Wildlife-tourist sociality on the Tibetan Plateau: Rethinking wildlife tourism through multispecies ethnographic perspectives

Wildlife tourism is rapidly growing worldwide, drawing significant attention from both academia and the tourism sector. However, the complex and multi-dimensional experiences arising from the interactions between tourists, wildlife, and local communities are difficult to fully capture. Often grounded in anthropocentrism and focussing on the tourist perspective, wildlife tourism risks undermining its conservation and educational goals, especially under the narratives of Anthropocene. This article bridges tourism studies and anthropology by applying multispecies ethnography and proposes a framework called Wildlife-Tourist Sociality , which examines the dynamic interactions between humans and non-human species in tourism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on the Tibetan Plateau, this study explores three interrelated dimensions: wildlife spectatorship, ferality, and pastoral affect. These analytic entry points illuminate the ecological, affective, and sociocultural dimensions of wildlife encounters, while also foregrounding the distinctiveness of Tibetan wildlife tourism, characterised by its high mobility, alpine geography, and culturally (religious and pastoralist aspects) embedded modes of co-habitation.