The “untouched” frontier: an unsustainable imaginary in the anthropocene

Abstract

While limitless growth is widely recognized as contradicting sustainability, tourism imaginaries are often overlooked as key agents in the perpetuation of growth-based and extractive development. The experience and consumption of regions being newly developed for tourism are often shaped by entrenched imaginaries of “untouched” nature, which have proven remarkably durable in the face of Anthropocene-era recognition of environmental degradation. Through a case study of the Myeik (Mergui) Archipelago in Myanmar (Burma) informed by participant observation, face-to-face interviews, TripAdvisor reviews and online media, three facets of untouched imaginaries are identified as impeding sustainability. First, the colonial ideology underpinning the untouched fosters an extractive logic, shaping frontiers into resources for tourists to accumulate social capital while obscuring ecological imbalances. Next, despite humanity’s ubiquitous impact in the Anthropocene, the “untouched” has in this case persisted, as eco-branded tourism enclaves continue to affirm nature-society binaries in producing pristine spaces. Finally, untouched imaginaries are shown to fuel the imperative for limitless growth, motivating tourist practices upon which industry may continue to capitalize. Amidst debates of how to politically and economically restructure tourism sustainably, sociocultural imaginaries are identified as in urgent need of contestation and replacement.

Keywords:

• Imaginary
• Anthropocene
• frontier
• untouched
• Myeik/Mergui Archipelago
• Myanmar/Burma

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the University of Hong Kong Tourism Seminar Series in June 2021. The two Instagram posts are reprinted under fair use.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The country of Burma was re-named Myanmar by the second military junta in 1989. While here I defer to the dominant nomenclature, many both within the country and without continue using the name Burma.

2 “Untouched” is always deserving of scare quotes, yet I will spare them from here forward.

3 International tourism to Myanmar was halted in April 2020 in response to COVID-19 and remains suspended at the time of this writing.

4 While the enterprising reader could find the TripAdvisor reviews, the reviews quoted in this article were only posted by users whose listed username and details include no identifying information.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) grant number 1298522N and the Louis Cha Fund for Chinese Studies and East/West Studies in the Faculty of Arts, University of Hong Kong.