Multispecies Interactions in Tourism: An ecofeminist exploration of tourist-insect encounters

Tourism is a more-than-human phenomenon and showcases an array of multispecies interactions. Nevertheless, tourism research predominantly focuses on human-centric perspectives and does not account for human-animal encounters´ relational nature. Moreover, the lack of insects in tourism research does not mirror the popularity of entomotourism and humanity’s dependence on insects. I explore relationships between insects and tourists in entomotourism, how tourists legitimize these encounters, and how western anthropocentric ideas are reproduced and resisted in these interactions. I conduct in-depth interviews that include imaginative questions about the insect´s perspective in the particular meeting. I create a ‘thoughtful relational space’ framework from the dialogue between an ecofeminist theoretical framework and the concept of nonhuman charisma, which, together with the imaginative questions approach, allows for an exploration of the relationality in multispecies interactions and disruption of human-centric views. It has far-reaching implications for how tourism research and practices include and represent animals