Envisioning Tourism and Proximity after the Anthropocene

Abstract

The current Earthly crisis demands new imaginings, conceptualisations and practices of tourism. This paper develops a post-anthropocentric approach to envisioning the possibilities of the ‘proximate’ in tourism settings. The existing generic definitions of proximity tourism refer to a form of tourism that emphasises local destinations, short distances and lower-carbon modes of transport, as well as the mundane exceptionality of the ordinary. We conceptualise proximity tourism with feminist new materialist literature, which accords agency to the ongoing common worlding of all matter—including but not limited to humans—rather than to separate individual agents. More specifically, our research explores the idea of proximity by drawing closer to the geo—to the Earth—through geological walks in the Pyhä National Park in Finnish Lapland. We analyse these walks with the notions of rhythmicity, vitality and care—ideas constructed from the theoretical heritage guiding our study. By doing this, we explore the potential of proximity tourism in ways that intertwine non-living and living matter, science stories, history, local communities and tourism. The outcome of this analysis, we propose, composes one possible narrative of tourism after the Anthropocene.

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