Contexts in tourism and leisure studies : a cross-cultural contribution to the production of knowledge

In this PhD an attempt has been made to deliver a cross-cultural contribution to the production of knowledge in tourism and leisure studies. The necessity of this attempt originates in: thegrowing cultural complexity in a globalising world. From a cross-cultural perspective this implies that many interacting networks create a 'global ecumene'. Over the world many cultural contexts are influencing each other in everyday life, but also in business, in public and private encounters, in tourism and in leisure activities. At the same time there is a growing need to overcome the simplicity of much theorising in this area. More particularly, it seems to be important to involve the hidden information from these contexts into the public discussions in order to clarify the above mentioned complexity;2)     thefact that the production of knowledge in tourism and leisure studies encompasses a mass of work and scientific products. Still, scientific communities of tourism and leisure studies have a difficulty in determining what the internal (inter)disciplinary coherence of their workis,what their position is with respect to other domains of science and whether there is a matter of scientific progress. The multitude of writings and the appearances of the same issues in (often slightly) modified forms (Lengkeek & Platenkamp, 2006) create an image of chaos in these studies.In line with this twofold necessity in this PhD a way of thinking has been proposed that may lead to an improvement of this situation.It seems relevant to start with 'observable' misunderstandings, conflicts, empirically tested resultsof 'cross-cultural theories' or elements of perspectives that become clear during culture shocks. These 'observable elements' emerge from the hidden contexts of the lifeworldsof anyinternational community. The first action required, then, is to interpret these elements according to the perspectives involved. In this process of mutual interpretation