Making kin and making sense of human-animal relations in tourism

Hindertje Hoarau-Heemstra and Carol Kline

Ecological Economics, 2022, vol. 196, issue C

Abstract: The aim of this study is to explore how tourism operators make sense of the abilities and needs of working animals during the co-creation of a tourism experience in order to make kin across species. We refer to sense-making as the process in which tourism actors interpret the context, plans, actions and outcomes relating to animal-based tourism. We examine this phenomenon through the eco-feministic lens of making kin and staying with the trouble (Haraway, 2016) by exploring reflections upon the practices in which tourists, animals, and guides are entangled. Qualitative data from Iceland, Norway and the USA reveal that multiple aspects of the relationships during co-creation are “made sense of” including values, knowledge, relationships, abilities and needs. Tensions arise around the differences in values and knowledge between actors bounded in co-creational practices. The study adds to the conversation on “staying with the trouble” of ethics and agency in animal based tourism and contributes to our understanding of the role of empathetic sense-making in animal based tourism, illuminating key issues that contribute to co-creating value for animals, tourists, and providers. We aim to contribute to the field of feminist ecological economics that combines social justice, and ecological perspective, while emphasizing that the services of other-than-humans are essential for wellbeing of all species.

Keywords: Sensemaking; Kin-making; Animal-based tourism; Co-creation; Ethics; Values (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800922000581
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:196:y:2022:i:c:s0921800922000581

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107396

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().