Approaching paradox: Loving and hating mega-events

Martin Müller

Tourism Management, 2017, vol. 63, issue C, 234-241

Abstract: This paper examines the role of paradoxes in research and proposes strategies of engaging with them. For this purpose, it analyses the ways in which six paradoxes are constitutive of sports mega-events such as the Olympic Games: the universalism paradox, the compliance paradox, the winner's paradox, the participation paradox, the uniqueness paradox and the passion paradox. It then develops three strategies of how researchers and practitioners can approach paradox. The first, exploration, examines the consequences and effects of the ambiguity of paradoxes. The second, differentiation, enquires into the spatio-temporal and social make-up of paradoxes. The third, reframing, recasts paradoxes by shifting theoretical perspectives. Instead of pressing to resolve paradoxes, researchers and practitioners alike should make productive use of their ambiguity.

Keywords: Paradox; Mega-events; Modernity; Critical event studies; Olympic Games; World Cup (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261517717301255

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:touman:v:63:y:2017:i:c:p:234-241

DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2017.06.003

Access Statistics for this article

Tourism Management is currently edited by Chris Ryan

More articles in Tourism Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().