Following Pollen Mobilities

Inspired by more-than-human thinking and ‘follow-the-thing’ approaches in anthropology, this chapter discusses human–pollen relations in the context of climate change and the designed infrastructures of tourism. Through a creative methodical approach, we explore the different ways pollen emerges as an object of scrutiny and politicisation. Through three short cases (‘summer thunderstorms,’ the ‘aircraft cabin,’ and the ‘hotel room’), we tease out the relations between nature and culture as manifested through pollen controversies. These more-than-human accounts take the reader through tales that cut across traditional binaries within tourism research, such as local–global and nature–culture, to illustrate how proximities are assembled through socio-material, technological, and political contexts and practices. We outline a dynamic and multi-sited way of thinking about proximities and suggest that the processes and ambitions of ‘staying proximate’ are also a question of understanding how the built environments of tourism condition and shape proximities.