This study critically synthesizes the theoretical literature on the epistemic status of tourism studies to locate the field along the disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and postdisciplinary spectrum. Using a qualitative, semi-systematic review, it examines fifteen key works published between 1997 and 2023, guided by Kuhn’s concept of the paradigm, Becher and Trowler’s social criteria of disciplinehood, and Klein’s continuum from multidisciplinarity to transdisciplinarity. Three streams emerge: the first, stressing the absence of a shared paradigm, regards tourism as an “indiscipline”; the second treats it as a complex, inherently interdisciplinary object; the third, judging interdisciplinarity insufficient, defends a postdisciplinary position. The synthesis yields a twofold conclusion. Knowledge production can be read as movement toward an independent discipline, yet without paradigmatic consensus this movement is incomplete, while part of the literature rejects such a destination altogether. These are two descriptions of one situation: operationally, tourism studies remains predominantly interdisciplinary, whereas epistemologically it inclines toward a postdisciplinary (deconstructive) and transdisciplinary (constructive) position.