Antarctic tourism sustaining a planetary commons

This chapter explores how tourism could possibly sustain the Antarctic as a planetary commons. Antarctica is lauded for its wilderness values but, at the same time, is effectively open for use by anybody. This situation can easily lead to the 'tragedy of the commons' through uncontrolled consumption or enclosure for the few. Building on Ostrom's guiding principles for governing the commons, this chapter will explore how tourism can nurture a sense of ourselves as one with this planet, embracing earthly attachments as a guiding principle of managing the Antarctic as a planetary commons. This will be juxtaposed with dominant industry fetishizing of the continent through tourism, through spectacularizing spaces and places, that then need to be experienced through consumption. Valuing Earth's ineffability and the earthly affordances of the Antarctic can reveal tourism as a planetary undertaking. The chapter uses Antarctic ice to show how we are part of the Antarctic planetary commons, which in turn allows us to live equitably and communicate with the forces of the Earth without having to visit particular places.