New animism research: listening and storytelling with non-human persons

This paper argues makes an original contribution to social science insights by conceptualising how tourism can be produced in concert with non-human persons. In an era of climate change, it is critical that we rebalance the field of relations. Animism is a worldview that considers non-living objects as possessing a life force and its reconceptualization as ‘new animism’ goes further by defining non-humans not as things or objects, but as persons (Harvey, 2005; Ingold, 2006). New animism does not privilege human agency, but instead is synonymous with the idea that all entities have value and are interconnected. This paper examines the process of studying how non-human persons, including flora, fauna, terrain, and folklore collaborate and communicate with the producers of winter light events. The findings indicate that multiform new animistic conversations take place during the production process, suggesting a far broader awareness of the rights of non-human persons in the tourism industry than previously assumed. Ultimately, post-human research generates stories that are interconnected entities, concerned with listening with rather than talking about and thus altering sensibilities about being-in-the-world.