Contribution short abstract

Antarctic tourism markets itself as ‘responsible travel’ while reinforcing neo-colonial power structures, commodifying animals and dying ecosystems. This paper calls for degrowth in Antarctic tourism, moral encounters, and the recognition of ecological rights in relation to climate injustices.

Contribution long abstract

Antarctic tourism transforms one of Earth’s most threatened ecosystems into a stage for elite and carbon-intensive consumption. Despite promoted as environmentally responsible by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO, 2024), the industry relies on flights, luxury cruises, and extractive infrastructures that intensify the climate crisis tourists come to witness. Through a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Hannam & Knox, 2005) of promotional narratives on IAATO members’ websites, this paper examines how discourses of responsibility, stewardship, and ‘last-chance’ imaginaries are mobilized to justify expanding human presence in a region under extreme ecological stress (Cordero et al., 2025).

These narratives reproduce climate coloniality (Sultana, 2025) by positioning Antarctica as empty and awaiting salvation through Global North wealth and mobility. The continent is framed as a disappearing resource whose loss must be personally experienced, turning melting ice and wildlife into consumable spectacles. Such logic erases nonhuman agency and disregards Antarctica’s intrinsic ecological rights.

Drawing on debates on tourism degrowth (Murray et al., 2025), the paper argues that no form of ‘responsible tourism’ can reconcile the industry’s dependence on high-emissions mobility with the urgent need for climate justice (Rastegar et al., 2024). Genuine ethical and moral encounters (Mostafanezhad & Hannam, 2016) require confronting the entitlement underpinning Antarctic tourism.

A key contribution of this paper is to show how the growth of 'responsible tourism' perpetuates climate coloniality and modern imperialism (Nash, 1989), and calls for degrowth through decolonial theory (Said, 1979) and posthumanism (Guia, 2021) in addressing growth and its entanglement with climate injustice.