What Is Interdisciplinarity in the Study of Sustainable Destination Development?

• Main Authors: Ulrika Persson-Fischer, Shuangqi Liu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-03-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: sustainable destination development; sustainable tourism; interdisciplinarity; systematic literature review
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/7/3639

A large body of evidence suggests that sustainable destination development (SDD) is not only multidisciplinary but interdisciplinary as its research involves the integration of knowledge, methods, theories or disciplines. The word inter- is a “dangerous” one as it implies a “dangerous connection” attempting to reconcile irreconcilable people (i.e., North institutions and South institutions), but it is also very inclusive as, for example, economic behavior is related to social background and cultural issues. Although a common view is that SDD is interdisciplinary, what disciplines does it cross exactly? With the attendant “semantic confusion”, research on SDD is working in different directions, but what exactly does the existing research take as its object of study? What are the leading themes and perspectives in the field? How do we evaluate these diversification efforts? Trying to add one more seems redundant. We believe that after nearly two decades of productive scholarship, it is now time to try to identify some potential paradigms in SDD. A content-analysis-based literature review to explore previous studies is undoubted of value, as these diverse efforts point to current trends in SDD research. Therefore, we conducted an exploratory and descriptive analysis of the literature on SDD from 2015–2020 to provide specific indications for its interdisciplinary character. As a result, a total of 175 articles in 31 crucial journals from 2015 to 2020 are reviewed. Based on content analysis, five leading themes and five leading perspectives in the SDD literature were identified. We adopted an immanent critique method to discuss our findings. We appeal for consensus instead of definition and balance instead of choice in the discourse of SDD. We suggest ways in which past academic research can be used smartly and point out some important but neglected areas to stimulate a more creative research production.