This paper discusses the purpose and legitimation of academic cruise research and the Cruise Research Society. Legitimation requires meeting the societal demand for performativity. Incentives embedded in the relationships between academic cruise researchers and the cruise industry ensure that cruise research is indeed largely performative. However, due to these incentives, academic cruise research also tends to limit itself to uncritical approaches. This is confirmed by an analysis of the abstracts accepted for the 2nd International Cruise Conference. A lack of critical cruise research is problematic. But in the age of performativity, also traditional critical theory has become difficult to legitimate. Therefore, the paper attempts to reconcile the critical paradigm with performance orientation. It proposes three kinds of performativity-compatible critical research. Reflexive critical cruise research subjects cruise research to critical scrutiny in order to expose the influence of the performativity imperative and to foster self-awareness. Performative critical cruise research applies critical theory methods to aspects of the cruise industry with the double aim of emancipation and performance enhancement. Critical cruise systems thinking, finally, critiques narrowly defined cruise-systemic boundaries and tries to push them out to widen the scope of what counts as performative cruise research.
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