Constructionism - A critical realist reply

摘要

Tomas Pernecky (2012) has made a valuable contribution to the underlabouring of tourism research in his conceptual and philosophical exegesis, Constructionism, Critical Pointers for Tourism Studies. There is much to commend in his article, as the Annals reviewers and the co-ordinating editor have confirmed by their acceptance of it for publication. The point of my reply is to simply disagree with a central argument advanced in the article, namely that "constructionist epistemology is both realist and relativist" (p. 1116). The use of the word epistemology in this phrase, taken from the article abstract, is somewhat problematic for me as I think of realism and constructionism as completing philosophies in the social sciences that contain both epistemological and ontological commitments. If the discussion is limited to epistemology then there is little to disagree on, as both critical realism and constructionism are epistemologically relativist, even though some of the proponents of constructionism in tourism studies seem to favour qualitative methods over any other. Differences between these two philosophies only become apparent when we consider their divergent ontological commitments and this is what Pernecky explores in pages 1122-1124 of his article, and has provoked this reply.