Author Bios (50 Words for each Author)

Linda L. Lowry, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Isenberg School, UMass-Amherst. Her research and teaching interests include: social, cultural, and economic impacts of tourism and sustainable development and theory development. She is a qualitative researcher and locates herself in the performance turn.

Abstract (150 Words)

The Academy is like a Body Builder, valuing prowess at all costs. Throughout this paper, the author uses the metaphorical representation of the embodied Academy and practices used to build prowess. Prowess is measured in various ways, one of which is developing its own theories rather than borrowing from others. Archetypical Body Builders and their representative types of prowess defamiliarize the familiar in order to enable the Academy to envision the process of theorizing to theory development and its role in that process in new ways. This new contextualization and illumination, in turn, contributes to a better understanding of the process of theorizing which the author hopes will increase theorizing and new theory development. Additionally, this paper contributes to methodology by exemplifying the use of analogy, abductive reasoning, narrative style theorizing, a different writing style and traditional paper structure indicative of performance based research and shows how theorizing is done.

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The Academy is like a Body Builder – Why don’t we have new theories?

The Academy is like a Body Builder, valuing prowess at all costs. Throughout this paper, the author uses the metaphorical representation of the embodied Academy and practices used to build prowess. Prowess is measured in various ways, one of which is developing its own theories rather than borrowing from others. Archetypical Body Builders and their representative types of prowess defamiliarize the familiar in order to enable the Academy to envision the process of theorizing to theory development and its role in that process in new ways. This new contextualization and illumination, in turn, contributes to a better understanding of the process of theorizing which the author hopes will increase theorizing and new theory development. Additionally, this paper contributes to methodology by exemplifying the use of analogy, abductive reasoning, narrative style theorizing, a different writing style and traditional paper structure indicative of performance based research and shows how theorizing is done.