Critical engagements with nature: tourism, political economy of nature and political ecology

Abstract

This special issue has its origins in a session sponsored by the Geography of Leisure and Tourism Research Group at the Annual International Conference 2013 of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). It aims to follow on from prior critical engagements with nature to provide a basis for further discussions of society–nature relationships. Tourism is often dependent on nature for consumption via the production of tourist experiences and is thus an important economic activity in the interplay between societies and nature in tourism/leisure. Both political economy and political ecology are suitable approaches for a critical engagement with nature. A political economy of nature is concerned with issues of relative power of social actors vis-à-vis nature and how they produce socio-natural environments, whereas political ecology adds a post-structural dimension by deconstructing society–nature relations and highlighting both discursive and material elements and create exclusive or inclusive spaces of socio-natural relationships. Although the majority of papers fall within a political economy of nature category, the introduction to this special issue will also briefly discuss post-structural political ecology. The aim is, therefore, to provide a critical analysis of the complex society–nature relationships in order to contribute to ongoing critical discussion.

2013年在皇家地理学会与英国地理研究所联合举办的国际年会上,休闲与旅游地理专业组发起一个论坛,旨在推动早期社会与自然关系的批判性分析,为进一步讨论社会与自然的关系提供一个基础。本期专刊即源于该次论坛。旅游业经常通过生产旅游体验来消费自然,因此在旅游休闲社会与自然相互作用中是一种重要的经济活动。政治经济学与政治生态学都是适于对自然批判分析的方法。自然的政治经济学研究涉及到社会行动者对自然的相对权力以及他们生产社会自然环境的机制,而政治生态学方法补充了一种后结构的视角,它解构了社会与自然的关系,强调了散漫的物质要素,创造了排斥或兼容的多元社会自然关系空间。尽管本期大多数文章属于自然的政治经济学范畴,但是本导读也简要地讨论了后结构政治经济学议题。本文的目的是对社会与自然的复杂关系进行批判分析,以推动对该议题持续的批判性讨论。

Keywords:

• tourism
• nature
• critical
• political economy of nature
• political ecology
• special issue
• discourse
• inequality
• nature-based tourism
• sustainability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jan Mosedale

Jan Mosedale is the director of Studies, Dozent and Senior Researcher at the University of Applied Sciences HTW Chur. He is the editor of Political Economy of Tourism: A Critical Perspective (Routledge, 2011), Neoliberalism and the political economy of tourism (Ashgate, 2015) and series editor of Current Developments in the Geographies of Leisure and Tourism (Ashgate). He is currently chair of the Geographies of Leisure and Tourism Research Group with the Royal Geographical Society, UK.