Reassembling more-than-human sustainability: Relations with snow

Abstract

This article illuminates the importance of reassembling sustainability from a relational, more-than-human perspective in response to critical debates regarding sustainable development and its underlying managerial paradigms. Theoretically, the study develops the concept of more-than-human sustainability by building upon relational ontologies and feminist, new materialist work. Empirically, the study draws upon ethnographic fieldwork of shadowing snow in ski areas in the Tyrolean Alps. Integrating more-than-human relations in winter tourism through speculative storytelling, the findings uncover the hidden relations of waiting-for, connecting-to, and thriving-with snow, examining how these perspectives disrupt capitalist modes of operation and open alternative approaches to sustainability in future winter tourism. The study concludes by examining alternative approaches to sustainable world-making by critically engaging with more-than-human relations in tourism.