My research focuses on the potential of social media for sustainability discourse. I am especially interested in the ways tourists reflect on and negotiate the ethics of sustainability in relation to their holidays. Do they experience any moral conflicts? If so, how do they make sense of the dissonance they might experience? I explore these questions in my PhD project “Cruising with a Conscience: Navigating moral identity and the ethics of sustainability in the cruise community.” At this conference, Dr. Clare Weeden and I are speaking about how tourists on Tripadvisor reconcile their hedonic goals and moral norms in animal based tourism experiences.
Sessions in which Judith Römhild-Raviart participates
Monday 21 June, 2021
Guilty pleasure or moral hypocrisy? Tourist horse carriage rides in New York CitybyJudith Römhild-RaviartandClare WeedenResearch indicates that people are motivated to appear moral to feel good about themselves but also to signal morality in order to avoid social sanctions (Batson, 2008). Nevertheless, in some situations people actively ignore any moral misgivings and fu...
Sessions in which Judith Römhild-Raviart attends
Saturday 19 June, 2021
(In French with simultaneous translation)The increase in tourist numbers in certain places that have become "destinations" has recently brought to the forefront the old paradigm of destructive tourism. Here and there, people denounce not only the invasion of living environments and the transformation of urban functions according to tourist expectations, but also the destruction of heritage through the alteration of its authenticity. Such an assertion, based on the original purity of a true...
Sunday 20 June, 2021
Entomotourism: Recognising and Acknowledging the Role of Insects in TourismbyRaynale Harvey Lemelin Each year millions of people visit butterfly pavilions, insectariums and bee museums around the world. Elsewhere, thousands of peoples visit monarch butterfly congregations and participate in guided firefly outings. Also known as entomotourism, insect-focused activities can also involve the pursuit of specific insectsfor one’s specimen collection, deliberately attracting ce...
Justice entails concepts of fairness, reasonableness, honesty, and integrity, going beyond the more basic premises of “acceptability” or “lawfulness.” We invite proposals for a special track on animal justice, where we will explore meanings of and means to achieve justice for non-human animal actors within tourism.
The Virtual Animal: What does Digital Technology Mean for Animal Justice?byErica von EssenLara TickleAnke FischerThe reach of digital technology into animal lives has enabled remote relations of intimacy between humans and non-human animals. This relation is championed as less invasive, more sustainable, and better informed than physical encounters with animals, who may experience stress from repeat tourism and visitor pressure. Nevertheless, the turn toward...
Mobile Video Ethnography for Evoking Animal Agency in Tourismby Mikko ÄijäläMethodologies to account for agency of animals in tourism are still in their infancy. This study extends developments that have sought to enrich methodologies for accounting multispecies encounters in tourism to argue that methods relying solely on talk and text-based accounts struggle to appreciate the moving encounters of human and non-human animals. Hence, t...
Morality on Holiday: Inspiring ethical behavior in animal-based tourism through nonmoral valuesbyCarol KlineandBob FischerDespite the progression of animal welfare within the tourism literature and the industry itself, a significant change in public behavior remains to be seen. Anthropocentric views of animals as objects is still widespread. This paper proposes a new approach to engaging the public in ethical behaviors by meeting visitors where they are in terms...
Tar Creek Toxic Tourism and the Possibilities for Environmental Justice and Tribal SovereigntybyBobbie C. BibgyIn the far northeastern corner of the state of Oklahoma lie lands and waterways promised to a diverse set of Tribal Nations forcibly removed to this area throughout the 19th century. Today, these lands are home to both tribal members and non-Indigenous peoples alike, but the landscape and waterways have been irrevocably assaulted and transformed as a r...
Becoming common plantain: metaphor, settler responsibility, and decolonizing tourismby Michela J. Stinson,Bryan S. R. GrimwoodandKellee CatonAs tourism scholars have turned to matters of reflexivity, epistemology, and ethics in research and practice, questions have been raised about how those in positions of privilege ought to situate their knowledge/power and take responsibility for enacting justice. In this presentation, we convey and engage the mer...
Dominica, Green Resilience, and the Politics of Ecotourist Identity FormationbyFor the Caribbean, post-hurricane disaster models have sought to further develop through a “green” resilience framework, with ecotourism being just one of the avenues explored. In the last several decades, ecotourism has been a growing sector of the global tourist industry and proponents argue it offers more environmentally sustainable development models and cultural enrichment for Global South countries ...
Monday 21 June, 2021
The Night Walk: from a dangerous migration to a tourist performance.ByJafet Quintero VenegasandAlvaro LopezThe Night Walk is a recreational activity organized by the Hñahñú community of the town of El Alberto, municipality of Ixmiquilpan, state of Hidalgo, Mexico, and is part of the menu of activities that tourists who visit the area can hire. This is a performance that involves several actors that represent the migratory phenomenon of undocumented Mexicans tryi...
Justice entails concepts of fairness, reasonableness, honesty, and integrity, going beyond the more basic premises of “acceptability” or “lawfulness.” We invite proposals for a special track on animal justice, where we will explore meanings of and means to achieve justice for non-human animal actors within tourism.
Tourism, animals, and the scales of justicebyDavid Fennell Animals are used in tourism in many ways. Some uses are more benign such as ecotourism (e.g., viewing elephants in natural settings), while others induce significant levels of suffering, pain and distress with the denial of dignity and respect (e.g., elephants performing at a circus). What is missing is a comprehensive overview of how just these uses may or may not be. Justice, as a concept, is complex and...
Wildlife tourism is based on interactions between tourists and non-domesticated wildlife (Ballantyne, Packer & Falk, 2011; Bertella, 2021). The range of opportunities in wildlife tourism encounters occur in wild, semi-captive or captive settings (Orams, 1996) and involve direct intervention on animals, or not, in the forms of consumptive/non-consumptive activities (Tremblay, 2001). This paper primarily focuses on the non-consumptive wildlife tourism within all types of settings, e.g. bird...
Ethical and Equitable Tourism DataBy Evita RobinsonThis keynote covers the intersection of data and tourism. In 2020 NOMADNESS Travel Tribe and Tourism RESET had over 5200 respondents to their survey of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) Travelers. The 89-page qualitative and quantitative report methodology is also a case study on how data is more robust when academia and industry work together. The 26,000+ member NOMADNESS community was the bridge to harnessing t...
Tuesday 22 June, 2021
We are living in an era of growing illiberalism and authoritarianism. Tourism scholars must confront this trend and consider what it means for how we understand democracy, justice, and power. Framed by a critical, political economy approach, the presentation situates the illiberal/authoritarian turn within the broader context of a changing neoliberal landscape, which is inspired by, and supportive of, so-called populist (ethno-nationalist) movements, ...