Tourism destinations as multiplicities: The view from Assemblage Thinking

Abstract

The nonreductionist assemblage ontology/analytic is introduced to conceptualize tourism destinations as “multiplicities defined by assemblages” to more satisfactorily theorize and analyze their complex socioecological nature, unpredictable dynamics and motley identity, and guide planning or management decisions. Alternative conceptions of destinations—container, unitary whole, and relational place—are critically reviewed. The main tenets of Assemblage Thinking are presented and guide the ensuing analysis of destinations. The contribution of the assemblage ontology/analytic to destination studies and future research are summarized. The proposed conception calls for synthesizing complex systems and relational theoretical frameworks, employing methodological pluralism, and pursuing adaptive governance to foster the emergence of fittingly cofunctioning tourism and nontourism assemblages at destinations.

Messy realities and collaborative knowledge production in tourism

“…By rhetorically posing the question of ‘What does it mean that something is “about tourism’?”, we argue that tourism is not a contained activity or sector but, rather, a heterogeneous (Van der Duim et al, 2012), distributed (Jóhannesson et al, 2015), multiple (Briassoulis, 2017) and collaborative achievement. This approach not only allows us to pay more attention to the overspills into and from other domains of the social – and beyond – but also to the networks and rhizomes through which tourism knowledge is co-created and to the variously assembled, choreographed (Franklin, 2012) and divided collectives from which these activities emerge.…”

“…We have argued elsewhere that tourism is materially heterogeneous, distributed and entangled with not to other activities (Van der Duim et al, 2012; Jóhannesson et al, 2015, Ren et al, 2017) in socio-material configurations consisting of people, organizations, objects, technologies, and spaces. This movement towards a de-centring of tourism entails seeing it as something less solitary and less stable and, rather, as proposed by Haraway, as an ongoing process of ‘becoming with many’ (Haraway, 2003; see also Briassoulis, 2017). It raises questions of who are the possible collaborators in tourism research and how to describe the value of tourism research.…”

Assemblage, place and globalisation

“…As Anderson et al (2012) note, it is the logic of the exteriority of relations that most differentiates Deleuzoguattarian assemblage thinking from other variants of relational thought, including actor network theory (ANT). The correspondences and contrasts between Deleuzoguattarian assemblage thinking and ANT have been extensively discussed by other authors (Anderson et al, 2012;Briassoulis, 2017;Müller, 2015;Müller & Schurr, 2016) and the two approaches are sufficiently close for later Latourian developments of ANT to be categorised within assemblage thinking. Yet, they diverge fundamentally on the assimilation of parts, ANT emphasising the integrity and wholeness of the actor-network but Deleuzoguattarian assemblage thinking asserting that the parts of an assemblage are never fully assimilated and thus cannot be explained by the properties of the whole (Anderson et al, 2012).…”

“…Some variations in an assemblage are routine or at least knowable, and thus may be accommodated within the metric of the multiplicity. However, the structure of possibility space is segmented by "critical thresholds" where vectors of deterritorialisation reach a point where qualitative change occurs to the multiplicity and assemblages may dissolve to be replaced by new assemblages (Briassoulis, 2017;DeLanda, 2002DeLanda, , 2016Deleuze & Guattari, 1988).…”

Making sense of the square: Facing the touristification of public space through playful protest in Barcelona

“…For this reason, I propose using assemblage thinking to explain the processuality of the FP action. I argue that this theoretical framework can approach complex phenomena, such as tourism, in which different socio-spatial dimensions coexist and co-function, either concordantly or in conflict (Briassoulis, 2017). Accordingly, I consider assemblage theory to be a useful orientation for better understanding the potentiality of actors and sites in relation to recent local events (McFarlane, 2009, 2011b) in Barcelona.…”