Introduction

Tourism is a scientific area of applied studies characterised by a multitude of approaches (^{Jafari, 2001}) and by the interdisciplinary nature of theoretical perspectives that converge to characterise, explore and contribute to a better understanding of this socioeconomic reality. Visual aids are schematic representations of relationships between concepts that contribute to furthering the knowledge of complex phenomena (^{Duarte et al., 2021}). The reference to these tools within the context of the present study is based on the argument that they constitute a relevant contribution to the scientific effort of exploration of theoretical models, concepts and relationships. This exploration is particularly important in tourism because of the cascade effects it has on the social and economic tissue, through its impact on the territory, on cities and on communities (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}). There is already as extensive literature that acknowledges innovative business models, new economic interactions, and examples of self-organised citizen-led initiatives that critically materialise new economic, social and political forms of organisation that are responsive to ecological concerns (^{Nogueira, 2018}; ^{Nogueira et al., 2019}; ^{Pinto et al., 2015}; ^{Crowley et al., 2021}). The aims of the present study are to address the paradigm of the global-South as a relevant lens for interpreting tourism as a complex structuring economic sector. Methodologically, the choice of critical phenomenology enables the identification of key elements that help to highlight the systemic nature of tourism in contemporary societies (^{Hood, 2016}). Urban studies and urban sociology (^{Castells, 2002}) offer transdisciplinary perspectives through which to interpret current reality, connecting to criticisms to traditional and naïve literature on tourism (^{Bianchi, 2018}).

The global-South paradigm (^{Pagel et al.., 2014}) is part of an epistemic positioning movement that includes degrowth (^{Latouche, 2004}, 2007), and regenerative development (^{Mang & Reed, 2020}). There are no stable and hegemonic definitions of these concepts as they represent a critique to the political and economic unbalances of power and prosperity across the globe, inheriting colonial and imperialist influences (^{Hudson, 2000}) that have persisted till current times (^{Samerski, 2018}; ^{Illich & Lang, 1973}). Fighting social and economic inequality and climate injustice are common features of these theoretical perspectives that have supported, inspired, attracted and mobilised civic movements worldwide (^{Sabherwal, 2021}; ^{Esteves, 2020}; ^{Della Porta et al.., 2015}).

The global-South paradigm does not represent a direct geographical differentiation but rather addresses the power struggles between past colonisers and colonised countries (^{Pagel et al.., 2014}). At its core, it presents a criticism to developmental economics (^{Collier, 2015}) and to globalisation (^{Herath, 2008}). The concept of epistemologies of the South (^{de Sousa Santos, 2018}) connects to the global-South paradigm, offering an alternative to the hegemonic and monolithic perspective of neoliberal mainstream ideologies.

There is a profound criticism and calling of attention to the absurdity of the naturalisation of economic systems that accept as a given the destruction of natural resources (^{Samerski, 2018}; ^{Illich & Lang, 1973}). Critical literature that addresses societal phenomena related to ecological and social inequality concerns emerge from anthropology (^{Wengrow, 2008}), from economics (^{Hudson, 2000}) and from the present digital technology supported and bureaucratic led technocracy (^{Graeber, 2015}).

Regenerative development and design represent an evolution of the sustainability concept arguing that it is necessary to radically invert the current levels of depletion of resources, thus regenerating soils and ecosystems (^{Mang & Reed, 2020}). Degrowth economic theories address the need to respect the planet’s limited resources (^{Meadows et al.., 1972}); these theories denounce the perverse self-destructive logic of the prevalent economic systems (^{Latouche, 2004}, 2007); degrowth literature has a fundamental transdisciplinary nature (^{D'Alisa et al., 2014}); and these theories identify and highlight the political, discursive and power related determinations that condition policy-making (^{Schmelzer, 2017}).

The contribution of this research study is to offer an exploratory scientific discussion on tourism that acknowledges the theoretical novelty and impact of non-orthodox and non-mainstream political and economic thought. The structure of the text includes methodological concerns, tourism and social change, and global-South tourism and regenerative degrowth economics.

Methodological concerns

The present section addresses methodological topics that include the choice of critical phenomenology methods (^{Hood, 2016}), the political economy scope and the role of visual aids as relevant elements to address tourism. Tourism is understood as an economic sector that illustrates social change processes from a structuring perspective (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}).

Mapping and using visual aids to explore, demonstrate, highlight, interpret and explain links and relationships between ideas, concepts and theories is important because it is an effective shortcut to an elaborate rationale and reasoning (^{Kennedy & Engebretsen, 2020}). Beyond these, it is possible to follow this principle and indeed use data-based graphs that make evident the use of key terms, and the frequency and correlation of use of such terms in texts (^{Duarte et al.., 2021}). The possibility of linking word use and texts and their graphical representation has a paramount importance in eco-environmental scientific discussions precisely because of the subtle, hidden and subliminal rhetorical subterfuges, intended and conscious or not, that contaminate the writing and reading, assimilation and dissemination of knowledge production. This paradox has been extensively explored in scientific literature of degrowth (^{Welzer, 2011}) and of axiological ecological sustainability discussions (^{Bandura, 2007}).

Phenomenology is a philosophical theory and method developed by Husserl in the nineteenth and early twentieth century that aimed to “go back to the things themselves” (^{Husserl, 1999}). The argument was the need to escape logical positivism as being closed onto itself, proving what it already knew, and not indeed expanding and creating new knowledge. Eighteenth century’s Maine de Biran’s oeuvre has been gaining increasing interest as the foundations and rationale behind phenomenological interpretations of human existence and of human’s rational processes, as a critical dialogue with neurosciences, neuroeducation and cybernetic models of interpreting humankind (^{Umbelino, 2018}, ²⁰¹⁹; ^{de Urbina, 2023}). Phenomenology has grown as a non-mainstream epistemic positioning, enabling the exploration of theoretical perspectives that address social change and complexity and not linear and cause-effect relationships. Within a phenomenological interpretation of reality, reality is understood as manifestation, and human existence is understood as participation, taking a part in this reality, diligently, consciously and intentionally or not (^{Henry, 1963}). Critical phenomenology (^{Hood, 2016}), represents a post-modernist development that addresses issues of conflict, power and paradox, arguing that the denial of these tensions invalidates efforts to give an adequate account of social change and of what is shaping contemporary societies. The methodological choice of critical phenomenology enables addressing tourism as a rich, complex and multivariable reality (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}).

This exploratory study acknowledges the importance, relevance and significance of visual aids, understood as visual metaphors, using the human activity phenomenon of tourism as a tentative arena in which to address theoretical insights from contemporary theory building efforts that directly address inequality, fairness and justice, including degrowth and global-South models.

Present day human reality is being crossed by contradicting forces that transverse the experience of existence, individually and collectively, locally and globally. Economic inequality, climate injustice and social degradation are present in every sphere of human action, across regions and continents, and tourism, both its production and consumption, illustrates a pressing and paradigmatic example of the severity of present times. Critical perspectives on tourism acknowledge these tensions (^{Bianchi, 2018}).

The importance of debate, argumentation and negotiation, within varied disciplinary fields, addressing tourism, may be inspired by the use of visual aids, such as graphs and schemes, already used in other knowledge spheres, such as in curriculum development. Complex contexts imply the need for step-by-step approaches, enabling the clarification and creation of consensus regarding different perspectives of a given reality. ^{Duarte et al. (2021}) explore visual aids to support collective and collaborative decision-making. Tourism affects broad areas of political influence and political economy can benefit from the use of processes that help different stakeholders to clarify their positions and work towards common goals. Visual aids may be identified as fundamental and foundational instruments of meaning-making, of existential grounding and of empowering inspiration.

The invention of the first forms of writing occurred around 5.300 years ago. However, the use of visual aids, such as symbolic objects, gestures, drawings and schemes, to communicate, to register and to express knowledge content, is much older than formal writing. In present times, the complex and sophisticated plethora of technoscience artefacts, explores and expands the horizons of possibility of non-formal writing communication, through symbolic visual aids. The old and the new media, the social media, and the sensorial stimuli that is used in publicity, propaganda and marketing, illustrate the circular feedback-loop that conditions decision-making, individually and collectively. Consumption options are induced by manipulative campaigns, which are monitored in order to improve the campaigns’ effectiveness, in a mutual dependency cycle. Capturing the key steps of the consumer’s decision-making process enables the optimisation of the expected value that each consumer’s segment can expect to benefit from the consumption of whatever product, service, business offer or political action. The subtle links between these processes have been already explored in scientific literature, including the concepts of moral disengagement and mental structures (^{Bandura, 2007}; ^{Welzer, 2011}).

Helen ^{Kennedy and Martin Engebretsen (2020}), explore the meaning-making power of data visualization. “To make data accessible to publics, rather than remaining a useful source only for experts and decision-makers, a range of actors have campaigned to open up public data, to make them reusable for a variety of activities and democratic purposes. Open data initiatives and related campaigning activities contribute to accelerate the spread of data visualization, which often serve as a main entry point to data for non-experts.” (^{Kennedy & Engebretsen, 2020}, p. 20). Within the context of the present study, the proposal is to explore even further the conditioning power of symbolic visual aids from the perspective of open science, of citizen science, of militant research and of open innovation. In other words, if it is true that the last one hundred years of mass production and consumption have profited from powerful manipulative propaganda and publicity campaigns, the same paraphernalia may be put to the service of knowledge production and sharing that goes beyond and even against market pressures in the name of ecological regeneration, locally and globally.

The medium is the message, according to Herbert Marshall ^{McLuhan (1966}), inaugurating the term global village (^{McLuhan, et al., 2011}), which is critical for the understanding of tourism as a global market. Texts and the performativity of images capture subliminal messages, that is, they impose and push forward reasoning processes that are implicit and invisible, unacknowledged, as if they were a side comment, or something that is exchanged under a table, or an unintended lapse or slip of the tongue. Economic developmental scholarship and criticism capture the subtilities of hidden codes, which help the grounding of critical perspectives on tourism (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}).

Lourdes Roca ^{Ortiz (Ortiz, et al., 2016}), the anthropologist born in Barcelona, Spain, and developing her scholarly work in México, has captured the power of images, the performativity of images, in academia, fostering the use of multimedia at the service of the development of social sciences, from a multidisciplinary perspective. The Laboratório Audiovisual de Investigación Social (LAIS), of the Instituto Mora, tackles the areas of documental sciences, computation sciences, and information sciences, addressing the evolution, renewal and transformation of the social sciences, focusing on the importance of documental films and videos as scholarly material. The main idea was to create a knowledgeable team of trainers of trainers, forming successive generations of researchers and educators, who may change the scenario and broaden the horizons of innovative social sciences research. This example illustrates win-win mechanisms, self-fuelling mutually beneficial collaboration, and knowledge production and sharing in international and multidisciplinary scholarly work that can be inspirationally and directly applied to scientific tourism production.

Anthropology and tourism, as critical scientific areas, force the emergence of the institutional framing of social organisation in law, economics and policy-making. The theoretical elaboration, integration and creation of the last three hundred years, the historical period of the raise of Modern science of the seventeenth century and of the Enlightenment philosophical movement of the eighteenth century, have created the institutional setting that has framed the juridical and social international trade mechanisms that have been persistent throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (^{Castells, 2002}). The horizons of thought and the thinking and action possibilities of contemporary generations are being shaken by a multitude of inputs and by polarising cosmogonies that imply that each individual, within their small groups and across their larger communities, has to constantly create and recreate their positioning, identity and axiology.

The working hypothesis is that tourism is a rich, complex and dynamic activity that is being produced and consumed in fashions that directly replicate the modus operandi of the first quarter of the first century of the third millennia of our common era. Tourism is an open exploratory laboratory of the modus operandi of current times. Different research sources acknowledge the need for criticism regarding conventional approaches to tourism (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}). The method of grounding an exercise of open inquiry in the two-fold theoretical framing of degrowth and of global-South enables a critical eye regarding reputation, power distribution and effectiveness of the whole value chain of touristic activity, both its production and fruition circuits, value-chain and ecosystem.

The contribution of the present study is that it acknowledges the scientific gap between reality as it is lived and experienced and the inner and outer narratives and discourses that support, sustain, hold and contain that lived experience. Science, as it is understood in a Modernity context is both the producer of the validation mechanisms that support thought and action (^{Castells, 1997}) and it is also co-producer and co-responsible for creating blockages and protectionist denial devices at institutional, formal and explicit level. Alternatively, Modernity may be interpreted as a promise to be fulfilled. That is, Modernity can be understood as a still active and effective process of social change that emerged in Classic Antiquity as a rupture with the belief in an external determination and eternal law of constancy and repetition that enabled prediction, control and command from above (Castells, 1997).

Methodological concerns involve the discussion of phenomenology, multimedia, language, visual aids and Modernity as an effort to acknowledge the role of research methods, as working tools and as interpreting lenses that enable the exploration of innovative perspectives on tourism reality. The aims are not to deliver a systematic review of detailed and descriptive analysis but to acknowledge the extensive literature available that refers to critical perspectives on tourism. Phenomenological radical positions, that address subjectivity, subjectivity at its core, with incursions into aesthetics, political and economic thought, or a critique to psychoanalysis (^{Henry, 1963}), push forward and make it unavoidable to forcefully take a leap into blurred uncertainty in the form of explorations of links and of dynamic relationships between concepts, theories, ideas and schools of thought. Kernel to this epistemic positioning is the choice of a research methodology as it is the means, tool, instrument and vehicle to the exploration of novelty. Humans connect to information and are bonded by narratives that create a materially real sense of existence, of purpose, and of life’s enjoyment, independently of the circumstances.

Phenomenology adequately serves the purpose of exploring a critical reading and interpretation of tourism in contemporary societies. Participation and manifestation (^{Henry, 1963}), as two fundamental phenomenological instances of signification, are related to generation in the sense that humans are being continually generated, co-created, self-created, through life’s dynamism. That rationality and rationality models are a process, an ongoing open plural diverse process, a flow and a movement, that is perceptive in the activity of searching, debating and reflecting, has been a nuclear and kernel insight of phenomenological thought (^{Umbelino, 2018}, ²⁰¹⁹; ^{de Urbina, 2023}). The concept of the unbearable surplus of being human (^{Hodgson, 2022}), as the search for meaning and significance through meaning-making itself, individually and collectively, as a homo faber activity, helps to grasp the intellectual possibilities for innovative explorations that are currently available in literature and in contemporary schools of thought. These contributions are particularly relevant within the current context of the need to rethink moral, social, economic, political and historical responsibilities worldwide. The command-and-control impetus that may be present in the digital technologies’ ubiquity of Modern institutions (^{Castells, 1997}) is being resisted by open science and by social based practices that explore and create new possibilities to be explored and it is within this background of phenomenological considerations that the present study will try to propose an interpretation of tourism from a critical perspective which is indeed relevant and effective in highlighting present dilemmas and paradoxes of contemporary societies.

Tourism and social change

Tourism is one of the most fascinating industries of current times. Its financial attractability, its capacity to reflect contemporary societies’ eccentricities, and its direct and indirect power of manoeuvre of territorial and geostrategic policy-making is paramount (^{Jafari, 2001}). Moreover, the academia is slowly gaining momentum, gradually attracting funds and brains to research and education in tourism, together with sport, active life-styles, art and culture, and other industries related to well-being and life-style (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}). The present state of turbulence and near collapse regarding social and ecological catastrophes on a global scale include arms race, the ongoing war in Ukraine, migrant crises, and a growing inequality between rich and poor, individually and collectively, locally and globally. The pandemic crisis has revealed the frailties of apparently robust economic, social and political systems. Negative conditions, that are co-produced by the touristic sectors (^{Bianchi, 2018}) include, real estate pressures, displacement of locals’ phenomenon, destruction of local supply-chain channels, and creation of inequality and disruption in the labour market opportunities and career paths of local populations.

The gentrification processes (^{Jafari, 2001}) impose the dislocation of indigenous people and expulsion of local populations from historical sites and old city centres, which imply the destruction of cultures, the devastation of communities and the break of social bonding. In parallel, mega projects create ultra-concentrated economic power, which remain in the hands of a few. The concepts of global-North and of global-South (^{Pagel et al., 2014}) help to identify and to interpret the current challenges being faced by the tourism industry, including neo-colonialist and neo-imperialist pressures. Degrowth thinking (^{D'Alisa et al., 2014}) essentially acknowledges the need to rethink present industries, and production and consumption processes, taking into account the ecological and the social inclusion needs on a planetary and also extra-planetary scale. Denial mechanisms enable the creation of a Hollywood like reality that protects the interests of a few at the expense of the many (^{Bandura, 2007}). Political economy challenges do denounce abuse and the eternal protection of privileges thus creating opportunities for alternative solutions to emerge (^{Welzer, 2011}). Visual aids, through mapping and visual representation of the foundations and principles that are being used to support whatever political decision-making process that is taking place, are a crucial element to be considered when envisioning a brighter future for humankind. Moreover, when exploring alternative business models and new intellectual frameworks that indeed enable novelty to emerge it is relevant to acknowledge the role and social impact of academic, educational and research centres within the territories they are geographically located, in particular in the case of peripherical regions (^{Pinto et al., 2015}).

Sustainability and eco-environmental concerns have an extensive coverage in both theoretical and applied scientific research. The emergence of ecovillages and of intentional sustainable communities illustrates the agency power of engaged citizens to create novelty (^{Nogueira, 2018}; ^{Nogueira et al., 2019}). Innovative and transformational social change occurs through direct participation of these self-organised groups, fostering and experimenting new social practices. The transition potential refers to mechanisms that capture social innovation in ways that are inspirational, encouraging and do effectively stimulate further change.

The rise of civic movements in the twentieth century has reached the twenty first century with greater levels of polarization on the global political sphere, which led to stronger contestation. Civic movements that fight for global justice have gained in organization and effectiveness, using the social media as powerful instruments of transformational change. Shared governance and innovative forms of promotion of a just transition are critical features of these civic movements (^{Della Porta et al., 2015}). Regenerative ecology frameworks and community-building are important characteristics of new forms of self-organisation such as the ones present in ecovillages. The diffusion of social innovations is based both on local and contextual aspects of these ethnopolitical organisations and on transnational networks that promote regenerative ideals and practices (^{Esteves, 2020}).

To connect tourism and critical theoretical perspectives (^{Bianchi, 2018}) that clearly denounce the raise of poverty and the loss of dignity of the poor, when submitted to extreme living conditions, it is important to acknowledge the witnessing power of first-hand narratives, such as those of ^{Malatesta. Errico Malatesta (2014}) (b. 1853; d. 1932), was born in Santa Maria, Cabo Verde, and died in Rome, Italy, ninety years ago - 2022 celebrates the ninetieth anniversary of his death. Malatesta had a direct experience of the idea that whoever is poor is a slave: “I can die in jail but I want to die keeping my honour intact, I want to die enlightened by all the purity of my ideal, because my ideal may be a vain ghost of a dream, but it is certainly a dream of love.” (^{Malatesta, 2014}, p. 3).

Katharina ^{Pistor’s (2019}) work, The Code of Capital, denounces the tight connections of the free flow of capital and deregulation of financial markets, with scholarship in law and economics, contaminating policy-making and controlling the international institutions networks that regulate global trade. Daniel ^{Markovits’ (2019}) The Meritocracy Trap, bluntly dismounts the false promises of what he calls civil religion, technocracy at its worst (also, ^{Sandel, 2020}). Serge ^{Latouche (2004}, ²⁰⁰⁷), inaugurates the concept of serene degrowth, in a small treaty and then beyond. Indeed, the degrowth movement has never stopped growing. “Degrowth is just a term created by radical critics of growth theory to free everybody from the economic correctness that prevents us from proposing alternative projects for post-development politics.” (^{Latouche, 2007}, p.1).

Empires, together with present times’ neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism, share certain characteristics that are universal. These include the possibility, the capability and the effective power to mislead, in relation to the contestation that, put simply, there is no alternative, i.e., no alternative to being submissive to the empire or the colonial power. This said, all that is left to do is to seek to identify the process itself and to look at present reality and at past historical trajectories in order to seek for patterns and for positive and creative opportunities for effective change to occur. Acknowledging the power of mental structures is key (^{Welzer, 2011}). It is often the case that there is a juxtaposition and a fractal effect that enables understanding the negotiation that takes part in children’s play, with its give-and-take, and the give-and-take that is present throughout the history of humankind. In other words, winners and losers, taking the lion’s share or else losing it all, involves a treaty, a partnership, a negotiation and the explicit or implicit acceptance of the given conditions. Empires and colonial powers exist and are indeed unbeatable and eternally perpetuated as long as they effectively hold the reigns of the give-and-take game.

Todays’ prisons, worldwide, in particular in Manaus and Cabo Delgado, due to the presence of the transnational corporations’ pressures, state terrorism, paramilitaries, militia and political networks; the 1960s concentration camps, in South Africa and elsewhere, or the European 1940s ones; present times longstanding refugee camps, some several decades old, i.e., with generations that have been born there and who never experienced freedom; the developed world homeless population; the slumps, town-ships and shanty towns; the list goes on. Yet these tragic settings share with the rest of society the organisation, the functioning, the rationale, the logistics and distribution channels, the consumption and production mechanisms of goods and services, of cultural artefacts and ideologies, thus offering a roadmap, a mirror, an open laboratory and an experimental safe-zone for humankind’s present and future reality. A critical perspective on social sciences in general and on tourism in particular is crucial for acknowledging the potential for change that is already present contemporarily (^{Samerski, 2018}; ^{Illich & Lang, 1973}).

The argument is that ideas can only be beaten by better alternatives. The difference between the haves and the have-nots, and the history of global economy and of inequality, is a difference in terms of accepting or else rejecting a game. That is, entering into a game and thus accepting the rules of such game, or else rejecting and reinventing better possible futures - better games, better rules, for better outcomes. The unbearable surplus of being human (^{Hodgson, 2022}) refers to the delegitimization of the negative and the public and private discourse that has emerged from behavioural economics, neuroeducation and positive psychology, particularly since the economic crash of 2008. Phenomenology literature has extensively explored these critical insights that connect lived experience, subjectivity, the body and rational models or models of rationality (^{Umbelino, 2018}, 2019; ^{de Urbina, 2023}).

The fast, exponential and meteoric rise of scholarship dedicated to green washing is paramount. Green marketing advertising of products or public policies is deceptive because it explores power symbols of purity and include terms like eco-whitening, whitewash, eco-washing, eco-bleaching, green sheen or green image washing (^{Martinez et al., 2020}). Per se, the success and effectiveness of this propaganda is an indication that technoscience occupies an archetypal collective imaginary place, which is close to the ideas of sorcery or the concept of messianism. The critical turn in sustainable tourism is a landmark that denounces the taken-for-granted nature of the plausibility of private and public discourses (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}). Scholarship implies production and consumption of texts, involving publishers, academia and a mass of students able to face so-called reality. In no other historical context or geostrategic position have texts acquired the power they have today. Often invisible, in the heads of the screenwriters, dramaturgists, marketeers and video game producers, religion and sects, politics and the media, health and education, the prisons, penal system and jurisdictional nomenclature, all are dependent from the supply-chain management arsenal of text writing.

If the publish-or-perish strategy is true for young, unexperienced and unknown academia, it is not so for older, experienced and well-known scholars, who may benefit from the armies of pseudo think-thanks, with their entrenched bureaucracies, and political and financing schemes. The point is that, across intellectual professional bodies, there is a perpetuation of the tactic behaviour of surpassing apparent enemies and competitors, in an endless race to nowhere. It is similar to the narrative of a bad taste children’s game, in which the last one to survive, happily commits suicide and all ends well. The reference of a return to a darker age helps to acknowledge the strains of present times (^{Kenklies et al., 2022}).

It is not possible to convince ourselves and others into the acceptance of options that promote change and that question one’s livelihoods, life-styles, values and belief systems, without the envisioning, imagining, realising of alternative possible futures. Denial mechanisms are the most powerful, effective and unbreakable argumentation devices. That is, all that it is necessary is to advance arguments towards a blind zone and the end effect is guaranteed, as resistance to change is effectuated. This occurs irrespective of geographical conditions or historical period settings, as it is constitutive of what it means to be human. Consequently, no need to argue, to counter-argue or to offer claims and disclaims, as all there is to do is to conduct a healthy let-go, facing irrevocable loss and mourning. The alternative to this dead-end implies being able to imagine better futures (^{Bandura, 2007}).

Within the touristic setting, critical literature has emerged that accounts for paradigmatic changes related to sustainability and to denouncing of growing levels of inequality worldwide (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}). These authors help to dismount the taken-for-granted nature of the status quo that then becomes accessible, visible and acknowledged as a political economy open area of scientific debate. Environmental and social pressures have been fundamental to push forward these critical perspectives on tourism (^{Bianchi, 2018}). Tourism and social change imply a two-way effect as it is possible to identify challenges and opportunities for transformative innovations that have been introduced to the tourism sector through societal pressures, such as eco-consciousness, and also areas where tourism has pushed forward social change. That is, eco-consciousness in tourism can have cascade effects on cities and territories.

Global-South tourism and regenerative degrowth economics

The approaching of the end of the first quarter of the first century of the third millennium, the 2000-2025 period, reveals a longer-term process, since the end of the nineteenth century, which takes Europe, North America, and the British Common Wealth states as net beneficiaries of the international terms of trade and of world commerce. In other words, the global-South model emerges as a criticism to neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism that dominates global trade in favour of the global-North (^{Collier, 2015}; ^{Herath, 2008}). It dominates not only trade but also the cultural and social influences that create a hegemonic environment that is conducive to the acceptance of greater levels of inequality across groups, territories and regions (^{de Sousa Santos, 2018}).

The present study addresses this reality of shocking and ever-growing levels of inequality and argues that tourism is a pivotal industry in its role as an enabler of experimentation and innovation of alternative forms of organisation (^{Bianchi, 2018}). Tourism scholarship also reflect North-South divides. Christian ^{Rogerson and Jayne Rogerson (2021}), from the School of Tourism and Hospitality, of the University of Johannesburg, in South Africa, offer a reflexion upon global-South challenges. “Three key issues are highlighted by this ‘state of the art’ overview, namely the significance of an informal sector of tourism, the distinctive characteristics of the discretionary mobilities of the poor, and the controversies surrounding slum tourism.” (^{Rogerson & Rogerson, 2021}, p. 27).

The global-South paradigm does not represent a direct geographical differentiation but rather addresses the power struggles between past colonisers and colonised countries (^{Pagel et al., 2014}). At its core, it presents a criticism to developmental economics (^{Collier, 2015}) and to globalisation (^{Herath, 2008}). The concept of epistemologies of the South (^{de Sousa Santos, 2018}) connects to the global-South paradigm, offering an alternative to the hegemonic and monolithic perspective of neoliberal mainstream ideologies.

There is a profound criticism and calling of attention to the absurdity of the naturalisation of economic systems that accept as a given the destruction of natural resources (^{Samerski, 2018}; ^{Illich & Lang, 1973}). Critical literature that addresses societal phenomena related to ecological and social inequality concerns emerge from anthropology (^{Wengrow, 2008}), from economics (^{Hudson, 2000}) and from technocracy (^{Graeber, 2015}).

Regenerative development and design represent an evolution of the sustainability concept arguing that it is necessary to radically invert the current levels of depletion of resources, thus regenerating soils and ecosystems (^{Mang & Reed, 2020}).

Degrowth economic theories address the need to respect the planet’s limited resources (^{Meadows et al., 1972}), the perverse self-destructive logic of the prevalent economic systems (^{Latouche, 2004}, 2007), the transdisciplinary nature of degrowth literature (^{D'Alisa et al., 2014}), and the political, discursive and power related determinations that condition policy-making (^{Schmelzer, 2017}).

Within global-South contexts, powerful insights abound, illustrated by the following comment. “Listen to the exasperated Guatemalan leader cited by Alain Gras: ‘Leave the poor alone and stop going on about development!’ All the leaders of popular movements, from Vandana Shiva in India to Emmanuel Ndione in Senegal, say the same thing. Advocates of development may pontificate about the need to restore self-sufficiency in food; but the terms they use prove that there was self-sufficiency and that it has been lost. Africa was self-sufficient in food until the 1960s when the great wave of development began. Imperialism, growth economics and globalisation destroyed that self-sufficiency and make African societies more dependent by the day. Water may not have come out of a tap in the past, but most of it was drinkable until industrial waste arrived to pollute it.” (^{Latouche, 2007}, p. 3).

This account reflects the absurdity of contemporary societies existential dilemmas and is supported by the work of nineteenth century philosophers. Roe ^{Fremstedal (2019}), refers to Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish theologue, poet and social critic, who is considered the first existential philosopher, who coined the expression of “Demonic despair under the guise of the good”. Similarly, Friedrich Nietzsche, addressing moral philosophy, which has come to be known as “the guise of the good”, according to which good is contrasted with evil, Constantine ^{Sandis (2017}) argues the following:

“In his Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche famously distinguishes between the aristocratic concept of the good, as that which is powerful, and the bad that is weak, and its Christian reversal, according to which good is contrasted with evil; equating the latter with power and the former with various forms of meekness. Each group, Nietzsche maintains, attempts to define goodness in relation to what they already are and the strivings thereby encapsulated.” (^{Sandis, 2017}, p. 33).

Since Adam Smith, political economy has emerged from moral philosophy, consequently tying value judgements that encompass belief systems, in whatever political and economic decision-making process. An ethical method that uses health sciences lexicon, may identify the need to follow the usual four steps: diagnosis and prognosis, and prescription and proscription. However, the last one, the proscription, the red line of what must be avoided at all costs, is the most important one precisely because it acknowledges the risk of not being able to draw limits.

Tourism can be a powerful ally in the promotion of regenerative forms of economic evolution, incorporating degrowth ecological orientations, which may effectively offer the possibility of experimenting, exploring and testing cooperative business models that break the cycle of consumerism and of gentrification (^{Jafari, 2001}).

The challenges of degrowth may be referred back to fifty years ago and to the publication of ^{Meadows et al. (1972}) book, The Limits to Growth. The historical importance of this publication is related to “the relationship between acquisitive growth capitalism and environmentalism”; “the social history of international policy-making and the related personal entanglements and ideological transfers”, between institutions such as OECD and The Club of Rome, was key, promoting the “rethinking of the economic growth paradigm, even within those technocratic institutions that had aspired to guide the post-war industrial growth regime” (^{Schmelzer, 2017}, p. 26).

The touristic industry is highly dependent on energy, transport and urban planning policies (^{Bianchi, 2018}), which have been influenced by transnational networks, strongly conditioned by neo-liberal ideologies. After three decades of capital markets deregulation and free flow of international financing, tourism has become even more concentrated in global networks. The consequence is that the remuneration of labour, in local markets, is low, whilst the capital remuneration is high, fuelling the attractability of the touristic industry in international markets.

There is the emergence in tourism literature of a call for a paradigm change. For instance, Lucia ^{Tomassini and Elena Cavagnaro (2022}), sustain that “the authors are driven by the idea of de-growth, as an “a-growthism” urging the abandonment of the faith towards growth for an enduring stable regenerative agrowth”; these authors explore “the possibility to envision circular regenerative processes embracing agrowth and placemaking within tourism; an industry remarkably connected to the Anthropocene and its detrimental impacts on the planet”. (^{Tomassini & Cavagnaro, 2022}, p. 3). These arguments are consistent with dominant-thinking critique (^{Castells, 2002}) and with critical literature on tourism (^{Bianchi, 2018}).

Challenges and opportunities

Horizon expansion and disciplinary border crossing are essential elements in the theoretical development of a scientific discipline. Tourism represents both the sophisticated and self-promoting models of neoliberal economics (^{Jafari, 2001}) that are shaping global trade and spreading growing levels of inequality and also the opportunity to explore alternative approaches. Incorporating, integrating, assimilating, critically adapting and further developing the wellsprings and sources of intellectual production that have contemporarily emerged from academic institutions is a fundamental step in the process of exploring new knowledge processes and new knowledge production. This rationale is illustrated by research that critically recognises, identifies, tracks and explains how sources of knowledge for innovative firms may emerge from academic and industry interfaces and interaction (^{Pinto et al., 2015}).

Win-win business models are the paradigmatic example of an alternative business model because they literally take into account, that is, they authentically, genuinely and creatively seek to achieve plural, diverse and inclusive ongoing answers to complex realities, not from a top-down, command and control perspective but from an emergent, fully present, conscious, embodied and embedded attitude, position, function and role. Self-managed teams and participative leadership are examples of this management tradition that acknowledges value-chains, supply-chain management and the stakeholder’s perspective as an imperative and strategic ethical mandate that ultimately pays off in the form of loyalty from all stakeholders involved and brand reputation, whatever the setting, dimension, sector or affiliation, for profit, NGOs or local, national, regional, international, transnational or global institutions. Ecovillages and intentional sustainable communities are an example of self-organised groups that co-create new possibilities that answer social, economic and political ecological concerns (^{Nogueira, 2018}; ^{Nogueira et al., 2019}).

Win-win imply that Pareto’s optimal solutions, starting from equal conditions and opportunities, may be achieved through the exploration of creative and innovative collaborative forms of working and learning. The whole process of development of scientific and humanistic managerial solutions, directly and indirectly contributes to the better use and application of concepts and theories that are net contributors to the well-being of human populations. Critical literature on tourism pushes forward the real-world benefits to the global population of scientific development in management and elsewhere (^{Bianchi, 2018}).

Within the sphere of action of tourism, it is possible to acknowledge, promote and disseminate those real-life solutions that effectively contribute to the improvement of all stakeholders’ benefits. An effective approach to exemplify win-win and alternative business models, within the context of the present work, is through the illustration of Jean-Claude ^{Richard’s work (2021}), addressing five real life communities: Diony-Coop, in Sain-Denis, a satellite city of Paris, France; Elèuthera, a publishing house, in Milan, Italy; Paideia, a school, in Mérida, Spain; Somaterapia, an anti-psychiatric micropolitics psychotherapeutical method, created by the medical doctor, Roberto Freire, in Brazil, in the 1960s; and Urupia, an agro-community in Puglia, Italy, the Adriatic sea bathed heel of the Southern East region of Italy. These cases illustrate bottom-up and citizen-based initiatives that may point to inspiring developments in tourism and other territorial sectors and activities.

Tourism has been dominated worldwide by neoliberal and predatory managerial strategies as it has been able to create a system of perverse dependencies that link law, finance and territorial management that secure the interests of the few at the expenses of the many (^{Bandura, 2007}). The concentration of wealth, power and political influence has achieved unprecedented levels since the fall of Lehman Brothers in August 2007. Similarly, to the 1929 black Thursday of October the 24^th, through the mass media and the technology science, in these two examples of global economic crashes, the sources of political and economic power have become entrenched. The originators of economic crisis, related to the financial markets, have become empowered, gained legitimacy, credibility, and status as the legal and international trade apparatus has become more concentrated (^{Welzer, 2011}).

Within a contextual setting of denial and invisibility (^{Bandura, 2007}), it is important to highlight examples of resistance. Following this line of thought, of identifying inspiring examples that illustrate change, transformation and renewal, Fabio ^{Ciaramelli (2022}), addressing the work of the Turkish born scholar Cornélio Castoriadis (b. 1922; d. 2022), introduces powerful insights into rethinking conventional management. Castoriadis, a prolific writer, was an economist at OECD (1948-1970), director of studies of the prestigious Ecole des Hautes Etudes of social sciences, in Paris, France (1980-1995), and psychoanalyst (1973-1997). Criticising management science from within (^{Ciaramelli, 2022}), opens new ground for exploring alternative perspectives on tourism.

Indeed, tourism offers an opportunity to explore different interpretations, models and approaches of what is considered to be important, individually and collectively. “Different societies have different views of the shared basic aim of a good life. If we must give it a name, it could be umran (thriving or flourishing), as used by the Arab historian and philosopher Ibn Kaldûn (1332-1406); Gandhi’s swadeshi-sarvodaya (self-sufficiency and welfare); bamtaare (shared well-being) in the language of the West African Toucouleurs; or fidnaa/gabbina (the shine of someone who is well-fed and free of all worry) in the vocabulary of Ethiopia’s Borana people (…). What really matters is that we reject continuing destruction in the name of development. The fresh and original alternatives springing up point the way towards a successful post-development society.” (^{Latouche, 2007}, p. 4).

It is important to understand the frail nature of present-day developmental ideologies in order to grasp the power of win-win and alternative business models, applied to the tourism industry and elsewhere. Critical perspectives on tourism have helped to shape current perceptions on public policy and on how the touristic sector operates (^{Bianchi, 2018}; ^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}). The term business may be misleading; within the context of the present work, it applies to the model, the logic, the rationale and the functioning behind whatever human initiative or endeavour. It does not refer to the pejorative, despairing, cynical and sarcastic expression of “business as usual”; within the present context, it connects to the catch line of old Westerns’, “a man must to what a man must do”, that is, it addresses the fundamental subliminal existential affirmation of individuals and groups that consciously, formally, explicitly, visibly, intentionally and purposefully or not, take a task on their own hands and go forward. Following this reasoning, examples abound that illustrate the decades-old perversion of global discourses, in academia, in policy-making, and in the old and the new media.

Managerial business models, for profit purposes or otherwise, take into account the ideological principles and the political regimes that are historically and geographically present, in whatever particular case being considered (^{Welzer, 2011}). Developmental economics offers rich examples of the need for a critical eye in social sciences scholarship (^{Collier, 2015}).

Addressing the cases of North Africa and East Africa, it is possible to argue that non-capitalist-based regimes and not for profit organisations have not been able to produce self-sustaining and ecologically sustainable developmental work in the long term. “Houari Boumediene’s Algeria and Julius Nyerere’s Tanzania, which were both officially socialist, participatory, self-reliant and based on popular solidarity. (…) And they have also noted that development has often been carried out or supported by charitable, humanist NGOs. Yet apart from a few scattered success stories, it has been an overwhelming failure. What was supposed to bring contentment to everyone in every aspect of life led only to corruption, confusion and structural adjustment plans that turned poverty into destitution.” (^{Latouche, 2007}, pp. 5).

Deep criticism from developmental schools of thought (^{Collier, 2015}; ^{Samerski, 2018}) and tourism specific critical perspectives (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}; ^{Jafari, 2001}; ^{Bianchi, 2018}) lead to the need to consider authors who have considered the choices and alternatives to mainstream economic and political regimes. Lazlo ^{Garai (2017}) argues that both sides of the political spectrum have failed and that the future of political economy regimes are based on identity economics. Market-based capitalism and central planning communism will be replaced by identity economics as an alternative that is able to respond to the needs and wishes of the voting population. Within this reasoning, identity features and characteristics of specific populations would guide and determine the policy-making outcomes.

Garai explores “the perspective of social interaction and social identity as they apply to micro- and macroeconomic issues.” (²⁰¹⁷, p. 35). The proposal of the present study is to take into account particular and specific idiosyncrasies, following Garai’s insights, whilst, simultaneously, addressing the common purpose of humankind as a whole, in terms of survival as a species, taking care of the interests of future generations, and addressing global scale present day inequalities, social injustice and ecological emergencies. Urban sociology perspectives (^{Castells, 2002}) and critical perspectives on tourism are grounded in these implicit assumptions and sustainability concerns (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}).

The notion of responsibility is crucial because with knowledge comes collective responsibility. “The decisions of others create our commitment and responsibility to react. In defence, indifference, acceptance, confrontation (…). The most important issue reflecting decision-making is responsibility; bidirectional responsibility.” ^{Pérez-Troncoso (2022}, pp. 24). Interpreting tourism as an economic activity, sector, market and industry implies that mutual influential interchanges create a shared responsibility that must be acknowledged, individually and collectively. ^{Pérez-Troncoso (2022)} argument that each individual is responsible for identifying and taking into account how the decisions of others are impacted personally and societally is relevant in the contemporary complex context. That is, attitudes of confrontation or of support are voiced by different groups that are activated, mobilized and engaged by their commitment to defend their values, belief systems, convictions, interests and positions.

Me-too, Occupy-Wall-Street, Black-Lives-Matter, Fridays-for-Future, Extinction-Rebellion, Scientists-Rebellion, Anti-Work, People-Not-Profit, Post-Crash-Economics, are examples of contemporary civic and activists’ movements. These illustrate the frailty of formal institutions who hide and subtly violently fight, from the cradle to the grave, whatever may challenge ingrained belief systems (^{Johansen, 2020}). Fear is institutionalised in perverse structuring ways. Racist, misogynous, homophobic, aporofobic, and fear of the unknown, of whatever is perceived as being different and, consequently, unpredictable and uncontrollable, these intersectional phobias and pervasive culture of death that has gained rights of citizenship, of sovereignty, legitimacy and credibility has become institutionally normalised and naturalised. It is a cultural war: “Cultural wars fume.” (^{Johansen, 2020}).

As ^{Pérez-Troncoso (2022}) and Greta Tintin Thunberg (^{Sabherwal, 2021}) argue, responsibility is lacking, politically and systemically. Responsibility is bidirectional so that decision-making in an adult world needs responsible adults able to perceive, acknowledge, identify, face, confront, respond to, process, denounce and alter whatever does not achieve the standards and criteria of a humane world. The dehumanizing effect of the Industrial Age and the lack of consistency of scientific-based policy-making has silenced the voices of the underrepresented and of the suppressed people (^{Johansen, 2020}). Tourism connects to structural areas that create a perverse cycle of mutual supporting protectionist, monopolist and exclusivists privileges (^{Bianchi, 2018}). These include real estate and labour and financial markets; transport and energy; communication, the mass media and the new media; technology and infrastructures; health and education; patrimony and culture; sport and art; defence and security; law and legal and insurance markets. The argument is that tourism is a pivotal industry that lies at the interface of the multiple structuring layers of social organisation, being influenced and influencing those structures, as critical perspectives on tourism highlight (^{Bianchi, 2018}).

Individual trajectories help to illustrate the dynamic forces that are being mobilised in contemporary times. G. T. Thunberg was twenty years old on the 3 of January of 2023; in August 2018, aged fifteen years of age, her environmental activism started (^{Sabherwal, 2021}). Individual biographical accounts reflect ongoing contextual elements. The world pandemic of COVID-19 of 2020 and 2021; the ongoing war that started with the invasion of Ukraine on the 24^th of February of 2022; the evidence that there were more lobbyists lobbying for fossil fuels industries present, between the 6^th and the 20^th of November of 2022, in Egypt’s Climate for Change Conference UN-COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, than governmental representatives; the date 15th November 2022, referring to the United Nations signalling of the date in which the world's population was projected to reach 8 billion people, and 2010 as the year when the World's urban population passed fifty percent for the first time in history; the UN Refugee Agency systematic alerting to the growing numbers of unwanted migration imposed by conflicts, climate change effects and poverty. These contextual factors suggest that each area of economic activity is influenced by ongoing societal complexity and this influence is being taken into account by critical scientists (^{Johansen, 2020}).

Political economy is the disciplinary area that offers the greater chances of exploring a positive, constructive and inspiring venue for an effective development of the touristic industry (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}). Tourism may be interpreted according to varied complementary perspectives: the global-South model, which addresses the social sciences’ critique to contemporary societies’ options related to tourism and to its over-exploitation (^{Collier, 2015}); the regenerative degrowth economics rationale, which bluntly argues for the ecological wakeup call that is able to denounce denial, alienation and apathic policy-making (^{Crowley et al., 2021}); and the crucial role and interface of symbolic mapping and visual aids, which are already opening up new negotiating arenas in business and regulatory bodies alike (^{Kennedy & Engebretsen, 2020}). The emergence of alternative business models, based on cooperative and collaborative knowledge production and sharing, involving all stakeholders and leaving no one behind, is already the result of critical scientific work that theoretically grounds applied and innovative work methods.

As Lewis ^{Mumford (1944}) argued, “The most important task ahead of us is to build castles in the air”. This is the task of political economy, today, and in the future to come, as it has been in the past: the creation of hope for humankind. Tourism, degrowth and visual aids, filling the gap of the missing link, from a phenomenological integrative epistemic perspective, is merely revising the current state of affairs of political economy and acknowledging the potential for change that is already publicly available and free of charge, ready to be used by militant, global citizenship based, hands-on scholarship. The challenges and opportunities of contemporary times related to tourism involve the capacity to reframe current reality from a critical perspective (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}) in order to identify, acknowledge and incorporate innovative and effective social change and climate justice locally and globally.

Nietzsche’s critique to the civilised society illustrates the paradoxes and dilemmas of contemporary times. “The condition of mediocrity is expressed powerfully in Nietzsche's image of the ‘Last Man’” (^{Williams, 2022}):

“… They still work, for work is entertainment. But they take care the entertainment does not exhaust them.

Nobody grows rich or poor anymore: both are too much of a burden. Who still wants to rule? Who obey? Both are too much of a burden.

No herdsman and one heard. Everyone wants the same thing, everyone is the same: whoever thinks otherwise goes voluntarily into the madhouse.

‘Formerly all the world was mad’ say the most acute of them and blink.

… They still quarrel, but they soon make up-otherwise indigestion would result.

They have their little pleasure for the day and their little pleasure for the night: but they respect health.

‘We have discovered happiness, say the Last Men and blink.” (^{Nietzsche, 1974}, pp. 46-47, cited in ^{Williams, 2022}, p. 545). Understanding the role and social function of tourism in contemporary societies is enriched by Nietzsche’s accounts as it is a reminder of the complexity of human’s existential dramas and enables stepping aside in order to bring a more objective and authentic phenomenological perspective on tourism critical research.

Conclusions

The attractiveness of tourism as an applied scientific area is visible in the growth of the research publications, academic programmes and educational offers around the world that are dedicated to this challenging knowledge field (^{Jafari, 2001}). As an applied area, tourism aggregates and integrates multiple influences (^{Bianchi, 2018}). The creative tension between dominant and non-dominant thinking (^{Castells, 1997}) enables the exploration of novel perspectives on tourism. The aims of this study are to address the research question of what are possible theoretical angles of analysis on tourism and to propose global-South (^{Pagel et al., 2014}) as an integrative paradigm through which to interpret the touristic sector. The argument is that this paradigm involves and connects to other heterodox theoretical perspectives, which include degrowth (^{D'Alisa et al., 2014}), and regenerative development (^{Mang & Reed, 2020}). In turn, these approaches help to highlight converging theoretic movements that integrate environmental, social, political and economic concerns related to tourism (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}).

Within this line of reasoning, visual aids are identified as functional and instrumental elements that may help to contribute to a better understanding of tourism, its contemporary reality and the trends that it faces. Visual aids are introduced as a promising research area because of their self-explanatory power. Visual aids have the capacity to capture the essence of theoretical relationships between concepts present in models and theoretical frameworks (^{Kennedy & Engebretsen, 2020}). The choice of a critical phenomenology methodology (^{Hood, 2016}) serves the purpose of introducing epistemic considerations that help to shape how tourism challenges and opportunities are being shaped and defined (^{Bramwell & Lane, 2014}).

The rationale is that there is a common thread that connects the theoretical perspectives, the role of visual aids and the reality of tourism. It is not within the scope of this study to offer an exhaustive, detailed and crystal-clear account of these complex links. On the contrary, the contribution and value of the present study is enacted within the sphere of awareness raising, of critical inquiry and of open questioning. Fundamentally, there is the acknowledgement of the links between Nietzsche’s criticism (^{Sandis, 2017}) and Kierkegaard’s denouncing of the existential void of contemporaneity (^{Fremstedal, 2019}) and the critical perspective on tourism (^{Bianchi, 2018}). Ultimately, there is a scientific statement that is being voiced and an academic commitment involved in the effort to recognise the wealth of theoretical contributions that have emerged in social sciences that can help to unveil fundamental realities of the touristic sector.