Growth in international tourism contributes to, and is shaped by, ongoing climate and environmental change. This contribution is visible especially in the Arctic, known for its natural phenomenon, silence and pureness. Indeed, tourism characterizes the epoch of Anthropocene – the historical moment when the humanity has become a geological force capable of affecting all life on this planet (Braidotti, 2013, p. 5; Gren & Huijbens, 2015, p. 2). While the impacts of tourism on atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric and other Earth system processes are evident, it is also obvious that tourism, as a human-based system, is sustained by the natural world.
Tourism education, and the knowledge that is produced within the tourism curricula, can, to a certain extent, be held accountable for the conflicting and fragile relationship between tourism and the Earth systems. On one hand, tourism programs tend to emphasize the management and domination of nature for the sake of hedonistic tourist experiences. On the other hand, the search for sustainable ways of developing tourism has contributed to maintaining the artificial division between culture and nature, human and environment. Hence, it is timely to discuss the ways in which tourism education might reproduce a kind of knowledge that remains disconnected from the more-than-human world.
The task for tourism educators in the Anthropocene is no longer to promote knowledge that contributes to minimizing the impact of tourism on the natural environment. Rather, our task ahead is to support students in developing knowledge that is based on more sensitive entanglements between the Earth systems and humanity. With this in mind, we invite participants to critically evaluate the status quo of tourism education and to think about avenues for collaborative ways of knowing with nature. We warmly welcome you to join for a reflexive, thought-provoking and innovative discussions about the future of tourism education in the Anthropocene, on the pages of the the special issue.
We invite contributions related – but not limited – to the following themes:
Tourism’s entanglements with the Earth systems
Multiple understandings of the Anthropocene
Ethics of care in the more-than-human world
Posthuman theory in tourism education
Ethical Epistemologies in the more-than-human world
Methodologies for knowing with nature
Approaches to human–nature relations in tourism
Disrupting culture–nature division in tourism education
Activism via education
Re-invigorating TEFI values in the Anthropocene
Tourism futures with nature
Engaging nature in the urban
Collaborative and sustainable journeys to TEFI
Nature in collaborative and alternative tourism economies.
Important dates:
Please submit your abstract, or short idea paper, by 16 June 2019 to [email protected] and [email protected]
Submission of the first draft of full paper by 31 October 2019
Final version (revised based on double-blind review) dl. 28 February 2020
The special issue will be published in Summer 2020