Going Wild on Instagram: Tiger Safaris and India's Protected Areas in the Age of Social Media

Through the lens of tiger photography on Instagram, this paper investigates a desire for wilderness without the human footprint; based on a false separation between nature and society, this aspiration finds expression through visual aesthetics on the platform. Protected areas in India are increasing, but this has not halted nature's financialisation. On the contrary, it has enhanced the availability of preserved nature for conversion to capital, mirroring earlier opportunities tied to resource extraction. Using insights from political ecology, I discuss how wildlife as hyper-spectacle on Instagram presents a natural world with the appearance of being untransformed by human intervention and available to tourism. Instagram offers a route into understanding the paradoxical stance of nature in contemporary tourism and conservation discourses.

Automated summary

This paper explores the desire for a wilderness without any human footprint through tiger photography on Instagram. It argues that while protected areas in India are increasing, nature's financialization is not halted but rather enhanced, allowing preserved nature to be converted into capital. By analyzing the hyper-spectacle of wildlife on Instagram, the paper sheds light on the paradoxical stance of nature in contemporary tourism and conservation discourses.