The co-evolution of therapeutic landscape and health tourism in bama longevity villages, China: An actor-network perspective

Abstract

Many locales featuring therapeutic landscapes have seen a rise in health tourism recent years. This study introduces an actor-network perspective to examine the co-evolution of therapeutic landscapes and health tourism, and its inherent dynamism. We argue that therapeutic landscapes and health tourism are emerging out of an integrated actor-network, and thus are in continuous processes of (re)ordering and co-evolution. We also propose a typology of dynamics for the study of such an actor-network, substantiated with an empirical study of the Bama longevity villages in China, in which four interrelated and cascaded dynamics are closely scrutinized: tourists as part of the therapeutic landscape; tourism's impact on the landscape; the heterogeneous therapeutic perceptions of tourists; and the extension of the therapeutic network by health tourism. This study contributes to the relational thinking of therapeutic landscapes and health tourism, and enriches the understanding of their interlacing dynamics from the vantage point of the tourismscape.