A Brief Debate on Alienation, Authenticity, and Tourism

Background

Discussions on work alienation or alienation’s relation to work usually start with referring to Marx’s thoughts on the issue (see e.g. Mottaz, 1981; Nair and Vohra, 2009; Chiaburu et al., 2014). This is quite understandable when Marx’s critical views on capitalism are considered. Seeman’s (1959) study is also among influential works (Chiaburu et al., 2014). Marx was one of those who brought Hegel’s views on alienation more into economic system and its social implications (Shantz, Alfes, Bailey, and Soane, 2015). Many arguments, one of which is alienation, could be built on the industrialization and the major changes it brought to the society. However, alienation is not an issue that could be discussed only in relation to capitalist or industrialized societies. As also indicated above, the wide scope of alienation makes it relevant to almost anything.

Nair and Vohra (2009) mention that the focus of alienation studies has usually been on blue-collar or factory workers and they indicate the relative ignorance of service industries such as tourism. It might be because of the very basic critical views, such as Marx’s, that have been developed in relatively earlier phases of industrial age or capitalism.