Tourist re-enchantment: cultivating planetary wellbeing through more-than-human entanglements in the forest.

Jelena Farkić , Wenjie Cai, G Isailovic

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Attending to the broader wellbeing debates, this study examines the interplay between forest-based tourism practices and sustainability. It does so by building on Max Weber’s notion of disenchantment of the world to explore how planetary wellbeing can be cultivated through the commercial practice of forest bathing. In positioning the study within the Serbian context, we build on feminist new materialist ideas to explore the ways in which broken ties between postmodern humans and forests as our primordial home can be reclaimed through this tourism practice. Using the empirical data collected during two forest tours, we take the relational approach in our analysis of the meanings the forest tour attendees ascribed to their experiences. In extending scholarly understandings of the notion of sustainability, we discuss the ways of achieving planetary wellbeing through forest bathing and the potential of more-than-human entanglements to re-enchant the world. To conclude, we discreetly illuminate one way of reconceiving the idea of enchantment and encourage rethinking our everyday and tourist practices in disenchanted Anthropocene.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)457-473
Number of pages17
JournalJournal of Sustainable Tourism
Volume33
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2025

Keywords

  • Max weber
  • disenchantment
  • feminist new materialism
  • forest bathing
  • relational approach
  • wellbeing

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