Transformational Tourism, Nature and Well-being: new perspectives on fitness and the body.

Abstract

Historical studies of rural recreation and wellbeing have drawn attention to the role of nature and the countryside in the development of ideas surrounding notions of fitness as a moral responsibility. This article builds on some of this work in an examination of transformational tourism and the ways in which nature, and in particular wild nature, is drawn into more contemporary concerns about health, wellbeing and the body. Using the work of Foucault, the article explores how wild nature (as a location and a set of practices) becomes part of a strategy employed by the individual to discipline the body in terms of ideas about size, shape and fitness and to inform broader lifestyle and therapeutic practices in the ‘care of the self’.