then I began to get letters from other people who had been abused by the same priest and they recognised the pattern in the book. So I got the letters and I went to see the bishop and I said “look at this, this man is still in a position of authority. He abused me in 1974 and it is now 1996 and he is still doing it!” and the bishop said “no, our priest would never do that”. So I said “but look here is the letters” but no… and then they go on television and national radio and say that I am making it up. So I say ‘please God help me, I know I am not making it up, I know it is true. How can I go to sit in a church on Sunday when every time I go people turn their back on me”. So I stopped going to church. And even then in 1996 I was still feeling guilty because I was not going to church anymore. Then I began to thing “why would you go to church and hold onto these beliefs when it does not make sense in your life”…and slowly over time in the last ten years - through the psychic experiences which began in 1999 and the alchemist experiences … this is a new path for me.
So would you see yourself today as being a Catholic, New Ager, or spiritual? Is there a difference between what you were in the past and who you are now?
It is a very interesting question because no, I am not catholic. Yes I am on a spiritual path. But I actually was on a spiritual path when I was a little girl. I was on a spiritual path when I was a nun. I was on a spiritual path during my 23 year of marriage. There was still something about me then that is the same now. When I was kissing the feet in the convent something inside me knew that that was not important….
So how do you make sense of the philosophy and the beliefs? You have changed from being a catholic to believing in alchemy, the power of crystal and metals, you now believe in the communication with spirits and channelling. How does that fit into your life now? Is that a new philosophy or a new religion?
No, it is no certainly a religion. I am not interested in religion. A lot of it is semantics. As I catholic we were told that when you die you go to heaven or hell. And that when you die you meet those loved ones who had gone before. And you go to heaven – the word in my upbringing was heaven, that you will be happy in heaven forever. To me that language is not language I use today, but I believe when I die – and I will choose when I die I believe, I like Donald Walsh’s books (a New Age author)…. His latest book is called “The New Earth” and he says that we get what we think we will get. So if I die tomorrow, and I believe that I am going to perfect peace and acceptance and love and I have done my best on this journey and I will move to a higher echelon to begin a new phase. And maybe in time I will come back to do more. But there is no such thing as time… So I believe that all those that I have loved who had gone before – their essence of them still is. They are not Charlie Brown, or Bill Jones or whoever, but I am one with them… we are all one. We are all one and I see it more and more.
202 What do you mean by we are all one?
There is no difference between you and me at soul level. We are both part of the divine spark, the divine life. You have come in as a male and had your experiences, I have come as a female and had my experiences. But we are all part of divinity of eternity… So whether catholic churches or Christian churches use a certain type of language, Donald Walsh and Eckhart Tolle and these others use another type of language. I actually think we are all trying to say the same thing. But if this room was full of Catholics, they would not agree with that. They would say “no it means this and it means this”… I don’t think anybody knows, but there is a knowing that I found through the psychic.
So do psychic experiences give you a sense of knowing?
Thy psychics have just opened up a whole new world for me?
How does it feel when you get a reading? What is the experience like?
It is always …it’s just openness and waiting… and then she will say things. Sometimes I might think. “I cannot imagine that happening” – and she will say to me “you just had a thought that blocked it” and I would say… “Well I just cannot imagine that happening” so she would say “change the thought and believe it will happen”. So it is in the mind, I think. It is in the thought processes she has helped me most with. Becoming conscious of what my thoughts are and how they influence my life. So during the reading it is always very peaceful, and it is just … it is an affirmation I think. It is an affirmation of my journey and what I am doing. It is not like a fortune teller telling you what will happen in two months, it is not like that. It is just a spiritual experience.
To summarize your New Age experiences, would you say the psychic experiences are the most important for you?
The psychic was the catalyst for change. It was so out of my paradigm, so completely foreign to me…to be in the car with the stranger and she tells me that this woman nun is in the car… that was mind blowing. I will never forget the shock of that, that was so foreign to me… And I knew she did not make it up because I knew the relationship I had with this woman and the psychic did not have a clue, she was just telling me what she saw. So that was a turning point. That was in 1999. So since 1999 till now I have been on this totally new spiritual path. And it is exciting. So the Deeksha workshops, the card and so on are just supplementing, they are just tools. When the tough stuff comes, which it does… I will get out my cards, I will put on my favourite music, I will light a candle… so I have found ways to sit with the pain, or found ways of being vulnerable.
So when I go to speak for example to the Theosophical Society I have to talk to, this is what I will talk to them about. I will take them though my Irish Catholicism, though my years as a nun, though my years of holding onto rules and regulations in order to be good, through to the psychic. And I will tell them about the psychic, and I will tell them about the readings, and I will tell them about the intuitive stuff that comes up all the time now. I will tell them about not consciously mixing with anybody who is negative. I will tell them about judging, because if they set judgement on anyone they are wrong. That is what I think. And that about sums me up don’t you think?
203 6.2.4 Anne: Reflective Account
HOW HAVE I BECOME WHO I AM TODAY
0 -17 Years I was born into an Irish Catholic family with huge emphasis on God as Judge. God was always watching to see if we did something wrong. Fear and guilt were integral to obeying the many rules and everyday living.
17 – 30 Years My Irish Catholic background was reinforced when I entered the convent in Australia to give my life to God for ever. At 17 I was ignorant of all aspects of adult life. My beliefs about God were reinforced but softened because, "I was chosen with a religious vocation." I was taught that by giving up everything of this world I would have treasure in heaven. The superior became the voice of God for me and oversaw that I obeyed the rules -- some 400 of them. Penances and punishment were a part of everyday for minor infringements.
30 – 40 Married with children Had some conflict about teaching my children what I was taught but still fully involved in Catholicism. Tried hard to be involved in the life of the parish community. Some conflict with the church’s teaching around contraception and Sunday Mass and the sacraments. Still tried to be faithful to what I have been taught.
40 – 50 Church involvement not meeting my needs Overwhelmed by demands of life from disability and insolvency. Dad died full of fear when I was 39. Was hugely sad by his inability to accept that God loved him and would welcome him into the eternal life. Began to feel resentful about heading to go to Mass each Sunday when I was not getting anything out of it. This was of concern because of all people, I had the training to understand what the mass was about.
50 – 60 Major Changes
• Mum’s death when I was 50 - I was shocked at her struggle - I felt guilty about feeling free. No longer needed to pretend I felt good about going to mass with her. I was aware that I had been trying to live up to her expectations for a long time.
204 • Publication of my autobiography, "Beyond the Veil.” Age 51 - national condemnation and criticism as I spoke about sexual abuse from a priest. I was shocked and disbelieving in the Catholic church did not believe me and when they publicly condemned me through the media. Still tried to go to church but could not cope with the harsh words and criticism from people I had considered to be friends. I was 51 before I felt free to stop going to church though I still had guilt and fear about not going. Read a book called, "synchronicity." • Separation from my husband when I was 53 - once again old beliefs about the church began to crumble as I was judged harshly for making such a decision and causing so much pain. Though I did not go to church I still considered myself Catholic. Extreme guilt about leaving my marriage. • Unexpectedly met a 86-year-old lady called Mary Lane – she is a psychic. She told me about a guardian I had who was a very special friend and Catholic nun before she died 10 years previous to this encounter. Initially I scoffed at her but when she told me things that no one else knew I was challenged. That was the beginning of looking at the beliefs I held that no longer served me. I went to see her for a Reading and came away exhilarated, excited and shocked at her alternative ways to see things. She gave me hope where I had been experiencing despair. She did this by telling me about past lives and my own choices to experience what I was experiencing. "Thoughts are things going somewhere to happen."
• At the same time there was restructuring at school. I was aged 56 and the principal decided they did not want my programme. I was shattered, cheated and deeply hurt. I began to use different language like, light love energy abundance to give me through everyday for a very difficult year. All my traditional beliefs about God and justice lost credibility in the face of the restructuring. I began to see that I had to find my own strength and it was within me. I was given the book, "spiritual marketing" by Joe Vitale
• James Lynch died - I was 56. He had become my mentor and friend over 16 years and was a constant sounding board. I experienced grief, loneliness and aloneness that I couldn't share with anyone but I kept holding on to light, love energy and abundance thinking.
• My sister Liz was diagnosed with a terminal illness. She was very Catholic and I was looking after her sometimes - at times I felt very uncomfortable supporting her Catholic journey. I was challenged to ask myself, "what do I really believe?” The more involved I became with her Catholic friends the more uncomfortable I was.
205 • I began to see more of Mary Lane my psychic friend and I began to study books that I had never considered Reading before. I still found I was nervous about letting go old beliefs but I was beginning to feel empowered and strong as I read more widely.
• Met a caring Catholic man who was a daily communicant in his church and has been for 40 years. He was an accountant for the diocese and adviser to the Bishop. I thought if my relationship with him developed I could once again find comfort and security of institutional religion. I discovered that, "I still longed for a shared certainty, an assumption of safety, the reassurance of believing that others knew better than me what's for the best. But I had been led by the better necessities of an interesting life to value that age- old practice of the wise: doubt. There is an uneasy time when belief has begun to slip, but hypocrisy has yet to take hold with the consciousness is disturbed but not yet altered. It is the most dangerous, important, and ongoing experience of life. Beginning of changes the moment of doubt. It is that crucial moment when I renew my humanity or become a lie. Doubt requires more courage than conviction does and more energy, because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite -- it is a passionate exercise."
The deepest reality you are aware is the one from which you draw your power. To get in touch with the core of life you have to get in touch with the creative power of the universe. That power expresses itself through your personal creativity The most creative people in any field intuitively draw on the understanding that there are three forces pervading all life: creation, maintenance, and destruction. Creative people grow with full consciousness that they are the source of their own power and they have certain traits: 1 They are able to contact and enjoy silence 2 They connect with and enjoy nature 3 They trust their feelings 4 They can remain centred and function amid confusion and chaos 5 They are childlike -- they enjoy fantasy and play
60 + Release of vow of poverty - purposeful changes to my beliefs Deeksha : a divine energy transfer that activates a shift in the brain, activating a shift in consciousness a shift means change. The nature of the shift is permanent. Deeksha starts a process within the individual. It is a journey and experience that takes you back to the source of all happiness. A process we face yourself, see yourself, experienced yourself and be yourself. Relationship so fuelled, but brings out any of the false concepts,
206 beliefs or ideas you may have. That is being happy -- happy with who you are and how you are. It is about not trying to change anything. It is acceptance - it is accepting whatever is. It's being flexible. Nothing is fixed, everything is flowing moving and changing - it's being authentic. It frees you from the limitations and conditioning of the mind. It shows you what you need to see.
The ‘Travel’ concept for this Reflexive Account is the journey of my life to 61 44 years.
44 I encouraged all co-researchers to reflect on their lives freely and only offered some pointers – traveling was one of them. It is interesting to see that Anne does not see travel only as a movement from place A to place B (as typically understood by many), but perceives it more as a “journey”. The concept of traveling in Anne’s view becomes a journey through her life.
207 6.2.5 Vicki: Interview Vicki sees herself as a performer. Born in Israel, she now resides in Amsterdam, Holland. Vicki has created her own show, music, a book and various events where she draws on something she calls “womanism”. For a long time she has been interested in Shamanism, Goddess work and celebrating the “feminine”. Besides performing, and using her voice to heal people, she also employs shamanic practices and rituals to treat others. The following transcript is a result of two interviews that were recorded over the phone.
You mentioned you do healing, shamanism, womanism…can you tell me more about what you do?
Well, it is different if I work with an individual, a group or if I do a performance. But it is basically about making a connection with the spirit world and inviting different entities. The entities I am working with are animals, archangels, but I also do some specific things for the healing of a person. If I do it for a performance, I do it in a different state and before we start to perform we initiate and invite the right entities… opening the space from down-below to the upper world and cleaning it from things that are unpleasant or not pure. I am still developing it because it all started only out of my own interest. I learned everything on my own and there are a lot of different entities.
I am first an artist and work with music and performance, but the “womanism” part started after I had been personally working with my spirit guide Omra. Later I discovered that there was a strong ancestor presence when I was singing - a lot of women from my family line. Later, when I started to call on my spirit guide to help other people, or in different situations, was when the shamanism began.
What do you mean when you say you worked with a spirit guide?
We are all connected to a lot of entities, angels, guides, soul group members; we meet (again and again) in this life, in other lives and in the after life. It is the world we go to when we sleep or die and where we come from when we are born. My Omra is a guide I was very much supported by all my childhood and we are connected "from the hips". He is my best friend and I communicate with him through writing, so I can remember and let other people read. He is the wisest being I know and the funniest!
How did you meet this guide or how did you discover him?
I always new him but when I grew up he disappeared in my rationale... Then in 1992 while I was reading the book “Into the Light” by Shirley McClain, I was staying in the Caribbean and I read about what guides are and my brain blew open! When I came back to Holland I went to a very strange lady who was a medium. I didn't know anything about it. She channelled a being that was called Michael. This being Michael asked me what I wanted to ask and answered with great wisdom and compassion. Then, ... then I told him that I would like to know or meet the closest guide I felt was supporting my whole childhood and he said “I will look for him for you”. Then
208 he left and we were waiting for him (the channelled entity Michael) to come back as if he went to a big library.
Did he come back?
When he came back he said “your guide’s name in Omra and the last life you shared together in a body was in Babylon as Jewish priests/rabbis just after the exodus from Jerusalem”. We were best friends (males) and shared the astonishment of seen Babylon. Since then I chose to reincarnate often (many miserable life times) but Omra did not since.
So when you communicate with him, how does it happen? How does it work? Can you see him visually or do you meditate? How do you meet or communicate?
Then the entity Michael left the medium’s body and made room for my guide Omra to talk to me. I was worried a bit, because I was afraid he was going to be upset of me for not leading a Jewish life. But when he came through, the women's body opened her eyes and I was flooded with his presence and profound love. It is the strongest experience I have had and I was crying the whole afternoon.
I came back to that woman again when I wanted to ask Omra’s advice and then he (Omra) said to me “you don't need this woman you can contact me on your own”. I didn't know how to do that but I took a shamanic course and that was the beginning!
Later, I wanted to be in contact again with something Omra and I experienced in spirit and I started to write down what had happened and his wisdom and advice. Then I just wrote and visualised at the same time… So now I write to him and he answers me in writing and we have great discussions and an understanding. Still, what we do most of the time is fun – such as dancing. He doesn't stay in my mind all the time; he always encourages me to be light and carefree.
So did you actually learn shamanism to be able to communicate with this guide?
Yes, with all guides and entities and also with animals. Don't you think it is funny he (Omra) said from the women’s body “we don't need her”?
See that’s what the medium did not say to me… She didn't say she has the ability to shrink her being and let other entities to use it. When I asked my guide Omra about his name the women's mouth pronounced it in a funny way and he said “I am limited with the woman’s mind and physique”. If she were in a complete trance and left her body, her body would talk Hebrew and even play the piano, although she cannot. But mediums don’t do that very often because it is very demanding and they are absent from the experience.
Can you tell me more about your shamanistic experiences?
In the shamanic course the teacher was from the Native American tradition and we went to a journey, guided by her drum. I have one drum now and it is an amazing instrument not only for music but mostly for ceremony and heightened frequency.
Then someone knocked on Vicki’s door on the other side of the world in Holland and Vicki suggested stopping for that day and said: “next time I will tell how Omra was cruel to
209 me on our third shamanic journey in order to wake me up”! Before the second call took place Vicki had gone to visit her family in Israel. The following is the next phone call conversation we had:
I just came back from my village where I grew up and I treated my whole family – my grandmother, my brother, his wife, my other brother, everybody. And I also did a ceremony for the house because my family had a lot of trouble financially. My father has lost a lot of land…lots of pain. I could never really handle it before, but half a year ago I went and I did a shamanic ritual for the house. I didn’t know whether it would do anything, but there was something sucking the energy out of the house. I could see the house getting older and my brothers fighting to keep it… a lot of different things going on.
What kind of ritual did you do?
I had my shamanic drums with me and I had my frequency tools I work with. I used my prayers, my drum and I worked with the Goddess Kali to have order and a good swift action to put things in the right order. She is a Goddess from the Hindu culture. She is the one of destruction and rebirth with a very swift action. Some people are actually afraid of her, because it means using a very strong power. So this was the first time I did it and I was not sure if it was going to work, but it did. There was a lot of negative energy and I could see that this kind of energy brings a lot of sickness.
And I was impressed how open my dad was to the spirit world. He used some of the symbols and colours that I work with. So I though that was wonderful! Because when I say to my mother anything about what I do, she would come with sentences like “it is not the Jewish way”. But my father thinks that everything I do is great, so that was nice.
Last time we talked about shamanism – can you tell me exactly do you do? What happens when you do your shamanic rituals? What is the experience like?
Basically, when people say shamanism, they think about Native American way of doing shamanism which means you are communicating with the spirit world. So that is basically what it is. But every culture has connections with the spirit world. I use sage to clean the space. It is a Native American way of cleaning negative energy, but I use it also because it is practical – we were using sage in my culture, just differently.
What exactly do you do with the sage?
You have a bunch of dried sage and then you put it on fire and let is smoke. The smoke neutralizes negativity. So I clean my house before a client comes – because I work in my own house and I have two sensitive children and they pick up everything that is happening. Also, because I am working on and cleaning away from the physical body, there is a lot of stuff I need to clean and so I use sage afterwards also. I burn candles and I call my spirit guides and angels, and sometimes I work or meet with the spirits and guides of the person who comes to see me.
What do you mean when you say you meet the guides?
If I go into visualization I can see them, and if not I can sense them or I just… actually lately I think I am becoming more sensitive so I can see where exactly on the body I need to do things! My shamanic mentor once told me that I am a shaman but I had no idea what that meant.
210 Although, I had a friend who studied shamanism for four years and she said that you get information from the chakras and some people, like me, can get information also from every cell in the body. And for her, someone who can get information from every cell in the body is a person with shamanic abilities.
So I just know that if I am working with someone, I am not working alone. My hands get very hot when I am doing healing and any spirit I evoke will come. Actually, every person who evokes any spirit or guide or goddess will have their attention. But I use it very specifically to bring healing to myself or to someone. So I think that is what Shamanism is. Also, when I go into a trance – before someone comes for healing, I can just have a question in my mind about that person and then it goes a little deeper. Then I start, I prepare the area, I prepare myself, my body and my mental state and then I open the East the North, the West and the South, the Upper world, the Down world and this world and I ask all of the beings of every site to help. Then I present a question or the person or the problem, and every site will give me an advice. So I would write down all the information.
When you say you open the East, North, West and South, what exactly do you mean by that?
Well everything has to do with focus of intention. This is what every person can do. Every person with sub-consciousness can go from their consciousness and explore their sub-consciousness to open anything. This is the evolution! So when I invite other beings to come, I talk to them like I talk to any person I respect and I say “Can I please have your help” and they give you help! So that is why I prepare the house and the area I work in because it is exactly like if you had guests! Except, these quests don’t have a body (Vicki laughs). And they would answer you and help you because they have much broader perspective of the universal truth than me. It is actually also an extension of yourself, so by asking different entities you will come to much broader knowledge. But we all can do that! You don’t have to be special to be able to do that. It is just a matter of focusing and making yourself sensitive enough and trusting enough that you can feel, sense, and hear. It is a matter of training. It is a matter of training yourself to go deeper into your sub- consciousness and bring it into consciousness so you become aware of the things that happen. So for instance in the dreams that you have – you integrate them into your consciousness, you remember them, and you understand what they mean. It is like a different language which is not rational and sometimes not verbal. Sometimes it has more to do with pictures and images and feelings. I am very visual, but other people can for instance hear like if somebody is talking to them.
To come back to what you said about opening the East, the North and so forth, what exactly do you mean by that?
Well, according to the Native American shamanism, every direction of the universe has its own character and strength – the North is very different to the South and also the way the Earth is… And so when you ask for all aspects to come, then you have a complete ball of possible knowledge. Because the advice I would get from the North would be very much on the mental sphere, while if I ask from the Global World which is little bit more of the angelic realm – the information is very different. But all of those answers give you a very clear picture of what it is you are asking for or what you need to know.
So when you say you” open the East”, will you get different information?
Yes, it is different. Also every one of us belongs somewhere… You have to investigate your own self and you will find which place you come from the universe. There are many ways you can
211 investigate yourself. North people are very strong mentally and the South people are very good with feelings and others are good at doing things…
Would you also communicate with people who are dead?
People who are dead is something else. I don’t do that. But everything that is spirit can basically be communicated with. But when people die or even if people live not too far from you then the knowledge is very close to our Earth. If you want to work really deeply you can go to beings that you know that are high and above our knowledge…
When you say you communicate with the spirit how does it work, what is the process? How do you receive the answers?
I can only tell you about myself. For me, I get a sense of knowing. At the beginning I do not know so I ask and I wait and I hold within myself this kind of patience and love and focus, and then I know! It is just a matter of communication in a way that is different. Some people could call it inspiration or muse.
So if you had a client for example and you had done the cleansing with sage and started communicating with the spirit, what would the experience be like?
I would see pictures or colours. It is about intuition - many people think intuition is a very abstract thing, but intuition is about getting knowledge from other senses. You know, my daughter once asked me about a Hebrew song I was singing. It was about the moon looking at the flowers and the garden and she said to me: “Does the moon see the flowers?” And I said “yes”. So then she asked “does it have eyes”? And I said “no, it does not have eyes but it can see”. So she asked “how can you see without eyes”? And it was not about the moon but about how one can look without the eyes. So I said “close your eyes” and then I said “can you see a chocolate cake with whipped cream on it?” And then I said “now if you go to the kitchen, where are you”? And she said “hey mama I see you and what you are wearing!”. So this is the beginning of visualization which I also use in shamanism, but also with everybody I am working with. This is about entering another world of seeing. So when you go to visualization you can see a bunch of lemons and you can even smell them! And I know that there surely is an explanation of how the brain works and how it does that, but that does not matter. It is another dimension of reality and you can explore that!
You said before that it is all just a matter of training. How have you learned about shamanism?
A long time ago I did a course on shamanism – that was to understand how to use the drums and visualization, how to go to the Upper World and the Down World and to meet other beings. But my best friend was also doing shamanism and she taught me a lot about the things I didn’t know - like the After World – which was eye opening for me.
Can we briefly come back to the first encounter with your guide Omra and the experience with the medium? What happened then?
Yes. Omra said to me through the medium: “you don’t have to come to this woman you can do it by yourself”. But I didn’t know what it meant so afterwards I started to go into visualizations where I met Omra myself and we would have conversations or experiences or he would introduce me to other beings and that was wonderful! Then I noticed that if I don’t write it down afterwards I wouldn’t remember anything that happened. So I had to write it down and when I was reading it
212 to my husband, he thought it was very extraordinary and that I could do something with it. It was very interesting for a person who was not participating in it. Sometimes I would go and have experiences with Omra or other beings and then I would fall asleep and then in the morning have no time to write and then I would lose it (Vicki laughs). So now when I am going though an experience I write it down - that has been happening for the last 10 years! Omra is a very wise guide. He has introduced me to my sub-personalities.
So when you are doing this communication with Omra would you say you are in a meditative state?
No, now I can do it in cafes. It is meditative state but I look completely normal. You know, I can be on a tram and look like a normal person and at the same time ask in myself … “who is afraid to go to this meeting where I am going”? And I would see a child next to me…a part of me… I would not even look, I would feel that it is standing there and I would do a whole procedure to heal it/myself and help it. And all the time I look like I am just standing in a tram. But anyone can do it, it is just a matter of practice. Some people think you have to close your eyes, go into meditation or visualization…but after you do it for a long time it is not even necessary to close your eyes or be in a “serious” state.
Would you say you have evolved in a way that you can now do these things in your every day life, rather than going into meditation or into a different state of mind?
Oh I do it definitely on daily basis! I don’t think life is worth without it! You know you become aware of your body and other aspects and that you can manifest anything… I think everybody should do it, because the more you don’t have people behaving like victims – like life is hunting them down… When they take responsibility for whatever had happened in their life, then you get empowered people and then you have an empowered world! And I think that is the goal of all of us.
Oh, and that is what I wanted to tell you about Omra… The first time I met Omra I was communicating through the clairvoyant, but when I started communicating with him myself through visualization I would expect him to look like an older man! I expected him to look in a certain way. So my imagination was telling me he looks like an old rabbi because I knew about my past life. So then I went to do the visualization and I went to the Down world and I did the whole thing according to the shamanic ritual because I was a beginner then. And when Omra came I got a shock! The way he looked …it was not what I imagined at all. And I thought… “hmmm that is interesting”… because I thought this whole world is imagination. But it was not! I imagined him as an old, not very well dressed person with a beard and then I got this guide who looks like a very handsome Indian man. It was so shocking but also so liberating! That was another reality I didn’t expect.
And this is another thing - in the shamanistic course every time we had to have questions. We had to prepare a question about something we wanted to learn and then we were going to the Upper World to learn from other teachers or go to the Down world to learn from the animals. We chose where to go, then presented the question and then we would come back from this journey and share what had happened. So in the beginning I would meet my guide Omra and then every time I would see him I would ask him the question and he would say: “you don’t always have to ask questions, let’s go and do things”... You know, he would just take me flying and then he would be a mountain goat…. and it was interesting to see that my body would flip when we were doing funny things in the air. So I though it was funny that the physical body was reacting to when we were flying… So then one time he said “you don’t have to ask any question” and I was like “no I
213 have to know, I have to know, I have to know”! And I was very pushy because I thought I had to have the answer for this thing that troubled me so he took me somewhere and when I opened a door, there was a slaughterhouse inside and that shook me. I started to cry and I could not understand that my loving guide could do such a horrible thing to me because a slaughterhouse house was one of my ideas of hell. And when I said to him “why did you do that”? And he said “I could not get you out of this mental state…when you had to ask all the time and not just be”. And I understand it now because I know what I used to be like... And two weeks ago I had a dream and in the dram I was in a space where I could see that above me there was a slaughterhouse. It was not something I like but I could see it was there and I could accept it in the dream. And that was showing me something….
So do you think that your spirit guide Omra was showing you that you were asking too many questions?
I could not be with him and just BE. He wanted me to experience being with him – I had an opportunity for an hour to be with him and going on all sorts of adventures, but I was so locked on the fact that I had to have the answer to my question which I had to deliver to the rest of the group… I was completely stuck on this think. And this is something that has caused a lot of pain in most of my life – my adult life. And Omra always made me aware of that… you know trying to figure out something I cannot figure out.
So what do you do now? How do you get the answers now?
Now I get the answers! (Vicki laughs). But I think the mind spinning I used to be in… that was before I understood that the mind can spin to death…. You know, I sent you the story about the satsang … (This story is part of Vicki’s reflexive account)
I was going to ask you about that. What exactly does “satsang” mean?
I think the word comes from Buddhism and it basically means that a teacher is sitting with people and you can interact with him - something like a lecture. Now lots of people do satsang but the one I did with Izik was something else!
Who is this Izik?
He is a South American Jewish person who now lives in Australia. He travels everywhere teaching this message that suffering is only in the mind and that you are not the mind - and that’s it! He studied with some very special Guru but he doesn’t see himself as a guru and he does not live as a guru.
And that was in Amsterdam?
Yes.
You also told me you went to do some Goddess work in Italy.
I am now busy with the Goddess energy (Vicki laughs) and we went through Venecia to an area where there is a water spring of Maria and I wanted to go there so we did the whole trip around the area.
So what did you do with the Goddess energy?
214 I am now part of the project called the Great Mother Tour. They are eight women from different cultures and we are all singers and most of us are healers or shamans. It’s very funny - it started with a man who wrote a book about the feminine energy and he established this Maria Magdalena festival. But anyway… one of his latest books is about these seven portals so it is about going to Europe to Goddess places and looking for the Divine Mother and then to end up in Jerusalem. And we decided to turn to music and so we have become a very strong musical ceremony – performance.
So if you go to Italy what happens there? Do you perform rituals or what do you do at these sites?
Well the trip in Italy, I went there because I wanted to visit the Maria Spring because I became aware in the last two years about the Maria Magdalena energy and about the Maria mother energy. And in my culture it is completely, completely forbidden and I wanted to go and see the spring. I also am dealing with the motherhood in my book and I am also busy with the work on the mother and divine mother so it was great for me to experience it. Oh I had a very nice experience in Italy
And my children saw a lot of Marias! And I also told them “that’s the big mother”. But ah… when we were in Venice we were in Marco Polo square which is really huge and full of people…. We were about to go into the Marco Polo church and we met our friends from Israel. And then my husband Peter went to the back somewhere and it was so crowded that my son went off, disappeared... And that was very, very, very, very scary because it had happened to me two times before. I thought I was going to die from a heart attack! So Peter went in one direction, my friends stayed in the same place and I went in the other direction looking for him. And I went to the church to ask if somebody saw my son and nobody saw him…. And I didn’t find my son, and there was no chance I was ever going to find him in that huge place with thousands of people there... What happened to me, which was something that I shall not tell my mother, but the first thing that I did was that I asked Mother Maria, who is protecting all children, to help me find my son. It was really, really scary. And the moment I asked her, they found him in the back - near the entrance to the church.
So I told this story in the Goddess circle and the guy who wrote the book said “Hey, do you know this is the same story like when Jesus was lost and nobody could find him. And then they found him inside the Synagogue”. And in my case they found him inside the church, because he went in between the legs of the people… So I thought it was funny. And when we went to the water spring in Italy we saw, in this beautiful room sheltered from the sun, the Mother Maria holding a baby, and my son came there and he said “Hello Mama”. He said it to her! So I don’t know, it was a kind of connection to a motherly vision of God.
What exactly do you do with the Great Motherhood tour?
So what we’re going to do with this group is we’re going to have a tour according to the book. Um, we are forming ourselves now, but we perform a few things. And it’s very powerful. Because we are all religions and nationalities: from Chinese to Tibet, to Maya, to Jewish… And we are working for the Divine Mother, we are aware about the feminine consciousness. So that’s what we do with God. But we do it with music; we do chants. We channel some chants, and we sing them together.
When we perform people seem to be hypnotized and my husband said to me he has never ever seen something like this. We perform in a circle and the people sit around us and when we ask the
215 divine mother to come, there is such a strong feeling of mother-love… and we have people saying “it was so wonderful to see your performance because I was always so afraid of the feminine”…
Have you been to other places in terms of your spiritual development?
Actually the years when I started to communicate with Omra since 1997 – I didn’t go out of the house for two years. I didn’t go outside and I didn’t see anybody for two years, only my husband Peter.
Why not?
I had a crisis. But I developed the show, I wrote some music and I communicated with my spirits and I got to understand the power of spirits. Then we bought a house and moved to a different environment and slowly I came out… So no, I didn’t go to many places. I sort of learned everything on my own. I was mostly connecting in nature. But I have only started to do these things in the past few years. But I have to tell you that all of my journeys are completely holly places. It is only now that I start going to places that are important and mean something to me. So now I am going to do the Goddess project and go to holly places! More than I have ever done.
You say all of your journeys are holly places
Yes, in my own being and myself. During my last trip to Israel, my spirit told me I have to go to the Dead See and I thought… “what am I going to do there”? But the spirit told me to go to this specific place… And there were some amazing energies there. I did a ritual for myself because I was on my own. … It was an amazing spot by the dead see and on one side – with amazing colors changing all the time, and the Juda desert was on the other side. That connected me strongly to spirits. And I bathed in the see – there were some amazing energies in the mud as well… Some time ago I read a book and your spirits and angels are much easier to communicate with when you are in nature… and I read that a lot of information from these beings comes from the oxygen molecules! So when you are in a fresh air it comes to you more easily.
Then Vicki had to go and wished me good luck with my thesis.
6.2.6 Vicki: Reflective Account For her reflexive account, Vicki send me the following four essays:
I believe that our capacity as people and therefore as artists depends on our spiritual growth and that the quality of the message deepen if we are able and are willing to face our inner most fears and to touch and acknowledge our shadows. Without that there is no real growth and trying a new dance or acting class doesn’t do it, if you are already a professional. My own most defining moment was with my newborn baby in intensive care. That period was one of the most challenging in my life because of a few crises that happened at the same time and I look at it now as the time of the ultimate test for everything I have learned.
216 In short, there was a moment when we believed our baby could be disconnected from the breathing machine. I was with her when the good nurse asked me to leave and to stay in the parent’s room until they would call me when the painful proceeding will be over and whether she did or didn’t make it. I went away with a heavy heart worried for this little 10 days old baby who already endured so much trauma. I was alone, my husband had to work and all of my family is in Israel, and it was one of the many procedures we experienced everyday.
I sat in the parent’s room; a lot depended on this moment. We faced a lot of opposition. Before that, we had realised that a mistake of the doctors almost killed her. I decided not to ignore my intuition anymore and to help her in my own way. We added additional care, which we believed, would support her, and when we did she almost immediately woke up from her near-coma. This in itself was a very big lesson for all of us, but it made some doctors very uncomfortable. Now, my people and the nurses believed she could make it but the same doctors were very much against it. So I prayed for her strength and success.
I stood in the barren room alone and I could not bare the pain and the tension I felt. I started to sing. I don’t know what I sang but it came from the bottom of me, I sang because that was the only way I could continue breathing, I sang with tears and in prayer and for the first time I became one with my voice. I didn’t think about other people, I sang my heart out to save her and myself until they called me to tell me my daughter made it. Later I realised that singing too, is sacred and it is a pity to human powerful spirit to use it just for entertainment. Since then I renewed my commitment to my inner truth and I wish that everything I do will be with meaning and honesty. I want to live my daily life and do my work as a performing artist and a writer in sacred.
A STORY OF VOICE
My mother says I started to sing before I could talk, but in my childhood my voice was always a “problem”, I was very often hoarse and sometimes could hardly speak. My mother took me to a specialist to check my vocal cord but he didn’t find anything physical. I have noticed that after every school trip, competition or games I would be without a voice for few days. How frustrated I was. I tried to harness my outburst of enthusiasm but sometime I could not.
One day at a birthday party in my village I was not going to strain my voice, but the party was slow and boring and I felt sorry for my friend. I started to engage the children in songs and games until it became a fun birthday. Off course I lost my voice for few days, but for the first time I did it consciously and discovered the
217 power of it. Most of my extended family is blessed with amazing voices. My wish to sing was ridiculous, I was a dancer like my father and I performed often. When I tried to sing, my mother usually complained that I give her a headache.
One day on a Saturday afternoon, there was nobody in the house. Soon it would get completely dark and the Shabbat will leave us, the men will come back from the synagogue and everybody will be home. I entered the big empty bed room and I sang for myself free from restriction and opinion. I don’t know why I remember that so clearly, maybe because I felt this deeper connection I know now as the present of the spirit world. There was an opening for new thinking and new possibility. My closest spirit guide Omra always taught me to see beyond what I was told and when I sang I heard him better.
When I was 16 I joined the school band and started to be introduced to new kind of music. My voice was limited and I lacked control, I took years of voice development classes, with different teachers and with different methods. But real evolution happened with opening to new consciousness. When I was 18 the foundation my life was standing on broke down. I was scattered to thousand pieces. My body was often ill and suspiciously, every time I needed to sing I had a throat infection.
Now I can see that trying to be a good vocalist was completely parallel with my own personal growth. I had problems with breathing; my body was full of pain and I only breathed shallow breaths. To use my voice I needed to be an open channel. I was full of blocks, I could not open, I could not let go, so I could not go further. My whole body was showing me the signs when I come to a cross road. Always suffering from inflammatory inconveniences, I found understanding and help in methods that help me to be free (instead of being medicated). The more ways I found to clean my body from traumatic memory, the better my breathing got and my voice had improved. The deeper I went in knowing myself, knowing my pain, knowing my history, the better mastery I had over my voice. The more conscious I became about my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual body, the healthier I got, and the better singer I became. For me who lost her voice so often and suffered so often from infections as a result of frustration, I feel I found my place in the world and some peace of mind.
My voice was always very low, I could sing bas tones, but high tones didn’t exist. Training my voice and working on my self gave me more range and it has kept expanding. After the birth of my daughter and her long stay in hospital I started to use my voice in a new way. I started to chant as part of meditation and for communication with my ancestors. When I was giving healing treatments I used my voice and learned about the impact of frequency on the physical body.
218 When my performances and my song writing started to include both aspect of songs and chant, extrovert and introvert, feminine and masculine, I felt it was time to expend vocally. I looked for a new teacher. This time something else happened. As I was riding my bike in Amsterdam (God/dess bless a sunny day!) my spirit guides were showing me the body as a hologram and how to use my voice with light and my energy field. I had to try it while I was training. I find it interesting to not only use the voice, body, legs and charkas but also the whole energy field we have around us, in a spiral including everything we are, and still experiment with it. I believe we should all sing for health, liberating and discovering that it IS a wonderful journey. I recommend it to everyone.
HOW THE MUSIC WAS BORN
It was one of the times that I called out to the Great Spirit. In that meditation I did something new: I opened my mouth and let my voice participate in what had been my silent prayer. A chant was born. I, who worked hard for good lyrics, and valued them, too, found myself in a world beyond words. I found in there an enormous space for expressing what could not be contained by a translatable word. When I recorded some of my songs, I added the chant as a prayer. The enthusiastic reaction I got for it surprised me and confused me.
A year later, while developing the music of the Sheba project, I made an amazing discovery: Yemenite popular music is men’s music. The music I was searching for was the song sung on my wedding day. That, apparently, was women’s music and I couldn’t get recordings of it. I discovered that while men sang in biblical Hebrew about love and God, women were singing their secret music in women’s ceremonies and their songs were about birth, death, love and initiation. Sometimes they were very erotic songs (but don’t tell anyone I told you so!). They also sang in Arabic, which was the language of their daily life. That realization brought a memory to mind. My grandmother, Shadra, was making the special shabath bread and was humming a song. I was a young girl; I asked her what she was singing and whether she could teach me, but she just blushed and giggled. When I asked my mother: “what’s the secrecy?” she smiled and said: “maybe it was because this was a woman’s song”, and that I was too young for it.
Since then more chants came to me in meditation and I let them come. I honoured them. I started to see that unconsciously the ways of my ancestors were coming through me and I needed to give them a place. When I was asked to give a workshop about Arab Jews, I was happy to share the extraordinary stories of my family. When they asked me to sing Yemenite songs at the end of the event, I was not sure
219 I wanted to do that, but I agreed. I went through great emotional turmoil in the preparation. When I asked myself what is it I don’t dare to see, painful memory came to mind.
This originated in an experience I had when I was 17 in Israel. I failed an audition on the grounds that I sang Hebrew songs instead of music from my own heritage. I was deeply insulted that they only saw the fact I was from a minority and did not see my abilities and me. There and then I cut the music of my culture from my artistic life (until it popped up again in meditation). I concluded that if I followed my culture I was going to be trapped in a tiny ghetto in my country’s cultural scene. I didn’t want that at all. Actually, I become terrified of it. That day of realisation, I took Yemenite music to the dance rehearsal room and made my peace with it. I let it come through my body. I danced and sang my childhood songs with tears in my eyes, inviting, through visualization, the disowned part of myself to come home. Since then, the sound of my music started to come together, and I feel that there is no more contrast between songs and chants, east and west, old and new, introvert and extravert.
SATSANG WITH IZIK SHAPIRO.
The first time I visited satsang, I was just curious. I heard Izik talk about the here and now and I new he can teach me something I didn’t get yet. So I went to satsang where he invited anybody to sit with him and ask a question or share an observation. They called it “meeting in truth”.
Being there gave me such a peaceful feeling that I could not identify its source and I was captivated. I went every single evening he was visiting Amsterdam, for two weeks. He was talking about our mind creating illusion that kept us in constant resistance with what is, which creates suffering. This idea was new to me, later the book “the power of now“ of Eckhart Tolle would teach me the same issue but Izik didn’t only talk about it, he let you feel it until you see your own mind trickery. Every time another person came to tell their story with many questions, you could see what they could not see, be amazed about it, and then discovered you where doing the same thing in your own way.
Then I understood what was happening in the space, the satsang made my mind quiet and I could see in what mental noise I was living. On the first night I sat to ask my question, I was sure he would not find a solution to this enormous pain. But he asked me “who are you”? And I could not answer; I said I can not see it. And he said: “It can not be seeing”… the people in the room obviously heard it before, they where smiling at me with amusement. He was guiding me to feel myself beyond my
220 body and my mind until I found myself expanding to universal IS. He called it “that one who is aware”. That felt strange and peaceful and I tasted it. Experiencing BEING beyond the limitation of our mind is liberating experience, and I kept coming every night for two weeks.
Every person brought his own universe, and the verity of the people and the problems and the culture and attitude made the satsang to be the best, surprising theater I had ever seen. Evolving with this satsang I could see that every character exists in us so when we didn’t like someone or look down at somebody, all it showed is our relationship with ourselves. That made my work with my Sub personality deeper and more profound. Every time a person will treat Isaac as a guru, he will turn him back to himself, with love and humor. People came with terrible stories and trauma but they would leave with a shining face. I have learned a lot about my own resistance parts and my holding on to struggle. I kept going every year they visited and I m still grateful for satsang with Izik Shapiro.
221 6.2.7 Julie: Interview
Julie lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Before we met and agreed on her participation in this research study, she informed me about her interest in Out-of-Body travel and confirmed that she has had many such experiences along with many New Age interests. Although the information she provided in the survey indicated she was a highly appropriate participant for this research, I didn’t really know the extent of her knowledge and skills until we met and discussed that in detail. Julie has completed Reiki training, “self development” courses, she has belonged to spiritual circles, and has undergone training in Magnetic Healing. Apart from having a number of New Age items such as books and tarot cards, Julie also performs “house clearing”, which she explained as helping “trapped” spirits to move on. Although I focussed mostly on the phenomenon of Out-of-Body experience, the interview covered a variety of topics as I followed the natural flow of the conversation rather than trying to pursue rigid interview guidelines. The following interview took place in a Café and took over four hours.
Can you initiate Out-of-Body experiences yourself spontaneously?
Yes, I can. It sort of happened by accident. And I realized I have been having Out-of-Body experiences all my life. When I was a kid I dreamed of flying and stuff. I was like an angel. And then when I started to meditate I learned a lot about myself and I was actually trying a meditation about which I red a book at home and all of a sudden I felt being sucked out of my body. That was the first time I did it on my own…the first time I realized I could do it. I have been out of my body half of my life (laugh). As I child I would go out of my body a lot.
So how long have you been doing this spontaneously? How many years?
Probably nine or ten years. I sort of realized I was standing outside of my body …that sucky feeling… I was doing a meditation where you feel yourself really drifting, like if you are… like going through a mattress and you feel being sucked out. It is really hard to describe but it is like being sucked out and then I was standing at the end of my bed… and I thought hmmm, OK!
And could you see yourself lying in bed45?
45 The concept of Out-of Body experiences is interesting for it highlights the fact that this term can represent anything. It is “some type” of experience (as of being in the world) that is meaningfully interpreted/made sense of by the co-researcher. In this instance I do not in fact know what that experience is like, for I have never had it (that I know). It may indeed be something we all have (a type of dream state) but based on the information provided by the co-researcher I cannot say that I have experienced anything of this nature. Thus the question is: How can a researcher (myself) make sense of something that is so abstract – something I have not and cannot experience. I can
222 Yes
So what does it mend to you? What do Out-of-Body experiences mean to you? Do they have any special meaning? I thought when I first started doing it …I have been on few trips and I thought, hmmm…I wonder if the whole family can do this and we could go on a holiday (laugh)? That would be quite fun! And so I did take with me some children. They wanted to do it… my kids and some other kids when we were camping.
And did you managed to take them (Out-of-Body) with you?
Some of them... Some came out and some didn’t. Kids are really amazing they just do things. There was one boy who was half in and half out of his body and I held his hand and said “come with me you will be alright” and he went off! So I took them to the pyramids. And this little boy had a sudden experience where he opened a door and saw a lady … he is a little deep little boy (laugh). So that was quite good – the kids enjoyed it.
So doing/having Out-of-Body experiences now, do you do this for a specific reason?
I don’t do it for a specific reason. I just went through a stage of doing it and experimenting with it and popped out of my body pretty much when I wanted to. Because I have been doing it all my life…. I didn’t actually realize that I was popping in and out! So I actually have had to work on being grounded and try to stay here (laugh).
Did the first experience scare you?
No I just thought… OK!
Was it a pleasant experience?
Yes, and the more I looked at that, I realized I was out of my body. But there are also different types of being Out-of-Body. People get rally sick, get high temperatures and can pop-out of the body then. They can be in a lot of pain and pop out of their body… I was sexually abused when I was about four and I had repressed memory, and when I started meditating it came up all the time. So I did a workshop and thought … I will se what happens… and I saw myself out of my body looking at myself. So I must have popped out of my body then – to escape the pain. But there is no pain when you are out of your body.
I have other people, clients, who have been very sick…a boy who was really sick with kidney problems, really sick, high temperatures… and he said he has had experiences like that…Out-of- Body experiences. Also people who are in an intensive care… like recently there was someone in intensive care I knew, and my dad rand me up and said “Can you send him some healing?” so I
only trust and rely on the co-researcher’s experience/s and his or her ability to tell me (from her point of view/her understanding of the experience) what it is and what it means for her. Both the co-researcher and the researcher making sense of the experience by the tools available to them (i.e. language) and draw on culturally known concepts such as the “body”, “travel”, “movement”, “flying” and so forth. Furthermore, it is important to reiterate that the experience is not necessarily of New Age character - it is meaningfully associated/interpreted as such by the researcher and the co-researcher (Julie described her self as a New Ager – although her meaning of New Age may be different to the researcher).
223 said “Yes”. And then I said to him “He is out of his body. He is not actually in his body!” And when my sister was really sick she was Out-of-Body too.
And you could see that?
I would put my hands on her and I knew she was not in her body, she was out.
So can you feel if someone is not in the body then?
Yes. I was sitting at Tech (Manukau Institute or Technology) one day and there was a guy sitting cross-legged next to me on his chair, and he was floating above the chair and I was like … “Come back to your body!” (hahaha).
You could see him floating.
Yes, that was when I was doing my counselling papers. It is really hard to explain… At an early age I knew that if I really thought about someone I would know if they are ok, and I was actually really scared of it. It also has been a real struggle with my family… they though I got in with the wrong crowd! 46
I myself have been trying to have Out-of-Body experiences but found it really hard – impossible to get Out-of-Body. I have red many books but I could not get out. Although I tried many, many times…
So you felt something holding you back? There must have been something holding you back. I haven’t actually red a book about it, I just did it… Sometimes, I think there is something inside a person that makes you scared which blocks you.
Well, some of the books I have read warn you about going Out-of-Body because it can be dangerous, so it is possible that I was afraid.
Why? I tell you what I believe. I believe that you are always protected so nothing can ever go wrong. I believe in God, and believe that nothing can hurt me. I am protected. I am not scared of the devil. Sometimes people ask for protection when they have an Out-of Body experience, but then you believe that you are not always protected! Do you know what I mean? I have actually come across spirits who have tricked me or looked like a certain person and I thought something wasn’t right… But that was part of my learning… They can’t hurt you. They can’t hurt me…if you just believe you are always protected. Only when I have other people… like with the kids… when I took them with me I had to be really careful to protect them, but I don’t worry about myself. I am fine. With other people I am more careful. Especially with children!
46 These experiences made me think. How can we ever understand something someone else experiences? How can we ever understand something that is so “out of the ordinary” – so distanced from most people’s daily lives? There may not even be words that could describe what happens when these co-researchers reach the states they describe. We are completely at the mecry of interpretation and culture. Moreover, it seems impossible to me how researcher could ever offer his interpretations with vigour or validity. The New Age phenomenon therefore proves to be useful in regard to raising complex issues as to understanding and the ability (or inability) to to “truly” describe something and produce “trustworthy” knowledge.
224 At this stage our coffees arrived and Julie talked for few minutes to the person who brought the coffees. Julie said “This is Victoria, she is the person who used to run the Circles” (these she described as spiritual development classes). After few minutes Julie continued:
With my Reiki, different things have happened. I would be giving people Reiki where they need it and I would get a message to give them a massage - thinking I don’t know how to do a massage! You know, different people come in – your spiritual guides. Certain guides come with me all the time and others have long moved on. So I had different people coming in, so it just depends… sometimes I do spiritual surgery…where I had my hands inside of people and manipulated peoples colons and thought in my mind “Ooh…their colon is blocked I will manipulate it… get it moving!”. You know…and they would go “OUGH! What are you doing?”… I am just putting my hands on you and manipulating your colon (laugh). But they could really feel it! So sometimes people would come for Reiki and I would channel someone who has passed over you know…
So you combine different knowledge you have acquired?
I just try to stay open and let whatever is the best thing for the person to come through. Like, I don’t specifically…unless they come and say “This is the problem can you help me with this”, but it is usually better just to be open. I have had things opened (pointing to her forehead)… it felt like Egyptian feminine healing and the energy came out of my Third Eye in different colours. It felt like Egyptian healing. I am sure I have done that before in my past life….that’s why it spontaneously happened one time when I was giving someone a healing.
I also have a friend who does Reconnection which is about an energy grid that goes around your body. I see it gold –but she said she does not know anybody who can actually see it (laugh). She gave me a Reconnection Healing and when I would give people healing it would start popping up around people…
What do you mean by Reconnection Healing?
It’s about energy grids. It is in the book The Keys of Enoch. The grids go around your body – there are energy lines, similar to an Aura. The lines go horizontally and vertically. And if your charkas are really healthy they connect to the energy grid. The energy grid connects you to the outside – to the universe … the planets… My dad, for instance, has a really bad heart and all around his heart area, the energy grid is very wobbly and funny…
So you can actually see it? You can see the grids?
Yes. She gave me a healing once and I didn’t know anything about it but I just saw this energy grid popped out. And to me it looks gold.
So when you looked at your dad, you actually see these energy grids?
Sometimes it pops... It doesn’t always pop-up. When I give someone a healing it can suddenly appear and I can see it. I had a couple of clients yesterday, and with one of them I did some work on that. There is a guy in America who does that, and he is a chiropractor and people would come to him in a wheel chair and walk out walking! He is the guy who started it.
225 So going back to the Out-of-Body experiences, how do you prepare before you go Out-of-Body? Do you do any preparations, any special techniques?
I just close my eyes and do it like that (laugh). Because I have been doing it for so long, I just take a few deep breaths and let go.
So do you meditate or…
I can do it without meditating now. I have meditated every day for ten years – religiously every day and then all of a sudden I got to the stage when not much was happening, but I could actually do it even while I was driving a car!!!
Given you can do it just by closing your eyes, do you think that time matters – with respect to your practice and the number of years you have been doing it?
Yes. The first time I didn’t know it was happening, I just red a book about that meditation and it happened. I didn’t know that would happen. I just tried it and found myself … like my spirit was sucked out. Now I don’t actually feel it any more. I think that was the only time I felt that. I was in the meditation… drifting… and sinking through the mattress… and I though ooh, OK! I didn’t actually consciously do it. It just happened. I popped in and out and didn’t really know… But after the meditation I started working on it more and started consciously going to places like Hawaii - to swim with the dolphins! (laugh).
What kind of meditation was it? What did you do to get out of your body?
The main thing was…I think that what made me go out of my body was just drifting and being weightless and like… if you are sinking through your mattress…
So you focused on sinking through the mattress and then it happened?
Yes. And I was sinking weightlessly through the mattress …
And now you can do it just by closing your eyes?
Yes but that’s because I have been doing it since I was a kid, really.
Can you tell me what happens when you go Out-of-Body? What do you experience?
You can do anything you want. You can go and see anybody, go and visit anyone...
Can you see yourself being Out-of-Body?
Yes. Maybe you are just beside your body… I was thinking when I am Out-of-Body and swimming with the dolphins for instance, I can feel things, being in the water, see and hear things. … but am I actually in my body or beside it? (Julie asks herself a rhetorical question).
With your first experience - being sucked out, did you see yourself lying in bed?
Yes with the first experience yes I did see myself lying in the bed. I was standing at the end of the bed. And than I though this was a little strange. I was a bit nervous and scared to go too far. I had
226 a walk around my bedroom I think, and I wanted to go out of the bedroom window… and I didn’t. I was nervous. But later on, I realized I have been doing it all the time as a kid…
So when you are out of your body you can actually feel you are OUT of your body? What happens then?
Yes… and you can also get back straight away. If my husband walked in the bedroom door I would be back in my body.
So distractions, sounds and so forth make you come back?
Yes, straight away. I am just trying to think…. I guess it is sort of like your mind is still in - where you are meditating from - and it is your soul that is gone. So it does feel different. Normally, like now, your mind and body and soul are here, but when your soul leaves - your mind is still in your body. So being Out-of-Body feels different than now. There is little part of you that knows you are out of your body. I think that’s probably what it is …your mind is not in your body so it can sort of feel you are not right in your body.
Have you experienced anything extraordinary while being out of your body?
I had a real thing with the dolphins for a while… They gave me a crown.
The dolphins gave you a crown?
Yes. When I first started meditating I used to hear dolphins calling.
Previously you mentioned Hawaii. Did you say you would go Out-of-Body and go to Hawaii?
Yes. To swim with them
And you could feel the water and feel yourself swimming etc.?
Yes … holding onto a dolphin. It was lovely (laugh)!
Have you ever had an experience when you could confirm what happened – check in the “reality”?
You mean being out of my body and being seen? I probably have. Kids are usually very receptive. I don’t know, I don’t really visit people…I only visit people when I am asked to do a healing but I am more of a people person and focus on how they are feeling. I don’t worry about the surroundings. I see other people who come and visit me. I tell them to go away…
You tell them to go away? Yes…. When my sister died, I took her over. She waited for me.
Focusing on Out-of-Body experiences, can you choose one that stood out most for you? Perhaps the most important one or maybe the most recent one you have had.
I don’t actually consciously do it that often any more because I don’t really need to. But it would probably be the experience with the dolphins. When I am out of my body I just mediate, or listen, or go and send healing so I don’t actually… I am finished playing and with the travelling.
227 So the Out-of body travelling doesn’t interest you any more?
No, not really. I could have if I wanted to. I am busy doing other things now. It is a journey, so you work on this for a while and then on that... Like, I have clients who come and have kidney problems and people who have back problems…
Would you go Out-of-Body to work on these problems?
I can do, but I now usually try to channel energy and just try to stand back.
You mentioned you can also go to different planets. Can you tell me little bit more about those experiences?
I have been to quite a few different ones. There was one experience, where I actually went for a ride on a space ship once…. (laugh) on the outside. I also sat on a star, and one time I went to a place where these people looked like people … but… and I felt I needed to give them some help. I think they had problems with water supply. So I did some healing on their planet.
How did you get there? You got out of your body and how did you get to the planet? Do you remember the travel?
I can’t remember. I think I might have just meditate and gone on an energy path and just…sort of being there.47
Did you consciously want to go there?
No, not consciously. I ended up there. Then there was another planet where the people were orange. More like the traditional…. long arms, quite long and slender, and I gave them a talk (laugh). It sounds really silly… about love, and caring for everybody in their community. Ha hahaha (laugh).
Was that a different trip?
Yes, different trip, different planted. The other ones had that elephant trunk – like elephants. These were orange people.
Did they look like humans?
No, they were very slender. Small head, long and slender arms… quite tall. The orange beings I saw quite a lot of when I was meditating… for quite a while, but I haven’t seen them for ages. I also had a Pleiadian guide. I have done quite a bit of work with Pleiadians lately. They are taller and they are blue.
Taller than the orange beings?
Yes taller. Although they were similar - probably 3 metres tall. The orange ones were about over 6 foot tall. And I have seen some other ones as well when I was healing. The first time I saw
47 This is another example of the difficulty of making sense of something without being able to experience it. We rely solely on the co-researcher’s interpretation. Experiences such as Out-of Body travel serve to prove the point.
228 some aliens was because people would talk about them…..and I was like “I don’t know if I believe that”... And I sort of went like “Well if that ever happens to me and I see them I will then believe it!” …And then it happened! I was giving someone a healing and little short puta coloured ones appeared. Sort of dull grey coloured ones... They were chunky and small…about 30-50 cm tall. And they came when I was giving someone a healing one time. They didn’t actually came up to me but I was like “oh gosh there is some aliens”. I actually have just said “If I ever see them then I will have to believe in them”. So it happened! And then I though “Oh what do you feel like” and one of them came over and I put my hand out and I could feel their energy. It was very gentle and if I was going to see the energy it would be zigzaggy …and they were very soft and gentle. Different. Smaller, and not very intrusive.
You mentioned that when going to the planets you did not consciously want to go there you somehow ended up there.
Yes. I didn’t consciously go there. I started meditating and waited to see what happens.
Did you consciously go to other places?
Yes I have. I took the kids to the pyramids… I went to Hawaii to see the dolphins…
What happens during the journey? What happens when you get Out-of-Body? What is the process?
I just think “I want to go to the pyramids”
And you are there?
Yes, you can do. Sometimes I fly. I saw myself flying beside an airplane. Just going along… beside the airplane. There must be something in my mind that though I needed to fly.
Would it not take too many hours to fly all the way to Egypt from New Zealand?
I just flew beside the Airplane. That was actually when I went to the Hawaiian trip. It didn’t take hours.
So you just saw yourself flying for a while?
Yes and then I was there.
When you are Out-of-Body can actually you feel things?
Yes you do feel. It is like spiritual feeling. Like when you are meditating. It is like …sometimes you can feel pain too. If you are experiencing something - like you are working through something that was painful – you can feel emotional pain. It can be quite painful and you burst into tears.
Is it similar feeling like if you were in your body?
Yes, but slightly different. I think it is that your mind is not actually in your body so you are experiencing things on a different level. Because when you are in your body your mind takes over and it goes like … “Oh you are feeling like that because…”. While when you are Out-of-Body,
229 you go along with it more. You don’t have a mind that is constantly saying… “oh don’t be silly” or “that could not happen to you” etc.
Would you say you live through the feeling more?
Yes you do. There was one time when I first started meditating and this past life kept coming up. It was stuck in my aura because it was really nasty. Every day, for about a week, every time I closed my eyes and meditated I went through that life… and it was really painful … and I had to get up and take a shower…
Was that while being Out-of-Body or during a meditation?
It was a meditation but sort of like …you are living it out. You are another person. I was in England I don’t know how long ago but it was when the witch hunters came. I was young. And I lived though part of the girl’s life until I got hanged. They tortured me. I lived through it. I would be like “uuughh….”. I think that’s why I was hold back in this life because I was scared. I think there was a part of me that got scared that it would happen again…
So have you visited your past lives as well?
Yes spontaneously. This one was really intense, it was horrible. I must have been out of my body because I am just someone who pops in and out all the time anyway. I was actually in the girl’s body feeling the pain. It was so intense… It was awful. They didn’t even show me the torture…I actually popped out of this body while I was experiencing this past life. I was in this dungeon… I think they pulled my teeth out and there was a lot of blood around my mouth. It was horrible. Really horrible...
I have also seen a friend of mine in her past life… and these men were hurting her and I said “Stop it!” and they heard me and turned and looked… So I think there are some different timelines and things can happen simultaneously and I could virtually see what was happening to her then. And they saw me!
So do you think time does not exist?
I think there are different time lines. There must be…
So when you are Out-of-Body do you have thoughts? Can you think?
Yes, you just decide you want to go somewhere and go. Like, I decide to go to Hawaii and ….. you know I remember when the dolphins gave me the crown and I though… “What are you giving me that for…”.
What do you mean by they gave you a crown? With hands or how did they give it to you?
No. They used they noses. They would go to the bottom of the see and pick it with their nose. They didn’t talk with their mouths either. I just heard them in my head, like telepathic communication…
Can you tell me more about the trip to Hawaii?
230 I was lying on n the beech enjoying the sun and then the dolphins were out in the water and I was like …I am going to go swimming with the dolphins and I did! We swam for ages and this moon came up over the water….
Have you been to Hawaii physically before?
Only at the airport when we changed planes.
Do you think you could find the place where you were in your Out-of-Body experience?
I can still see the beach, but I don’t know… That would be interesting wouldn’t it! I could go to Hawaii and say … “This place looks familiar”. I think that would be really neat…(laugh) … if I went to Hawaii…
What stood up for you most during this experience?
It felt really lovely. It felt very, very nice. I guess I was at the right place at the right time having this beautiful experience with dolphins
Did you experience anything special inside?
I suppose the special thing is being at the right place at the right time. I just felt right. It felt beautiful. It felt lovely. And the connection with dolphins… I have a feeling I am going to end up in Hawaii. I am going to go there and learn something there. It is only my list. And the pyramids (laugh).
Did you experience any bodily changes during this experience?
I think you are connected to your mind but not body.
So when you are Out-of-Body, do you have another body or how does it work?
I saw myself as a body. I was in the water as ME – swimming.
So you had your body and you - the physical body was lying at home?
Yes. You just see yourself as a body.
Just like you physical body?
Yes.
And do you feel and experience things as you would normally do?
Except it is slightly different because …. I think it is something to do with your mind. It’s like… when you are meditating, you are at peace. You are connected to more things. When you leave your body behind, you don’t’ take any notice of your actual body. Does it make sense? … You are more connected, more knowing about things. You don’t have that mind going saying “you can’t do that”. It also feels better because you are where you are meant to be… it is the connecting thing. You know, it is the …anything is possible as well. When you are Out-of-Body you know anything is possible. You can go anywhere and do anything!
231 At this stage the first side of the tape finished and we took a break. We ordered more coffees and by now both talked very openly, like people who have known each other for a while. We stretched our legs, and when we came back to sit down, Julie continued:
Tomorrow I am going to do some work in this hospital… There are souls that have been trapped. I need to go back there… they had the hospital blessed but the souls moved to another area that they don’t go in the hospital.
What are you going to do there?
I am going to just make it easy and ask the souls to leave.
Ask them to leave? Yes. I am also using it as a bit of a thing for other people to come along and experience it is as well. There is a lady that is in a wheel chair and can hardly move, and now that she is lot sicker she actually sees auras and things… So she has been quite interested and I have been to visit her a few times. So she is going to come, and I have got another friend who has done Reiki and she wants to come… and another friend who does a Reconnection work wants to come as well. There is another lady who has been working in the hospital for twenty two year and she has never been able to go to this part of the hospital in the back. When she goes in there, she feels like she has been smothered! So for 22 years, she has not gone out there… It has been a general hospital, then a baby hospital, and now it is old people’s hospital.
So you thing there are some souls trapped?
There definitely are! Can you see them?
Sometimes. I used to see a lot more … clearly. But the trouble with seeing is that it is like with life …not everybody is good and there are some souls that are naughty! (Julie laughs)
Naughty souls? What do you mean by that? (I laugh as well…)
You know, they will pretend to be somebody else and play tricks on you. I used to see very, very clearly. But if you just see, you don’t actually…. They could be projecting something, they could be projecting something to you that is not really real. So you would think and take it for what you see, but what is really important, is that …I had to learn…. I don’t see as clearly because they make me use my feelings… to feel what is actually happening. You know how in life you can have a mask on your face but underneath the mask there will be many things going on, things you don’t tell people. So spirit has taken away my seeing …. to make me use my feelings. That really is the most important thing – what you feel about somebody. What you feel is true! What you see could be an illusion…
So how will you do the cleansing? Can you tell me little bit more about the work you will do in hospital?
I will help them to move on. You know the astral travelling is like – the astral plane goes into the Earth and some of it is above the earth… So some people are stuck. People who died very quickly, or had unfinished business and things like that… they stay here instead of moving on… constantly repeating things (the souls).
232 So where is it they should move on to? Where should they go?
It is hard to explain. Apparently there are different levels. You know when you astral travel you can think of something and go there, so it is hard to explain HOW you get there, but there is a path or light…
So do you think they go into light?
Yes. I actually – with my sister who died, I held her hand and took her up this light and then let her go when I knew she would not get lost. I did not want her to get stuck… I just new she would be ok. That was just the place where she stepped over to the next journey.
Do you think you could go further into the light as well? Was there anything preventing you to go further?
I could not. It was just … I didn’t feel like I wanted to go any further. It felt like this was the right place to go to. But…hmmm…what was preventing me? (Julie asks herself and thinks for a while) …It was like you stepped over this… this energy thing, and I could not go…
You could not go?
No. Sometimes you feel like that there is places like….there is a place in the centre of the Earth. There is like a sacred centre and there is all these crystal and these little people that work there and I was meditating one day and went there and I was standing outside and I could not get in. And they made me change my energy so I could step through and now I can go whenever I want, but I actually had to change my energy the first time I went.
Four weeks later Julie has sent me an email reflecting on the interview and included more information:
I been thinking about the question you asked me "what it was like when I took my sister over to the other side and couldn't take her any further?" It was like standing on a doorstep of a charcoal colour (sort of like dark empty space but with other colours almost shining through and with distant movement). There is a barrier that stops me from getting through that is like hard sponge, a little bit flexible. It feels like I would have to push with all my strength and struggle as hard as I could to try to get through, but there is also a feeling inside me that this is a far as I am to go, moving any further forward is not for me. There is no feeling of being pushed away and yet the second I take a step away I rush back down towards my body. I also know that when I ascended with my sister that there was a certain amount of space around us so that my sister would not be scared and that at a distance all the angels, guides, masters, loving beings that God had sent to answer my prayers were ascending with me and supporting me.
The interview continues:
233 If we were to go back and talk little bit more about the hospital work and helping people to move on, what exactly will you do there? What will happen?
This is different. I do it differently. With my sister I had left my body and she actually waited for me.
So that was an Out-of-Body experience?
Yes. I sat in her room and went Out-of-Body. She was waiting for me …she said “I was waiting for you” and I said … “common I will take you”. A lot of the time there is the Angel of Death…
The Angel of Death?
Yes. They help people go. So with my sister, I called upon every angel and master I knew, everything that I knew to come…. But she was like “NO, I want you…”.
So you can see the Angel of Death?
Yes, I could see the Angel of Death for a long time.
How would you describe it?
Dark, dark hood, dark clothes and a scull underneath …bones underneath. But the most beautiful…it would almost be a bit scary... But when you feel him, it is the most beautiful loving being you have ever felt. Really beautiful! Even though it might look a bit scary, it is really beautiful!
Can you see this angel in your physical body?
Yes, I have seen him in my physical body.
So you would go to a hospital for instance and see a person dying and the Angel of Death would be standing next to them?
Sometimes… It is different. With my husband’s dad for example, I knew he was dying because there was a lady waiting in the corner of the room. And I was like “Ooh he does not have much time” and I was scared to tell my husband… Another time for example I just had a feeling … “she is going to die soon”…. And sometimes you see the Angel of Death with them. And sometimes… I saw a man who was dying of cancer and his aura was very, very grey, and I thought … “he does not have much time”…
So with this hospital work, what will you do there?
Because I am taking other people with me, I have to be careful about the protection thing… Last time I did it, I asked God to come and put his light around. And actually you have to put it quite a long way around the hospital because there is quite a few spirits and some of them it will try to get out of it and go under the car park and into the ground ….. And so I put a lot of light around, and then ask God and my guides and angles to help these souls to move over! And we hold hands with other, and I ask them to visualize it as well. And I talk through it…. And the souls are all around you…
234 Could you see the souls moving?
Actually I could feel them too. Sometimes you see them moving and sometimes….like I could feel them climbing up my back last time…. And sometimes you have to talk to them (the souls). Last time, there was a lady with a baby and I think she killed her baby and she was scared to leave because she thought that God would be mad with her for killing the baby. So I talked to her a bit….
Talk to her in your head – telepathically?
Yes, otherwise I might scare people. (Then Julie laughs)
It sounds like the shows you can now see on TV! The psychics who work with police or Colin Fry48 …
Yes but I don’t think I would be very good at that because they are quite detailed and stuff but I focus more on the soul and the person. To me it is more important that the person is ok. Not a long ago, I went to someone’s house and they were worried about their little girl having a lot of nightmares. She has slept in a room where the father slept when he was little, and he had suffered from depression so he thought that maybe it was him… He though she (the little girl) was picking on his bad vibes because he said he used to lock himself in his room and was very depressed. … he though it was the bad vibes he had left in the room… But no! When I went along, I actually found there was a little spirit in the house! There was a little boy who had been killed in a car accident and he would come to this house… The little boy would be very scared and at night he used to go and sleep with this girl and that’s why she had nightmares. Yes… this little boy was sleeping with her because he was scared with anybody else, because everybody else was too old. The girl was only about six, which was his age… So I more focus on making sure that people are ok.
Interesting…So to finish about your Out-of-Body trip to Hawaii, did you experience any changes?
No, just the experience… you are richer for the experience… and the feeling of being with the dolphins, connecting to the universe… you know it’s more a spiritual thing, there is no change to your physical body…
Would you say it was a spiritual journey then?
Yes spiritual journey.
Are these journeys important to you?
Yes they are. It feels beautiful, it feels like you are doing the right thing, at the right time and the right place and having the connection with the dolphins was beautiful. When you are out of your body you don’t actually have to do …you don’t have to be a good mother, and you don’t have to make sure the floor is vacuumed when somebody comes, and all that sort of thing... You don’t have to cook dinner… you just be… You are yourself, there is no pressure and everything about you is OK. Do you know what I mean? You are just where you are meant to be and everything is
48 Colin Fry is one of UK’s most famous mediums. He has a TV show called “The Sixth Sense” where he selects a few audience members and “connects” to their relatives/family members who died. This show was also very popular in New Zealand.
235 just right! So having this feeling is beautiful. It feels really, really nice. When you are in your physical body your mind tells you you are not so good… and I have to do this, and have to do that, and the kids need me…and somebody has hurt himself and I have to give them some Reiki… You know what I mean? This is just time for you. So it is really lovely! Everything about you is ok!
So there is no pressure.
Yeah, there is nothing you have to do. You are connected to everything. And when you are connected to everything you know more… everything is right with the world.
When you say you are connected, what do you mean by that?
It is like if you go…you just feel you are connected to your guides, planets…energy… everything is at your fingertips. People talk about the Akashic Records49…and when you are out of your body you can just go there… just like that! So you can do that if you want to, or you can go zipping along the corridors…
So when you say Akashic Records, what do you mean? How would you describe them, what is it?
A big library. A great big library. It is so big that you like… zip along the floor… and you say I want to look at this and you zip along – sort of like you travel really fast past all these rows of big bookcases. And you stop somewhere and there is table there, and you say “I want to look at this at this time” and the book will just open to what you want. That’s what happened to me anyway.
Do you mean you can travel and see into past times?
Yes. And have a read about it!
Did it look as a normal library?
I didn’t see the outside of it. I was just standing in the doorway and there would be these rows and rows and rows of book cases – really high ones. Big wooden, long book cases. And I was like “I want to have a look at this” and so I zipped along really fast, past all these things, and stopped at a certain place and there was a lectern and this book was just there, and it opened at a certain page. And you would read in the book?
Yes, but the reading was different as well. It was there but you just knew in your head… that sort of mind thing. I also ….I was meditating once with a green light and all of a sudden I went to this
49 “The akashic records (akasha is a Sanskrit word meaning "sky", "space" or "aether") is a term used in theosophy to describe a compendium of mystical knowledge encoded in a non-physical plane of existence. These records are described to contain all knowledge of human experience and the history of the cosmos. They are metaphorically described as a library and other analogues commonly found in discourse on the subject include a 'universal computer' and the 'Mind of God'. Descriptions of the records assert that they are constantly updated and that they can be accessed through astral projection. The concept originated in the theosophical movements of the 19th century, and remains prevalent in New Age discourse” (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashic_records)
236 place where there were these men at this table and they were all green. It was the Green Mist of time. And they had cobwebs all around them, and they said to me that I could go there whenever I wanted and have a look at the past or at the future as well. That just happened to me one day.
That is a different experience from the one in the library?
Yes, completely different. It was like a group of old men. They were sitting around a big oval table and they had cobwebs …like they were old. No one had been there for ages. They were old. So every now and then if I want to know something or give someone a healing, I would go there and say… “can you have a look at this…can you do that…”. But I haven’t done that for ages either, but I went through a certain stage when I did… It just happened one day when I was meditating. I was focusing specifically on the colour green… When you are out of your body you are much more connected to all of those things.
More than in a meditation for instance?
I think I leave my body when I am meditating now…
Have you ever felt any different upon returning to your body?
Well you feel different in that fact that you had an experience. If you have been doing something that has been a bit sad, you would be sad. Or if it was so crystal and beautiful, you would come back and think … “uaaaaa this was good!”. Yes… and your kids are having a fight and you just think … “never mind”….its ok, everything is great (and Julie laughs).
Would you say you feel different energy wise? I mean when you return to your body – for instance after coming back from your Hawaiian trip?
Oh yeah! You feel fantastic. But sometimes, if you have been through a journey…like if you have been somewhere and people have been hurt and sad, or someone’s spirit was really unhappy, you will come back and sort of feel sad, hoping they will be ok...
Have you experienced any physical changes in your real body?
Sometimes I would come back and feel lighter. If I have been out of my body and let go of something I might feel lighter. And sometimes you can come back and feel heavier. If you are still maybe working on something, like the experience where I was tortured and hang, I could not stand that... It was really long… Morning after morning, because I was meditating every day and it would happen every time (the torture)… That was really difficulty and I would come back and think “God…” it was really difficult. It was a sad feeling. I think it is more emotional stuff though, than physical… But I suppose you can feel the physical pain as well…like real tightness… When I am worried I get tight around my solar plexus. So you can carry that around until you work through it. One time I felt like someone was actually stabbing me
Stabbing you?
Yes. It was really, really painful. I tried to move it out of my body and it was very painful. I cried a lot.
Do you mean you would get stabbed in your Out-of-Body experience?
237 Yes, it felt like there was a knife.
Do you think Out-of-Body experiences affected others in your life?
Well I have taken those young children on the astral travel.
And they could see their experience...being Out-of-Body?
Some of them. It was quite a big group. There might have been about ten kids. And some of them were quite giggly about it… I talked them through it. I said… “just see your body”… and the kids are so open… They don’t have any fear of things. They asked me to do that!
So once you left your body, could you see them leaving their bodies?
Yes, some of them were already out. And there was one who was half in and half out so I helped him and told him “I take you with me”. He was like half out of his body… we were in a tent and I was looking down and I just hold his hand and he came with me...
And you took them to the pyramids?
Yes, I asked them what had happened… and you know some of them made something up…you know they wanted to go along with the others. The boy whose hand I held …he had his own experience. He ended up where there was door, and he opened the door and there was a lady and she said something to him…
Has anything changed in your life after having these experiences?
I think as a child I made a world out of my body. Because being in body was not so nice. So I think a lot of time I was out of my body. That was like a safe place I could go to. And as an adult, I learned about myself and it made me feel better about myself. When you are Out-of-Body you feel so good. You are doing the right thing… Unless you are specifically working on something like that past life, which was really yuck…
I was also a native Indian in the past life. These two Indians took me and showed me this past life I had… I was a medicine man, I think. I had like grey longish hair, and these man on horses came with guns and they were shooting everybody in our village and there ….there was like …the tents were over here (on the left) and there was a river and they came down on a bit of a slope, and they were shooting! And I came out of my tipi (Julie laughs...) and I was watching it and then I got shot in the neck. But I though it was an arrow because I didn’t know what a gun was! I was like …I went like this (Julie tries to grab an arrow in her neck) and tried to grab it but there was no arrow… I was surprised. I did not know what a rifle was. I fell over and watched people dying. And some lady came running along, holding this baby boy, and she got shot and fell down and I crawled over and laid on top of the baby so they would not come over and kill it… And apparently that was what these two Indians wanted to show me…that I saved the boy’s life. To finish talking about the Out-of-Body experience, what would be the main reasons for you to have such experiences? For fun?! You can go for holidays for example… (Julie laughs).
Then we continued talking for another 2 hours, ordered yet another coffee and discussed different meditation
238 techniques, compared her and mine experiences and ended up a very pleasant experience.
6.2.8 Julie: Reflective Account
When I was a child I knew that I was different. I saw my Mum, Dad and three younger sisters together in a yellow light. I was on my own in a blue light. I didn’t know what it meant – just that I was different. I felt lonely and unconnected to them, I thought there was something wrong with me.
One night when I was 14 and sound asleep facing the wall, I woke with the feeling that someone was standing beside my bed and had leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. I rolled over and there was a tall blue man standing beside my bed – I was terrified. He looked at me for a few seconds and then turned around and walked away through my bedroom wall. Eventually I went back to sleep and later woke with the feeling that someone had lifted up the blankets and got into bed beside me. What was happening was scary but whoever it was felt gentle, kind and like they loved me. I tried to talk to my Mum about this incident but quickly came to the decision that I shouldn’t talk about things like that. After that I tried to push things like that away – I put a wall up.
I left home at 16 years of age, went to Tech for one year, worked for two years and then travelled overseas for two years. Came back to New Zealand, worked for a couple of years, got married, worked for a couple more years and then asked for a child and gave birth to my son Jason. I started to feel the love of God and a connection to more than just this physical world. As I got older I realised that I had always had a really good gut instinct about people and situations and that if I was worried about someone and thought about them I would get a feeling about whether they were okay or not. And sometimes I had visions and saw things in my dreams.
One particularly strong memory was when I was having a shower and started to think about my husband’s father who was in a rest home. I felt him fighting for his life. I hadn’t known that anyone could fight that hard for life. When my husband came home I told him to phone the rest home to see if he was okay. He was told that his Dad had a bad turn that day but that he was okay now. Then a few months later when we went to visit him I saw a lady hovering up near the ceiling at the end of his bed waiting for him and I knew that he would die shortly – and he did.
239 I asked for another child, became pregnant and then we moved to another small town. I gave birth to my daughter Katie. (Looking back with what I now know, I asked for both my children and they were given to me on a golden ray of light. We have been together in past lives. For example, at first I didn’t understand why they were so fearful that I wouldn’t come and get them from Kindergarten because I had never not picked them up. Then while meditating saw a past life where they were my children and I was drowned in a dunking chair, leaving them on their own.
Sometime later I was invited to a crystal party, while I was there a lady looked at me and said that I used to be a Gypsy. I asked her how she knew that and she said that she had seen a Gypsy lady step out of me. I thought what a strange and interesting thing that was to say. The lady who had told me that ran meditation groups and I went to one, but didn’t understand a lot of the things that they talked about, so decided to join a meditation class that was Community Education run. The first time I went a lady told me that Horus was with me. I asked her how she knew that and she told me that he came in with me and when she asked him who he was, he had replied “Horus”. I learnt to mediate to music, colour, mantras, stones, guided meditations etc. One mediation we did was go to the underworld to meet our power animal – mine was a bear, she told me that I love my children, work and then hibernate and am ferocious when I need to be. On another occasion we were mediating to music and I saw myself as a young Indian boy (approximately 13 years of age) in the mountains standing at the top of a waterfall looking at a spectacular view where the stream flowed down a mountain. I dived off the rocks at the top of the waterfall into the pool at the bottom, as I was coming up from the bottom of the pool I could see sun glinting in the water and there was an eagle circling overhead screeching. I felt wonderful, free, at peace with myself. Another time I saw myself as an older Indian man with long grey hair dancing and chanting around a fire, I had a stick that had three claws (possibly bear claws) attached by rawhide to the end of it. I was ripping my chest with it and then I changed into something like a cougar, but it wasn’t that type of large cat. It was night, the moon was shining down through the fir trees, I (the large cat) was walking with four legs, a peculiar four legged rolling gait, I could smell the loamy earth and had this strange metallic taste in my mouth. I walked to the waterfall that I had seen previously and waited in the scrub until a deer came to drink, then with my mind screaming no, jumped out and bit the deer in the neck killing it, and started to eat it. Then walked back through the trees to the fire and came out of it. I started to mediate every morning at home and have learnt about myself, my fears, charkas, auras, past lives, travelled to other planets, met aliens etc. I realised that I have been astral travelling all my life and that I have always talked to the wind. I remember playing with the wind when I was 4 and 5 years old.
240 When I first learnt to mediate, I was meditating at home and this past life came up, it seemed to be stuck in my aura. I was a young girl of about 15 years of age, living in England. My mother was worried about me because local people kept coming to me and asking for healing. She spoke to our Minister about me, he said that he would help. The church was built of grey stones and had an earthen floor. The next Sunday during service he told the congregation that I needed his help and asked me to go to the front of the church where he had my hair cut off to teach me humility. He then locked me in a low stone storage building that was situated between the church and the Ministers house. He would visit me there to “help” me but forced me to have sex with him. My mother came to visit me and I promised her that I would not heal others any more (I would have said anything to get out of there). She took me home and people kept coming to me asking for help, but I said no. After a while I couldn’t stand saying no anymore and said I would help if they did not tell anyone about me. It was mostly women who asked for help. One evening I was warned that Witch Hunters were coming and tried to run away, but got caught. I was put into a cage that was shaped like a high dome with a flat floor that was on the back of a flat cart. It was difficult and embarrassing when I needed to go to the toilet. Soldiers followed on foot behind the cart. I was taken to a prison, arriving when it was almost dark. I think I was tortured because I was out of my body looking down and saw myself lying on a large stone slab in the middle of quite a big room with high ceilings. There was blood around my face (I think my teeth may have been pulled out), there was a queue of men in front of me. At the top of the stairs by the bars a man was standing looking down and I could feel his compassion for me. Then I was in a cart with other people going through a crowd of people who threw things at us. Our hands were tied behind our backs, it was difficult to stand up. We stopped in front of a gibbet, I was hauled out of the cart and pushed up the stairs of the gibbet, I could hardly stand and had to be helped up. A cloth hood that covered my eyes was put over my head and then the noose. When the noose tightened I tried to struggle for life. A beautiful yellow light came to me and told me to go with it, so I did. This life came up day after day and was very difficult to look at. It is part of the reason that I am scared of my gifts.
I went for a reading with a psychic while I was still learning to meditate. On the morning I was going to see the psychic I was nervous and not sure if I was doing the right thing. I was having a shower and praying to God to let me know if I was doing the right thing. I felt this hand come down and take all the stress out of my head and knew that it was the right thing to do. The psychic talked to me about how all things have energy, I did not know what she was talking about. She also told me that I should learn Reiki. I knew nothing about Reiki, but found myself on a course learning the First Degree. I saw Jesus while I was having my first attunement and when I put my hands on people saw colour and then started to feel where people had pain – I felt the pain in my body. For six months after learning
241 Reiki First Degree I had different types of colds, including sinus which I had never had before. I also got eczema on my fingers for a few weeks which I had never had before. My Reiki Teacher told me that I was having a clearing out. Learning Second Degree Reiki was even more interesting. My dead relatives and some other spirits surrounded me, my Grandfather was there and he apologised to me for telling me off when he died – he had wanted to die at home, not in hospital. A naked baby boy with a shock of black hair sat on me and came home with me for about the next four months. He didn’t talk, but loved it when my two children and I snuggled up together, one under each of my arms and he would sit on my knee. One day he just left and never came back. I started giving people healings, all the time learning more. I learnt Third Degree Reiki, then Reiki Teacher. After Reiki Teacher the top of my head was very hot, huge amounts of energy was travelling down my spine, my back kept going out in two places, giving me pins and needles in my right arm and quite often a lot of pain. Eventually I got used to that amount of energy and this has not happened since. I have now learnt Reiki Master/Teacher and love teaching others this wonderful medium for self-growth and healing.
While I was learning Reiki and how to meditate, I also joined a Circle, which is a group of people who get together to share and learn. Together we prayed in whatever way we wanted to, sent healing to others and the planet, explored different mediums eg, auras, healing, tarot reading etc. One evening I was giving another group member a healing and a golden coloured spirit asked me to wait outside her aura, which I did, then I was directed to put my hands on her chest over her heart. I felt my hands sink inside her body, then my hands were resting on her heart – I could feel her heart beating in my hand. The golden spirit had his hands under the heart – it was amazing! The person having the healing felt this too. Another time we were all giving a lady who had cervical cancer a healing. She had a son who had committed suicide and I could see his spirit and he talked to her through me and I could hear what his mother was saying in her mind to him. This sort of occurrence has happened to me a lot. Another time 2 red Indians, one with a feathered headdress came to see me and asked me to go with them. They showed me a cluster of tepees by a stream. I was in one of the tepees at the end of the village. I was an older Indian man with long grey hair. I heard strange noises (gun shoots), came out of my tepee and saw white men on horses with guns came down the hill on the other side of the stream shooting indiscriminately at people in the Indian village. I was shot in the neck, put my hand up to touch the arrow (did not know what guns where or what they did). I fell to the ground, a women was running towards me clutching a baby in her arms, she was shot in the back and fell to the ground. I crawled over and used my body to cover the child so that it wouldn’t get hurt. I heard in my head “The earth was full of tears and the river ran red with blood. Songs were sung”.
242 I went to Manukau Technical Institute to learn counselling because people wanted me to tell them what to do and what I heard, saw and felt. You have to be very careful about that and I would rather help people find out about themselves and make their own decisions about what is best for them.
My abilities grew to the stage where I could not be in a group of people because I felt too sick. I would be walking down the road and would feel and see things about strangers. Often if I tried to tell people what I knew they would get angry because they were not ready to hear what I had to say. I did not know what to do with what was happening to me, so asked that I know just what I need to. Now I sometimes see things spontaneously and turn on when I want to. I am still working on perfecting this as I think that I may have blocked too much out.
These are just some of the experiences that I have had which have lead me to where I am now. It’s still work in progress.
243 6.2.9 Catherine: Interview Catherine lives in California, USA and considers herself to be a New Ager. She has been involved in different activities, from visiting UFO space ships, to past life regression, clairvoyance and Out-of-Body experiences. When I first spoke to Catherine who at that time was seventy-nine years old, she said she had tried many New Age things in her life and now mostly focuses on sharing her wisdom with others. She sees herself as a New Age teacher. Catherine mentioned that she has many transcripts of her Out-of-Body experiences which she would like to publish one day. In mid 2007 she emailed me to inform me that a publisher is the United States is interested in her stories. Catherine sent me an email in March 2007 to inform me that a publishing house is interested in her stories and her book should come out soon. The following is an email I received from Catherine after advertising for participants with New Age experiences:
My name is Catherine, I am 79 years old, live in California, and just found your name in the August issue of NEXUS magazine - a wonderful magazine I read from cover to cover. I have gone Out-of-Body many, many times throughout the years. I am one of the lucky ones who can go far out into new realms and bring back wonderful stories. With my husband giving the commands, leading me around and asking the questions I have visited very interesting societies far, far away, have chatted with the people on board some huge spaceships, been shown around there and have tried to describe some of the people so my husband could draw them in pen/ink... I would love to find out what success you are having with your research and am more than willing to help in whatever way I can...”
I then contacted her and the following is the interview that took place:
You mentioned you have had experiences with UFOs, Aliens, Out-of-Body experiences, past lives and so forth. I would like to find out more about what it was like and what you experienced.
Well I have a whole book of stories of my visits on a couple of space ships – Out-of-Body. My husband was asking me the questions so he let me around on the ship and I described all about it. He guided me inside… and the people that I met and that staff was very interesting and we did a lot of that at one time. I have a whole book on that…is that something that would fit into your thesis about what I saw and experienced at these space ships?
Absolutely, if you still have some of the stories I would like to learn more about your experiences as you lived them. Can you tell me little bit about it now?
I don’t really remember everything though…
Maybe I can ask you a few questions?
244 Ok, you ask me, it will be easier.
You mentioned you have done Out-of-Body travelling, how or when did that start?
Basically, it came naturally in a way. I have the ability. I was living in the mountains at that time and I had a lot of time on my hands so I would go to a meditative state and my husband would start asking questions and then my Higher Self came in and we talked with him for quite a bit… And then one day he says (the higher self) “I have a good friend on a space ship and he would like to meet you”. So next time I went into the meditative state and found myself on this huge spaceship somewhere out in the space. I walked around and talked to the people and described everything I saw.…how they communicated with others, their dining rooms, and their recreation and so on…
You were on space ships?
Yes on one of the big – huge space ships. This was fascinating and I can remember very, very clearly, like I could even feel the carpet under my bear feet and I could feel the air around there. So somehow I have a good ability to move into that area and be there very much alike.
So when you go Out-of-Body you go into a meditative state? Or how does it work?
Like I said, I would lift from the meditative state where my higher self was talking to my husband and took me through a lot of training to let go of fears and then he told me he had a friend on this space ship that wanted to meet me. So I was out there… it came very easy to me and we did this two to three times a week in the evenings, it was fascinating… all of this.
So when you were Out-of-Body could you literally see everything?
Oh definitely yes. I could see all the colours, I could talk to the people – we talked mentally – but I don’t thing that the other people could see me there, which means that I was in an invisible state of course. I had no problem seeing details and everything. And on a different spaceship I described everything that I saw – about the people, how they dressed… there were gone for years on this space ship so they had music areas and they had areas for the children to play… and fantastic things they all had there. And I have it all on paper and I hope that some day somebody else can read it because it is fascinating…
Would you like a couple of stories about my visits to the space ships?
That would be great!
Ok I will email them to you.
The literature I have red about Out-of-Body experiences talks about people having experiences where they could literally see themselves lying in bed while floating– they could see their real body while floating above it. Have you had similar experiences while being Out-of-Body?
No I have never been able to do that50. I was very disappointed in the beginning that I could not turn around and see myself lying on the bed. But then I found out by reading one book that there
50 This suggests that the interpretation of an Out-of Body experience and what it means differs across New Agers. What is interesting form a constructionist point of view, is the fact that unless
245 are three types of experiences of being Out-of-Body. Some people can turn around and see themselves, and they can only move around in that local area. Other can go a little further and travel around the country and see things, but I belong to the third group that can not see what we come from but we are free to go way out where nobody has been before.
So when you travel, is it more like a meditation or meditative state?
Yes, I just get really relaxed inside, turn my focus around and then I am there…and then I can begin to describe what I see.
So you would think about a place and then suddenly appear there?
Yes, exactly.
When you say you can see and feel things what do you mean by that?
There are a lot of emotions there …. Oh I have to go back and read my stories again… I don’t remember everything. But like I said, I feel that I am there I can feel the carpet that I am walking on with my bear feet, I can feel if I am on a planet, I can feel the wind blowing my hair and the moisture in it and I can hear birds and so on. So it is actually like being there completely but it is more being in a mental state rather then the physical state. And when I come back I used to be spaced out…It takes a little while before I can return completely to the “now”. So it is really a deep state of meditation if you would call it that…
How long would it take?
About half an hour to focus on “today” again
How long would you spend in the meditative state?
Oh that could be less than an hour and sometimes it is two hours. Depending on where we were, eventually I would get tired as I told you in my story about September 9/11 (Catherine has sent me an email about what she saw in her Out-of-Body experience when people died in the incident on September 9/11) It was tiring …so you then feel like you are getting drained about it so you retrieve back where you came from.
When you say it is tiring, what do you mean? Is it exhausting to be in this state?
It is mentally exhausting because you are bombarded with so many emotions, feelings...like the people in 9/11 – the minute I looked at them I knew all about them. That’s another thing that you automatically do – the minute I looked at a person I had the whole story in my mind… why they were there, where they were going to, and so it comes in that way when you are in that state. You pick it up right away.
Coming back to the space ships and aliens, you said they could not see you?
both person X (co-researcher) and person Y (the researcher) experience the same phenomenon, person Y may never comprehend the experience of person X – I the same way person X understands it him/herself.
246 The people I talked to I am sure were in the same Out-of-Body state that I was, I communicated with them. But I know there were also other people around us and they were not aware of me being there. So the person I visited on the space ship was Out-of-Body as I was. And as I said, I would walk around, I could smell and feel things.
Do you remember the space ship at all? When did this happen?
About 15 years ago, maybe 10 years ago… They tried to tell me that space ships don’t have to be cigar shapes to travel through space.
A cigar shape?
Well that’s what we used to think of them… the big oblong things. But you can move in the space anyway you want…it does not matter. You just simply put in the compute where you want to go and you move… but I could not understand that…
Do you know where you were?
No (laugh), far away from here. They told me that they were at that time parked on the other side of the moon so we would not be aware of them here on the planet. But that is some time ago and I don’t think they are still there.
Do you do these things now as well?
Unfortunately, I have not been doing it. I have been taking care of my husband who is not well, and it is going downhill. So I have completely got away from all that. Now all I do is look into my family members and tell them what I feel about them. And I can put my fingertips for instance on a picture, and can feel into that.
What exactly do you mean by that? Would you say you have clairvoyant abilities?
I can do that too, that all comes with the story.
Can you tell me more about your clairvoyant experiences then? Have you done any training or learned how to do that?
No, it all comes in the same package. Once you can do one thing, you can do all of them. I can tune into people or animals and plants and they too tell me all about how they feel, what they need, whether they are happy... I can do it. I can put my fingers on them and do it.
You just place you fingers on the picture, plant or animal?
Yes. The minute I place my fingers on the picture, emotions start to flow my way and I know what they are.
So what exactly happens in the process when you place your hands on the picture or a plant?
I get feelings or images. Either way, it is like opening a door and all of a sudden you get emotions and feelings… you know them, they are in you.
247 So how do you know the difference between your emotions and the emotions of the other person, animal or plant?
Well, I used to do lots of readings when I was working at the fair. People would come in and I would hold their hand or they would bring a picture and they would want to know why they married that man, what is going to happen and so on… And you can even find out what their past lives were. I have done a lot of this…
You mentioned you worked at a fair, what did you do there? Did you work as a clairvoyant?
Well you would sit at a table and somebody would come over and hold up their hand and then they would say “tell me this and tell me that, do I get that job, and so on”. And right away I knew what they should do. And they would go away smiling. So how did you develop those skills?
I did that for a while in the beginning when I went to the metaphysical church. That is when I learned how to touch things and pick up the information. We had classes when you would get an envelope with something in it and had to sense what it was…all of those things. That is where I learned how to contact my guide and how to let go of the barriers. I also learned about crystals and if you focus on them you can be helped by them.
Can you tell me more about the experience with crystals?
I think I found that I can feel ok on my own. I learned though my guides and my higher self and what they put me through …about healing, letting go of hang-ups and failures and beliefs and all that. And I think I am strong enough and I don’t need to hang onto a crystal.
Do you still go to these communities or churches now?
I have not been involved in any of that for some time. As I said my life has changed to other areas and now there are so many books and so much information on the internet, so I am getting really into it again. It is so fascinating and you think, you know…the world is in a mess, so why not, let’s try something new….I have a daughter that I am emailing back and forth because we both read the same books and we have to discuss them, what we feel about it. We are ready to go any time.
Go where?
Wherever. We are not quite sure about what, where… what will happen in 2012. Are we going to stay on this planet? We are reading a book that is called “The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce” written by Wynn Free. And they talk about spirit called Ra that used to be the spirit guide of Edgar Cayce and there is a lot there that we like to read and talk about. It is fascinating when you open up to all this, because there is so much that we have never known about.
Would you say this involvement in the New Age or spiritual things/activities is important to you then?
Oh, definitely. I have five daughters and we discuss things and we all progress in our own way… You form your own life. Since I don’t have a nice new car it is because I didn’t program for a nice new car some time ago. Now I don’t really need a car anymore, I live in downtown…so obviously I don’t really want one. Are you writing all this down?
248 I am recording it and I will transcribe it later.
If you like I will email you more information later.
That would be great, thank you.
Why don’t you look at what you have now and I will email you more information later? If you have more questions we can talk again.
Because Catherine could not recall the details of her experiences (such as being Out-of-Body, visiting UFOs etc.), we agreed she would send me the copies of some of her transcripts of Being Out-of-Body, visiting UFO and meeting her Higher Self. This seemed to be the best way of acquiring further information about the nature of Catherine’s experiences. Following is the information Catherine emailed me:
For Tomas.....
The very first thing I wanted to achieve when I finally accepted messages and images in my mind – - was to communicate with my pets... So, on a Sunday morning, while I was still in bed and Daffy (my Siamese female) was on my chest purring, I decided to try something new…Mentally I visualized a scale (like the one on the radio where we move a marker form station to station) – maybe this way I could find her area… I slowly mentally moved the marker and – “It surely took you long enough” - came Daffys’ voice, distinct and very clear. WOW….. That was not what a cat should say but it surely convinced me that I had made the connection… From that day on I communicated with all our pets and learned a lot about their lives, likes and some of their complaints…
A VISIT WITH OSO
My HS (Higher Self) told me that one of his good friends, called OSO, wanted to meet me and show me around on his big space ship…This was to be my first trip out into the ‘void’ to actually, in my OB state, start to roam way out into the universe, to visit many interesting planets and their – so different – lifestyles.
I found myself standing by a banister in a wide, airy hallway. The banister surrounded an opening – about 35-40 feet across – and looking down I noticed two more open levels below me…People passed by and did not seem to
249 notice me. (So I must be invisible to them). Most were dressed in lovely loose, free flowing pastel coloured garments – got the impression those were women as they chatted and laughed on their walk.
Was thinking about OSO and wondering where we would meet…and here he came walking toward me. About 5,7 in height, very slim, big eyes, no hair and dressed in a one-piece tight fitting garment in a blend of blue/green material. We greeted and eventually I was shown around on the ship. As we passed the dining area he pointed to a table where a group of people were having an animated discussion while they were eating their meal.
What he wanted me to see were the small brightly shining globes freely suspended over the table. “You order as many of them as you need for the meal and they are under your command. You can move them around as needed. When leaving the table you turn them off with a few words, they sink to the tabletop to be removed until next time you need some illumination for a meal” Our sightseeing tour now continued
We also visited the exercise rooms, but to me, the most interesting area was the ‘racetrack’ situated near the bottom of this huge ‘cigar shaped’ ship. In a small, free floating one-man ‘cart’ you would race against your friends on this huge oval track where obstacles were constantly changed to make it so much more challenging… Was also told that they were near our planet to watch our progress and could step in if needed….
HAMBIA
Hambia’s people were very different from OSO’s who felt a bit more – refined – referring to their style of clothing, their likes and ways of decorating their areas. Here they were more relaxed, casually dressed – if I can call it so… A bit taller than myself, in fact looking a lot like us - except – they had an all over coating of very, very short, silky hair…The only garment they wore were a short loin cloth and bare feet as all floors were carpeted. Around their necks they all wore a beautiful intricate gold chain with their standing signified by a colourful gem imbedded in it.
The higher you were in command the wider more elaborate the chain was with several colourful jewels now imbedded in it. Their ship is shaped like a child’s top… Very wide at the top and bit by bit tapering down to a point. Down the centre of the ship was a huge free-fall area. I could only guess the size of it but believe the height must be at least as much as one of our
250 14 story buildings. The width could be nearly half of that. Bright sunlight streaming down from the top area… This area was for everyone to relax and play in. Games, exercises were done there or just finding a spot along the edge to sit on a bench and chat with a friend. All along the edges of this huge area, in between huge glass areas forming walls of public areas were trees, green bushes and a myriad of beautiful flowers. “IT really makes us feel more at home,” – Hambia told me with a smile….
They have great bathing facilities open to the ‘garden’ area, a small park with free flying birds where the small children meet for lessons. A secluded studio for creating or painting and where visiting performers will entertain, sing or play instruments. Way up towards the top was the area where all communications took place. They did however not rely on anything mechanical for sending/receiving messages. This was all done by an elderly group of men who did all the communications with their minds. “We have found it is much more dependable to do it mentally than rely upon machinery. Over long distances it is faster and clearer this way” …Hambia explained as he showed me around.
6.2.10 Catherine: Reflective Account
My name is Catherine; I was born in Copenhagen, Denmark and come from good old Scandinavian stock. I am 79 years at this time. Looking back on my life I find it was quite different from so many others – a lot of moving from place to place, never putting down roots anyplace, never really feeling bad about leaving – rather there were always a looking forward to what would come next. But as I, before I was born, chose a father who was very adventuresome and needing challenges all his life – no wonder things turned out that way. The term: “New Age” which we now look at as something new – is really nothing new at all. Those ideas, feelings and inclinations were – a knowing we had inside. But for the longest time when you would start talking about such subjects; people wood - look at you oddly, shake their heads and think you were – not quite there…Did it take us this long to accept that there were so much more to us than just the physical aspect we were – programmed to be? Thank goodness we now can utter the word: New Age with a smile and find that people actually want to know more…
Reaching out and helping others to grasp and understand what I felt was the natural thing, has always been very rewarding. It did require a lot of wanting to though. I always pointed out that it took: a lot of determination, dedication and desire, to not give up when you would sit for days and nothing happened. What has
251 to happen mentally is to let go, relax and relax – and let barriers fall away. Here my first books written by Lobsang Rampa steered me in the right direction, that of learning to clear my mind of thoughts.
Just learning to clear your mind of thoughts - that takes a lot of effort – to push them all to the side and create a clear area where you can get in contact with - and mentally visualize what is around you. Then all of a sudden you become aware of the multitude of other realms all around you…..The more you look around – the more all comes into focus. Like Yoda said;”Do not try, just do.” – that is the hard thing…But, as you succeed, it is a wonderful experience. You wonder how you ever got along without this ability. Now you can get answers to your questions. You can reach into realms you somehow knew were there – and now find that you have the ability to do so.
Thinking, or asking the right question – (never forget that you have to ask a question) will always bring into focus an answer. It can appear visually or you will suddenly know the answer. All this depends upon you and your personal way of accepting information. Reaching into your own so called 'Past lives'…(they are not really ‘past’ but are going on right now) …That is something our physical mind is not able to comprehend. But doing so will explain a lot about yourself, your own – attitudes and beliefs. I seem to have been involved with teaching several times before. One life I, as a small child living by the Nile river, were chosen to be trained to become a priestess at the temple…(this were before the Faros felt that the female priestesses had too much power and ended that part of Temple teaching)…Also found myself teaching similar subjects in the land of Lemuria …before it disappeared beneath the ocean. You can also have fun finding out where and how you have met your family members before.
Looking into my son’s lives I once found him sitting on the street as a snake charmer - this is in King Solomon’s time…Oh well, we all have had some very interesting lives. These ‘glimpses’ can often explain much about the way it is in this life…and why we have certain hang-ups or desires to chose things now. Our so- called: Past Life Regression is really the most rewarding of it all. To help a person: reach, confront and understand something that has held them back from living a freer life – that is very rewarding. Be it a fear…like of water…. a deep anger towards a person …an inability to confront aspects of your life…. or one of the many non-understood feelings you struggle with in the daily life.
I have attended very few lectures or gone to any retreats to listen to others understanding and translations of …all that IS….Why should I when my teachers constantly led me through all kinds understanding of: what, when and why…I would have a teacher, for maybe a year, that would guide me, lead me through aspects of
252 understanding and then all of a sudden one day. . a new voice would greet me when I went into the meditative state. All kinds of personalities would greet me. Once even had a very young boy who would roll on the floor laughing when he thought I asked a very dumb question. I found that the teachers connected with healing and spiritual developments would be females – usually a very motherly looking woman…as if that aspect would be able to explain and enlighten me better than a male figure… They would state that we now would work together for a time. I would then actually be pushed into a mass of colours, emotions and feelings – submerging me - so there was no question of not truly understanding it all. They all had names as they knew I liked to have a name to reach out to, but as time went and I asked – whence they came from? …I was told that they were all part of the same ‘realm’ – and as I developed I would automatically attract another aspect – like pulling another bit of matter out of the huge – can we call it: MASS? I know many psychics who have the same guide/teacher all through their life…Is my adventuresome spirit the reason I had so many helpers coming to me?
The books that we liked above all others we read were the SETH books written by Jane Roberts. To our way of thinking they felt like the only right way to see things. Luckily we were both brought up without deep religious ties/beliefs. Our parents grew up in the Protestant religion where much is left to the person as to how much one needs to lean on it.
Now that I understand I am a 6th level person here to support and help others to understand that it is time to focus on the times coming up in a very few years, it gives me a new area to explore and learn much more about. I know that I have really my whole life worked toward what is coming very soon. With Lecturing, teaching and writing about my experiences, with giving hugs, smiling at all I meet and – always thinking good thoughts - I have in many small ways been helping others to walk the right way…It is going to be very exiting and I can hardly wait for it to happen…
MY LIFE
It all started when I was 4 years old (that I am aware of). At that time my parents and I were living outside Nairobi and my only playmates were our two big dogs…and trailing our servants around while they took care of all the household duties. By asking questions all the time, as children do – the result was that I became fluent in Swahili, which all the locals spoke at that time….We are back to the 1930 ties.
One sunny day when I was amusing myself by drawing house rooms in the dry dust
253 of the driveway with a stick – I looked up and found two small green clad persons standing right next to me. They proceeded to lead me to a huge saucer parked a bit away from the house. There I was introduced to a person who looked exactly like the old king in my colouring book (am sure he made me see him this way so I would relax in his presence)
He looked deep into my eyes and I all of a sudden felt a mass of small cubes tumbling into my mind where they placed themselves neatly in a corner. Later I was given to understand that this procedure was done to many, many children as the cubes would, during our lifetime, remove all kinds of barriers, beliefs and restrictions we would constantly pick up and bit by bit accept mentally. This would help us to continue to be open minded, to be able to confront and accept all kinds of new ideas and concepts coming our way.
Unfortunately I can only recall one time when I consciously caught a cube falling on the floor and being absorbed in the mind. It was a sunny summer day when I was riding my bicycle to school and was now living in a small village in Denmark. The narrow country road was flanked on both sides with fields of Wheat and Oats, by now all of three feet high. All of a sudden I could understand what the Lark, soaring high above, was singing about, could understand the whisper going on between the stalks of grain…was in fact aware of everything happening around me. (It was like when we remove our sunglasses and all of a sudden see everything so much clearer…). It was so shocking to all of a sudden become part of everything that I nearly lost control of my bike and could have ended in the ditch bordering the road…
I always had imaginary playmates as a child and would spend a lot of hours sitting in my attic dormer window reading any new book I could get my hands on. Somehow never formed close relationships with other girls, never shared secrets or giggled with them. And thinking back finding that I off and on tried to join groups – like Girl Scouts, but always left them after just a few meetings as I could not get interested in doing group things…. letting them decide what to do – or think…Never felt alone as imaginary playmates were always with me. Much later I immigrated to California, got married and had several children coming into our lives. That kind of put all my metaphysical tendencies on the back burner and it was not till the oldest were in High school that I found the time to, again. focus on those abilities…Joined a Metaphysical church and learned to meditate and to – let a teacher come forth to be of help in my search – to help me to understand so much more.
We never thought of our ‘searching’ as being something new. The word; New Age did not come into use until much later when we finally graduated into a race that began to ask questions. It was a feeling we all had inside – that there were so much
254 more to know and understand than what our everyday life was handing us. We played all the games that helped us relax mentally, to accept all the information that was all around us- and that we now found we could so easily partake of. Such as holding an envelope containing a piece of jewellery of another person and all of a sudden seeing the person’s mental attitude…. Covering up the name of a pocket book and mentally opening up for the information that this book contained…Placing ones fingertips on a photo and feeling all that person’s worries, fears and aspirations.
When driving on the freeway – we were to mentally reach out to the person in the next car - feel his attitudes and his thinking about life.. All these little experiments that helped to widen and helping you to trust the vibes you picked up from all the multitudes of vibes surrounding us at all times….and not to forget all we learned and understood about the Pyramid shape. how it is instrumental in directing all kinds of powerful vibrations to everything placed in its vicinity…We were asked to practice our ‘opening of mind’ with a lit candle when at home. One evening I was sitting in a dark bedroom focusing on a small flame placed about 6 feet in front of me. I had already learned how to re-focus my eyes and was admiring the beautiful colourful aura all around it…when all of a sudden I realized that a small face of my Higher Self was vividly visible right in the centre of the flame…I do not to this day understand how this small vision should shock me so deeply, but it did and for three weeks I was not able to try this exercise again…
At this time I would also begin my meditations by asking for anybody to come forward.. One evening my HS – both mentally visible and with a loud voice: “Never, never ask for just anybody to reach into you, always demand that only the positive and good aspects will come forward.” Well I later understood that very negative aspects were always waiting to pop into your mind and try to control you…Learning to do so-called – automatic writing – that took a bit of training. I filled pages and pages with words – none of them making any sense – until all of a sudden one day I let go, relaxed a bit more - and then all the words formed themselves into sentences…Now I could ask questions and bit by bit informative answers appeared on the page…By now I had a very eager guide who prodded me along to explore and be more and more adventuresome.
We had moved again and now I was living in the middle of a beautiful forest of old, old Oak trees. This area had in times long ago been occupied by Indian tribes and in big rocks on the hillside; deep holes had bit by bit been formed as the women ground their acorns for meal. When I shifted into my other receptive level – I all of a sudden found myself visualizing the Indian women, in colours even, chatting amongst them as they worked grinding their acorns. Children running around laughing and playing were part of the scene. Another ‘avenue’ had opened up and I
255 51 sat there with my mouth hanging open. Fully understanding the concept of past lives I realized I had - tuned into a lifetime when the Indians were living right in this area. The women’s chatter and the laughter of the happy children obviously had been enough to open it for me.
At other times when I walked amongst the trees in the forest I learned to open up my mind and in doing so I experienced many, many things about them and their life. One day my Higher Self – now always mentally in my mind than on paper – (which he now considered to be a waste of time.) “ I have a very good friend who is a member of a big spaceship. He very much wants to get in touch with you and your husband to tell you all about his life and his race. His name is OSO” - AND THAT opened a whole new area for us…Now I discovered I had the ability to freely roam the Universe. And with the support of HS I visited many interesting societies far out in space. Sometimes I was just a bystander, willing myself to move around so I could observe all, and let knowledge come to my mind, but other times I chatted with the inhabitants and was always asked where I came from. The big spaceships were fantastic. I would be shown around all over the place and tried to understand all the technical aspects of their ability to roam the heavens.
Today I mainly focus on my re-writing. Have 15 years of stories, a wealth of channelled hours about; where we came from, how the world was created – a very multifaceted situation. Healings, personal letting-go of accepted school learned restrictions. Also all the wonderful experiences I had when viewing our ordinary life – blending two viewpoints. A blend of really seeing our surroundings…
CORNWALL, ENGLAND
Well I do not have any exiting travels - like sitting at the feet of a wise man in India, or going to a retreat for further meditation times....but will share a wonderful experience I had when visiting our daughter then living in Cornwall, England.
Travelling in Cornwall is an experience in itself. The countryside is completely filled with remnants from other times - long, long ago.... Stonehenge being the largest and best known but carved stones, dolmers and ruins of settlements are everywhere ... hundreds of them. Driving along the narrow curving roads - one is bombarded with strong emanations flowing throughout the land, like a mixture, as if one opened a
51 This suggests how firmly culturally situated we are/can be – determined that the way we understand the world is the “right” way. Postivist researchers also demonstrate this “rightness” in their approaches.
256 book and all memories about the times and it's people who lived there so long ago would pour out and surround you....Timeless and forever.
Near the south coast we stopped at all that was left of a small settlement nestled in the hills close to the sea. . It was built about 104AD with the help of the Romans. The name of the place was; Chysauster and consisted of several small rooms arranged around a small central court. A five foot stone wall surrounded it and all wood and straw used for roofs were of course long gone… leaving but half- tumbled walls and the outline of the living areas.
I was leaning against a bit of wall, having placed my hand on it, thinking of the people who lived here so long ago...... and a woman brushed past me. She was wearing a simple, homespun brown shift, badly made 'moccasins' and with her hair in a braid hanging down her back...Another woman passed by carrying a clay container as she hurried inside one of the rooms, pushing aside the cloth covering the opening. Barefoot, laughing children in skimpy short shifts were playing some kind of game rushing around screaming loudly. I couldn't help smiling at it all ....Here I had, for a short 'visit' become a part of their lives. Turning my head I felt the cool, slightly damp wind coming from the ocean blowing my hair into my eyes. In a corner I found a couple of small donkeys huddled. I felt their unhappiness of finding themselves so far from the hot, sunny land where they were born. Focusing on the women and children - a happiness was felt in their minds, a contentment with their life.
After the interview took place I explained to Catherine about the last step of the research which is the reflexive account. When I suggested some of the areas she should reflect upon (training, spirituality involvement, meeting important people, travelling to sites etc.) in order to obtain her portrait of becoming a New Ager, Catherine said that she actually has not had much chance to travel anywhere. She has got 5 children and the money situation was never such that when would be able to go to retreats or New Age places. However, a very important spiritual springboard was a metaphysical church to which she belonged for some time. She would travel to the metaphysical church because it was located in a neighbouring town. After a while, however, she left because she was discouraged by other people. She said “there were other people that were doing readings for people and they started gossiping about it all and about me. And I thought the other members of the church should not gossip about me, I did not like that and I left”.
257 Catherine also used to go to spiritual fairs in her town where she would have her own table and do readings for people. Her readings would also cover information on peoples’ past lives. Additionally, Catherine would do a photograph reading for people: a process which she described as touching the picture and “receiving” the information about the person in it. Today she considers herself to be a “New Age teacher” because of the New Age wisdom she has collected over the years. To this day people come to her home and have their past life explained.
6.3 Chapter Summary
In this chapter I have presented the co-researchers’ details and the raw data which were transcribed from the tapes. Although the analysis (the process of making sense of the information collected) will take place in Chapter Seven, there are several points worth summarising - in particular with regard to the process and the role of this chapter in general. The inclusion of the transcribed interviews is rare in most research studies and is often placed in an appendix. However, due to the constructionist nature of this research study, the aim was for the reader to engage with the text and to become familiar with the co-researchers and what they had to say. By doing so, the reader should form his/her understanding of the data and thus be able to critically assess the researcher’s (my) take on the information that has been provided in this chapter. Most phenomenological studies only present coded snapshots of data which are often arranged into themes, groups, and meaning units. In the attempt to be critical and reflexive about the process of producing knowledge, the inclusion of raw data was found important.
258 Chapter 7
DATA ANALYSIS: MAKING SENSE OF THE NEW AGE PHENOMENON
In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion.
Robert Runcie (1921-2000), Archbishop of Canterbury
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In this chapter I continue to construct meaning and expose the process of knowledge production according to my understanding of both the New Age phenomenon and the phenomenon we call “tourism”. In a hermeneutical sense, this part of the study can be approached as the negotiation process whereby the reader’s understanding gained in previous chapters is contrasted with the researcher’s interpretations. This act of interpreting subjects is described by Giddens (1976) as “double hermeneutics”. This chapter is divided into three main parts. First, I offer my analysis of the empirical data and put forward what it means to be a New Ager based on the data. Next, I draw on the emerging theories and concepts in the field of Tourism Studies and re-visit the meaning of places, but I also delve into other subjects that merit consideration: the role of body/embodiment, performances, and the significance of Self. Additionally, I reflect on phenomenology and reflexivity and discuss the matter of post-disciplinary enquiry in this research study. In the last section I adhere to my methodological and epistemological commitments and offer constructionism as an alternative approach to thinking about tourism.
259 7.1 Being a New Ager: Making Sense of the Empirical Data
As I discussed in Chapter Three, there is no prescribed way of “doing” hermeneutic phenomenology and hence there is no step-by-step procedure when it comes to data analysis. I also explained that most phenomenological studies focus on the experience per se in order to describe the “essence” of the experience under scrutiny. In this research study the focus has been on understanding and the process of interpretation. Therefore in assessing the information provided by the co-researchers, my attempt in this section is not to offer a clear and truthful description of the New Agers (and what it is they do) but to delve into their world in order to explore their being in the world. Needless to say, my sense making activities are culture bound and driven by the underlying aim to contribute to the field of Tourism Studies. In the five sub-sections that follow I therefore present several loose themes that emerged as I moved through the data. I focused largely on the ontological aspect of the New Age phenomenon (in regard to being and reality).
7.1.1 Matters Ontological To start with, my first observation is that the co-researchers live in a meaningfully diverse world. What I mean by this is that meaning is assigned to matters pertaining to ontology, objects and experiences not in an ordinary/everyday fashion. In fact reading the co-researchers’ accounts suggests that they almost live in a world of their own. This world includes energies, spirits, guides, souls and even encounters with UFOs. For instance Catherine communicates with her Higher Self (HS) and even formed a relationship with it. According to Catherine her HS would talk to her and “put her through” training and healing to let go of hang-ups, failures and beliefs she had, resulting in (amongst other things) overcoming many fears. Similarly, Julie and Vicki communicate with spirits which are part of their everyday reality. Vicki for example believes that “we are all connected to a lot of entities, angels, guides, soul group members we meet in this life, in other lives and in the afterlife”. Julie talked about her Out-of-Body experiences when she visited different planets and briefly described the encounters with “orange people”, and members of other star formations - such as “Pleaidian guides”.
260 What is important to acknowledge, is that these experiences are real to the co-researchers. In other words they are part of their world in ontological terms. Moreover, such realities are not exclusive to the co-researchers interviewed in this research study and there is a vast number of New Age books readily available on topics such as the Pleiadians mentioned by co-researcher Julie (eg. Clow, 1995; Marciniak, 1992; Marciniak, 2004). The ontological magnitude of the New Age phenomenon is therefore much larger than one may think.
For these co-researchers there is a sense of reality and sincerity that manifests on the vast scale of New Age experience - according to one’s individual interests, skills, and knowledge. It is not about pretending there are energies and spirits to be experienced or seen, there seems to be no fakery (at least for the co-researchers in this study). For instance Julie said she could see and feel spirits climbing up her back and even see what she called the “Angel of Death”. Vicki communicates with her spiritual guide Omra in her daily life, and Catherine commented that she could feel the carpet on a spaceship she visited while being Out-of-Body. Catherine in fact said she could even see the colours and what the Aliens wore. Now, although this may be disputed by most members of the scientific community, what matters in this thesis in an ontological sense, is that this world we share is real to all of us, however it is interpreted and experienced differently by the co-researchers. In other words things don’t have the same meaning. Furthermore, it is through their experiences (or their being in the world) that some co-researchers form an understanding of how things work in this world. An interesting case in point is Vicki’s astonishment about the appearance of her spiritual guide Omra who she had thought was merely the product of her imagination. She described the first time she met her spiritual guide Omra as follows:
I got a shock the way he looked because it was not what I imagined… I thought this whole world is imagination. But it was not! I imagined him as an old, not very well dressed person with a beard and then I got this guide who looks like a very handsome Indian man. It was so shocking but also so liberating!
Here Vicki shows that what she thought was a world of imagination turned through her experience into a real (in Vicki’s view) encounter. What this data therefore suggests is
261 that New Agers’ lives are entangled with certain beliefs and ideas about how this world works and through their experiences or being in the world as a New Ager, they can form new ontological understandings of the world itself. I will further examine the implications of this proposition in context of Tourism Studies in the following sections.
7.1.2 Connectedness with the World As argued in Chapter Three, according to Heidegger, there is no pure truth that lies outside human engagement with the world. The co-researchers in this research study tell us more about their own engagement with the world and their “relationship” with it. For instance, Julie talked about feeling “connected to everything” during her experiences. She said: “when you are connected to everything you know more…everything is right with the world”. When asked what she meant by “being connected”, Julie explained that one feels connected to guides, planets, and energy. In this regard, Anne (who was formerly a Catholic nun) now accepts the existence of the spirit world, past lives, and the ability to contact the dead. Anne also believes that there is no such thing as time, and that the essence of people still “is” even if they die. To this she added: “I am one with them… we are all one”.
This intrinsic relationship that the above co-researchers have with the world and their ability to feel “connected” is important and valuable to them. Jane for instance commented on the matter of being “connected” or “connecting” as follows: “my purpose is about connecting – to connect to intention or to source energy or God or whatever you want to call it and then to use that to connect to others”. What is important to note in this regard, is that some New Agers may want to “connect” consciously and this motive can play an important part in their lives. Such acts of “connecting” can be performed by different means and techniques such as meditation, channelling or feeling energies at a particular site. The ramifications of this conscious and purposeful act of “connecting” in regard to tourism may be that it acts as a trigger to activities such as visiting places.
262 7.1.3 The New Age Component of the Co-researchers’ Daily Lives The motives, beliefs, activities and actions of the co-researchers are not just a temporary fad, the New Age way of being is ingrained in them - it is part of their daily lives. Anne for instance uses what she described as the “Angel of Fear” wand when she works as a celebrant at funerals. She explained that by using this tool she feels almost immune to the energies of pain, anger, anguish or judgment surrounding the place/space. Furthermore, for Anne the New Age way of experiencing life and its philosophy have become a necessity of her life. She explained: “Every day, the only thing I am really concerned about is loving my neighbor, the people I meet, being there for people”. She then added: “it is hard work, it is daily work”.
Other co-researchers also implement New Age activities/rituals regularly and even at work. Jane who works as a psychologist said she uses “mindfulness” while counselling her clients. She explained that she is aware of her body, reactions, and the internal processes that go on. She also implements her New Age knowledge and skills into her daily work life although she is aware that in some ways she is “going completely against her training” as a psychologist. Therefore, although some participants such as Julie, Vicki and Catherine may have more intense, more extraordinary, and more “extreme” experiences (such as seeing UFOs and being Out of Body), others such as Jane managed to implement certain aspects of the New Age phenomenon in their daily lives.
Another co-researcher, Vicki, talked about shamanism: this passion of hers has turned into a living. When asked what she meant by shamanism, she explained it as a “Native American way of doing shamanism” which she described as “communicating with the spirit world”. As a result of her interest in this subject, Vicki now sees clients with whom she performs “shamanic healing” at her home. This particular aspect of the New Age phenomenon has penetrated into her daily life.
263 7.1.4 Is There More to Travel for the New Age Adherents? With regard to New Agers travelling and visiting places, the concept of a traveller is far more interesting and complex (theoretically and conceptually). As noted earlier, some co- researchers have a belief system which enables them to see special (New Age) meaning in all that they do, and in this regard, the co-researchers demonstrate the constructed nature of meaning. The data suggests that the co-researchers do not necessarily need to visit a New Age “hub” to enhance or perform their spirituality. For instance they do not need to visit a “power place” marketed by a New Age travel agent. Catherine created what can be described a spiritual New Age experience out of what others might see as an ordinary trip to the United Kingdom to visit her daughter. While travelling through England, Catherine stopped in a town called Chysauster. She shared the following experience:
I was leaning against a bit of wall, having placed my hand on it, thinking of the people who lived here so long ago… and a woman brushed past me. She was wearing a simple, homespun brown shift, badly made ‘moccasins’ and with her hair in a braid hanging down her back. Another woman passed by carrying a clay container as she hurried inside one of the rooms, pushing aside the cloth covering the opening. Barefoot, laughing children in skimpy short shifts were playing some kind of game rushing round screaming loudly. I couldn’t help smiling at it all. Here, I had for a short ‘visit’ become a part of their lives.
Catherine’s experience (or what one could describe as some type of psychic experience or dream state), enabled her to enter this state by simply placing her hand on an ancient wall. And by doing so she was able to “see” a glimpse of a different reality. In this regard, it is not important to pin-point exactly what she saw nor how she did it, but to acknowledge that this was a meaningful and important spiritual/New Age experience for Catherine. Even more notably, this act would be by most people perceived as an ordinary visit to a place by a woman who was touching a wall of an old house. Nonetheless, this may have been nothing but ordinary for Catherine. Therefore what “goes on” in people’s minds – how they meaningfully interpret the world - is important in order to understand (at least partially) their being in the world.
264 I should also mention Vicki who underwent a similar trip to visit her relatives in Israel and ended up performing a shamanic ceremony. She used her shamanic drums, “frequency tools” and worked with the “Goddess Kali” to disperse the negative energies in her father’s house. The observation I would like to make is that neither of these trips (Vicki’s nor Catherine’s) were New Age “package tours” but what most would see as “ordinary” trips to visit their relatives and families. With regard to methodologies and methods, this information would not likely be captured if the methods of collecting data consisted only of interviews/questionnaires collected at New Age sites (e.g. Glastonbury). What this amounts to is that if we are willing to leave the traditional definitions, concepts and characteristics of a tourist (and tourism) behind, there is a possibility that we may shift to thinking about this phenomenon in new and creative ways. There have been hints of such a shift including the authors I discussed in Chapter One starting to delve into new directions such as actor-network theory (Johannesson, 2005; Van Der Druim, 2007), mobilities (Hall et al., 2004; Meethan, 2003), worldmaking and worldshaping (Hollinshead, 2004c), shaping of destinations and remaking places (Crang, 2004) and others.
7.1.5 The Different Worlds Further on the subject of my etic observation and making sense of the co-researchers’ experiences, it is important to address the process of transition from the real world in which co-researchers live their daily lives, and the “spirit” world (or the other world) in which the co-researchers have profound experiences. This transition or difference between the world “here” and the one “there”, is perhaps mostly noticeable in certain New Age experiences & skills. For instance, when speaking of Out-of-Body travel, Catherine says it would take her a while before she could “completely return to the NOW”. She said that getting from the deep state of meditation would take her about half an hour to “focus on today again”. Similarly, Julie mentioned that she had to work on being “grounded” and try to stay “here” rather than “popping in and out” of her body. The difference between these two worlds can be further illustrated by her first Out-of- Body experience when she felt “being sucked out” and found herself standing at the end
265 of her bed and looking at her physical body which she said was still lying in the bed. Another co-researcher Vicki has a process or a preparation of dealing with the “spirit” world. For instance Vicki said that before inviting her spirit guides and angels she would burn candles and dried sage to “neutralize any negativity”. It thus appears that through this ritual Vicki prepares for the merging of the two worlds – the tangible every day reality and the spirit world. While these skilled and experienced New Agers may be able to access the “spirit” world on their own, others (less experienced) may need the help of clairvoyants and mediums.
Before moving onto conceptualizing and applying the above findings in the context of Tourism Studies, a brief summary should help the reader to navigate through the rest of this chapter. Thus far I have offered five themes that emerged (were interpreted by the researcher) from the interviews and co-researchers’ reflexive accounts. In summary of these themes, I arrive to the premise that New Agers have a particular ontological take on the world they live in. It is shaped by their cultural and social heritage. Constructionism52, as I explained in Chapter One, claims that we all are shaped by culture. The purpose of this study was to examine how knowledge can be created by employing a constructionist approach to research while drawing on the New Age phenomenon. In this regard, what this data has suggested is the volatility of meanings and understandings. The co-researchers seem to perceive the world through a particular lens entrenched in a culture I conceptualised as the New Age phenomenon. Another observation is that New Agers have their New Age/spiritual experience in their daily lives and hence do not necessarily need to visit New Age places promoted by marketers in order to to have a meaningful New Age experience. In this regard, the meaning and ontological perception of a place may vary between New Agers and those who do not take part in the New Age phenomenon (e.g. a non-New Ager).
52 Here (and elsewhere in the thesis when I use a generic voice) I refer to the version of constructionism I explained in Chapter One. And researchers need to be aware that there are many ways of engaging in constructionist research.
266 7.2 Re-conceptualising New Agers in the Context of Tourism Studies
In Chapter One I explained that the motive behind using the New Age phenomenon was not to classify or describe New Agers as a special interest group for this I have already done in my earlier work (Pernecky, 2006a; Pernecky & Johnston, 2006). I also explained that the use of empirical data is purely demonstrative with regard to knowledge production following the study problem. Based on the reviewed literature and gathered data, in this section I will engage in further meaningfully interpreting the information in the context of Tourism Studies. My endeavour here is to draw on some of the new theories and concepts in tourism and look at other ways of theorising and conceptualising about the phenomenon.
7.2.1 A New Age Paradigm: Plurality of Spaces and Objects As I suggested earlier, from a constructionist point of view, definitions and concepts are intertwined with one’s research approach: including a particular ontological and epistemological standpoint as well as methodological decisions. In order to make sense of the New Age phenomenon and New Agers’ being in the world, I will work with a concept that is based on a New Age paradigm (a worldview)53 . In other words, a New Age paradigm is a belief system that acknowledges the existence of sacred sites, healing powers, energy vortexes, astral travel, UFOs, spirit guides and many other phenomena represented under the broad umbrella term New Age. It is based on the assumption that New Agers share certain attributes, skills, beliefs, habits, know-how, and values. As discussed earlier, those who fit the broad category of New Agers are not all alike and have a variety of experiences, values, and beliefs. For instance some may have spiritual aspirations while others may not. Pernecky and Johnston’s (2006, p.vii) Specialization Index suggests that there are different levels of New Agers and that they can be categorized based on their skills, knowledge and experiences from low to medium to highly specialized New Agers. While the low specialized New Ager can be driven by
53 The New Age paradigm is the researcher’s (etic) view of the New Age phenomenon, in other words this is how I make sense of the information based on my “toolbox” of knowledge.
267 curiosity, the highly specialized New Ager can be more dedicated and driven to pursue his/her spiritual interests. The latter is often the more informed, skilled and involved New Ager. A New Age paradigm is therefore only a loose concept I use to make sense of the data in the context of Tourism Studies.
With regard to Tourism Studies, the worldview or belief system New Agers may hold becomes useful in theorizing about matters pertinent to the field of tourism such as the role and meaning of places. For instance Shackley (2001a, p.13) argues that “sacred space exists only for those who know its characteristics and the reason for its delineation”. Although Shackley is onto something noteworthy, a sacred place can be known to anyone – for instance I can read about a Maori site and have a deep appreciation for that place knowing that it is an important sacred site for the Maori people. Therefore what matters is not so much knowing about something: it is what meaning we give to something. Urry (2006, p.vii) tells us that places are not authentic entities and that a “particular physical environment does not itself produce a tourist place”. Places are intertwined with embodied activities, sociality, memories and only exist as tourist destinations/places when “they are appropriated, used and made part of the memories, narratives, and images of people engaged in embodied social practices” (Urry, 2006, p.vii). What this amounts to (also discussed in Chapter Four) is the notion that places are constructed, made and remade - and the New Age phenomenon can help us to understand how that construction emerges. Hannam (2006) offers the following definition of places:
Places are dynamic…like ships, moving around and not necessarily staying in one location. In the emerging mobilities paradigm places themselves can be seen as becoming or travelling, slowly or quickly, through greater or shorter distances and within networks of both human and non-human agents. Places are about relationships, about the placing of peoples, materials, images and the systems of difference that they perform (Hannam et al., 2006, p.13).
A New Age paradigm works on the premise that New Agers have a particular belief system/s that makes a place New Age. This belief system is grounded in a culture I have conceptualised as New Age. Therefore a New Age site or a place does not become New
268 Age by itself, it is believed by the adherents of the phenomenon to possess certain healing qualities and certain energies. On the other hand, a person Y who may not share such beliefs – someone who does not enter a New Age paradigm (for instance someone who does not believe that a place may have healing powers and energies) may have an experience that is not of a New Age disposition in any way. Let’s call this person Y a non-believer. This person Y may well know that people go to a particular site to channel energy, but visiting the site may not hold the same spiritual importance. Furthermore, visiting the same site may not only have a very different meaning, it may also be ontologically a vastly different experience to person Y. He/she will have some kind of experience - but the meaning, understanding, perception and the nature of the experience may not be the same. To use a different example: while a stone might represent a powerful source of energy for the devoted New Ager, the very same stone may be “just a stone” for the non-New Ager (non-believer). Hence in regard to constructionism, space is a category of human experience and perception that is far from being immutable, rather it is a “subject to historical change” (Huyssen, 2001, p.72) and a cultural change.
A New Age paradigm can be also a useful way of understanding the complex New Age world in the tourism context. For instance, when it comes to defining the New Age traveller, this segment can be classified according to a variety of measures: (a) counting the numbers of visitors on a site labelled as New Age, (b) according to their beliefs, or (c) according to their motivation for visiting New Age sites. One can either classify New Age travellers according to “what they do” such as visiting a New Age site, or one can focus on New Agers’ beliefs/spiritual aspirations. Figure 7.1 demonstrates the weak point of the first.54 Here, should we define New Age travellers according to “what they do” then both: (1) the traveller with a New Age belief, and (2) the traveller non-believer will be assigned the category of New Age traveller - solely because they visited a place labelled as New Age (by the researcher). Yet only the New Age believer will likely have
54 This is not to say that a New Age paradigm portrays a better or more precise picture. It solely shows that there are other ways of looking at tourism and understanding tourists. For instance distributing questionnaires to people (or conducting interviews) on-site may not tell us that much about the individual at all. If we decide that all people coming to a particular site are New Agers we then limit our understanding (and research) by deciding that the act of visiting a place is the parameter for conceptualising about this phenomenon.
269 a meaningful “New Age” experience. To draw on an example from the data in Chapter Six, one of the co-researchers Vicki said: “It is only now that I start going to places that are important and mean something to me”. Therefore working with a New Age paradigm (one’s belief system) Figure 7.1 demonstrates another important aspect in conducting research: the need to understand clearly the purpose as well as the limitations of one’s study, and the implications of methodical choices. 55
A New Age paradigm is also relevant with regard to the concept of worldmaking/worldshaping discussed in Chapter Three (Hollinshead, 2007a, 2007b). It offers a view on how a place becomes New Age - how is it created. In this light, the notion of tourism as worldmaking, remaking, and demaking places can be seen as a result of our activity or being in the world. The individual has the power to shape places into what they are and how he or she understands them (although this is not something one has to do consciously). The New Ager carries a belief system, views, knowledge and needs for certain experiences: all of which leave an imprint on a particular place/site. The world is therefore made/remade and interpreted based on people’s cultural underpinnings. In other words, it reiterates the notion that New Agers make places what they are - they do not just become New Age sites on their own. By worshipping a certain site, the site becomes New Age through this intrinsic relationship with the person and his/her being in the world – being in and interacting with that place.
New Agers also have the power to change the meaning and perception of places on a much larger scale. Ultimately, even a non-New Ager may adopt a particular meaning of a place by acknowledging that a certain site is known as a “place where New Agers go and worship”, such as Stonehenge in the United Kingdom, or vortexes in Sedona, Arizona. Specialized New Age travel agencies promoting such sites, magazine articles, and the
55 From a constructionist point of view, focusing on one’s world-view does not necessarily guarantee a better or more rigid outcome. What it does is to broaden our understanding of the phenomenon.
270 FIGURE 7.1: THE RESEARCHER’S VIEW ON THE CONSTRUCTED MEANING OF PLACES
This exhibit suggests that based on one’s cultural pedigree, the nature and meaning of a place may change. It also suggests that it is one’s worldview (belief system) that is more important in understanding travellers. A mere visitation of a place does not necessarily guarantee
that someone will have a “meaningful” New Age experience. It may be incorrect to label someone as a New Ager based on visiting a site.
Someone we may see as a:
T R A V E L L E R
CAN BE A CAN BE A NON-BELIEVER BELIEVER (OR NON-NEW (OR NEW AGER) AGER) He or she goes to what the researcher conceptualises as a:
New Age Place
And can therefore be classified as a:
New Age Traveller
But is likely to have a different experience
NON-NEW AGE NEW AGE EXPERIENCE EXPERIENCE
Therefore it is the “meaning” we give to things that makes a difference.
271 emergence of New Age services in that area can be seen as agents contributing to re- creating (but also making/re-making/de-making) the meaning of these places. This, of course, is not applicable to the New Age phenomenon alone. In a similar fashion, Las Vegas is a place strongly associated with gambling. People go there for a particular reason and take on the role of a tourist-gambler; they perform the role of a tourist- gambler and hence re-create the meaning of such a place. Minca and Oakes (2006) delve into this issue by proposing that travel is part of place-based experience and therefore necessitates the discussions on meaning, identity, and otherness. Places too are the result of people’s negotiation of meanings and memories in contemporary cultural settings. On this note, Huyssen states that:
Lived memory is active, alive, embodied in the social – that is, in individuals, families, groups, nations, and regions” but “memory is always transitory, notoriously unreliable, and haunted by forgetting – in short, human and social. As public memory it is subject to change: political, generational, individual. It cannot be stored forever, nor can it be secured by monuments; nor for that matter, can we rely on digital retrieval systems to guarantee coherence and continuity”(Huyssen, 2001, p.76).
One of the observations that emerges is that travellers’ and co-researchers’ belief systems are more important than tourism researchers may be willing to acknowledge. Tapping into people’s being in the world, exploring their views and motivations offers access to rich information that can be turned into innovative tourism theory. For example another co-researcher Anne shared the importance of what she described as “wands” in her life. These objects were given to her by a person she calls her Alchemist: depicting him as “a man who has a deep understanding of different metals and different energies”. What this implies is that both places and objects are meaningfully present in peoples’ lives, and more importantly, these objects are meaningfully used, worshipped, and even transported within the phenomenon we call tourism. Yet not much research in the field delves into the meaning of places and objects and the importance they hold for the actors whom researchers conceptualise as tourists. If we accept Urry’s (1990) claim that we are tourists much of the time whether we like it or not (e.g. in our spiritual pursuits), then tourism theory can indeed be enriched by tapping into people’s being in the world.
272 In other words places change with their visitors and can have many meanings. For instance something can be a mountain, but it too can be a powerful energy vortex and it may also be believed by the visitor to have healing crystals buried deep under the surface. There can be several layers of meaning one accumulates through being in the world by moving through and coming into contact with a myriad of cultures and experiences. In regard to constructionism and the broader discussion on knowledge production, places and objects are “fluid” when it comes to our understanding of them – they only hold a meaning culturally. However, in the field of Tourism Studies this notion of plurality of space and objects is largely overlooked and instead researchers, in their attempts to make sense of people’s behaviour, conceptualise solely from the researcher’s perspective. The problem is that the researcher’s meaning may differ from that of the participant. Those who are researched (e.g. tourists) do not have a voice in the field of Tourism Studies and the dominant voice that is offered and results in knowledge, is the etic – the researcher’s voice. Surprisingly, this etic, situated, and perspectival voice of the researcher is often portrayed and accepted as a valid and true portrayal of the tourism phenomenon. Yet from a constructionist perspective, this type of knowledge could not be more distant from “true” for it disregards all the other possible meanings, and also the cultural situatedness of the researcher.
7.2.2 The Role of Performance Places are also interwoven with performances. According to Hannam, Sheller and Urry (2006), rather than drawing a clear distinction between places that are relatively fixed and those who travel to such places, they argue there is a complex relationality of places and people connected to them through performances and performativities. In this respect activities cannot be separate from “places that happen contingently to be visited” (p.13). In my earlier study (Pernecky, 2006a), I suggested that New Agers choose to go to places to perform, to feel, to dowse, to channel and to experience. In reflecting on those observations, what I omitted to acknowledge then was that performances in general are based on one’s cultural underpinnings (including beliefs) and that New Agers can perform not only to others but also for themselves.
273 Goffman (1959) established the analogy of performance where individuals and groups engage in individual and collective performance. According to him this performance takes place on either a “frontstage” or” backstage” where the performer and performing groups act as an audience one to another. His work on performance consequently led also to inspiring tourism scholars. In order to incorporate the full range of tourist experience, Perkins and Thorns (2001) endorse the use of the metaphor tourist performance, for it incorporates ideas of active bodily involvement (physical, intellectual and cognitive) as well as Urry’s (1990) take on the tourist gaze. Although Perkins and Thorns acknowledge that other scholars (Adler, 1989; Crang, 1997; Edensor, 1998; Rojek & Urry, 1997; Urry, 1995) suggested similar ideas earlier, they claim that these had until recently little impact on tourism research.
Increasingly, however, tourism researchers (Baerenholdt, Haldrup, Larsen, & Urry, 2004) argue that tourist sites and places are staged and performed through tourist practices, and that tourism is seen as embodied and performed engagement with places (Coleman & Crang, 2002). Relevant to the New Age tourism discourse is for instance Edensor’s (1998; 2000; 2001) work in which he follows Goffman (1959), and focuses on tourist performance of specific roles on tourist “stages”. Edensor compares the tourist space to a stage where performances are reproduced, challenged, transformed but also bypassed. He thus considers tourism as a form of performance where different tourist ventures are compared to particular stages such as the beach, museum or a theme park. Furthermore, he asserts that these settings are distinguished by “boundedness, whether physical or symbolic, and are often organized – or stage-managed – to provide and sustain common- sense understandings about what activities should take place” (2001, p.63). The New Age phenomenon including New Age tourism is bounded by its conception and context. New Agers can perform in their own way when visiting New Age places, whether they channel, tone or meditate. It is important to stress, however, that the “boundedness” Edensor talks about, is the product of cultures and subcultures and often conceptualised by the researcher.
274 In following Edensor’s proposal, New Age Tourism indeed provides space for the New Age traveller to perform. This is mainly noticeable when it comes to the commodified New Age products where particular groups of “performers” (people with New Age interests) are targeted. For example, Edensor (2001) explains that in some heritage attractions visitors expect staff to be dressed in costumes and to engage them in role-play scenarios. Similarly, in the context of the New Age phenomenon, activities such as meditation retreats, and psychic readings all involve a role-play scenario. Here, the person in control, whether called a master, “energy giver” or psychic medium (as revealed in Chapter Five) acts in a certain way and is in control of the experience. All of the actors have their role to play. Some co-researchers (such as Anne and Jane) stated that they go to retreats, they travel to see psychics, and to participate in energy giving workshops. Others may travel to places to consciously impact, interact and change a place. And in this interaction with the world, New Agers can re-affirm and re-create who they are. Julie for instance talked about her experience of visiting an (old hospital) and asking souls “to leave”. She said: “there are souls that have been trapped… I need to go back there…to make it easy and ask the souls to leave”. Julie therefore actively engages in/with this New Age reality and performs her role as a New Ager consciously - willing to make an impact on that place.
Furthermore, it is important to note that New Agers also “perform” and visit places that may not necessarily possess a particular or known New Age quality. Although Crang (2006) sees places as fluid and created through performance, often this performance can be unnoticed and to others be invisible, nonexistent. As discussed earlier, there are New Agers (devoted and skilled, like Julie or Catherine) who possess the power to turn any place, any travel or any visit into a spiritual experience. Co-researcher Vicki talked about her visit to Israel, and one can see how she transformed her trip into an experience of cleansing energies, drawing on spirits, and performing shamanic rituals. In this regard, Vicki’s “stage” has no limits as she does not need to go to a marketed New Age site, or to buy a New Age tailored product in order to “perform” her New Ageness. She does not necessarily perform only for others and with others, she performs for herself also. It is Vicki’s beliefs (her New Age paradigm) that allow her to “perform” and be in the world
275 as a New Ager in her daily life. In fact one can conceive that Vicki’s New Age paradigm enables her to turn the world into a stage where she can experiment with energies and shamanism - and in this regard the world is in an intrinsic relationship with her being in the world. From a constructionist point of view it is important to underline that it is the interaction in/with the world, people, places, cultures that contributes to one’s understanding of the world. This understanding remains underpinned by the culture one is part of: in this research study conceptualised as the New Age phenomenon.
Therefore when we speak of the “stage”, it is not only the tourist locations and tourism attractions that are relevant as proposed by Edensor (2001). Rather this stage is contained within the New Ager who perceives the world through his/her New Age lens. It is this lens, as depicted also in Figure 7.1., that gives New Agers the possibility to turn any space and any incident into a meaningful New Age experience. In this conceptual framing, it can be argued that New Agers create the “props” and stages that aid their theatrical presentations of their Selves (Kellner, 2001). New Agers also juggle different socialities and perform in a variety of tribes as I discussed in Chapter Five. Maffesoli (1996) explains that a characteristic of sociality is when a person plays different roles - both within his or her professional activities as well as within the various tribes in which the person participates. “The costume changes as the person, according to personal tastes (sexual, cultural, religious, friendship), takes his or her place each day in the various games of the theatrum mundi” (Maffesoli, 1996, p.76).
7.2.3 The New Age Phenomenon and the Importance of Self The topic of the Self has provided many fruitful discussions in a variety of disciplines (mainly in sociology, psychology, and philosophy) and has been tackled by well-known scholars: from Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Carl Jung to Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Hegel and many others. The complexities of the Self in philosophy alone require one to become involved with other issues: materialism, symbolism, causality, induction, structuralism, the concept of free will, and others (Spruiell, 1981). Therefore the aim here
276 is not to launch into the many facets of the Self, but to consider its implication in Tourism Studies while focusing on the New Age phenomenon.
Discussions about the Self in tourism are not new, as people - tourists - have their own view of themselves, something Mayo and Jarvis called (1981) the self-concept (developed by Sigmund Freud), based on individuals’ interaction with cultural and social environment. Yet the Self has never been the focal point in tourism scholarship and the few who showed interest in this subject largely examined the Self and the Other, or focused on the changing nature of tourists, and the meaning of tourism for the members of a leisure class (Riley & Love, 2000). Furthermore, much of the sociological and psychological work has been concerned with the tourist/holiday dichotomy, establishing identity and a sense of Self (Wearing & Wearing, 2001). According to Edensor (2001, p.60), typologies (such as by Cohen, 1979; Smith, 1989 and others) enable us to classify regularities: nevertheless, they describe “different tourist practices rather than types of people, as roles adopted rather than social categories made manifest”. Miller explains that given the positivist hegemony in the field, the studies of the Self have tended to focus on the implications with regard to consumption and personal meanings of consumption (Miller, 1995), approaching goods as an extension of the Self (Belk, 1998), and have also extended to advertising, image, and branding (Morgan & Pritchard, 2000). The Self can therefore not be separated from the “cultural”.
In further constructing a “person–centred sociology of tourism” (Wearing & Wearing, 2001), it is imperative to recognize the importance of the Self in tourism interactions and meanings. With regard to tourism relations and how people construct meanings, Wearing and Wearing (2001) focus on the Self as a result of these very interactions also giving a voice to the “other”. Fullagar (2002) for instance draws on Hagelian work and theorises desire as a social relation which impacts the Self and other: Self and world. It is a concept that comprises desire as “the relation of movement between Self and other which constitutes self-knowledge, and hence identity” (p.62). By using the term Self in daily life (for example: self-image, self-awareness, self-presentation, self-esteem, self- consciousness) we eventually arrive at discourses of Ego (Spruiell, 1981).
277 New Age as a religious (but also social and cultural) phenomenon is argued by some to impact the Self and one’s identity, because New Agers are able to understand their undefined emotions and experiences in spiritual terms, and thus form identities that are profoundly spiritual (Aupers & Houtman, 2006). In Morgan and Pritchard’s view (2005, p.32), however, personal identities are now understood as socially constructed “multiple and hyphenated performances as opposed to natural or given states”, and they are a product of governing narratives by which “we all continuously (re)locate ourselves in the world”. According to them identity (or self-identity) also plays a vital role in today’s world of cultural change:
Identity is thus a narrative which embeds us within relationships and stories which shift across space and time; it is a dynamic process of becoming and involves notions of self-discovery, personal growth and lifestyle choice (Morgan & Pritchard, 2005, p.32).
Hall (1901-1990), who is often regarded as a leading scholar in the fields of religion, mythology, and the occult, argues that there are two types of Self: the Self that is ego (learned, superficial Self of mind and body), and the true self or the I which he also calls the observing self (Hall, 1996). This distinction is particularly noteworthy in the study of the New Age phenomeon. In New Age terms, Heelas (1996, p.19) for instance argues that “to experience the Self itself is to experience God, the Goddess, the Source, Christ Consciousness, the ‘inner child’, the ‘way of the heart’, or, most simply and most frequently, inner- spirituality”. Some further argue that it is pertinent to distinguish between the Self studied in social settings (as a result of social interactions, performances, symbols and possessions etc.), as opposed to the inner-self that is important for the New Age individual (Clarke, 2002; Hess, 1993).
From a constructionist view, however, the inner-self cannot be divorced from the social and cultural situatedness of the person. New Agers, including the co-researchers in this research study, work and make sense of their experiences and the world via culture. Anne’s reflexive account (see section 6.2.4 in Chapter Six) - how she makes sense of how she became who she is today - tells a story of negotiating between different cultures. Until age seventeen, fear and guilt were an integral part of Anne’s Self. From age
278 seventeen to age thirty, her Self was underpinned by a belief that she was as she put it “chosen with a religious vocation”, believing that she would end up in heaven by obeying the rules of her superior – someone whom she perceived as “the voice of God”. From age thirty, Anne seemed to embark on a cultural crisis of her Self, and between age fifty and sixty she divorced (although not completely and utterly) one culture and embraced a new one. She started to change from believing that others knew better than she did what was for the best – to realising that “creative people grow full consciousness that they are the source of their own power”. Anne thus started to see more of her psychic friend and in her sixties participated even in more New Age activities such as the energy giving workshop Deeksha she talked about.
A constructionist epistemology would therefore argue that the Self is never isolated and can never escape culture. In the study of New Age, Self-spirituality is often seen as an essential part of the New Age phenomenon where the “self” is portrayed as something sacred (Frisk, 2000; Heelas, 1996), something to be worked on, to be improved in order to reach a state of self-perfection (Hollinger, 2004). However people are not born New Agers keen to purify their Selves. But much of this information comes from historical, religious scripts and teachings. It is cultural. The data in this thesis show that some co- researchers, such as Jane, do indeed travel to spiritual retreats and work on their Self purposefully by undergoing a week of intensive meditation. On one occasion for instance, both Jane and Anne attended a “Deeksha Workshop” where they were given energy by the “Deeksha Givers”. When asked to explain the process of energy giving, Jane replied:
I guess to other people it sounds quite flaky, but this couple in India - they somehow got this gift and then they started sharing it and so the idea is that it causes a change in consciousness.
Anne in her reflexive accounts also commented on the Deeksha workshop:
Deeksha: a divine energy transfer that activates a shift in the brain, activating a shift in consciousness: a shift means change. The nature of the shift is permanent. Deeksha starts a process within the individual. It is a journey and experience that takes you back to the source of all happiness.
279 More than anything, these excerpts stress the importance of culture. They demonstrate that both Jane and Anne already had an idea of what the “Deeksha Workshop” was and Jane consciously chose to undergo the “energy giving process” to initiate a change in herself – in her consciousness. However, that this idea did not originate in Jane’s or Anne’s mind, this idea was presented to them culturally. New Agers are given the tools and teachings and become performers in that culture. Rindfleish (2005, p.357) somewhat confirms this by stating that Self Technologies such as visualisation, breathing exercises, and meditation help New Agers to realise the “true Self”56 .
As far as travel and tourism is concerned, the Self work can be worshipped and purified also through taking part in the commodified sphere of the phenomenon by visiting New Age sites, retreats, and by performing rituals, dowsing and utilizing the many available “self technologies”. This view, however, originates in the specific context of the tourism phenomenon - it is a sense making activity of the New Age phenomenon within a particular contextual framework (the business focus in Tourism Studies). Hence the co- researchers and New Agers in general can be categorized as tourists who consume tourism products. Nonetheless, Apparudai (1986, p.13) stresses that one of the problems with excessively positivist conceptions of commodity is that it is often seen as a certain “kind” of thing hence restricting the debate to the matter of deciding “what kind” of thing it is. This is where constructionism and hermeneutic modes of inquiry come into play for they shift the focus to the discourse on meaning and understanding.
7.2.4 Embodied Tourism Tourism is often acknowledged to be an experience that is anthropocentric and hence sensory and pleasurable with a large emphasis on the visual (Adler, 1989; Botterill & Crompton, 1987; Ryan, 2002; Urry, 2002). However, for New Agers the visual is not necessarily the most indispensable reason to travel, for it is more about that which can be experienced (dowsing, feeling energies, meditating etc). Neither the Self nor the physical body can be eradicated from the New Age experience, and on the contrary, they both play
56 It is not clear, however, what the author means by “TRUE” Self.
280 an essential part in the phenomenon. The Self is ultimately impacted through the means of the human body. In tourism scholarship, the body/embodiment discourse has recently provided many fertile grounds for debate. Grosz (1994, p.21 cited in Johnston 2001) provides the following definition of the body:
The body I understand a concrete, material, animate organization of flesh, nerves, muscles, and skeletal structure which are given unity, cohesiveness, and organization only through their psychical and social inscription as the surface and raw materials of an integrated and cohesive totality… The body becomes a human body, a body which coincides with the ‘shape’ and space of a psyche, a body whose epidermic surface bounds a psychical unity, a body which thereby defines the limits of experience and subjectivity.
According to Crouch (2000, p.67) “individuals engage, encounter and grasp the world through a process of embodiment”, and Coleman and Crang (2002) consider tourism as embodied and performed engagement with places. For instance, in their poststructuralist approach, Wilson and Ateljevic (2007) discuss the importance of body and tourist destinations, lobbying for backpacker travel to be understood as an embodied and gendered experience. Yarnal, Chow and Hutchinson (2005) focus on young women’s leisure where women are seen as living through their bodies. These emerging studies acknowledge that the body is indeed an important source of learning about the Self (Wearing, 1998).
In focusing on the New Age phenomenon, the human body becomes an essential tool, as it is through the body that New Agers experience, feel, sense, learn and grow spiritually. The body is also important in terms of experiencing “sacred” sites. Ivakhiv (2003) suggests that sacred places can be experienced through the bodily and sensorial activities. In fact some of the co-researchers in this research study see the physical body as a tool through which one can gain experiences. For instance one of the co-researchers, Jane, stated that we are “spiritual beings having a human experience”. Vicki said that whether engaging in shamanic rituals or performing healing she is able to “get information from every cell in the body”. In a similar fashion, Catherine, just by touching objects, said she is able to receive feelings and images that she can interpret. Thus the human body for the
281 New Age adherents can be understood as a tool through which they become who they are.
Although it is perhaps a matter of common sense that the body is intrinsically linked to people’s being in the world, New Agers consciously use the physical body, take it to places, and put it through various experiences in their endeavour to work on their Selves. Some New Agers may be even more conscious of the human body such as co-researcher Jane who pondered ontological matters on her journey. In the interview she said: “You know, because, if I am not my body and I am not my mind then who am I?”. Therefore the key issue in need of reinforcement is that in ontological terms the “body” goes beyond the organization of flesh, muscles, nerves, skeletal structure and so forth. The meaning of body for New Agers surpasses that traditional notion of body. New Agers’ understanding of the physical body correlates with their New Age paradigm which allows for the existence of energies, chakras, auras - all interconnected with and to be experienced through/in/above/out of the body.
More importantly, with regard to the field of Tourism Studies, it is these bodies that travel to places in search of unique experiences, and there is scope to further explore the different understandings of the meaning of body. For instance if we are to research the body solely adopting a positivist/scientific approach we disregard all the other possible understanding already present in other cultures. Constructionism and emic approaches to research offer the opportunity to explore a variety of cultural perceptions and understandings of the body. Although the importance of the human body in travel and tourism has been noted by other scholars (Franklin & Crang, 2001), it is through the body that the individual “grasps the world and makes sense of it” (Crouch, 2000, p.63), and its meaning can vary from culture to culture as I show in the next section.
7.2.5 The Out- of-Body Travel The meaning and understanding of body invites other interesting debates in the context of the New Age phenomenon. The human body as a composite of energy is often
282 proliferated in New Age teachings and forms the principles of many New Age practices (e.g.Reiki, Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, the concept of chakras, auras, etc). The findings in this thesis suggest that there is another phenomenon relevant to the debate of body/embodiment – the Out-of-Body experience. Out-of-Body experiences serve as an interesting launch pad for theorizing about the body for this notion stretches traditional ontological understanding of the physical (and non-physical) body.
If we were to briefly examine Out-of-Body experiences (OBE), this concept is not something utterly novel. According to Haddow (1991), Egyptians regarded man as composed of various bodies; there was “ka” the energy-body or double, directly associated with the “khat”, which was the physical body. According to him a similar concept is also held by Tibetan Buddhists; they call the astral body the “Bardo Body” which also “ensembles the second-body of the OBE and has the ability to go through matter” something a proficient Yogi is believed by some to do in the real human world (p.80). Today, research estimations of OBE experiences vary from ten percent of the general population (Meyerson & Gelkopf, 2004) up to fifty percent in special groups such as in marijuana users (Blackmore, 1991).57
Some of the co-researchers in this thesis (Julie and Catherine) stated that they were able to leave their physical body and travel to wherever they desired. Catherine claimed that she can visit alien ships; see the inhabitants of these ships and the way they live. Julie claimed to be able to travel to Hawaii and Egypt during her OBE states. And it was during her first experience that Julie maintained that she could see her physical body lying in bed while being out-of-body. Additionally, both co-researchers asserted they could “feel” or “see” while being Out-of-Body.
These experiences reflect some of the issues often addressed by scholars studying this phenomenon (so far exclusively only in other disciplines). For instance OBEs are claimed to provide participants with a unique feeling of separation from one’s body, accompanied
57 Hypothetically speaking, if these estimates were true and if that many people really could leave their body - enter some sort of state and travel to places in their “spiritual body” - then what we understand and conceptualise as “travel” would certainly expand on its meaning.
283 by sensations of floating (Meyerson & Gelkopf, 2004). Furthermore, apart from seeing one’s body and the world from a location outside the physical body (Blanke, Landis, Spinelli, & Seeck, 2004; Palmer & Vassar, 1974; Tart, 1967), one’s awareness or the sense of Self is as if separated from the physical body (Alvarado, 2001; Palmer & Vassar, 1974; Podoll & Robinson, 1999; Twemlow, Gabbard, & Jones, 1982). And although the focus of this thesis is not to reveal what lies beneath the specific experience of being Out- of-Body, it promises to be an interesting subject with regard to the discourses on embodiment and travel. In regard to the aims of this research study the notion of Out-of- Body experiences points to the various understandings of the body - what it is and what it can do – and thus suggesting the constructed nature of its meaning. There are different cultural interpretations of the body that seemingly go beyond the grouping of flesh. It also challenges the dominant views of the body that prevails in social sciences and psychologies which can for instance reject the notion as absurd. The role of constructionism here is therefore not to argue whether an Out-of-Body experience is valid or true, constructionism maintains that these are meaningful experiences for the New Agers. Crotty (1998) reminds us that although meaningful reality is socially constructed, it does not mean that it is not real. For the co-researchers in this study, these experiences are indeed real.
7.2.6 From “Being in the World” to “Becoming” People are not born New Agers – they become who they are through their being in the world: they are shaped by their upbringing, parents, education, society, culture, experiences and so forth. Crotty (1998) reminds us that we are born into a world that is at once natural, social and cultural. Gille Deleuze, an important figure in post-war philosophy, developed a concept that promises to be valuable in the discourse on how does one become a New Ager. The concept of becoming, should it be compared to philosophy, is the practice of creating concepts, not to tell us the truth, but to engage us in the interesting, the remarkable, and the important (May, 2003, p.142). According to Due (2007) the notion of becoming is also present in Plato’s work A thousand Plateaus where becoming means to be in a “state of change”. He explains that the realm of becoming was
284 for Plato unknowable, never an object of knowledge, something that is “not easily represented within an already existing grid of social and moral coordinates” (Due, 2007, p.142). Instead, becoming “designates for any individual a process of alternation that changes that individual’s most basic relations to the world and to itself. This alteration has to be characterized in temporal, semiotic and cognitive terms” (Due, 2007, p.142). He also describes it as a composition of activity and passivity - “such that it is undecidable what a person does and what simply happens to that person” (p.142). May (p.143) in further reviewing Deleuze’s work states that “becoming is the affirmation of being…it is the final reality as there is no being beyond becoming”. “Becoming IS, as being WAS, that reality behind which there is no other reality”. He further elaborates the work of Deleuze:
For Deleuze, there is no being that can serve as the stable model or unity founding what exists. There is only the unfolding of difference in time and as time. This unfolding is Becoming (May, 2003, p.147).
Therefore becoming is inherent to being in the world, or in other words to live (or to be) is to become. May (p.147) puts it differently by stating that “becoming is the being of being”. With regard to this research study as well as tourism ontology, this concept can be further grasped though the analogy of constant change. As a result of our being in the world – and our dialectic and intrinsic relationship with the world – we are in the process of constant change - but also the world changes with us. In regard to the phenomenon of tourism; tourism can inspire us, it can take us to places, it can change our lives, it can provide opportunities, and it can teach us about the world and in fact reveal the world to us. Through tourism, therefore, we become. In this instance tourism acts as an agent in our becoming. Tourism also, however, is the “outcome” of our actions and at the same time manifests as the result of our becoming. It is not something, as I argued earlier, separate from our daily lives. And perhaps in our process of becoming, we also create, make, re-make and de-make places (notions voiced by other academics in the field of Tourism Studies). By drawing on the concept of becoming or “unfolding of difference” we can therefore shift our understanding of tourism to an epistemological locale that
285 portrays tourism as something that is volatile, temporal and always on the move. From this view and in the line of the constructionist argument, tourism is a story of becoming.
According to Freire (1972, p.56) human beings should be seen as “beings in the process of becoming – as unfinished, uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality”. Becoming can be also read into the co-researchers experiences. With regard to the empirical data, it is imperative to acknowledge that there were certain events that had taken place before some of the co-researchers developed their interest in the New Age phenomenon. Jane was devastated when her PhD thesis was declined, and she acknowledged that that was the moment in her life when she became interested in New Age. When it comes to Anne’s letting go of the “old” Catholic belief system Anne acknowledged that her experience with the psychic was what she called “the catalyst for change”. She further commented on that experience: “It was so out of my paradigm and completely foreign… it was mind blowing and I will never forget the shock of that”. Also in Vicki’s case it was after reading a book by Shirley MacLaine which triggered her interest in the New Age phenomenon – in fact to use her words her mind “blew open”. These events can be seen as powerful catalyst-like experiences resulting in the co- researchers becoming more interested in the New Age phenomenon to the extent that it now plays a very important part in their lives. Tourism and travel is/can be one of these catalysts for it is not separate from our being in the world although it may have been conceptualised in this fashion in the past. What we conceptualise as “tourism” also grants the opportunity to people to become on their journey through life and in this dialectic process it too tells a story of becoming as it is always on the move.
7.3 Reflecting on Matters Methodological
As I have argued in Chapters One and Two, there remains confusion with regard to the researchers’ callings for more “qualitative” approaches to research. The confusion largely surrounds the philosophical underpinnings as well as the implications of a chosen approach: the common epistemologies of tourism or what we know and can find out
286 about tourism as something real. Most tourism epistemologies are realist epistemologies. This is also the case with many researchers who use the terms qualitative, constructivist and constructionist. In fact there are not that many constructionists in the field of Tourism Studies telling us that our modes of knowledge production are in fact cultural constructions. There are not many researchers telling us that the studies on dolphins, backpackers, destinations, and eco-tourists are knowledges not necessarily capturing the truth about tourism, but only different interpretations of the world we live in. This fundamental philosophical notion of constructionsim has not been registered by many who operate with the term “constructionist” research. Many scholars follow Denzin and Lincoln’s Qualitative Handbook of Research rather mechanically and uncritically.
7.3.1 Constructionism Revisited In Chapter One, I argued that there are discrepancies when it comes to researchers’ understanding of constructivism/constructionism/social constructionism and I explained how I use the term “constructionism” throughout this research study. I also offered six caveats in regard to the constructionist view of tourism and knowledge production informing the debate in this thesis. I proposed that the epistemological questions are primary to the ontological questions as the ways we understand/seek knowledge determines our views/understanding of the world. I delineated that the way we make sense of the world is historically, culturally and context bound. Tourism, I suggested, is a social-cultural construction, a phenomenon we can never truly explain or describe. Consequently, I depicted tourism as the conglomeration of people’s actions, behaviours, practices and most importantly their being in the world. Hence tourism as we know it and understand it, is a result of our sense making processes and practices. Nevertheless, tourism can tell us about peoples’ being in the world and also the different ways of knowing the world.
In the study problem I explained that my aim was to examine the process of knowledge production in Tourism Studies by employing a constructionist approach to research, and to do so I drew on the New Age phenomenon. In the rest of this section I will therefore
287 further reflect on the construction that emerged in this thesis. Although I voiced the constructed nature of concepts throughout the work (e.g. in the literature review) it is pertinent to reflect on all of the chapters up to this point. In the first chapter I had to establish a problem worthy of research and found constructionism to be a matter in need of exploration to broaden the epistemologies in the field of Tourism Studies. In regard to constructionism, I reviewed relevant literature, critiqued ideas, claims and approaches to form my view of constructionism – what it is and how it should be done. Grounded in the lack of understanding of how knowledge is/can be generated in the field of Tourism Studies I set out to examine the process of generating knowledge in tourism. To put it figuratively, this first step is what all researchers must do to contribute to new knowledge across all fields and disciplines. All researchers need to find a worthy research problem. What this translates to in constructionist terms is that the first step researchers make is to construct the setting for their “story” to unfold. The shaping of the first step largely depends on the cultural situatedness of the researcher and the traditions and “rules” of the field or discipline. All stories unfold within the cultural strictures of a discipline or field.
Hence the first important note is that researchers do not contribute to creating just any arbitrary knowledge. Students-come-researchers are trained within particular disciplines or fields; they have to “download” specific information, read academic literature, attend classes, work on assignments, and pass exams in order to ensure that they reach an “appropriate” (as negotiated by tradition and culture) ontological and epistemological understanding which dominates that field or discipline. This PhD thesis is situated within the field of Tourism Studies, and similarly, throughout my studies I was taught what tourism is, how it works, how it can be best described or defined. The reflexive account in Chapter Three shows my academic journey and my changing perception of tourism during my MBus and PhD years. In other words I did not come to this world with a definite or true conception of tourism: this knowledge and understanding was passed on to me. Therefore in a constructionist sense, my views of tourism cannot be real or true as they are an outcome of culture (the ways of doing and thinking in a social group).
On a more detailed level – within the field of Tourism Studies - I positioned my research on what Tribe calls “new” tourism research and Ateljevic et al. the “Critical Turn”. In
288 other words to give this research study a specific focus or a pedigree, I drew on contemporary tourism literature. In constructionist terms, I drew on work that has been constructed by other researchers. I then focused on the New Age phenomenon to explore what it means to be a New Ager, and to explore New Agers’ being in the world (and its relevance in tourism). In regard to constructionism the concept of the New Age phenomenon can be regarded as a constructionist activity for the following reasons:
(1) To research the New Age phenomenon (and New Agers) I first had to set some boundaries. The co-researchers in this research study had to qualify as “New Agers” and fit the parameters according to these boundaries. To cope with this dilemma I developed a questionnaire to ensure that all respondents demonstrated the characteristics, skills and experiences according to my definition of the phenomenon. This methodological/methodical decision is faced by all researchers before they embark on their research, but not many realise the constructed nature and implications of these actions. From a constructionist stance, there is nothing that is objective about this activity. There seems to be only culture, tradition and the researcher’s creativity. Therefore the study sample, as well as the context in which it takes place, is nothing but a construction.
(2) The New Age phenomenon, similar to tourism, does not ontologically exist on its own. It is a constructed concept – a way of understanding people’s behaviour and actions through cultural lens, and chapter Five shows my mêlée as to making sense of the all the information I found relevant. Therefore all there is, is people having meaningful interaction with the world: our being in the world.
Another decision researchers have to deal with is selecting suitable methodologies and methods. This process is captured in Chapter Three where I discussed the differences between various phenomenological approaches to research. I came to the realization that the methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology was most suitable because of its philosophical qualities, its focus on understanding and the process of interpretation. I thus
289 considered hermeneutic phenomenology as being complimentary to the constructionist approach in this research study. What deserves further mention is that there is no superior, sounder or truer method when it comes to “doing” constructionism. There is no prescription for the constructionist to only use certain methodology and methods despite some claims, such as by Guba (1990, p.27) who asserts that the constructivist methodology should be hermeneutic/dialectic resulting in generating one (or a few) constructions “on which there is substantial consensus”. I showed in Chapter One that there is no one measure for all constructionist/constructivist enquiry and that this is precisely why it is vital for the researcher who draws on this mode of enquiry to be explicit about what he or she means by constructionism/constructivism or other versions of it. If one strives to be consistently constructionist and the work is underpinned by the notion that no knowledge can be truer or better, then it makes little difference whether one uses quantitative or qualitative tools. What makes a large difference is how one presents the findings and what is to become knowledge.
This brings me to another point I would like to reiterate. Much confusion prevails over the issue of ontology in what is called “qualitative” research and inherently also in constructionist/vist approaches to research. In this study I reserved the term ontology for matters of reality and being. In Chapter One, I explained that constructionism does not claim that the world out there is not real – constructionism does not suggest that we live in some kind of dream state. What is constructed is our understanding of the world around us and this understanding is shaped by culture. Rather than maintaining a status quo, constructionism offers a challenging outlook on the production of knowledge: making it a critical approach.
When it comes to reflecting on the data analysis, I found myself to be struggling at first. As I read and re-read the interviews and reflexive accounts, I felt “stuck” and I did not know what to do with the information I collected. In other words I did not know how to go about analysing data in within the tradition of hermeneutic phenomenology. The
290 process is depicted in Figure 7.2. In the first step58, five participants were selected on the basis that they were New Agers or possessed the qualities of a New Ager. In the second step a certain methodology and methods were applied to explore what it means to be a New Ager and to tap into their worlds. This was done by employing hermeneutic phenomenology and the use of interviews and co-researchers’ reflexive accounts. Step Three shows that I was presented with five accounts of New Agers’ being in the world. Step four, however depicts my puzzlement with what should happen next.
To explain my conundrum, each co-researcher had particular New Age experiences and views, and I did not want to simply categorise the co-researchers’ experiences into themes and sub-themes to reveal what it means to be a New Ager. I did not want to constrain myself to generalisations. I was puzzled about how one can generate meaning out of the collected data without it containing some generic claims and still remain honest to constructionism. To not generalise would mean leaving the data to itself and not make sense of it, not analyse it. Williams (2000) claims that every interpretivist research contains some kind of generalizing claim. Whether we try to uncover the symbolic meaning of people and cultures or interpreting what that may be, we find ourselves engaging in generalizations. “If one takes generalization in a broad non-scientific sense to mean a general notion or proposition obtained by inference from particular cases, then interpretive research is replete with generalizations” (Williams, 2000, p.212).
What I did not realise until this step was that even constructionist research cannot escape the activity of generalising while making sense of the data. Constructionism does not offer, and in fact does not have, a solution to avoid this problem. When speaking of the other spectrum of positivism, Williams (2000) is critical of most interpretivist studies and compares the interpretivist attitude to generalization on the Victorian middle classes towards sex. He states: “they do it, they know it goes on, but they rarely admit to either” (2000, p.210). He also criticizes the fact that most papers that draw on interpretive methods make generalizing statements about findings but lack comment upon the basis
58 The use of the word “step” does not imply that there should necessarily be steps – I use this term to describe my process of dealing with the data.
291 FIGURE 7.2: REFLECTING ON THE PROCESS OF DATA CREATION
Jane Interview & INDIVIDUAL Reflexive Account UNDERSTANDING N Anne E Interview & INDIVIDUAL W Reflexive Account UNDERSTANDING
Vicki Interview & INDIVIDUAL Reflexive Account UNDERSTANDING A ? Julie G Interview & INDIVIDUAL E Reflexive Account UNDERSTANDING
Catherine R Interview & INDIVIDUAL S Reflexive Account UNDERSTANDING
STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3 STEP 4
This figure depicts my process of data analysis with steps one, two and three being fairly straightforward. Step four however, is where I reached a stumbling block and was not entirely certain what to do. The question mark stands for many questions: Do I generalise next, Do I leave the data on its own, Can one in fact escape generalising and so forth.
292 upon which such generalizations may be justified. In this regard he portrays Denzin, Guba and Lincoln (1983; 2004) as being in denial for they are claiming that generalization is impossible. What needs to be distinguished here is the act of generalising Williams talks about, and the claims or validity and the scale of generalisations that can take place (i.e. supported by validity reliability in a post-positivist enquiry). The later is often denied by both interpretivists and constructionists; however no research seems to escape the engagement in some form of generalisation while making sense of the data. Even an interpretivist needs to deal with Step Five which I highlighted in Figure 7.2. The key difference is that a constructionist would not suggest that the “outcome” or produced knowledge is to be treated as truthful. There is much room for vigilance, criticality and reflexivity in the field of Tourism Studies, something I have argued under the vicinities of criticality (Chapter Two) and broadly in Chapter One.
Finally, to wrap up this section, I have offered my subjective and constructed understanding of New Agers’ being in the world (section 7.1). I presented several loose themes and also conceptualized about places, performances, the Self, and the role of body, and drew on some of the recent works in Tourism Studies. What remains pertinent, is the constructed nature of these concepts and my reading of the data into these concepts. In other words there is no “truer” or better understanding of the phenomenon I conceptualized as the New Age phenomenon, and for that matter there is no truer or better understanding of what we call tourism. There are many other ways I could have rationalised the data: I could have grouped them into different themes and offered dozens of pages of analysis. The purpose, however, was to use it to engage in broader theoretical debates on knowledge production and not to provide a full description of the phenomenon or fully exhaust the understanding of New Agers.
7.3.2 Phenomenology Revisited
Hermeneutics is not to be a successor subject to Epistemology; rather, it represents the hope that the cultural space left by the demise of Epistemology will not be filled… Thus, it represents the abandoning of certain values - rationality, disinterestedness, the possibility of floating free of educational and institutional patterns of the day (Hartsock, 1987, p.197).
293 The use of hermeneutic phenomenology as a methodology in this study was suitable for the focus was placed on the production of knowledge. There are, however, several issues that need reinforcing. There are different approaches to phenomenology as I discussed in Chapter Three and not all phenomenologies are embedded in the same philosophical thought. For example vast differences exist between the works of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. Secondly, in regard to the process of “doing” hermeneutic phenomenology, I explained that Heidegger and Gadamer held that data can never speak for itself. Data needs to be interpreted and made sense of by the researcher. This is one of the reasons why Gadamer argued that “bracketing” (suppressing the researcher’s views and knowledge in order to be objective) is absurd and definitive interpretation can never be possible.
With regard to constructionism, phenomenology, and hermeneutic phenomenology in particular, does not offer more meaningful vistas and like any other methodology or method, hermeneutic phenomenology is only a different strategy of achieving the research objectives. There is no better and certainly no truer. 59 Therefore hermeneutic phenomenology is not the “perfect” instrument to bypass all of the concerns voiced by the critics of other methods used in positivist/post-positivist enquiries. Hermeneutic phenomenology cannot produce something that is “improved”. A constructionist researcher can voice the constructed nature of meaning; however no method will give him or her better access to producing truthful knowledge. What matters most in a constructionist study is not that researchers employ methodologies and methods “correctly”- but that one chooses a methodology that resonates with his/her approach. The key issue is what the researcher does with the data and what ontological and epistemological decisions drive his/her research (and therefore the researcher). In this regard, Schwandt (2000, p.196) reminds us that the goal of philosophical hermeneutics (often called hermeneutic phenomenology) is philosophical - “that is to understand what is involved in the process of understanding itself”. Phenomenology may offer researchers a richer description of the phenomenon under scrutiny, but to a constructionist, it remains
59 A constructionist reminder that this notion is of course grounded in my constructionists view. There are phenomenologists who do believe that phenomenology can be used as a scientific methodology to describe a real experience as I discussed in Chapter Three.
294 only a different way of accessing information and forming knowledge. Therefore although hermeneutic phenomenology may appear closer to a constructionist inquiry, it is only in that it pays attention to interpretation and how understanding emerges on a philosophical level.
Furthermore, culture, heritage, language and traditions need to be taken into account when doing hermeneutic phenomenology. The empirical data in this thesis showed that delving into the sphere of the New Age phenomenon and investigating experiences such as meditation and an Out-of-Body experience can present complex hermeneutic issues. The researcher may not solely have to compose a literature review, but also be reflexive about his/her own understanding of the concepts of meditation and Out-of-Body experience. However, the researcher may never be able to guarantee that he/she and the participant have a completely identical understanding of the concept/experience that is being investigated. In footnote 50 I reflect on the fact that there are different views on what an Out-of-Body experience is even amongst New Agers. The noteworthy observation is that New Agers themselves make sense of their experiences - they too read other books and talk to other people to make sense of their spiritual encounters or being in the world. The OBE demonstrates how incredibly difficult it is to tap into someone else’s experience and knowing exactly what the experience is like (to use the words of Husserl, knowing the essence of that experience), in particular when the researcher (I) has never had an Out-of-Body experience himself (that I know of). Researchers therefore rely on the co-researcher’s ability to convey the meaning of an experience. But both the researcher and the co-researcher filter their experiences/make sense of it though a world- view (cluster of ideas and concepts) that is uniquely available to the individual and that may have different cultural undertone.
It often seems to us that others share similar, if not the same, understanding of the world. But is it in fact possible to fully tap into another person’s understanding. For example researching the experience of “meditation” there may be cultural and historical differences as to technique, length of time, and related objects (e.g. Western practitioners of meditation in the 21st century may be accustomed to using a yoga mat, burning incense
295 and playing recorded music). For instance one of the co-researchers could have spent ten years meditating in Tibet and not consider it important to tell the researcher. But even had the participant told the researcher – it would seem impossible that he/she was able to convey all the knowledge and meaning gained in those ten years. From a constructionist stance, it appears that it is never possible to understand from another person’s perspective for that would mean to live his/her life. Researchers may never gain a full understanding of the participant’s views, nor will the researcher know all the incidents/experiences that may have shaped the participant’s view of the world. Both hermeneutic phenomenology and constructionism hold that humans are self-interpreting beings. Hediegger argued that each person perceives the same phenomenon in a different way, depending on one’s experience, specific understandings and historical background (Finlay, 2003). This study therefore only touches on the complexity of understanding and most research in the field of Tourism Studies lies dormant where the issues of tacit knowledge are concerned. In fact most studies presume that both the researcher and participants know and share the same understanding the subject under investigation (e.g. meditation) when collecting and analysing data and offering new insights.
What hermeneutic phenomenology can do is make the researcher ponder the circumstances in which research (and understanding) takes place: it involves delineating issues such as historicity and background. Consequently, I sought to be reflexive throughout the thesis and I voiced the constructed nature of the New Age phenomenon and other theoretical frameworks this work is built on. I drew on the tools and concepts available to me to create the specific understanding that emerged in this thesis (e.g. by drawing on mobilities, worldmaking, globalisation etc.). Another researcher could employ different theories and offer different understanding of the data. In other words, I sought to demonstrate my understanding of the available concepts – the cultural strictures of Tourism Studies in which this study is located. I also pointed out that the New Age phenomenon derives from a cultural and historical situatedness as it is meaningfully interpreted and re-interpreted by its adherents and researchers. This is something that has been voiced by many thinkers, including Deleuze, who adopted the critical principle that
296 “ideas, mental activity and the inner life are historical products and not natural givens” (cited in Due, 2007, p.87).
7.3.3 Post-disciplinary Modes of Knowledge Production In Chapter Four I discussed disciplinary, inter-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary approaches to research and suggested that there is a tendency to abandon the disciplinary focus, with scholars increasingly calling for post-disciplinarity. In post-disciplinary research the focus is shifted from the organizational construction of disciplinary boundaries to broadening the knowledge of the subject under scrutiny. The researcher thus depends less on by-products from other disciplines (Hollinshead, 1996). On a philosophical note, post- disciplinarity is perhaps the closest to constructionism for as Coles et al. (2005) assert – it is concerned with learning rather than contributing to particular disciplines. Constructionism is concerned with the ways we perceive the world and our building of understanding.
I consider this research study to be post-disciplinary for it brings together concepts, theories and issues pertinent to a number of disciplines such as sociology, geography, cultural studies, philosophy and others. Throughout this thesis I drew on concepts that originate in various fields in order to make sense of the information. The discussion on the New Age phenomenon in Chapter Five perhaps shows that the phenomenon can be conceptualised and meaningfully interpreted in many ways by drawing on different premises and concepts. In fact I showed how restricted the production of knowledge can be when working within the strictures of a discipline – such as in the case of defining the New Age phenomenon. In this regard Coles et al. (2009) put forward that researchers need to step beyond established disciplinary boundaries so they can make use of new modes of knowledge production. Therefore post-disciplinarity holds the promise of greater variety of meaningful interpretations, contributing to broader knowledge.
In reflecting on my attempt to engage in a post-disciplinary mode of knowledge production, some other issues arose during this research. The first pitfall concerns depth and breadth - one’s knowledge of theories and concepts pertinent to certain disciplines.
297 My training has been solely in tourism and business studies. Therefore my level of confidence when it comes to sociology, anthropology, and geography (or any other discipline for that matter) does not match the depths of my knowledge of tourism. For instance a student who has successfully completed a bachelors, masters and Ph.D. degree in the discipline of sociology will gain a disciplinary breadth and depth. His or her ability to orient within that discipline thus may be more effortless. However, the possible offset is that disciplinary strictures also limits one’s view and can present a drawback. The matter thus points to the researcher’s choice to negotiate confidence with the promise of having broader vistas which go past the disciplinary boundary. In this regard constructionism, although not in favour of any particular type of knowledge (disciplinary or post-disciplinary) to some extent erases the disciplinary boundaries by acknowledging the creativity that is knowledge production. It indirectly encourages ventures that go past the disciplinary “box” for it argues that there are many ways of knowing. Hence restricting ourselves to disciplines is fine and acceptable, but at the same time there are new knowledges that can emerge out of a post-disciplinary focus.
The other issues pertain to politics and the research process. For instance finding a suitable post-disciplinary mentor able to offer guidance across a range of disciplines may not be the easiest task. Supervisors can face the same issue I discussed above (confidence - but perhaps also the fear of ridicule in stepping out of his/her mastery). Also having two or three mentors in different disciplines may not be an ideal solution as each of these will have their own personal, political and research agenda. Universities are shaped and structured in a disciplinary manner and want to preserve this ordering for many reasons such as ranking and funding. Although a post-disciplinary mentor may not necessarily be IN a particular discipline or field, it is likely to take some time for this to come to fruition. Delving into different disciplines may therefore require courage, more study, more books to be read, openness to other possibilities and perhaps even hunger to see how other academics tackle and conceptualize various phenomena. As far as the emergence of post-disciplinary constructionists in the field of Tourism Studies goes, this is a futuristic view of researchers who see knowledge production as a journey - an ongoing process that opens up new vistas along the way.
298 7.4 Chapter Summary
To sum up, in this Chapter I have offered a phenomenological understanding of what it means to be a New Ager. My take on the empirical data resulted in the notion that the co- researchers perceive and live their lives through a New Age paradigm or a worldview which enables them to have meaningful New Age experiences. In other words the “cultural” shapes how they see and experience this world: underscoring the importance of people’s cultural and social heritage. I suggested that the co-researchers have meaningful experiences in their daily lives and without having to necessarily visit New Age places (such as sites promoted by marketers). When it comes to their ontological perception of a place, I put forward that meaning of a place may vary from person to person, and is the result of one’s negotiation of meanings in a contemporary cultural setting. I also proposed that New Agers (as conceptualised in this research study) are able to “turn” places, objects and circumstances into a meaningful New Age experience. Furthermore, I discussed the importance of the Self and the body and offered a view that for the devoted New Agers, they can work on the Self by the means of travelling. They are on a journey of becoming that can be understood by exploring their being in the world. Tourism, I suggest, thus presents the opportunity for one to become while it tells a story of becoming on its own – through a dialectic process where tourism is seen as part of our daily lives. Therefore in regard to Tourism Studies, there is scope for further tourism theorising in terms of what it is, does and can be. There is room for new epistemologies that seek to explore other ways of knowing about tourism: the embracement of more emic approaches and further explorations into tacit knowledge.
I have also painted a picture of constructionism through my engagement and application of this approach to research. The promise of what Tribe (2004) calls “new” tourism research lies in enabling discourses such as this research study, and thus further advancing the epistemology of tourism. I joined Hollinshead (2004b; 2004c) in his claim that much tourism research lacks sophistication with regard to how human meaning is created. I offered an epistemological view of tourism that can never “truly” represent, describe or understand what tourism is, for what we call tourism is a temporal and
299 cultural construction. It is one way of understanding the world. It was not my aspiration to promote constructionist enquiry as a superior or better approach to research (for that would mean that constructionism has access to better or truer knowledge), but to explore how knowledge is/can be produced and challenge the readers in the field. In the following chapter, I will present the summary of this research study and offer some concluding thoughts.
300
Chapter 8
SUMMARY AND REFLECTIONS
In the past people’s mentality was formed within a large space which still exists, called the cathedral. Today human mentality is formed within another large space called the shopping centre. And the illusion there is constant.
Jose Saramago
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This last quote brings my thesis to a close. The citations presented in every chapter were selected intentionally to show that tourism is intertwined with people’s everyday lives and that there is more to how we can conceptualise the phenomenon we call “tourism”. Tourism has in this study been portrayed as something that cannot be isolated from our daily lives, or as I have argued, our being in the world, and it was my aim to inspire the reader to think about tourism from a broader theoretical perspective.
This thesis is underpinned by a constructionist line of thought and a hermeneutic methodology and therefore the aim of this last chapter is not to provide some unambiguous pronouncement but to reflect on the knowledge progression or the “making” of this work. In Chapter One I stated that my aspiration was not to provide an objective account of the New Age phenomenon and people’s experiences, but to look at how people’s lives - their being in the world - is/can be relevant to Tourism Studies. In other words, by studying people’s lives I wanted to explore what can be learned/conceptualised/understood about tourism and travel. More importantly, I sought to examine the process of creating knowledge in the field of Tourism Studies by using a
301 constructionist approach to research. In the following pages, I will reflect on the germane aspects of this thesis and offer my concluding remarks.
8.1 Reaching an Understanding - Chapters Re-visited
The term understanding is important in both hermeneutic phenomenology and constructionism. In this section I will review chapters One to Seven and summarise the key points (or understandings) I have reached in this thesis. As for contributing to “new” tourism research and tourism theorising, this thesis sought to demonstrate that what tourism “is” and “does” can be presented from different epistemological outlooks. In Chapter One I offered a view on the “Critical Turn” and “new” tourism research, portraying it as an evolution in the tourism landscape. This recent movement arose not only from the need for wider theoretical proposals but it also calls for a broader assessment with regard to epistemology, ontology and methodology. I proposed that researchers who are loosely grouped under the umbrella term “Critical Turn” are not immune to narrow and “fixed” modes of theorising about tourism and are in fact in need of more criticality. Perhaps even more so (compared to other researchers) for Critical Turn academics should lead by example and produce in-depth, critical and reflexive work. The second matter is that the term Critical Turn is not necessarily accepted by all tourism researchers and not all scholars are convinced that the there in fact has been a turn in the field of Tourism Studies. In Chapter One I suggested that perhaps this is something that is taking place in the field at the moment with some researchers “turning” more than others. In this regard I also critiqued Denzin and Lincoln’s (2003) Seven Moments which represent a chronological but rather artificial portrayal of the evolution of research. Tourism scholarship, I argued, is occurring simultaneously in the midst of all Seven Moments - should one work with Denzin and Lincoln’s interpretation of research which presents but one view.
When it comes to matters methodological, phenomenology undeniably played a large part in this research. I explained my strategy in regard to constructionism in Chapter Two, and in Chapter Three I presented my understanding of phenomenology in general and the use
302 of hermeneutic phenomenology in particular. While providing a contrast between Husserl’s and Heidegger’s approach, I highlighted the diversity of phenomenologies as possible research methodologies and explained that the focus in this thesis was on understanding in tourism research. I explained that this study is guided by constructionist epistemology, and I outlined the methodological implications and procedures of hermeneutic phenomenology. Without going into great detail, one of the findings in this chapter was that as a methodology, phenomenology remains an ambiguous term in Tourism Studies, and in this regard there is a lack of academic literature, and use of this methodology. A section of equal importance contained my reflexive account of my journey as a researcher. Overall, the use of phenomenology not only contributed to revealing what it may mean to be a New Ager; it provided a glimpse into New Agers’ lives and their being in the world. It is by paying attention to one’s being in the world, I argued, that we can further theorise about tourism and people’s meaningful experiences.
In Chapter Four I delved into the subject of “new” tourism research and the “shift” (or rather mood) that is occurring in Tourism Studies. I reviewed some of the recent works and explained that my attempt was not to provide a thorough assessment of the tourism scholarship in the likes of Graburn and Jaffari (1991). The innovative studies on mobilities and understanding of places (Coles et al., 2005; Crang, 2004; Urry, 2006), Hollinshead’s (2004a; 2004b; 2008) conception of wordmaking and worldshaping, Meethan’s (2002) work on places, culture, and consumption, and Franklin’s (2004) vision of tourism as an ordering were important in showing that there are different ways of tourism theorising as well as understanding tourism. These studies can be perceived as the initial steps towards wide-ranging tourism theory. I have sought to show that tourism has been largely understood as a business/management/system oriented field. In this regard Tribe’s (1997) view of knowledge creation opened the discourse on disciplinarity, inter-disciplinarity, and multi-disciplinarity in Tourism Studies and I offered post- disciplinarity as a possible way of contributing to the field in the future. In fact by drawing on the work of Coles, Hall and Duval (2005; 2009) I proposed that the future varied epistemologies of Tourism Studies lie in a post-disciplinary approach to research with academics reaching past the disciplinary boundaries. In this regard, in the previous
303 chapter I suggested that post-disciplinary approaches are indirectly endorsed by constructionism (or the version of it in this thesis) for the focus is placed on learning rather than contribution to specific disciplines guarded by its boundaries. Constructionism does not favour one type of knowledge over another and post- disciplinarity draws on a variety of theories, concepts, and methods to produce wide- ranging knowledge. Despite that Coles et al. (2009, p.95) vision of post-disciplinarity to “research issues and questions to their logical conclusion” goes against the grain of constructionism (there can only be constructions), I share their view that “it is time to consider tourism knowledge production beyond the restrictive dogma and parochialism of disciplines”.
In Chapter Five I engaged closely with the topic of New Age and the studies thereof. Divided into three sections, the first provided a view on the emergence of the phenomenon, concepts and definitions, the second part discussed the major themes in New Age such as the Eastern religions and practices, and the last showed that travel, mobilities, Eastern religion, commodification, and the concept of tribalism can all be seen as facets of the New Age phenomenon. What I sought to demonstrate was the many ways and directions in which one can make sense of the phenomenon and in this regard tapping into various concepts and theories - borrowing from different disciplines - can be seen as a post-disciplinary approach to forming an understanding. In regard to constructionism, I also highlighted the pitfalls of defining phenomena (in general) and pointed to the constructed nature of the process; asserting that researchers cannot escape the hold culture has on them. Chapter Five was also a forerunner for what was to follow in the empirical part of this thesis and thus presented my sense making activities in order to conceptualise the New Age phenomenon and interpret what it means to be a New Ager. I stressed that this process is underpinned by the researcher’s cultural situatedness and that he or she works with meanings that derive from complex traditional societies. Therefore by concentrating on the New Age phenomenon, both chapters Five and Six demonstrated the constructed nature of the research process and also the constructions that emerged out of my methodological decisions.
304 Chapter Six dealt solely with the empirical data. It revealed the New Agers’ experiences, their meanings, and what it is that they do, but also how the participants themselves saw their journeys of becoming who they are today. In the fashion of hermeneutic phenomenology, the aim was to understand rather than explain or describe. Therefore the data was not to be evaluated in terms of authenticity and legitimacy; it was to be later conceptualised according to the researcher’s conceptualisation of the New Age phenomenon. I offered an account of people’s being in the world understood though a cultural lens - a New Age lens. Earlier in Chapter Three I made a methodological decision to include the raw data and present the transcribed interviews and reflexive accounts of the five co-researchers in the main text. I explained my position that presenting the reader with the transcripts was important so the reader can see how the researcher creates meaning and makes sense of the information. I saw this step as important for it offers more transparency as to the researcher’s construction of knowledge. The attempt was therefore to avoid merely presenting the reader with a summary of findings or themes (e.g. descriptive phenomenology). The key reason behind including the data was not to provide a full description of the phenomenon or fully exhaust the understanding of New Agers. The focus in this thesis was on knowledge production in Tourism Studies and the data served to demonstrate and contribute to the wider theoretical and philosophical discourse on the ways of knowing about tourism.
Chapter Seven brought together the empirical data, hermeneutic phenomenology, the New Age phenomenon but also tourism literature and other concepts such as Deleuze’s notion of becoming. In this chapter I re-visited the meaning of places, I discussed the body and issues pertaining to the out-of-body discourse, and I conceptualised about co- researchers’ Selves and what I read into as their performances. In this regard the findings suggested that the co-researchers do indeed make, re-make and de-make places and that they perhaps hold the key to what a place may represent (as for meaning). I argued that the meaning of a place changes with one’s worldview or belief system, and in this instance it was a New Age paradigm which enabled the co-researchers to have meaningful New Age experiences. I portrayed the New Age paradigm as allowing the co- researchers to see and experience the world though a unique cultural lens: one that allows
305 for the existence of energies, spirits and like phenomena. I also reflected on the processes of constructing this research and proposed that researchers cannot escape the act of generalising in the sense of generalising being a notion by inference from particular cases (e.g. having to make sense of five interviews such as the five co-researchers in this study). I also pointed out that there is a difference between the act of generalising (a necessity to do something with the data), and the methodological principle of offering generalisations in regard to reliable truths about the world. While I argued that the first cannot be avoided, the latter is given by the researcher’s philosophical assumptions such as his/her ontological and epistemological views (e.g. post-positivism versus constructionism).
With regard to knowledge production in Tourism Studies, in Chapter Seven I also highlighted that much work in the field falls within the province of etic (culturally neutral and observer based) research and that there is a need for more emic (cultural and meaningful to the actor) accounts of tourism. There is scope for more explorations into the world of meaning and culture in order to move past the current business/management strictures of the field. The data in this thesis only touched on the complexity of understanding and meaning and showed that by employing the New Age phenomenon we are introduced into a large variety of perception and understanding of places, spaces and objects. Tourism can tell us more about peoples being in the world, however the field still lacks human-centered approaches and is in need of further examination of tacit knowing.
8.2 Concluding Reflections on the New Age Phenomenon
The New Age phenomenon played an important role in this research study and my preference of this phenomenon over other possible subjects of study was underlined by three motifs: (1) sociological-cultural relevance, (2) my personal interest that sprang out of my Masters Thesis, and (3) its promise to be a challenging exercise with regard to understanding New Agers’ being in the world and generating meaning in the context of
306 Tourism Studies. With regard to the first, I explained that the New Age phenomenon is highly relevant in today’s world with its popularity growing over the past two decades (this of course depends on one’s definition and conceptualisation of New Age). Selecting New Age as a research context was therefore pertinent from a sociological perspective as it provided a debate that is meaningful in the contemporary social order. The second underpinning was personal: my previous research and Masters Thesis focused on New Age tourists in New Zealand and therefore represented a research area I wished to explore further. My findings then, led to exposing a segment of travellers that has been long overlooked and I published two research papers which have been discussed extensively throughout this study. The main difference is that in this thesis I did not solely focus on New Age travellers and instead shifted my attention to understanding New Agers’ being in the world – a concept by Martin Heidegger. I moved from engaging in descriptive phenomenology (in my Masters thesis) to hermeneutic phenomenology in order to see how we can understand this phenomenon in the context of Tourism Studies. While descriptive phenomenology aims to describe an experience, hermeneutic phenomenology focuses on the process of understanding, and by tapping into New Agers’ lives – their being in the world - I sought to explore how knowledge can be produced on this subject within in the context of Tourism Studies. It also provided a fertile ground for constructionist discourses on how we perceive and make sense of the world we live in.
In this regard I reflected on my journey as an academic in the field of Tourism Studies and presented my understanding of the field: pointing to the vast differences between my Masters and PhD studies. I also highlighted the different theories and concepts one can employ to study tourism (in this case the New Age phenomenon within the context of Tourism Studies) and thus suggested how creative researchers can be when conceptualising about tourism. An important notion is that our current academic practices are the product of our contemporary culture. Culture is thus a vital constituent of our being in the world and enables us to seeing objects in certain ways. I have joined the voices of other scholars arguing that “as natural as these objects may be, it is our culture (shorthand in most cases today for a very complex mix of many cultures and sub-
307 cultures) that teaches us how to see them - and in some cases whether to see them” (Crotty, 1998, p.55). The New Agers proved to be a good example of this argument. New Age places, sacred sites, out-of-body experiences, wands and other aspects of the phenomenon were, I suggested, the result of a New Age paradigm – a particular culture. Culture should therefore be seen as the source rather than the result of human thought and behaviour (Crotty, 1998). Cotty further says that:
The meaning we ascribe to the object may come from our dreams, or from primordial archetypes we locate within our collective unconscious, or from the conjunction and aspects of the planets, or from religious beliefs, or from… That is to say, meaning comes from anything but an interaction between the subject and the object to which it is ascribed. (Crotty, 1998, p.9).
When it came to demonstrating constructionism in action, I sought to show that neither the New Age phenomenon nor tourism (and the many meanings and definitions that come with it) are something that is self-explanatory. Our experiences in/with the world are “some type” of experience that are meaningfully interpreted by the co-researchers, researchers, communities, and other actors. They vary depending on one’s cultural situatedness which enables one to generate meaning that is already historical. I thus followed the critical principle that “ideas, mental activity and the inner life are historical products and not natural givens” - a notion that to be traced in the work of thinkers such as Deleuze (as observed by Due, 2007).
In this regard, this thesis contributes to Tourism Studies knowledge by offering a novel outlook on what I conceptualised as New Age travellers. It widens the perception of tourism by showing that there is a segment of travellers worthy of attention. Understanding New Agers has also implications for tourism in general, as it can not only contribute to managerial decisions and marketing activities of New Age businesses, but from a sociological perspective, it broadens the understanding of different types of travellers in the complex world of tourism. Therefore by tapping into the region of meaning and being - and focusing on what it means to be a New Ager – we are presented with a type of traveller who could otherwise remain invisible as I discussed in Chapter
308 Seven. Furthermore, any research activity occurs in a world that is increasingly shaped and reshaped by the rise of global society. I showed in Chapter Five that the New Age phenomenon comprises culturally regulated commodities (Apparudai, 1986) that are marketed as a certain kind of thing (Kryptoff, 1986), and that it also involves imagination - a powerful agent in social life. The vast number of goods, services and destinations marketed as New Age sites, and the flow of people, objects, messages and information are all inherent to what I have conceptualised as the New Age phenomenon.
When it comes to the empirical data, what was additionally insightful in understanding New Agers was the fact that the co-researchers live, see, breathe and experience their lives through a New Age paradigm. There seem to be devoted individuals, whose world- view is charged with spirits, mediums, energies, sacred sites, UFOs and so forth. What is in need of emphasis is that human beings have diverse experiences of the world: we are all shaped in a unique way and have different cultural pedigrees. In other words, we are the products of different cultures and a complex conglomeration of many subcultures on our journeys of becoming. Traditional approaches to research often disregard this fact. The role of constructionism in this thesis was therefore important for it carries the possibility of approaching topics and areas that could not be studied “legitimately” in the past. It also shows that there are different ways of accessing knowledge such as through emic understandings. In regard to the politics of research, the Out-of-Body experiences (and the New Age phenomenon at large) have not traditionally gained much respect by the scientific community as an eligible subject for a scientific study (fortified by claims of objectivity and claims of validity). However, the co-researchers in this thesis are people who share the same world, and it seems to be a research crime to disregard their meaningful experiences completely. On this note, Power (2000, p. 22) states that:
Some forms of knowledge are held to be true by recognition and understanding in a spiritual, aesthetic or occult sense, that is, usually implicit, not held to be amenable to the measurement or proof in a scientific sense but “known” through personal experience, such as conviction by sudden recognition, seeing a vision, or being moved by insight. Ideas of enlightenment, realisation and divine revelation (in gods/God-centered religious contexts) resonate here.
309 To broaden the horizons of our knowing of the world there is indeed scope within the field of Tourism studies to embrace the many different types of knowledges available: whether they are a common sense/everyday, scientific, practical, technical, empirical or theoretical.
Throughout the research study I have proposed that under the constructionist paradigm, knowledge production in the field of Tourism Studies is a constructed process leading to many and varied constructions. What I need to reiterate is that researchers contributing to tourism knowledge are not, and cannot, reveal truthful insights about what we understand tourism to be. Meaning does not exist on its own, nor can it sustain itself independently - it is generated and reproduced by historically and culturally situated individuals. Tourism and its knowledge therefore ceases to have real or true disposition outside of the cultural sphere in which it was created, recreated and understood. By drawing on the New Age phenomenon I was able to offer my view on how such a construction occurs. What needs further attention is that theorising about the New Age phenomenon is conceptually not that different from other forms of interpreting meaningful experiences in tourism such as conceptualising about backpackers, religious tourists, gay and lesbian tourists, eco- tourists and other types of tourists. These concepts remain in the ownership of the researcher’s situated understanding, and the constructionist vision of tourism portrayed in this thesis is one that does not see tourism as based on either “true” or “real” ontological insights (in terms of there being one ultimate knowable reality).
8.3 Concluding Reflections on Reflexivity and Criticality
Reflexivity seems to go hand in hand with constructionism in that it acknowledges that research findings are “partial, partisan and fundamentally anchored in the social context” (Finlay, 2003, p.5). Alvesson and Skoldberg (2000, p.246) state that reflexivity is about the way “we construct ourselves socially while also constructing objects (out there) in our research” and that without “construction and a constructing and constructed self, there is no meaning”. In reflecting on my reflexive modes of being, I did not follow a particular method despite some literature suggesting detailed steps on how to do reflexivity
310 (MacMillan, 2003). I followed Gough’s (2003) suggestion to pay attention to personal reflexivity and to note the interpersonal, institutional and cultural contexts. I sought to offer my reflexive insights throughout the study at different intersections – in the text, by means of footnotes and through dedicating a separate section to self-examining my knowledge of tourism (in Chapter Three). I also sought to be reflexive and critical of my previous work on the New Age phenomenon.
Stepping into the issue of criticality, in Chapter Two, I illustrated that there are different views on how to be critical, and that the subject is rather complex and messy. As with other concepts, I underlined that criticality is not a coherent or single approach. I proposed that rather than an act of “escaping” (Tribe, 2007, p.32), criticality is more about evaluating, assessing, exposing, and voicing, and I offered six vicinities I described as having a promise in regard to constructionist research. These were: (1) bewilderment, (2) openness, (3) possibility, (4) transparency, (5) consistency, and (6) conscientisation. I sought to attend to all of the above by not taking the work of others for granted and accessed various approaches across different fields and disciplines. I intended to stay open to a variety of meanings and interpretations, and I attempted to voice the constructed nature of meaning via the cultural tourism lens – being careful not to offer a definite view. This required self-vigilance and re-reading the thesis in order to attend to possible slippages into a realist mode of presenting information. I also sought to be transparent in the research study and explain the key terms and concepts used in the work. In other words, I strived to be consistent with the version of constructionism I outlined in Chapter One and attempted to remain critically conscious (as per conscientisation) throughout the process. I aimed to produce a constructionist study that would merit respect60 and engage in a philosophical research that can be described by drawing on Deleuze’s view as follows:
Rather than recognition of a fit between judgement and fact, the task of the philosopher is to seek lines of conjunction… the philosopher explores lines of flight, he/she creates new and unforeseen syntheses – in other words she creates
60 I drew on the work of Crotty and in section 2.4 (Chapter Two) explained that I strived to produce a work that would merit respect instead of operating with the terms rigour, validity and reliability.
311 concepts, each concept being a singularity, ordering around itself a neighbourhood, a territory (Lecercle, 2002, p.177).
On a reflexive/constructive note, I find it incredible that I would struggle to explain this research study in my native language. Slife and Williams(1995) explain that we get our language from other people and that we share it with them. They say that it is through language that “we obtain the categories with which we understand the world and the ways to make it meaningful” (p.55). What I realised and experienced in this regard is that I do not possess the tools - the vocabulary and meanings of the words I use in English in my native Czech language. This highlighted for me that meaning can only exist as shared meaning, confirming Slife and Williams’s claim that “all language is social” (1995, p.55). I have learned meanings and made sense of the concepts used in this work only in English (e.g. the term epistemology). Therefore I cannot fully share what I know and how I understand with others, who do not share these meanings which can only be communicated through language. This finding stresses the importance of language in cultures but also in our being in the world. Language is an important aspect of our understanding of the world and it is not surprising that it was the subject of many philosophical debates, including the works of Heidegger and Deleuze. With regard to the field of Tourism Studies, reflexivity (which includes the matters pertaining to language), together with emic and tacit knowing have a lot to offer to further our knowing of tourism. Constructionism also suggests the cultural and socialised subjectivity and reflexive modes - a topic that has not been widely, if at all discussed by many academics. Researchers’ reflexive accounts too are shaped by rules, traditions, and culture- in other words reflexivity also is cultural.
8.4 Concluding Reflections on Constructionism
In returning to the purpose of this thesis, I sought to examine the process of generating knowledge in Tourism Studies by using a constructionist approach to research. My aim was to advance the epistemology in the field of Tourism Studies and broaden the vistas of tourism ontology. I namely sought to: (1) improve the understanding, implication and use
312 of constructionism in Tourism Studies; (2) challenge the dominant views of what tourism is/can be and does beyond the traditional ontological and epistemological claims, and (3) critique the degree to which tourism is depicted as a real phenomenon, often attempted to be “truly” described or explained. Chapter One revealed that there are numerous takes on what constructionism (cum constructivism) is and I explained that it is not a precise or agreed term. I delineated my constructionist stance on which this thesis was built and offered an epistemological view of tourism as a phenomenon that studies our being in the world and our meaningful interactions in/with the world. In other words, I have argued that tourism is not a separate phenomenon from our daily lives and to understand it from broader theoretical perspectives one needs to turn towards more emic modes of enquiry.
In Chapter One I also offered six caveats in order to outline my view of tourism through a constructionist lens. These can be summarised briefly as follows: despite the fact that our being in the world is real, what we call tourism is a created concept - a social construction which marks this time and space by the means of providing a specific understanding of the world, with researchers acting as a story tellers who interpret the lived world through a particular conceptual and theoretical lens. To this notion, I would like to add a section from Norbert Elias’s (2005, p.216) interview with Peter Ludes:
...As every scientific advance and discovery, however convincing and authoritative, can be checked against relevant evidence, it is always open to revision or rejection. The discoveries of pioneering scientists provided a paradigmatic model showing that and how it was possible by a blend of individual learning, observation, and reflection to produce new knowledge and orient oneself in one’s actions accordingly, often in contradiction to established authority.
Relevant to the research context of the New Age phenomenon and the knowledge that is generated, adopted and shared by its adherents, Elias (2005, p.214) further contemplates:
Millions of human beings regard knowledge of a spirit world as the lynchpin of their whole orientation in this world. What right have I to disregard them? Would I not be a very bad scientist indeed if I considered in my exploration of human knowledge only what I myself regards as correct knowledge and disregard other forms of knowledge? It is a grave mistake to confine a theory of knowledge to the
313 consideration of what we call scientific knowledge, disregarding other forms of knowledge.
What is underscored in the above quotes is not only the agency of researchers as skilled producers of specific knowledges but also the fact that there are different types of knowing about the world. Tourism has been studied/made sense of mainly with the help of scientific knowledge, however, just because science does not know how to deal with the information (e.g. Out of Body experience) and does not have the mechanisms and tools to test/verify/categorise, these different (non-scientific) ways of understanding and knowing are often disregarded. The important question that arises for the field of Tourism Studies is whether the field is ready to embrace varied ways of knowing and researching tourism phenomena, and whether under the umbrella of the Critical Turn and what Tribe termed as “new” tourism research academics in fact produce such knowledge. I argued in this thesis that there still remains a lot of confusion about research methodologies, methods and even some of the employed “qualitative” terminology.
One of the findings in this study was that that neither the use of qualitative methods nor the use of phenomenology (and hermeneutic phenomenology) makes one a constructionist (despite Denzin and Lincoln’s strong linkages). By the same token, employing quantitative methods does not make one necessarily a positivist or a post- positivist. In fact constructionist researchers are not limited to any particular method although tourism researchers and qualitative scholars across disciplines often go into battle over the use of quantitative tools. Constructionism sees these only as different tools for constructing knowledge. The philosophical lines that form the basis of varied epistemologies (whether it is constructionism or objectivism) hold far greater significance than the methods of collecting data. So to come back to one of the claims voiced in this thesis, philosophical issues do indeed matter in the study of tourism as they impacts the methodologies and methods researchers exercise.
As far as the purpose of a constructionist enquiry is concerned, there are also inevitable conundrums that surround this approach. One can for instance question the purpose of constructionism, for if everything researchers do is merely a construction and no method
314 will ever lead to describing or revealing the real phenomenon of tourism, there does not seem to be much merit in doing constructionist research. One can thus query the rationale behind engaging in a constructionist mode of inquiry if all there is to be said is yet another construction. One answer to this question is to view constructionism for what it is – an epistemology: a theoretical perspective on knowledge. It argues that knowledge is constructed (give or take some variations as explained in Chapter One) but at the same time it also acknowledges that constructed knowledge is meaningful for the actors and cultures in which it is created, re-created and re-invented. It opens up other possibilities of knowing and points to the importance of the cultural and historical aspects in the production of knowledge. Therefore its main merit lies in its criticality and openness for it does not take any knowledge for granted, and is open to other ways of knowing and understanding the world.
Heidegger may provide another answer via his famous motto: to be… is to interpret. There is no doubt that having to face constructionist claims can appear de-motivating to some scholars who come to ponder its philosophical foundations. The efforts of researchers who strive to “describe” and “explain” tourism and offer their findings as the only or most reliable way of knowing about tourism, may become somewhat shattered under the constructionist notion. Thus telling a positivist or a post-positivist scholar that his or her research is only a subjective construction can be met with rejection and ridicule. Positivist and post-positivist thinkers may never be able to see any good in constructionism due to their own philosophical and cultural strictures and depict themselves as “experts at dealing with uncertainty” (Velody & Williams, 1998, p.5). But again, this has to do with their philosophical views and their cultural situatedness in the field. Constructionism does not ask one to abandon his/her current practices - it raises questions: about culture, historicity, the possibility of objectivity - and those who truly believe that they contribute to reliable knowledge while discovering the “true” phenomenon of tourism may never hear them. Therefore constructionism carries also political and critical connotations for it challenges the dominant and traditional views as it questions the way knowledge is produced.
315 To speak for myself, by drawing on constructionism, I have opened up to a new view on research: as a meaningful and highly creative exercise where the scholar pieces together information to reveal new understandings. I realised the immenseness of the concept of being in the world and sought to move beyond the strictures of disciplines into a mode of post-disciplinarity. Constructionism also brings together the aspects of being critical, philosophical and reflexive. It has expanded my perception of myself as a researcher but also my view of tourism. Constructionism as a philosophical standpoint has the ability to broaden one’s consciousness of what tourism “is” (and is not) and also what it “can be” by underscoring the creativity of researchers throughout the process. Hence I presented tourism a phenomenon that “tells us about us in the world” or as I argued our being in the world. Furthermore, it can also reveal (by looking at how knowledge has been produced) our knowing abilities and tell us about ourselves as knowers.
Looking ahead, the future of the field of Tourism Studies may embrace more constructionist approaches with the emerging propositions that human beings hold the agency to create/re-create, make/de-make and shape/re-shape places. In Chapter Four I have discussed some of the recent works in the field that (although not necessarily directly) point to the constructionist line of argument that tourism is re/de-constructed, made, invented, created and performed. The recent studies on mobility paradigm, worldmaking and ordering offer another example of how the meaning of (what we call) tourism is expanding, changing, and evolving. The promise of a constructionist approach can also transpire in learning situations in an academic environment. There have been some tendencies toward, and interest in, constructionism in learning in the United States of America which can be valuable to the conduct of academic practices in the field of Tourism Studies. Distilled from Hoover’s (1996) work The Practice and Implications of Constructivism, the following are some observations that merit further consideration:
¾ The act of sharing knowledge or teaching is not viewed from a hierarchical perspective or as “sage on stage” but mentors are regarded as “guides on the side” providing opportunities to shape learners’ current understanding;
¾ Based on the assumption that all actors have prior knowledge, mentors need to acknowledge that not all learners have the same understanding. The role of the
316 mentor is to beware of discrepancies in learner’s understandings: learners should be encouraged to share their views. They should be encouraged to be explicit about current understandings. This can be done individually or in group interaction;
¾ Different learners may need different experiences to form new understandings;
¾ Knowledge is actively built, which requires time. Learners may need more time to reflect on their knowledge and experiences in order to contrast them with current understandings;
¾ There is an overall shift to learner-centered teaching.
One example of using the above information in the context of Tourism Studies may be in a postgraduate setting where students can be encouraged to reflect on their background, experiences of, and gained knowledge about, tourism. Here, rather than presenting predominant tourism theories as the only truthful portrayal of the phenomenon, students can be asked to critically assess the limitations and possibilities of “knowing” tourism and explore other possible understandings. The paradox is, however, that to ponder the ways of knowing about tourism, students first need to learn and grasp different theories and already established models (e.g. positivist, post-positivist, intepretivist) in order to critically reflect on the ways of knowing.
8.5 Outlining the Future Research Agenda
As it was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the New Age phenomenon is a topic that is meaningful in the contemporary way of living. It is present in our daily lives, and this thesis is in part a result of the fact that New Age popularity has been on the rise. If we were to look at the sphere of beliefs and assess the New Age phenomenon in regard to the contemporary issues of the main religions, Ghisi (2006; 2008) points to the collapsing patriarchal values that are leading to what he calls “collective death”. The literature review in this thesis suggested that the New Age phenomenon lacks patriarchy and leadership and is rather a phenomenon that is exemplified by individual preferences (although arising from culture). In this regard New Age spirituality seems to be open to anyone and it does not necessarily place boundaries between believers and non-believers.
317 In fact, this research divulged that one of the co-researchers, Anne, who used to be a nun and hence a devoted Catholic, left the Church for these reasons. She said:
For years I had fear about not being a Catholic, not practising the Catholic faith, not going to church, and all of that is gone! I am so free in my heart. And it is a whole new journey.
The presence of spirituality and the issues pertaining to the “sacred” continue to play an important role in the twenty first century. Taylor (1994) confirmed more than a decade ago that spirituality is reaching even the most unexpected areas of American secular culture, such as music and science. In her view, the very conceptions of spirituality are changing, with more and more Americans professing to believe in the existence of a “higher power”. Tourism tends to reflect the trends that are present in our society, and in Chapter Four, I suggested that some of the New Age tourism product can be perceived as a response to recent (cultural) occurrences. As a consequence, there are many religious, spiritual, New Age and pilgrimage related products and services taking part in the tourism phenomenon. In this light tourism can indeed be seen as an indicator of the cultural shift worldwide. To reiterate, tourism tells us about our being in the world as I have argued throughout this research study and it is indeed relevant to our everyday lives.
In future studies, avenues of exploring the phenomenon of New Age tourism can lead to investigating particular techniques, tools and experiences employed by New Age travellers in order to learn more about their modes of being in the world. Tourism, as portrayed in this thesis, is the casualty of Western epistemologies – a product of culture. Depending on how the New Age phenomenon is conceptualised by other readers in the field, future research can also focus on the New Age phenomenon situated in different ethnic, demographic and special settings. The prospective research agenda can also draw on more post-disciplinary approaches; and not only embrace different aspects of the phenomenon but borrow theories and concepts from a variety of disciplines and fields: geography, anthropology, psychology, cultural studies, sociology, politics, lingquistiscs, media studies and so forth. Post-disciplinary approaches can further offer new and richer understandings of the phenomenon.
318 With regard to matters methodological, as encouraging as it is to see interpretive approaches gaining increased acceptance in the tourism landscape, there is a need for further progress. There is perhaps not so much a necessity to engage in discourses of the appropriateness and supremacy of positivist versus interpretivist/constructionist research, as there is for more critical, reflexive and emic approaches. This study also highlights the importance of researchers pondering philosophical matters such as their ontological and epistemological views (e.g. what views one beholds and what other views one can behold, what does one mean by the word tourism and in what fashion will he/she contribute towards knowing about it). There are many ways of being a tourism scholar, and one does not necessarily have to be a realist or interpretivist; one can also be a constructionist, a plural realist (asserting that many realities/truthful interpretations can transpire) or something completely different for that matter. The point is that there is not a great variety in the field of Tourism Studies and etic approaches prevail. Neither is there an in-depth discussion on these subjects among tourism academia and many academics are yet to appreciate that philosophical matters are important for they can lead to more empowered and critical work in Tourism Studies. Further recommendations include:
¾ Embracing approaches that foster critical thinking: for instance the act of someone engaging in quantitative or qualitative research is not as important as whether one does it critically;
¾ Producing work that merits respect, that is well argued and supported: several tourism scholars have pointed to the fact that journal editors perform the role of gate- keepers not necessarily open to varied approaches to research. Those who call themselves “qualitative” researchers however need to move away from platitudes and towards embracing substantiation in their work;
¾ Implementing a wide-ranging tourism curriculum: researchers should manufacture, lobby, and push for broader approaches to research. Hollinshead’s course on worldmaking at The University of Bedfordshire can serve as an example;
¾ Networking and participating at events and conferences that support critical approaches to tourism research and diverse story-telling practices (the bi-annual Critical Tourism Turn conferences organised by Ateljevic, Morgan and Pritchard for example).
319 With the specific focus on constructionism, Slife and Williams (1995, p.170) remark on the fact that many researchers “continue to trust science and rely on it to produce trustworthy knowledge… but the question should be asked, however, what it is about science that recommends it to us so strongly”. Constructionist approaches to research and this particular way of thinking in Tourism Studies is in its early stages: unexplored, under-theorised and often misunderstood. Furthermore, constructionism is not necessarily acknowledged as a critical approach and may be disregarded also by those who mark themselves as “critical” scholars. There is therefore a need to further explore the use of constructionist epistemology in the study of tourism and hopefully more studies of this nature will emerge in the future. Constructionism offers a novel outlook on understanding the phenomenon of tourism, and the implications of tourism and travel do indeed go much further than the limited focus on destinations, tourist sites, spaces and escapes from everyday life. Tourism academia is starting to consider novel ideas and approaches in the field which has been marked by many as theoretically deprived. In the vicinity of possibilities, constructionism can further:
¾ Encourage researchers to be more critical in their investigations;
¾ Challenge researchers to think about tourism in different ways and thus;
¾ Inspire researchers towards adopting more creative strategies and methods (i.e. drawing, photographs, collages, mind mapping techniques, role play scenarios and so forth);
¾ Open up new possibilities, choices of methods and research subjects as opposed to traditional and proven methodologies/methods and the study of what is agreed to be “worthy” of research and producing legitimate knowledge.
In regard to future research questions into the sphere of the business of tourism, constructionism may offer relevant questions as for the portrayal of destinations and the involvement of marketers and official tourism organisations. These are offered in Table 8.1.
320 TABLE 8.1: FUTURE RESEARCH QUESTIONS CONNECTED TO OTOs AND LOCAL MARKETING AUTHORITIES
In what fashion are places constructed, re-constructed and depicted by marketers and Official Tourism Organisations (OTOs)?
How are places understood and meaningfully interpreted by different cultural and ethnic groups (visitors)?
To what degree are interpretations and experiences of different cultural and ethnic groups (visitors) met with marketers/ OTO’s constructions of places?
Are there any political, economical, religious, social and cultural motifs that drive OTOs to construct the representation of places in particular ways?
Is the meaning of places constructed from dominant cultural (i.e. Western) perspectives and thus disregarding other perspectives/ cultures?
To what degree should marketers and OTOs be concerned about minority cultures and ethnic groups in constructing the image of destinations/places?
How and by whom is national identity constructed, and to what extent does it portray the “true” identity/identities of a nation/place?
SOURCE: Research questions offered by the researcher
321 8.6 The Horizons of an Epistemological Crisis in Tourism Studies
This research study has argued that knowledge is fluid – it cannot be firmly anchored except by the situated individual – who is the recipient of ideas and meanings, an artefact of cultural inheritance. If I were to imagine that constructionist approaches become widely embraced, another possible scenario emerges: the field witnessing a possible epistemological crisis. Constructionism has not reached researchers’ consciousness, and the philosophical underpinnings of this approach have not manifested in much of the work in Tourism Studies, nor in its curriculum. The epistemological crisis I refer to is a departure from our contemporary way of being and producing knowledge in the field. At present, we have a field of scholars who firmly believe that they contribute to knowledge that is embedded in realist epistemology – producing truthful and real knowledge: depicting their work as better, more accurate (if not the only) and telling us the most correct “truth” about tourism. And this applies to those who label themselves as “qualitative” researchers also. In fact I have shown earlier in this research study that many of those who call themselves “qualitative” researchers still operate with realist epistemologies. Constructionism challenges one to think of his/her endeavours; presenting them as being no more than a consequence of creative modes of being in the world. It asks of us to reveal the construction that takes place in the process – the creative set of actions researchers take part in when making sense of/studying phenomena. Therefore the (constructionist) epistemological crisis summons the situation of having more voices in the field that challenge other scholars who are inanely searching for faultless samples and methods. Constructionism argues that there is no best or better way of knowing the reality “out there”, and that there can be no reliable sources of knowledge outside of the culture that creates the methods for measuring its reliability. Hence more readers in Tourism Studies may yet come to recognize “the possibility of systematically different possibilities of interpretation, of the existence of alternative and rival schemata which yield mutually incompatible accounts of what is going on around them” (MacIntyre, 2006, p.3).
322 Should the above, hypothetical, account of tourism scholarship take place, then the field may also witness an epistemological turn. Once an epistemological crisis is resolved, MacIntyre explains that it is by “the construction of a new narrative which enables the agent to understand both how he or she could intelligibly have held his or her original beliefs and how he or she could have been so drastically misled by them” (2006, p.4). Nonetheless, I have suggested that tourism scholars are still battling with what has been described as the “Critical Turn” and therefore the vision of the field reaching an epistemological turn remains in a remote region of possible vicinities. In addition, there is never a unified “turning” or going through distinct moments as a cohesive group - something I argued in reviewing Denzin and Lincoln’s (2000b) notion of their Seven Moments in qualitative research. What may transpire is researchers embracing constructionist approaches and more subjectivist epistemologies and starting to see tourism from different angles. I have shown that some researchers have started to move towards new ways of theorising and understanding tourism (i.e. worldmaking, mobilities paradigm, ordering etc.) – perhaps an indication of the unease about current modes of knowledge production.
On a final note, Kukla (2000) identifies two types of professional thinkers: normal scientists and paradigm-busters. He perceives normal scientists as contributors who sustain and refine an established tradition, while paradigm busters are “professional trouble makers” who shake up the status quo and are willing to present a provoking thesis (2000, p.ix). In this study I felt the need to embrace the latter. I sought to acknowledge tourism as a phenomenon that can be far more complex, far more exciting and far more promising in future scholarly investigations. I offered an epistemological view of tourism that can never “truly” represent, describe or understand what tourism is, for what we call tourism is a temporal and cultural construction. Instead I suggested that tourism tells a story about the world – our being in the world. Figure 8.1 closes this thesis with a visual portrayal: the “putting together of pieces” in order to generate meaningful constructions.
323 FIGURE 8.1: A VISUAL PORTRAYAL OF CONSTRUCTIONISM – THE PUTTING TOGETHER OF PIECES
SOURCE: http://www.fotosearch.com/ILW002/evansj0076r/
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353 APPENDIX A: A QUESTIONNAIRE DISTRIBUTED TO CO-RESEARCHERS
354 354