Tourism and the Capitalocene: From Green Growth to Ecocide

ABSTRACT Tourism makes substantial contributions to the Anthropocene. However, the Anthropocene is highly uneven over space and time reflecting the uneven processes of capital accumulation. As a result, the Anthropocene, and tourism's role within it, is best understood as a system of power, profit and re/production in the web of life, what is referred to as the capitalocene. In other words, it is the relationship of tourism to the epoch of capitalism that can best characterise how tourism/capitalism is not just an economic system but also serves to exploit cheap natures, bodies, and ways of life to enable surplus extraction. This is done via different tourisms and the acceptance of the externalities that accrue from tourism. This paper therefore considers the inseparable connectivities between tourism and capitalism and its implications for how tourism is constructed in the managerial ecology of the SDGs and sustainable tourism and the ensuing contribution to ecocide.