TOURISM AS EMOTIONAL MAINTENANCE: HOW THAI YOUTH NAVIGATE POLITICAL ATMOSPHERES AND SLOW-BURNING PRECARITY

Abstract

This article challenges traditional economic frameworks by conceptualizing domestic tourism in Thailand as a vital affective socio-political practice. Addressing a critical gap in contemporary tourism geographies, the study explicitly explores how young adults navigate environments characterized by slow-burning precarity and persistent political tension. Using a triangulated qualitative methodology—in-depth interviews, narrative inquiry, and focus group discussions with twenty-five participants aged twenty-one to thirty—the research examines the emotional dimensions of youth mobility. The empirical findings reveal that political atmospheres function as an inescapable emotional background rather than a strict constraint on travel, largely perpetuated by continuous digital connectivity. Consequently, domestic tourism is not framed as an apolitical escape, but rather as a highly necessary strategy for emotional maintenance. This adaptive practice provides the psychological restoration needed to sustain long-term civic resilience and ongoing political attentiveness. Ultimately, the study decenters Western-centric paradigms by demonstrating how young travelers seamlessly integrate normalized political volatility into their everyday mobility, offering profound insights into the intersection of spatial movement, affect, and sustainable democratic engagement.