Full Description
This book chronicles the first research project ever conducted at underwater hotels. Narrating fascinating tales from underwater hotels and shedding light on the provocative perspectives of their designers and temporary inhabitants, this imaginative sensory ethnography will enchant and surprise at every turn, leading readers to wonder whether we humans belong underwater.
Through their peculiar and captivating narratives featuring inquisitive manta rays, nosey trumpet fish, industrious corals, and pizza-delivering SCUBA divers, the authors show how modern-day Atlantis is now a fully realized utopia with the potential to redefine where else we humans can live and how else we can relate to our watery planet and its multiple aquatic lives.
The book appeals to students and researchers in geography, more-than-human studies, architecture, and tourism studies. In doing so, it challenges us to reenvision not only the borders of contemporary tourism and underwater travel but also the very essence of humans as more-than-terrestrial beings.
Contents
1. Introduction 2. Equarius Hotel: From heterotopia to alloútopia Intermezzo I: Lively commodities 3. Imaginative sensory ethnography 4. The Manta Resort's Underwater Room: Care and ethics in more-than-human tourism Intermezzo II: White Lotus 5. The Muraka: Sea life, more-than-human architecture, and alloútopic imagination Intermezzo III: Less-than-data 6. Jules' Undersea Lodge: On the im possibility of human life underwater 7. Reefsuites: The tourist gaze and beyond 8. But how did you sleep? (Dis- )comfort and the animal gaze 9. Afterword
