Framing by opening up. Approaching matters of concern in nature based tourism

Abstract

Nature-based tourism is imbued with ambiguities that tell of tourism as deeply intertwined in the development of places. Inspired by Krzywoszynska (2023) and Stirling’s (2008) idea of framing research by opening up, we argue for attending to nature-based tourism as an open relational historical-geographical phenomenon, to illuminate the grey zones of world-making in the place-tourism nexus. Methodologically, we suggest approaching commercial nature experiences up-close and in place, to observe how they are practiced within relations that involve more than humans as well as people, and notice how nature experience production is contingent on where and when tourism is enacted. Based on experiences from northern Norway, and while attending to allemannsretten and centre-periphery relations that prevail in northern landscapes, we demonstrate the matters of concern the approach may bring into focus in power-relevant research on Arctic tourism, as illustrated by relations of care for people, places, and ecologies.