Research Note

Inciting the sociological imagination

Indeed, it can be highly exploitative, to its own workers, to the environment, and to the people and cultures that become its “products.” Thus, tomorrow’s tourism leaders need to learn Socratic reasoning skills not only to reflect on their own values and actions but also to be able to effectively take apart the arguments that support the maintenance of tourism as a largely low-wage industry with lousy benefits and job security and work that is often uncreative, repetitive, and boring (Belhassen, 2007). Similarly, they need to be able to contemplate “big picture” issues in their field, such as leakage of tourism benefits from underprivileged back to overprivileged parts of the world or issues of representation of toured people and cultures through site promotion and production.

They tell us of the personal growth and communitas (Turner, 2002) they experienced through the physical challenge of riding a motorcycle across 2,448 miles of Route 66 (Caton & Santos, 2007), the spiritual growth they achieved as Christians by “walking in the footsteps of Jesus” in the Holy Land (Belhassen, Caton, & Stewart, 2008), or the social awareness they achieved by being exposed to diverse cultural practices on a study abroad trip (Caton, 2008). On the second level, however, our sociological imaginations echo these stories (Belhassen, 2007, on Mills, 1956), as we translate the personal narratives of our research participants up the chain of social consequences to become aware of the sometimes conscious and sometimes unintentional imprint our participants and their ideologies and activities are leaving on the world around them. A story of spiritual growth through Christian pilgrimage is also a story of transnational formations and consolidations of right-wing political power, as particular sectors of the Israeli government seek to draw on tourism resources to advance ideological agendas that particular sectors of American society are all too happy to rally behind (Belhassen, 2009; Belhassen & Santos, 2006).