Abstract
Tourism, though often seen as a means of rediscovering the world, causes significant and lasting harm to local environments, particularly through carbon emissions. In the Anthropocene—an era marked by human-driven environmental shifts, urban migration, and mass extinctions—the tourist’s gaze remains exploitative and emotionally distant. The postcolonial traveler, attempting to reconnect with a lost precolonial identity from the vantage point of late capitalist urban life, ironically contributes to systems that commodify and consume marginalized spaces. This search for an idealized pastoral space demands its reduction to scenic imagery, a process embodying Rob Nixon’s concept of slow violence. Consequently, such landscapes become burdened with toxic infrastructures, described by Marco Armiero, which tourists and development projects help construct. This dynamic reflects a continuation of colonial exploitation, displacing people and wildlife alike. Amid this context, posthumanism offers a potential shift—dismantling human-centered hierarchies and embracing interspecies connections. Jaina Sanga’s Tourist Season captures this tension in a small Indian town where authorities plan to relocate monkeys, and a historical artefact sparks unexpected bonds. Narrated by Ramchander, the story reinterprets traditional myths with subversive twists. The paper explores these themes to deepen understanding of the evolving relationship between humans and animals.
Presenters
Arka MukhopadhyaySenior Research Fellow, Department of English, Gujarat University, West Bengal, India
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2026 Special Focus—Pathways to Resilience; Sustainable Practices in Tourism and Leisure
KEYWORDS
Postcolonial Tourist, Slow Violence, Displacement, Resilience, Human-animal Kinship, Toxic Infrastructure
