Enchantment

In light of the critiques of ecotourism—several of which have exposed how Eurocentric and capitalist ideologies of nature serve as core pillars of ecotourism encounters—we explore in this chapter the notion of enchantment and its potential to spark relations of care. We contend that even within exploitive and destructive practices, seeds of care, compassion, and living and dying well together can and must be aroused and nourished. Enchantment invites us back into our sensing bodies, the expansive present, and the fundamental relationality of being and becoming in the world. It ruptures individualistic and dichotomously conceived worlds with vibrant possibilities for relating with others (human and more-than-human) in more humble and caring ways. Insofar as ecotourism can prompt such moments of enchantment, there remains hope amid its ugly and fractured nature.