Theory of knowledge of tourism: A sociological and epistemological reflection

Abstract

This study analyses theoretical problems in the study of tourism and reviews some major thoughts and literature as well as tourism as an emerging discipline. Tourism as a scientific discipline still does not haveits own and established academic body that distinguishes it from other sciences. Therefore, tourism as a recent field of research is struggling without being understood in the correct way because its theory of knowledge is not delimited and tries to be reflected from the point of view of its formal components. In this sense, the principal aim of this article is to try to delimit the perspectives and definitions of the main authors that have contributed tothe "tourism theory" in general until now, by focusing on several dimensions such us: positivism, materialism, neo-durkheimism, functionalism and post-modernism.