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Consuming Sustainable Tourism: Ethics, Identity, Practice

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Consuming Sustainable Tourism: Ethics, Identity, Practice Consuming Sustainable Tourism: ethics, identity, practice Paul Steven Hanna A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Brighton for the degree of doctor of philosophy The University of Brighton October 2011 Abstract Consuming Sustainable Tourism: ethics, identity, practice Paul Steven Hanna In recent years, contemporary western society has played witness to a growth in the production, promotion, and consumption of ostensibly ‘ethical’ products such as Fair Trade goods. Such commodities are characterised by an emphasis on rebalancing inequalities that ‘mass’ production/consumption are said to create. This thesis takes sustainable tourism as a novel example of such concerns. With recent inroads in psychology and the social sciences suggesting that the practice of consumption represents a prominent ‘mode’ for ‘identity work’ (including class identities), the consumption of ‘ethical’ products may arguably signify the manifestation of ‘ethical identity/identities’. However, ‘ethics’ and ‘identity’ are ambiguous words with significant concerns surrounding the ‘ethics’ of ‘ethical’ products, and the extent to which individuals exhibit ‘ethical identity/identities’ through the consumption of such goods. Building on Michael Foucault’s ‘technologies of self’ and ‘ethics’, this thesis seeks to contribute to our understanding of ‘ethics’, ‘identity’, and ‘practice’ in relation to sustainable tourism. This approach allows for an investigation in which individuals are conceptualised as both restricted and resistant, constrained yet ‘free’, passively ‘subjectified’ and ‘agentic’ subjects. In order to maintain such a position within the enquiry, analyses of the promotion of sustainable tourism on the internet, and interview data from sixteen self- defined ‘sustainable tourists’, are presented. The findings show that through the promotion of sustainable tourism individuals are invited to ‘experiment with subjectivity’ in ways that both restrict and facilitate a certain ‘ethics’. However, the interview data highlights that although a number of these ‘experiments’ are taken up by some; there is also resistance through the practices they adopt. The thesis concludes by suggesting that although problematic, Foucault’s ‘technologies of the self’ and ‘ethics’ offer valuable insights into the study of sustainable tourism and critical psychology more generally. 2 Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................... 1 Contents ................................................................................................................... 3 List of Appendices ................................................................................................... 10 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ 11 Authors declaration ................................................................................................ 13 Introduction – ‘Sustainable tourism’: developing an understanding of consuming ethically .................................................................................................................. 14 Mass tourism and Sustainable tourism ‐ ethics ........................................................ 16 Consumption ‐ identity and ethics ............................................................................. 18 Foucault ‐ ethics, identity and practice ..................................................................... 21 Aims and approach of the thesis ............................................................................... 24 Thesis overview ......................................................................................................... 25 Chapter 1 ‐ A history of the present: Documenting the emergence of sustainable tourism ................................................................................................................... 29 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 29 1. Historical forms of tourism .................................................................................... 30 1.1. The Grand Tour .............................................................................................. 30 1.2 Spas ................................................................................................................. 32 1.3. The British Seaside ......................................................................................... 33 1.4. The birth of Mass Tourism and the search for new destinations .................. 35 3 2. Understanding tourism shifts as a form of distinction .......................................... 41 3. Sustainable tourism as a form of ethical consumption ......................................... 44 3.1. A growing concern for the environment ........................................................ 45 3.2. Ethical consumption ....................................................................................... 48 3.3. The Principles of sustainable tourism ............................................................ 50 4. Challenging the ‘ethics’ of ethical consumption and sustainable tourism ............ 53 5. A new form of class distinction? ............................................................................ 55 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 58 Chapter 2 – Foucault and the sustainable tourist .................................................... 60 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 60 1. Knowledge, power and subjectivity ....................................................................... 60 1.1. Knowledge ...................................................................................................... 61 1.2. Power ............................................................................................................. 62 1.3. Subjectivity, consumption and ‘the picture of the self’ ................................. 64 1.4. Theoretical limitations of power/knowledge nexus ...................................... 66 2. Addressing agency ................................................................................................. 66 2.1. Technologies of (the) Self ............................................................................... 68 2.2 Taking ‘care of the self’ ................................................................................... 70 3. Cultivating the Self as an ethical subject ............................................................... 71 4. Ethics, Freedom and relationality .......................................................................... 75 4.1. Ethics .............................................................................................................. 75 4.2. Freedom and resistance ................................................................................. 77 4 4.3. Relationality ................................................................................................... 79 5. Power, knowledge, agency and the self – the approach adopted ........................ 82 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 85 Chapter 3 – Research methodology, design, and Methods – an ‘ethical’ engagement with critical psychology .......................................................................................... 86 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 86 1. Post‐structuralism and discourse analysis ............................................................ 87 1.1. A post‐structuralist psychology ...................................................................... 87 1.2. Post‐structuralism in psychology ................................................................... 87 1.3. Discourse analysis .......................................................................................... 90 1.4. Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) ............................................................ 91 1.5. Moving beyond the dominant approach ....................................................... 94 2. Methods and Procedures ...................................................................................... 96 2.1. Study 1 – Analysis of sustainable tourism promotional material .................. 96 2.1.1. Using the internet ................................................................................... 96 2.1.2. Selecting a case study ............................................................................. 97 2.1.3. The analytic process ................................................................................ 99 2.2. Study 2 – Understanding experiences of sustainable tourism .................... 102 2.2.1. Recruiting .............................................................................................. 102 2.2.2. Accessing ‘sustainable tourists’ ............................................................. 102 2.2.3. Doing research ethically ........................................................................ 104 2.2.4. Participants ...........................................................................................
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