Envisioning posthumanist cultural tourism: Indigenous sociomaterial practices of teaching tourists about local cultures

Learning about other cultures is an important motive for cultural tourism. In this chapter, we envision how local cultures can be taught to tourists in new sustainable ways, drawing on a posthumanist deconstruction of human-centred teaching and the notion of cultural sensitivity. Our theoretical framework is based on recent discussions of sociomaterial teaching and learning and cultural sensitivity in tourism. Sociomateriality is communal, embodied, and place-based, while cultural sensitivity centres on recognition, respect, and reciprocity. Both emphasise relationality. Our empirical material comprises interviews with Indigenous Sámi tourism entrepreneurs in Finnish Lapland. Our analysis shows how the social and the material aspects and place and time are entangled in entrepreneurs’ practices of teaching tourists about Sámi cultures. We envision how to develop new tourism products and relations and reflect on how they might change tourism in the future.