Sociology of tourism

In this article, we have chosen to draw on the theoretical contributions of Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias / Eric Dunning to lay the foundations for a sociology of tourism and leisure. These fundamental authors contributed to legitimising objects of study once considered minor in the social sciences. Although their approaches differ, their analyses complement one another in illuminating the social issues underlying tourism practices: Bourdieu highlights the mechanisms of distinction and social reproduction at work in leisure activities, while Elias and Dunning emphasise the particular functions that leisure fulfils in modern societies characterised by growing self-restraint. The article then provides an operational example of these theoretical contributions by examining the concept of a “holiday trajectory” to study lifestyle changes.

Introduction

In cultural practices, we can question the sociological interest of studying travel and tourism as a specific subject. A first response has been provided by cultural and social history works: journeys devoted to pleasure are closely linked to the lifestyles of the upper classes. From the origins of tourism to the present day, the analysis of these highly distinctive practices reveals as much about the evolution of lifestyles as about the reproduction of cultural domination. Sociological studies on the functions of travel for elites are part of this social history. They show how young elites transform what others consider travel experiences into international capital (Wagner & Réau, 2015; Réau, 2015).

Depending on the original endowments and the composition of the capital (economic, cultural and social), travel may enrich international provisions and contribute to forms of international capital, or, conversely, be undervalued and even stigmatising (Wagner, 2008). Thus, as objects of differentiated social investment and markers of social position, travel practices represent a relevant entry point for analysing relationships between social groups. That said, other cultural practices can also serve this purpose. Indeed, it is within the analysis of a series of cultural practices that sociological work on family, labour, or social mobility addresses travel. In such cases, the aim is less to focus on travel itself than to situate it within broader transformations in lifestyles shaped by social trajectories.

This is, for example, what Lise Bernard does when analysing changes in the leisure practices of working-class estate agents employed in the luxury property sector (Bernard, 2012). Similarly, Philippe Coulangeon’s analyses (2011) of the metamorphoses of distinction examine the various cultural practices of social groups without focusing specifically on travel. This is only one element among others, which, taken in isolation, would have little meaning. These analyses are, in many respects, heirs to the pioneering study by Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979), in their approach to cultural practices relationally across social groups to understand transformations in lifestyles and processes of cultural legitimation.

Why, then, focus on travel? A first point is to consider travel as one of the practices that take place during free time, and therefore to look at the social uses of leisure time. Therefore, the aim is not to isolate these practices from other cultural practices but to use them as an entry point. Indeed, although transformations in lifestyles can be studied in relation to changes in professional trajectories, it is also possible to consider the social uses of free time in order to identify other determinants of lifestyles (such as family structure, schooling, peer groups). If holidays are considered a continuous period of “free time” that, in particular, enables travel, it is possible to shift the focus to social trajectories by taking holidays as the starting point. Methodologically, the objective is therefore not primarily to recount professional trajectories and gather information on lifestyles, but rather to analyse holiday trajectories as a privileged entry point for understanding transformations in lifestyles and social relations between groups. Therefore, the aim is to observe, from a different angle, the transformations already identified in studies on labour, social mobility and cultural practices.

To understand the challenges of this shift in perspective, this chapter first proposes comparing the approaches of Bourdieu and Elias to leisure and free time. Building on this dialogue, it then proposes mobilising the concept of “holiday trajectory” in order to study lifestyles from a specific angle.

Comparative study of Bourdieu / Elias & Dunning on leisure and free time

Through their work, these sociologists helped legitimise objects of study that were often considered trivial by the social sciences of their time. As Pierre Bourdieu noted in 1975, “The researcher always participates in the importance and value that are commonly attributed to his object, and there is very little chance that he does not take into account, consciously or unconsciously, in the positioning of his intellectual interests, the fact that the most important works (scientifically speaking) on the most ‘insignificant’ objects have little chance, in the eyes of all those who have internalised the prevailing system of classification, of having as much value as the most insignificant works (scientifically speaking) on the most ‘important’ objects which are also very often the most insignificant, that is to say, the most trivial (-). One would have to analyse the form taken by the division, accepted as self-evident, into noble or vulgar domains, serious or futile, interesting or trivial, in different fields at different moments. One would no doubt discover that the field of possible research objects always tends to be organised according to two independent dimensions, that is to say according to the degree of legitimacy and according to the degree of prestige within the limits of the legitimate definition. The opposition between the prestigious and the obscure, which may concern domains, genres, objects, or manners (more or less ‘theoretical’ or ‘empirical’ according to the prevailing taxonomies), is the product of the application of the dominant criteria which determine degrees of excellence within the universe of legitimate practices; the opposition between orthodox objects (or domains, etc.) and objects aspiring to consecration—which may be described as avant-garde or heretical depending on whether one positions oneself on the side of the defenders of the established hierarchy or on the side of those who seek to impose a new definition of legitimate objects—expresses the polarisation that is established in every field between institutions or agents occupying opposed positions in the structure of the distribution of specific capital.” (Bourdieu, 1975, pp. 4–6).

From the 1950s onwards, Norbert Elias, together with Eric Dunning, laid the foundations for a sociology of sport by studying this phenomenon in the framework of their theory of the Civilising process. From the 1960s onwards, Bourdieu, with different colleagues depending on the topic, examined the social uses of photography, fashion, sport, etc. Many articles published in Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, which he founded, reflect this interest in objects considered “minor” within the academic world (comic books, beaches, automobiles, children’s literature, etc.). However, these two sociologists do not address leisure and holidays in the same way. They do not occupy an identical place in their work. While Elias proposed a conceptual framework and a research agenda devoted to leisure, Bourdieu rarely used this term in a sociological sense. A precise genealogy of the meaning given to the term “leisure” in the writings of Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias would be required. Here, however, I merely wish to highlight a few points and open a reflection related to my own research. After outlining several reference points regarding the uses of the terms “leisure” and “holidays” in the work of Bourdieu and Elias, I will introduce the way in which I have been able to operationalise these notions in my research.

Bourdieu uses the term “leisure: in his many writings on culture, but he does not really offer a definition of it. For example, in Distinction, the term “leisure” appears on twenty-seven pages (Bourdieu, 1979). It is used when citing the secondary analysis of data from the 1967 INSEE survey on the leisure activities of the French. It also appears in excerpts from interviews with respondents. Although Bourdieu does not explicitly define what he means by leisure, the sentences in which he uses the term provide clues about the meaning of the term. On page 155, he separates “sport, leisure and culture”. On page 201, he distinguishes between “expenditure on culture and leisure”. On page 325, he differentiates leisure from cultural practices. By contrast, on page 355 he gives, as examples of teachers’ leisure activities, both a physical activity (walking) and a holiday destination (the mountains). On page 453, he separates “consumption, reading and leisure”. Ultimately, if what leisure is in relation to sport or cultural practices is never clearly spelled out, this is no doubt due to the structural approach of the author, who is interested in lifestyles. From this perspective, the aim is to grasp relationally all the practices of social groups. It is also in this sense that we can understand the attention paid to different social times (work, family, leisure, holidays, etc.). For example, we find the expression “in work as in leisure” (pp. 278 and 487). To understand the logics of symbolic differentiation through culture implies considering the tastes, practices and representations of different social groups as a whole and in relation to one another. This approach is in fairly clear opposition to that of Joffre Dumazedier, author of Vers une civilisation des loisirs ? (1962), who tends to treat leisure as autonomous from other forms of social time, with the risk of failing to grasp the social uses and determinations of free-time practices.

By contrast, by considering leisure within a broader approach to lifestyles, Bourdieu implicitly invites us to detach ourselves from common-sense discourse (and marketing discourse), which aims to consider leisure in general, and holidays in particular, as time-spaces devoted to individual choices, free from all social determinations. Yet the meaning of practices can only be understood by taking into account the connection between different forms of social time and the relationships between social groups. The opposition to Dumazedier is not only theoretical. It also plays out in the way the research itself is conceived, as shown by the controversy surrounding the article by Mikael Pollak on Paul Lazarsfeld published in the journal founded by Bourdieu. The exchanges between Pollak and Dumazedier (Dumazedier, 1984) reflect very different viewpoints on the relationships between fundamental research and privately commissioned research. This question would need to be examined further by identifying the positions of Bourdieu and Dumazedier within the field of French sociology in the 1960s, particularly in terms of their relationships with planning bodies and ministries in the frame of research programmes. Finally, we may think that, although Dumazedier is not cited in this article (“Sociologues des mythologies et mythologies des sociologues”, Les Temps modernes, Dec. 1963), the criticisms by Bourdieu and Passeron regarding the “new prophets” are also directed at him.

Bourdieu proposes a completely different use of the term “leisure” in his 1997 book, Pascalian Meditations. Here, the index entry for “leisure” refers the reader to skholè. Bourdieu defines skholè as “the free time, freed from the urgencies of the world, that allows a free and liberated relation to those urgencies and to the world” (Bourdieu, 1997: 10), or as “time used freely for freely chosen and gratuitous ends which, as with the intellectual or the artist, may be those of work, but work freed, in its rhythm, its moment and its duration, from any external constraint, and in particular from that imposed through direct monetary sanction” (Bourdieu, 1997: 265). Although this work deals primarily with intellectuals, it also contains reflections on time that offer avenues for analysing practices. The ambiguity of the term skholè, which refers both to school and to “studious leisure”, “this time freed from practical occupations and concerns, of which the school (again skholè) provides a privileged form, studious leisure, is the condition of scholastic exercise and of activities detached from immediate necessity, such as sport, play, the production and contemplation of works of art and all forms of gratuitous speculation having no end other than themselves.” (Bourdieu, 1997, p. 25) and more generally to a distancing (suspension) of ordinary constraints and “immediate necessities”, invites reflection on the content, value and articulation of social times according to social groups.

“Opposed to the sub-proletarians who, because their time is worth nothing, have a deficit of goods and an excess of time, overworked executives have a surplus of goods and an extraordinary deficit of time (Bourdieu, 1997: 268). (-) (The latter experience) the temporary skholè of holidays as an existence liberated from time because liberated from illusion and preoccupation, through the suspension of their insertion in the field (…) and, where appropriate, through insertion into universes without competition, such as the family or certain holiday clubs, fictitious social worlds often experienced as ‘liberated’ and liberating because they bring together strangers with no common stakes, stripped of their social investments—not only of their clothes and hierarchical attributes, as the journalistic view would have it. Except through special effort, ‘free time’ hardly escapes the logic of investment in ‘things to do’ which (…) prolong the competition for the accumulation of symbolic capital in various forms: tanning, souvenirs to recount or display, photographs or films, monuments, museums, landscapes, places to visit or discover or, as people sometimes say, ‘to do’ – ‘we did Greece’ – in conformity with the imperious suggestions of tourist guidebooks.”
(Bourdieu, 1997: 250).

From this point of view, one may question the uses of out-of-school time that best enable the transmission of scholastic dispositions, the capacity to “play seriously” at school exercises and to invest oneself in “studious leisure”. But, we also understand that holidays, contrary to the simplistic image of a period of rest (and/or recovery of labour power), represent a time that is heavily invested socially, embedded in social relations and contributing to the reproduction of a symbolic order. The task, therefore, is to study the relationships between social groups empirically through their uses of holiday time, their representations of other people’s time and the symbolic profits they may derive from leisure practices.

Unlike Bourdieu, Elias and Dunning develop a theory of leisure through two texts brought together in Quest for Excitement (1986): “the quest for excitement in leisure” and “leisure in the spectrum of free time”. They explicitly oppose the concept of “routinisation”, used exclusively in relation to work by Joffre Dumazedier and Georges Friedmann (Elias & Dunning, 1994, note 1: 97): “It is not sufficient to consider professional work merely as a counter-pole to leisure (-) nor is it sufficient to explain the characteristics and functions of leisure activities solely by reference to those of professional work. In relatively well-ordered societies such as ours, routine has spread into all spheres of life, including those of the greatest intimacy. Routine is not limited to factory work or to the activities of employees, managers and others of the same kind. (-) the emotional monotony of work is only one example” (Elias & Dunning, 1994: 97).

For this reason, Elias and Dunning propose studying leisure as activities that allow the “controlled release of emotions” within societies characterised by strong emotional self-restraint across all areas of life. To do so, they distinguish between “free time” and “leisure”: not all free-time activities are leisure activities, although leisure takes place during free time. Leisure activities thus refer to “an occupation freely chosen and unpaid, chosen essentially because it is pleasant in itself” (Elias & Dunning, 1994: 90). They then analyse the various activities that occupy free time and the different types of leisure. Based on this typology of leisure categories, they define the specific functions of each one and open up avenues for research. The aim here is not to summarise these chapters but simply to highlight certain aspects. Drawing in particular on the curative effects of mimetic events highlighted by Aristotle, Elias and Dunning underline that leisure activities produce “a specific type of tension, a form of excitement often linked, as Saint Augustine so clearly saw, with fear, sadness and other emotions which we try to avoid in ordinary life” (Elias & Dunning, 1994: 110). These emotions occur within a socially safe framework, which can produce a cathartic effect. The analyses proposed by Elias and Dunning remain very general. They invite researchers to operationalise, through empirical investigation, the questions they raise at an almost anthropological level.

The authors themselves acknowledge this when they write that “there are considerable differences between various age groups and classes in the spontaneity with which spectators reveal, through movements of their bodies, their tension and excitement. There are also differences between various mimetic events within the overall social framework. All this offers a wide field for sociological investigation” (Elias & Dunning, 1994: 113). One may therefore examine the social and historical variations in the forms of this “controlled decontrolling of controls”, both among audiences and among the producers of leisure activities. It is also possible to shift the analytical focus adopted by Elias and Dunning by examining not primarily emotions, but rather the reconfigurations of values and norms within holiday time devoted to leisure activities. To my knowledge, these works are not cited or discussed by Bourdieu, unlike their writings on sport (article translated in Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales). It would therefore be useful to trace the genealogy of this selective importation, looking not only at the differences between the authors’ theoretical frameworks but also at the institutional conditions that shape the international circulation of ideas.

Elias and Dunning also develop reflections on “scholē”, drawing on Aristotle (Elias & Dunning, 1994, p. 103 and elsewhere), particularly the Greek distinction between leisure as time devoted to learning, “the time for doing better and more meaningful things” (Elias & Dunning, 1994, 103) and the work of members of the leisure class, referred to as ascholia.

Ultimately, from their different perspectives, Bourdieu, Elias and Dunning agree on several points. They underline the importance of cultural and leisure practices in modern societies. Whereas Bourdieu highlights the importance of these practices in symbolic relations of domination, Elias and Dunning implicitly underline the specific functions of leisure activities in maintaining the emotional balance of individuals in modern societies (and, therefore, also in sustaining the political order). Whereas Elias and Dunning merely call for studies that differentiate between social groups and age groups, Bourdieu offers a relational analysis of the tastes and cultural practices of the social classes of French society in the 1960s. However, Elias and Dunning also suggest examining the frameworks of “leisure events” and, therefore, undertaking a sociology of the producers of leisure.

Finally, Bourdieu, Elias and Dunning each reject, in their own way, the false divisions between “work”, “free time” and “leisure”. Bourdieu, through his interest in lifestyles, considers the articulation between different social times and practices; Elias and Dunning invite us to move beyond simplistic, value-laden divisions between “work” and “leisure” and offer a reflection and typology of “free-time” activities. “Free time, according to current linguistic usage, is equivalent to time that is free from all professional work. In our societies, only part of this free time is devoted to leisure” (Elias & Dunning, 1994, p. 90). The chapter “the quest for excitement in leisure” proposes a first classification (ibid., p. 90 et ali.). The chapter “leisure in the spectrum of free time” is more elaborate (ibid., p. 131 et ali.). As Elias and Dunning wrote: “The characteristics of leisure activities can only be understood if they are related both to professional work and to the various non-leisure activities of free time” (Elias & Dunning, 1994: 132).

To implement empirically the research programmes outlined by Elias, Dunning and Bourdieu, one may use biographical interviews. This method is not exclusive. For example, to grasp the social uses of free time at a more general level, particularly holiday time, the researcher may rely on existing statistical surveys and/or develop a questionnaire. The methods are complementary. Here, we underline the value of the biographical interview for reconstructing “holiday trajectories”, which makes it possible to study transformations in lifestyles from a different perspective.

Holiday trajectory and biographical interview

Travel and tourism are encompassed within a broader period, that of holidays. The notion of “trajectory”, as defined by Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1986), makes it possible to situate the specific “path” represented by travel experiences within the overall structure of spaces of possibilities and historicise it. Thus, by analysing holiday trajectories in relation to the social trajectories of parents and individuals, one can understand the spaces of possibility available to them at different stages of their lives. Depending on past tourist experiences, the space of possibilities regarding the use of holiday free time may vary. As Christophe Guibert writes: “tastes in tourism are the product of individuals’ histories (in the sense of an individual trajectory that is sociologically and historically located), that is, an elastic system of dispositions constantly confronted with new tourist experiences and therefore affected by them. To this individual perspective, consideration of the cultural and societal specificities of tourists must necessarily be added. Bringing into the analysis the processes of tourist experiences and the incorporation of mental schemas, therefore, implies taking individuals’ pasts seriously. Multiple, cumulative or contradictory socialisations in the formation of personal tastes structure mental habits from childhood and throughout an individual’s social life” (Guibert, 2016).

While the determinants of going on holiday are well known statistically in terms of income level and professional and family constraints, the study of the logic underlying the choices made deserves further investigation. These logics are often reduced to surveys that focus on the “motivations” individuals themselves declare and thus remain, unsurprisingly, at a level of generality that tells us little about actual practices (for example, the standard responses: “to rest”, “to spend time with family”, etc.). By contrast, situating an individual’s practices at a given moment within the entirety of their uses of time (holiday time, everyday time) over several years would make it possible to understand what I call a “holiday trajectory”. Jean-Claude Passeron warns against an “automatic” use of this notion of “trajectory”. He suggests a “ballistic” use of the concept: “(-) which has the merit of introducing numerous methodological requirements, conditions necessary for its descriptive fertility. From the outset one sees that it involves combining a force and an initial direction specific to a moving body with the fields of force and interaction through which it passes: even in the nomological world of astronautics, it is prudent to recalculate the trajectory several times during its course” (Passeron, 1990, p. 21). Biographical interviews conducted in order to reconstruct “holiday trajectories” are therefore exposed to the many risks associated with the “biographical illusion” (Bourdieu, 1986). If respondents may be inclined to introduce more coherence into their choices than actually existed, the researcher, for his or her part, risks falling into retrodiction: knowing the end of the story, the temptation is strong to reconstruct retrospectively a narrative endowed with a direction and a meaning that were not “written” in advance. Methodologically, to guard against this risk, the researcher must reconstruct the different spaces of possibilities at various moments in the respondent’s life, as Jean-Claude Passeron calls “recalculating the trajectory several times during its course”. There nevertheless remains the problem of respondents’ memory. If childhood is considered a period of socialisation with travel practices, how can one account for the selectivity of respondents’ memories and retrospective descriptions? As is well known, the researcher has access only to the respondents’ representations of the past. For example, are holiday memories not expected to be presented as “happy”? Several of my respondents thus pass very quickly over their childhood holidays, deemed of little interest, in order to move directly to their adult practices. Survey conducted between 2011 and 2012 among clients of a social tourism association. (Réau, 2016).

Biographical interviews, therefore, make it possible to reconstruct the spaces of holiday possibilities at different stages of life by focusing on the material conditions of practices. Questions are then asked about the types of trips, means of transport, the people with whom the respondent travelled, the duration of the stay, and so forth, as well as about the representations respondents have of these experiences. The subjective description of holidays sometimes tells us as much about how respondents choose their current holidays as about those of the past. The sociologist can then establish parallels between the respondent’s social trajectory and holiday trajectory. It can identify sequences linked to events that affect respondents. In this respect, several factors appear particularly significant and would merit further study: family composition and the endowment of economic, cultural and social capital; the conditions of the first holiday without parents during childhood; the first holiday in adulthood, which refers to socially differentiated conditions of access to autonomy (whether financial autonomy or autonomy negotiated with parents); the first holidays as a couple; holidays once the respondent has obtained stable employment; holidays following the arrival of a child; the purchase of property; the departure of children from the family home, and so forth. Far from being linear, these factors operate in socially differentiated ways. But holidays may also be affected by events that disrupt life trajectories, such as divorce, job loss, over-indebtedness, the responsibility of caring for an elderly relative, a serious accident, and so on. In such cases, the experience of the holidays may take on very different meanings for the respondents.

Conclusion

Thus, while trajectory interviews make it possible to identify life sequences marked by events (financial autonomy, marriage, property acquisition, children, etc.) that partly determine the social uses of holidays, taken in isolation, they remain insufficient for identifying recurrences and broader social mechanisms. If one wishes to grasp the social effects of holiday time, it is necessary to examine the articulation of the different forms of social time, which are also the different social arenas in which individuals act. Although some initial studies explore these avenues (Guibert, 2016; Réau, 2016), adopting a diachronic and cumulative approach would enable the identification of recurring patterns and thus question the specific nature of holiday time in relation to other forms of social time. Multiplying studies, diversifying social profiles by gender and age group, and systematically comparing them could help identify the social mechanisms underlying holiday trajectories and, more broadly, the social effects of holidays. Ultimately, it might be fruitful to approach the problem from the opposite direction, starting with children’s holiday practices and following a cohort over several years in order to understand more precisely the social effects of holidays.

Christophe GUIBERT et Bertrand RÉAU

Bibliography

Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 2015, « Espace des disciplines et pratiques interdisciplinaires », n°210, décembre.
Bernard Lise, 2012, « Le capital culturel non certifié comme mode d’accès aux classes moyennes. L’entregent des agents immobiliers », Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, n°191-192, p. 68-85.
Bourdieu Pierre, 1975, « Méthode scientifique et hiérarchie sociale des objets », Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, n°1, p. 4-6.
Bourdieu Pierre, 1979, La Distinction. Critique sociale du jugement, Paris, Les Éditions de Minuit.
Bourdieu Pierre, 1986, « L’illusion biographique », Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, n°62-63, p. 69-72.
Bourdieu Pierre, 1997, Méditations pascaliennes, Paris, Seuil.
Bourdieu Pierre, Passeron Jean-Claude, 1963, « Sociologues des mythologies et mythologies des sociologues », Les Temps modernes, n°211, p. 998-1021.
Coulangeon Philippe, 2011, Les métamorphoses de la distinction. Inégalités culturelles dans la France d’aujourd’hui, Paris, Grasset, coll. « Mondes vécus ».
Dumazedier Joffre, 1962, Vers une civilisation du loisir ?, Paris, Seuil.
Dumazedier Joffre, 1984, « A propos de l’étude de Michael Pollak sur “Paul Lazarsfeld, fondateur d’une multinationale scientifique” », Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, vol. 55, n°1, p. 49-53.
Élias Norbert, Dunning Eric, 1986, The Quest for excitement: Sport and leisure in the Civilizing Process, Oxford, Basil Blackwell.
Guibert Christophe, 2016, « Les déterminants dispositionnels du “touriste pluriel”. Expériences, socialisations et contextes », SociologieS, https://doi.org/10.4000/sociologies.5544.
Passeron Jean-Claude, 1990, « Biographies, flux, itinéraires, trajectoires », Revue française de sociologie, vol. 31, n°1, p. 3-22.
Réau Bertrand, 2016, « Tourism, Educational travel and Transnational Capital: From the Grand Tour to the “Year Abroad” Among Sciences Po-Paris Students » dans Koh Soon Lee Aaron, Kenway Jane (dir.), Elite Schools: Multiple Geographies of Privilege, Londres, Routledge, p. 115-130.
Réau Bertrand, 2016, « Trajectoires sociales et de vacances : réflexions d’enquête », Revue Partances, n°2, p. 23-28.
Wagner Anne-Catherine, 2007, « La place du voyage dans la formation des élites », Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, n°170, p. 58-65.
Wagner Anne-Catherine, 2008, Les classes sociales dans la mondialisation, Paris, La Découverte, coll. « Repères ».
Wagner Anne-Catherine, Réau Bertrand, 2015, « Le capital international » dans Siméant Johanna et al. (dir.), Guide de l’enquête globale en sciences sociales, Paris, Éditions du CNRS, p. 33-46.