Mick Smith – författare

Drawing upon a variety of important philosophical traditions, this book develops an original perspective on the relations between ethical, economic and aesthetic values in a tourism context. It considers the ethical/political issues arising in many areas of tourism development, including:the profound cultural and environmental impacts on tourist destinationsthe reciprocity (or lack of) in host-guest relationsthe (un)fair distribution of benefits and revenuesthe moral implications of issues such as sex tourism, staged authenticity and travel to oppressive regimes. The book concludes with a detailed investigation of the potential and pitfalls of ecotourism, sustainable tourism and community-based tourism, as examples of what is sometimes termed 'ethical tourism.'Until now, the ethical issues that surround tourism development have received little academic attention. Explaining philosophical arguments without the use of excessive jargon, this fascinating book interweaves theory and practice, aided by the use of text boxes to explain key terms in ethics, politics, and tourism development, and drawing on contemporary case studies from South Africa, Mexico, Zambia, Honduras, Ethiopia and Madagascar.

Drawing upon a variety of important philosophical traditions, this book develops an original perspective on the relations between ethical, economic and aesthetic values in a tourism context. It considers the ethical/political issues arising in many areas of tourism development, including:the profound cultural and environmental impacts on tourist destinationsthe reciprocity (or lack of) in host-guest relationsthe (un)fair distribution of benefits and revenuesthe moral implications of issues such as sex tourism, staged authenticity and travel to oppressive regimes. The book concludes with a detailed investigation of the potential and pitfalls of ecotourism, sustainable tourism and community-based tourism, as examples of what is sometimes termed 'ethical tourism.'Until now, the ethical issues that surround tourism development have received little academic attention. Explaining philosophical arguments without the use of excessive jargon, this fascinating book interweaves theory and practice, aided by the use of text boxes to explain key terms in ethics, politics, and tourism development, and drawing on contemporary case studies from South Africa, Mexico, Zambia, Honduras, Ethiopia and Madagascar.

Recent years have witnessed a rapid rise in engagement with emotion and affect across a broad range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, with geographers among others making a significant contribution by examining the emotional intersections between people and places. Building on the achievements of Emotional Geographies (2005), the editors have brought together leading scholars such as Nigel Thrift, Alphonso Lingis and Frances Dyson as well as young, up and coming academics from a diverse range of disciplines to investigate feelings and affect in various spatial and social contexts, environments and landscapes. The book is divided into five sections covering the themes of remembering, understanding, mourning, belonging, and enchanting.

Adopts ecological theory to critique, confront, and suggest solutions for contemporary cultural problems.Mick Smith links together the concepts of the ecological self and an environmental ethos-an ethics of place-as a way to re-engage the moral concerns of radical ecological theories. Best understood as an ethical critique of modernity, radical ecological theory challenges and extends the problematic moral framework now used within the disciplines of philosophy and the social sciences. Remaining true to the spirit of radical ecology, Smith engages with current debates about the status of moral values and theories, the social construction of nature, deep ecology, and non-violent direct action in a manner that is broadly interdisciplinary, original, and compelling.

Against Ecological Sovereignty is a passionate defense of radical ecology that speaks directly to current debates concerning the nature, and dangers, of sovereign power. Engaging the work of Bataille, Arendt, Levinas, Nancy, and Agamben, among others, Mick Smith reconnects the political critique of sovereign power with ecological considerations, arguing that ethical and political responsibilities for the consequences of our actions do not end with those defined as human.Against Ecological Sovereignty is the first book to turn Agamben’s analysis of sovereignty and biopolitics toward an investigation of ecological concerns. In doing so it exposes limits to that thought, maintaining that the increasingly widespread biopolitical management of human populations has an unrecognized ecological analogue-reducing nature to a “resource” for human projects. Smith contends that a radical ecological politics must resist both the depoliticizing exercise of sovereign power and the pervasive spread of biopolitics in order to reveal new possibilities for creating healthy human and nonhuman communities.Presenting a stinging critique of human claims to sovereignty over the natural world, Smith proposes an alternative way to conceive of posthumanist ecological communities-one that recognizes the utter singularity of the beings in them.

Recent years have witnessed a rapid rise in engagement with emotion and affect across a broad range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, with geographers among others making a significant contribution by examining the emotional intersections between people and places. Building on the achievements of Emotional Geographies (2005), the editors have brought together leading scholars such as Nigel Thrift, Alphonso Lingis and Frances Dyson as well as young, up and coming academics from a diverse range of disciplines to investigate feelings and affect in various spatial and social contexts, environments and landscapes. The book is divided into five sections covering the themes of remembering, understanding, mourning, belonging, and enchanting.

Rethinking our relationship with Earth in a time of environmental emergencyThe world is changing. Progress no longer has a future but any earlier sense of Earth as “providential” seems of merely historical interest. The apparent absence of Earthly solicitude is a symptom and consequence of these successive Western modes of engagement with the Earth, now exemplified in global capitalism. Within these constructs, Earth can only appear as constitutively indifferent to the fate of all its inhabitants. The “provisional ecology” outlined in Does the Earth Care?-drawing on a variety of literary and philosophical sources from Richard Jefferies and Robert Macfarlane to Martin Heidegger and Gaia theory-fundamentally challenges that assumption, while offering an Earthly alternative to either cold realism or alienated despair in the face of impending ecological disaster.Forerunners is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital works. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.