Abstract

Between February and April of each year, air pollution blankets much of northern Thailand and severely impacts the livelihoods of tourism practitioners and farmers in the region. Environmental narratives among lowland, urban residents attribute haze to biomass burning among highland farmers. Highland farmers, however, contend that environmental governance regimes have lengthened and exacerbated what is now regarded as the annually recurring haze crisis. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among urban tourism practitioners, rural farmers, and natural scientists, I demonstrate how, as a physical and symbolic entity, air pollution circulates between urban and rural spaces in ways that reshape tourism and urban-rural social relations. In doing so, I bring emerging work at the intersection of urban political ecology and new materialism to bear on tourism to reveal the more-than-human sociality of air pollution in northern Thailand.

摘要

每年 2 月和 4 月之间，空气污染覆盖了泰国北部的大部分地区，严重影响了该地区旅游从业者和农民的生计。低地、城市居民之间的环境叙事将雾霾归因于高地农民的生物质燃烧。然而，高地农民争辩说，环境治理制度已经延长并加剧了现在被视为每年反复出现的雾霾危机。利用城市旅游从业者、农村农民和自然科学家之间的人种学实地调查，我展示了空气污染作为一个物理和象征实体，如何以重塑旅游业和城乡社会关系的方式在城乡空间之间循环。在这样做，