Sustainability is one of the most pressing and general topics in todays (Western) society. How the world of sport is contributing to climate change and what that implies for the world of sport is stressed by e.g. Gammelsaeter & Loland (2022) and Goldblatt (2023). The perspective found in the work of Thomas Nail, is very much suited for the challenges of 21st century. In Theory of the Earth (2021) he presents his new materialist ontology in which the continuous flow of matter is the core principal. There is no such thing as a discrete object or fixed position, only metastable patterns of matter in motion. Building on this ontological position I am exploring the concept of bioregionalism and the sport experience in both conceptual and creative ways.
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Until the recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the growth of tourism had confronted many destinations with policy decisions that had impacted regional ecosystems and the quality of life of their resident population. To counter the threats driven by dominant tourism growth models, a number of tourism scholars have called for revisiting the philosophical foundation upon which tourism activities are developed. Informed by debates in philosophy and the wider social sciences, including tourism scholarship, this conceptual paper, therefore, suggests an alternative governance paradigm for tourism destinations, which is articulated in four propositions that reflect a new materialist perspective. These propositions are a monist post-anthropocentric ontology, a participatory epistemology, resilient forms of tourism and participation as methodologies, and social eudaimonia as societal value. The core argument presented in this paper is that the Anthropocene requires tourism destinations to espouse alternative governance approaches drawing from ideas emerging from new materialist scholarship.
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