the role of tourism in natural resource management in the okavango ...

Methodology
4.1 Introduction
CHAPTER FOUR
While tourism has been an element of human activity systems virtually since trade
began, it is only since the second half of the twentieth century that this activity has
become a prominent part of the global economy and lifestyles. Tourism has
therefore only relatively recently emerged as a distinct research focus and tourism
researchers have used the foundations provided by a range of established social
science disciplines to build what has essentially become a multidisciplinary field of
study (Graburn and Jafari, 1991; Gunn, 1994, cited in Faulkner, 2001). This aspect
of tourism research may also be a reflection of the growing understanding that the
multifaceted and complex nature of most social science phenomena requires such
an approach (Faulkner and Goeldner, 1998). Whatever the reasons for the
multidisciplinary nature of tourism research, it does mean that there is now a range
of available perspectives at our disposal to research tourism phenomena (Faulkner,
2001 ).
However, the contemporary period of social scientific research is perhaps best
characterised by increasing doubt that "...any discourse has a privileged place, and
any method or theory a universal and general claim to authoritative knowledge"
(Richardson et ai, 1991, cited in Ivey, 1997, p. 251). An essential consequence of
this is that research questions posed are not dictated by established research
practices. Rather, research methods are created or adapted to meet the demands of
the research questions (Ivey, 1997).
The broad research objective of this dissertation is to investigate the role that
tourism plays in the utilisation and management of the natural resources in the
Okavango Delta in northern Botswana, thereby requiring a form of both qualitative
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