Non-extractive mobility and tourism-like encounters: the case of the walk for peace

This study examines how tourism-like encounters can emerge from forms of mobility that are neither organised as tourism nor structured through commodification. Focusing on the 112-day Walk for Peace undertaken by Theravada Buddhist monks across the United States, the research investigates how a religious and ascetic journey generates patterns of congregation, travel-to-witness practices, and digitally mediated visibility typically associated with tourism. Drawing on qualitative netnography of publicly accessible social media posts, livestreams, images, and participant reflections, the study analyses how mobility produces relational and affective value in the absence of pricing, branding, and formal tourism infrastructures. The findings show that although the monks’ mobility is religious rather than touristic, it generates secondary mobilities in which observers travel, gather, and participate through witnessing and voluntary hospitality. These encounters generate dense forms of social and emotional value without being organised through exchange value. At the same time, increasing digital visibility produces tensions related to symbolic capture without translating into economic commodification. The paper introduces the concept of non-extractive mobility to explain how tourism-like spatial formations can emerge from non-touristic practices. In doing so, it contributes to tourism and mobility research by reframing tourism as an emergent relational effect of movement rather than a predefined economic activity.