Geopolitical Ecologies of Tourism and the Transboundary Haze Disaster in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors use emerging works on geopolitical ecologies to analyze the relations between tourism and the transboundary haze disaster in northern Thailand. The region’s ‘smoky season’, which occurs between February and April of each year, has become a recurring seasonal haze disaster that is reported to be the combined result of biomass burning and urban air pollution. Drawing on ethnographic research among urban tourism practitioners, as well as a critical discourse analysis of popular and social media reports and commentaries, the authors argue that geopolitical discourses of transboundary haze production are shaped by tourists and the tourism industry in ways that perpetuate inequitably distributed disaster risk. Transboundary haze, the authors further contend, has become an ecological actor that co-produces discourses of escape among mobile tourists and residents. This research contributes to emerging work that conceptualises the geopolitical ecologies of transboundary environmental disasters in relation to tourism mobilities in southeast Asia.

Citation

Mostafanezhad, M. and Evrard, O. (2018), "Geopolitical Ecologies of Tourism and the Transboundary Haze Disaster in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar", Neef, A. and Grayman, J.H. (Ed.) The Tourism–Disaster–Conflict Nexus (Community, Environment and Disaster Risk Management, Vol. 19), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 53-66. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2040-726220180000019003