Locating pro-environmental vernacular practices of tourism

Abstract

Pro-environmental vernacular practices are embodied, place-specific, ordinary actions that are part of people's daily lives. They result in lower levels of resource consumption without necessarily being grounded in an explicit pro-environmental agenda. A growing body of cultural geographical scholarship has explored a range of vernacular practices, predominantly among households in Western countries. This paper argues such capacities can be found in a more diverse array of cultural contexts, namely tourism. This is demonstrated by evaluating the literature on tourist practices and entering it into a dialog with the literature on pro-environmental vernacular practices. The paper shows how tourism is an important site through which such pro-environmental practices can emerge. Backpacking, nature tourism, foraging tourism, camping, and craft tourism can provide the knowledge and skills for living enjoyable low resource intensive lifestyles, and indicate how relations of hospitality may persist despite scarcity. The paper advances geographical knowledge in three areas. First, it expands and clarifies what the ‘vernacular’ actually constitutes. Second, it shows how a greater understanding of the vernacular beyond the household can advance cultural geographical scholarship on the environment. Third, it argues that a deeper engagement with practice theory would boost research in this area by connecting vernacular responses performed at the individual level with broader postcapitalist social movements.