The slow road to sustainable tourism: an interspecies perspective on decent work

Wadham, H ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9980-4409 and Dashper, K (2024) The slow road to sustainable tourism: an interspecies perspective on decent work. Journal of Sustainable Tourism. ISSN 0966-9582

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Abstract

Existing understandings of decent work—and the wider 2030 Agenda—are profoundly anthropocentric. This paper explores how focusing on interspecies relations subverts our ideas about decent work and its implications for more sustainable approaches to tourism. Specifically, we bring insights from slow philosophy to bear on fieldwork focused on the shared labour of people and horses involved in forestry and trekking in the UK. Horses emerge as co-workers and epistemological partners, shaping the ways we think about and experience decent work and unsettling people’s ideas about space, place and time. The rhythms and needs of these animal workers challenge apparently unassailable characteristics of contemporary working life, enabling us to develop a less human-centred and more energising imaginary for the future.