The Tourism Field: a socio-political perspective to study the action and its structuring

Abstract

This paper presents brigns together, systematizes and deepen some earlier discussions, from the author, based on the concept of tourism field, as well as its implications and applications for the study of tourism, in particular, to deal with the problem of social action and interaction –of the different agents, whether individual or collective–. The approach of the theory of social fields to dealing with the actions and interactions that take place in a given social field - in this case, the tourism field - seems to provide a theoretical model capable of understanding and explaining this reality, once it considers the internal and external factors of the field, superimposing itself on the traditional models, in particular the economic ones - be they supply or demand - which base their explanations on one part of the factors. While the social reproduction of the countryside is explained by the tendency to preserve capital, above all, linked to a small group of actors that tends to determine the direction of activity according to their private interests, marginalizing the action of the weakest groups; social change is usually related to the inclusion of new agents, capital or action strategies, which implies the collective redistribution of historically accumulated capital. The strictly economic emphasis given to the activity may be overtaken by the existence of other types of capital - social, cultural, environmental, etc. - and its implications in the conformation of the structure of the field and the positioning of the agents in it.

 Key words: Bourdieu; Tourism; Tourim field; Organized collective action.