Because the aim of this study is to understand and explore meanings in the relationship between tourist experience accumulated throughout the travel career and identity construction, an approach has been applied that entails a hermeneutic process, in which empirical data and theory both contribute to the process and thereby also the end result.
Hermeneutics can be described as the perception of human sciences being centred on the interpretation of something meaningful, which means that human activity and the consequences of such activity are explored. Because such activity stem from people’s inherent meanings and wants, they become meaningful phenomena that are sought explored in the human sciences, as opposed to the natural sciences which seek to explain non-meaningful phenomena (Pahuus, 2003:140). Hermeneutics are thus linked to the study of humans, and as such forms the outset for this study as well.
Hermeneutics in the 20th century has transformed into a modern, existential hermeneutic tradition, different from historical hermeneutics of earlier times, in that humans are part of the world that surrounds them and forced to exist in that
world, and this is always a part of the individual. This is opposed to historical hermeneutics, in which it is possible to step out of the existing world of the present and through empathy and abandonment of existing prejudices to understand other human worlds of other historical periods (Pahuus, 2003). The consequence of this change is found in the perception of objectivity, which historical hermeneutics support and existential hermeneutics question, at least to the extent that it is not a given nor does it consist in neutralising prejudice (Cristoffanini, 1998:29), and objectivity is not a constant fact, but may change over time.
In continuation, Gadamer9, one of the central figures in existential hermeneutics, is critical towards conventional notions of objectivity. Benton & Craib (2001) describe his critique as follows:
“[Gadamer is] … insisting that knowledge is not a product of coming to understand the action of the individual (à la Weber) but of achieving an understanding of the movement of history, and history is the development of a common aim; we can only understand a text when we make ourselves part of that common aim out of which it emerged”
(Benton & Craib, 2001:103-104)
It is thus inferred that researchers can only obtain understanding by emerging themselves in the subject matter. This implies that objectivity is not helpful, but subjectivity is, because the so-called fusion of horizons10 is an end in itself, i.e.
finding a common ground for certain understandings shared between pre-understandings and the issues that they are challenged by. So, the researcher starts out with a set of understandings that may change in order to move forward in the process of gaining new knowledge. Therefore, the issues of pre-understanding and prejudice are viewed as assisting in obtaining pre-understanding rather than being an obstacle for it, in the sense that when pre-understandings or prejudices are being challenged, new understandings will be obtained, i.e.
fusion of horizons will occur to the extent that common ground is found.
9 Most notably his book Truth & Method from 1960
10 Gadamer’s term
Hereby, discussions of the hermeneutic circle have already been initiated, in that the main idea of the circle is that as pre-understandings and prejudices are challenged, new knowledge is obtained, which then becomes a new understanding that may at a later stage be challenged again. At a given point in time, an understanding becomes a new pre-understanding; the circle continues, and the possibility for gathering new knowledge is assumed to be indefinite (Benton & Craib, 2001). This circular process will be addressed in the context of this study shortly.
A hermeneutic approach is taken throughout this study at two different levels.
Firstly, there is a prevalent perception throughout this study of human beings as dynamic and highly flexible by nature, thus possessing a prevalent ability to adjust to change, as individuals are influenced by and subsequently changed according to their social worlds. This entails the contention that understanding the whole, i.e. the individual in the social world, requires understanding the parts that make up the whole, and both need to be explored in order to understand a specific situation, in this case the tourist experiences constituting the travel career, and eventually the travel career constituting identity construction. Benton
& Craib describe the relationship between the changing nature of human beings and the understanding of it as follows:
“Understanding is inevitably historical; the nature of a human being is itself historical and open to change. The process of understanding is paradoxical, involving the ‘hermeneutic circle’: we cannot know the part without understanding the whole of which it is a part, and at the same time we cannot understand the whole without understanding the parts that make it up.” (Benton & Craib 2001:104)
Therefore, the parts that make up the whole are sought explored throughout this study, in order to be able to obtain some level of understanding of the whole, i.e.
the individual tourist’s identity construction on the basis of tourist experiences experienced over time. The parts that need to be explored concern: individual context, e.g. individual life situation affecting needs, choices etc.; collective context, e.g. historical factors affecting outlook and consumption; and travel career, which may be the most evident and tangible materialization of the whole
process, and therefore, the travel career will be addressed specifically for the purpose of exploring the parts that constitute the whole.
The hermeneutic circle is thus directly linked to the approach taken to the issue at hand in this study, since hermeneutics entails a pre-understanding, which might thus be challenged by an experience, which then causes a revision of the existing pre-understanding and forms a new pre-understanding (Thurén, 1998), or a fusion of horizons between the initial pre-understanding and conflicting new knowledge, to use Gadamer’s terminology, which then forms a new understanding, i.e. a fusion. This works on several levels, i.e. when approaching an understanding of the tourist experience, and when transferred onto the issue of tourist experience for tourists themselves. The tourist’s initial pre-understanding (pre-und. 1) consists in certain accumulated tourist experience that sets the scene for expectations etc. New experience is gained through travel experience, causing new understandings of previous experiences, and at the same time creating the base for a new pre-understanding (pre-und. 2) that will precede the next tourist experience, as illustrated below. Even when travelling for the very first time, a pre-understanding is very likely to exist due to influences from surroundings.
Figure 2.1
It is thus evident that experience is a central concept to the methods applied, since it is applied indirectly by a hermeneutic approach to generating knowledge, and directly by application of the hermeneutic circle into the research of people’s
(TRAVEL) EXPERIENCE
Pre-und. 2 Pre-und.
1
tourist experiences. A hermeneutic process is thus evident in the tourist’s identity construction via tourist experiences and in the understanding of this.
One author who imported hermeneutics into the human sciences was Dilthey11 (Benton & Craib, 2001:103), who among other concepts had great focus on experience – Erlebnis in German, referring to the immediate experience as opposed to the internalised, accumulated type12 – as a means to reconstruct experiences in another person when trying to understand that person, whereby recognition occurs and understanding emerges. This is done through the interpretation of an inner life expressed outwards (Cristoffanini, 1998:26). It is thus assumed that the inner life of the tourist may also be explicitly expressed through narratives of the travel career, and thus becomes accessible to further interpretation.
As a final comment to generating knowledge in the course of this study, the issue of induction versus deduction as methodological approach needs to be addressed. It may be argued that induction in the light of hermeneutics is complicated by the fact that one can never approach data without pre-understandings of some sort, and therefore, a purely inductive method can never take place, since data is never viewed from a completely neutral or unbiased perspective. At the same time, deduction will also be less straightforward, because the hermeneutic process entails shifts back and forth between theory and data, and not just a straight line from theory to data. However, there is still something to be said about these approaches and the relationship between the research questions posed, theory, empirical data and the answers or conclusions reached. The outcome of each type of method is very different, i.e. induction proposes new, exploratory studies, eventually suggesting new theory, and deduction provides proof and tests existing theory. One could say that induction takes a vantage point in specific cases or situations, and from there expands the scope of research into theory, whereas deduction takes a vantage point in existing theory and tests theory on specific cases or situations (Andersen, 1990:26). Enderud (1984) illustrates the relationship between the four core elements of research as follows:
11 Most notably for his book: The Rise of Hermeneutics in 1972
12 See also section 5.1 The Tourist Experience – Dual Notions and Perspectives for further distinction
Figure 2.2
Based on Enderud, 1984:48 (own translation).
The model implies that the process of going from research questions to answers can be complex, and everything depends on the directional choices made along the way. The process of this study is claimed to be of an inductive starting point, although the hermeneutic process to some extent interferes with this approach.
The study can be characterised as inductive by nature by seeking to explore specific cases, i.e. interviewee perceptions, through the data collected, whereby it is exploratory by nature – in contrast to a deductive approach aiming to test hypotheses by logically cohesive conclusions based on existing theory (Thurén, 1998:22). Induction has also been applied in the fact that the collected data has been the vantage point for decisions on the theoretical framework that has later been established. It needs to be stated in this connection though that obviously one is not completely free of pre-understandings of the topic at hand from the outset – being a scholar of tourism, and having chosen the topic due to perceptions of a fruitful field of research – as the hermeneutic approach prescribes. Moreover, collecting the data also affects the data itself, wherefore pre-understandings will always have an impact, whether they be highly theoretical or more general observations and perceptions.
As such, the hermeneutic process and the inductive features of this study are not in complete concurrence with each other according to theoretical perceptions, nor does the study seem to be in complete concurrence with neither inductive nor deductive methods in their purest forms. The idea of the next illustration
Research Questions
Empirical Data
Answers/
Conclusions Theory
(Figure 2.3) is that, first of all, another element comes into play, i.e. a research topic, before the final research questions are formed. This has to do with the pre-understandings that are necessary for the rest of these elements to form, in that the link between research topic, theory and empirical data is the initial stage of forming the study in very broad terms. The research topic, empirical data and theory thus play into each other at the very first stage. This forms the initial basis for developing the research questions. Finally, the answers to the research questions are reached through this process of shifting between theory and data, which means that both are equally relevant in informing the answers.
Figure 2.3
It thus seems that although this particular study has evident features of inductive methods, which were initially chosen as the method for generating the particular type of conclusions that were the aim of the study, the hermeneutic process has taken over in the sense that it has made good sense to make several shifts between these elements of the process.
This section has established the use of a hermeneutic approach throughout this study to support the understanding of the relationship between the individual tourist’s travel career and identity construction. This implies that the aim is not to obtain decisive knowledge, but rather to arrive at a level of understanding that is possible and reasonable at this point in time, but which will most likely change in the future. However, it is also assumed that this is a necessary step towards
Research Questions
Empirical Data
Answers/
Conclusions Theory
Research Topic
an understanding of the present, which will benefit the understanding of future developments.