Eyes on the shoreline: The disciplinary power of the ecological gaze in marine waste governance

Abstract

This paper explores how the ecological gaze disciplines environmental behavior through the intertwined mechanisms of discourse, emotion, and symbolism, with attention to spatial and embodied dimensions. Drawing on Foucault's theory of disciplinary power, we argue that pro-environmental actions are not solely the result of rational incentives or regulatory enforcement, but are deeply shaped by systems of moral visibility and affective governance. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and 22 interviews on Qingbang Island, China, the study identifies three primary disciplinary pathways. First, discursive discipline operates through environmental campaigns, tourist expectations, and volunteer messaging that frame responsibility in normative terms. Second, affective discipline emerges through emotions such as shame, guilt, and pride, as individuals anticipate or internalize the gaze of others. Third, symbolic and visual discipline is enacted through signs, uniforms, sacred sites, and polluted seascapes that embody moral cues and social meaning. These disciplinary forces are further reinforced through spatial visibility, where behavior is regulated in highly visible zones, and embodied routines, such as waste sorting and cleanup labor, which physically encode moral expectations. Together, these mechanisms reveal how environmental governance functions not only through policy or persuasion, but through a network of gazes that structure conduct at the level of identity, space, and habit. By theorizing the ecological gaze as a disciplinary apparatus, this study contributes a multi-dimensional framework for understanding how environmental responsibility is seen, felt, performed, and internalized.

Keywords

Ecological gaze environmental governance disciplinary power affect and emotion marine waste management

Introduction

Environmental governance increasingly operates through subtle mechanisms that shape individual behaviors and subjectivities, rather than relying solely on overt regulations or coercive measures. Michel Foucault's (1977) concept of disciplinary power elucidates how modern societies regulate individuals by embedding norms and expectations into daily practices, leading to self-regulation and conformity. This framework has been instrumental in understanding the nuanced ways power manifests in various institutional contexts. Building upon Foucault's insights, scholars have explored how environmental governance employs similar disciplinary techniques. The notion of “environmentality,” for instance, describes how environmental subjects are produced through the interplay of knowledge, power, and practices that encourage individuals to internalize environmental norms and self-regulate accordingly (Agrawal, 2020). This perspective highlights the role of discourse, emotional engagement, and symbolic representations in fostering pro-environmental behaviors.

In the context of rural tourism, the concept of the “ecological gaze” has emerged as a lens to examine how environmental behaviors are influenced by the perceived observation and judgment of others. This gaze, also indicated as moral gaze, operates through various channels, including public discourse, emotional responses, and symbolic cues, effectively disciplining individuals to align with environmental expectations (Zhang et al., 2025). Understanding these mechanisms is crucial for comprehending how environmental subjectivities are formed and maintained in specific socio-cultural settings.

This study investigates the disciplinary mechanisms underpinning environmental governance in Qingbang Island, a coastal tourism destination in China. Employing a grounded theory approach, the research identifies three primary mechanisms: discursive, affective, and symbolic disciplines, that collectively shape environmental behaviors and subjectivities among local residents, volunteers, and tourists. By analyzing these mechanisms, the study aims to contribute to the broader discourse on environmental governance and the formation of ecological subjectivities.

This study makes a distinct conceptual contribution by extending the ecological gaze beyond visual surveillance to encompass its moral, affective, and symbolic dimensions. Whereas existing scholarship focuses primarily on observation and impression management, this paper theorizes the ecological gaze as a multidimensional disciplinary apparatus shaped by emotional responses such as shame, guilt, and pride, as well as symbolic cues embedded in spaces and cultural belief systems. This perspective offers a more holistic account of how environmental subjectivities are produced in everyday life, particularly in contexts where tourism, local governance, and cultural beliefs intersect.

Theoretical framework: The ecological gaze and environmental behavior

In this paper, we build upon but move beyond prior formulations of the ecological gaze by foregrounding its affective, moral, and symbolic dimensions as central mechanisms of disciplinary environmental governance. Existing scholarship on environmental governance has emphasized visual surveillance, institutional monitoring, or rational incentive structures, but has paid far less attention to the affective, moral, and symbolic processes through which environmental subjectivities are formed. Studies rarely examine how emotions such as shame or pride, or symbolic cues such as moral imagery, shape environmental subjectivities in community-based or tourism-influenced coastal settings. This gap motivates the conceptual development undertaken here, which integrates discursive, affective, and symbolic dimensions into a unified framework of the ecological gaze.

Disciplinary power and the ecological gaze

Michel Foucault’s (1977) concept of disciplinary power provides a foundation for understanding how the ecological gaze regulates behavior. In the panoptic model, individuals internalize norms when they know they may be observed, disciplining themselves accordingly. Applied to environmental governance, this means people modify their actions when they feel watched or morally evaluated, even in the absence of direct enforcement (Brick et al., 2017; Bridge, 2009). The ecological gaze extends this insight by showing how visibility and moral judgement encourage eco-friendly conduct (Jambeck et al., 2015; Liu and Zhuo, 2025; Zhang et al., 2025). In this sense, visibility becomes a form of power that individuals govern themselves in line with environmental expectations because they anticipate being seen or evaluated by others.

Moral visibility and social surveillance in governance

Moral visibility refers to the state of one's actions being observable and judged according to shared moral standards (Breyer, 2015). In community-based environmental governance, social surveillance by peers plays a pivotal role: people know their neighbors, local leaders, or volunteers are watching, and thus they strive to meet communal environmental expectations (Blasi, 1983; Lindström et al., 2018). Studies on impression management suggest that individuals often engage in pro-social behaviors that align with dominant social norms in order to gain social approval and cultivate a positive public image (de Araujo, 2014; Ji and Yan, 2023). The tourist gaze thus becomes a disciplinary gaze: locals, conscious of being judged by visitors, adhere to higher standards of environmental cleanliness out of fear of judgment (Urry, 1992). This fear of social condemnation from peers or tourists acts as an informal regulatory mechanism reinforcing pro-environmental behaviors.

Social norms and peer monitoring are crucial in the disciplinary gaze. In many community-managed parks or forests, members collectively enforce rules: everyone's behavior is visible in a small community, and violators face disapproval (Grasmick and Green, 1980; Rowe et al., 2009). Over time, the anticipation of judgment leads individuals to police themselves even when no one is immediately watching (Van Boven and Ashworth, 2007). Environmental governance scholarship speaks of “environmentality,” where people become environmental subjects by internalizing norms through participation in local institutions (Fletcher, 2017). These environmental subjects are individuals who have come to “internalize environmental norms and actively participate in environmental governance”. In other words, through social surveillance and involvement, people adopt conservation-friendly identities (Holmes and Cavanagh, 2016). They care for the environment even in private because the community's moral expectations have been inscribed in their sense of self. Thus, moral visibility, the fact that one's eco-behavior is seen and evaluated by a community, cultivates accountability and gradually produces self-disciplined, environmentally responsible subjects.

Emotional responses as regulatory mechanisms

The power of the ecological gaze is not only in the external act of watching, but also in the affective responses it triggers (Ryan et al., 2000). Recent research in environmental psychology and sociology of emotions shows that feelings of guilt, shame, fear, and pride are key mediators between being observed and acting pro-environmentally (Mukherjee and Chandra, 2022; Shipley and van Riper, 2022). They serve as mechanisms of self-censorship and self-regulation in accordance with norms and moral standards: essentially the internal echo of the external gaze (Baltussen and Davis, 2015; Tambini et al., 2007).

Shame and fear of judgment

Under the gaze (real or imagined), individuals often feel anticipatory shame: a distress at the prospect of others thinking poorly of them for environmental misdeeds (Ryan et al., 2000). This is the emotional core of the fear of judgment from peers that many community members report (Blum, 2008). Knowing that littering or pollution would make them look irresponsible or “bad,” people experience an uneasy feeling that deters such actions. If tourists come to a village and might see trash everywhere, locals may feel ashamed in advance, prompting them to avoid that scenario (Mkono and Hughes, 2020). Such anticipated shame is powerful: it's essentially self-sanctioning: one imagines the external criticism and thereby avoids the behavior (Mkono and Hughes, 2020). Over time, this can become an ingrained disposition to keep places clean or follow conservation rules even when unobserved, because the internalized community gaze (a kind of conscience) triggers discomfort at the idea of doing otherwise (Anderson and Berglund, 2003; Brick et al., 2017; Urry, 1992).

Guilt from harming the environment

Guilt is a closely related emotion but slightly distinct in mechanism. Where shame is tied to how others see us, guilt is tied to one's own moral standards (often instilled by society) (O’Hear, 1976). People experience eco-guilt when they believe they have personally harmed the environment—for instance, a fisherman who regrets catching an undersized fish or a tourist who feels remorse for leaving trash along a trail. This guilt reflects an internalized gaze: individuals recognize that their actions violate communal or ethical norms, and they feel as though they have been “seen” or held accountable by their own conscience (Todd, 2001). They can impulse reparative actions: someone who feels guilty for an environmental transgression might try to make reparation (e.g., by cleaning up, replanting trees, or apologizing to the group) to relieve that internal moral tension (Ben Almassi, 2017). Generally though, moderate guilt serves as a self-regulatory force keeping individuals aligned with pro-environmental conduct (O’Hear, 1976).

Pride and being seen as “green”

On the positive side, the gaze also enables pride as a regulatory emotion. Pride is essentially the inverse of shame, a positive feeling arising from meeting or exceeding normative expectations, especially in the eyes of others (Salice and Montes Sánchez, 2016). When community members or businesses are seen as environmentally responsible, they often express pride, for example, a park volunteer proud of being praised for keeping the trail clean, or a village taking pride in an award for cleanliness (Isenberg, 1949). This pride reinforces the behavior: it feels good to be recognized under the moral spotlight. The mechanism is straightforward that people enjoy moral approval (Korsgaard, 1999; Lagerspetz and Westman, 1980). Therefore, if a peer group or the public celebrates recycling, tree planting, or wildlife protection, individuals gain esteem by participating. In tourism contexts, locals may take pride in showcasing sustainable practices to visitors, for instance, a guide proudly explaining their community's conservation efforts (Holloway et al., 2011). That pride not only rewards current action but builds a pro-environmental identity: one starts to see oneself as “the kind of person who protects the environment.” This contributes to what scholars call environmental subjectivity: identifying oneself as an environmental steward, partly formed through these emotional feedbacks of guilt and pride (Fletcher, 2017).

In sum, emotional responses are the affective conduits through which the gaze exerts influence. The ecological gaze doesn’t force behavior change by threat of punishment alone; it works by making people feel something: be it the pang of guilt, the flush of shame, or the glow of pride. These feelings are immediate regulators of conduct and, as affect theory suggests, they can bypass purely rational calculations and move people to act (or refrain from acting) in ways that align with environmental norms. They also create a deeper attachment to those norms by linking them with one's sense of self and feelings.

Symbolic cues and the sense of being watched

Interestingly, the power of the gaze can operate even in the absence of any real observer, through symbolic cues that trigger the feeling of being watched. Environmental governance often employs symbols and signs to evoke the gaze and guide behavior (Agrawal, 2020). For example, many parks and communities use posters, murals, or slogans that imply surveillance or moral oversight. Notably, no explicit anti-litter warning was required; because littering is already understood as socially unacceptable, the mere image of watchful eyes was sufficient to trigger self-restraint. The eyes work as a symbolic gaze, tapping into our subconscious concern for reputation. As studies noted, images of eyes can promote cooperative behavior by evoking the sensation of being watched; since individuals are sensitive to others’ perceptions, they tend to act more ethically and responsibly when they feel observed (Dear et al., 2019; Ernest-Jones et al., 2011). This phenomenon illustrates how deeply internalized the social gaze is: merely hinting at observation, such as a picture of eyes, a CCTV camera sticker, or even the stylized “eco-police” icons, can invoke the same self-discipline as an actual onlooker would (Hamilton and Lind, 2016; Lukkien, 2019).

Beyond images of eyes, symbolic cues include any cue that makes moral norms salient (Posner, 1998). In tourism-intensive conservation areas, the visible presence of international volunteers or uniformed rangers can function as a symbolic reminder that “the world is watching,” encouraging local residents to adhere more closely to environmental regulations by performing for this imagined global audience (Lindström et al., 2018). Even the environment itself can become a symbolic mirror. In some cases, people talk about feeling watched by nature—what termed as the “re-entrant gaze of nature” (Liu and Zhuo, 2025). Seeing plastic waste wash ashore might symbolically echo the harm back to the perpetrator, triggering guilt (Brick et al., 2017). This quasi-spiritual notion of nature's gaze shows how symbolic and affective this mechanism can be: people personify the environment as an observer (e.g., “Mother Earth is watching us”), which can enhance ethical behavior even when no human is present (Ben Almassi, 2017; Kaplan, 2000; Peterson, 2001). In community rituals too, symbolic eyes or the presence of ancestral spirits in nature can play a role in regulating how people treat forests or rivers, essentially embedding the idea that someone/something sees all deeds (Mkono and Hughes, 2020; Ryan et al., 2000).

In summary, symbolic cues amplify the ecological gaze by constantly reminding individuals of visibility and accountability. They work on a psychological level to sustain moral awareness. These cues can transform spaces: a trail with signs about community pride and watchful eyes feels like a place where littering would be noticed and frowned upon, so people comply automatically. In designing environmental governance interventions, such cues are a low-cost way to induce an honor system. They complement formal surveillance by cultivating an “invisible guard” in each person's mind—a sensation that “I should do right by the environment, because it's seen and it matters.”

Environmental subjectivity and pro-environmental action

All these mechanisms, social surveillance, moral visibility, emotional responses, and symbolic reminders, converge to shape what we can call environmental subjectivity. This term indicates how individuals come to see themselves as subjects of environmental responsibility, i.e., as ethical actors who care for and steward the environment (Fahlquist, 2009). The ecological gaze essentially manufactures a certain kind of person: one who behaves pro-environmentally not just due to external enforcement, but because of internalized norms and affects. In Foucauldian terms, they have “inscribed in themselves the power relation” of environmental discipline, becoming self-regulating (Foucault, 1977). Recent environmental governance research emphasizes this transformative aspect. Arun Agrawal (2020) famously documented how villagers involved in participatory forest councils shifted from apathy to actively caring about the environment, as new practices of monitoring and community decision-making turned them into “environmental subjects”. These are people who internalize environmental norms and feel compelled from within to conserve forests or reduce waste, aligning their identity with pro-environmental roles.

The ecological gaze is a key catalyst in this process. By making environmental actions socially visible and affectively charged, it ensures that over time individuals are socialized into eco-friendly habits (Mallett, 2012). The fear of letting others (or oneself) down and the desire to live up to an eco-conscious identity guide behavior in a sustained way (Brick et al., 2017). In community or tourism contexts, this means pro-environmental actions become the norm and even a point of pride (Urry, 1992). For example, a village known for its performative cleanliness for tourists might, through years of practice, instill a genuine culture of cleanliness and waste aversion among residents (what started as performance evolves into deeply held value) (Holloway et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2025). In essence, the gaze-related mechanisms cultivate a conscience aligned with environmental stewardship.

In conclusion, the ecological gaze operates through intertwined mechanisms of moral visibility, emotional response, and symbolic cues to shape behavior. It impacts social and affective influences so that people police themselves in line with environmental norms. Under the watchful eyes of community and conscience, individuals develop identities and practices oriented toward sustainability. Whether it's a villager feeling the eyes of the community (or the forest) upon them, a volunteer driven by guilt to do more, or a park manager proud to set an example, the gaze makes environmental responsibility a matter of both external accountability and internal ethic. This theoretical framework highlights that environmental behavior is not just about rules or knowledge; instead, it is about being seen to do what is right, feeling that rightness or wrongness deeply, and ultimately becoming the kind of subject who acts green even beyond the literal gaze of others. The synergy of these forces is what turns normative prescriptions into lived, everyday pro-environmental action.

By articulating these mechanisms together, the paper clarifies how existing theories overlook the emotional and symbolic dimensions of environmental self-regulation, thereby advancing a more comprehensive account of environmental subjectivity in tourism-dependent island communities. In the context of Qingbang Island, environmental subjectivity provides a valuable lens for understanding how residents come to internalize environmental norms not only through institutional rules, but also through affective pressures, community judgement, and the symbolic significance of the island landscape. In the empirical sections that follow, we use the case of Qingbang Island to trace how these discursive, affective, and symbolic mechanisms of the ecological gaze are enacted in everyday practices of marine waste governance.

Methodology

This study adopts a constructivist grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2014) to explore how ecological gaze disciplines environmental behavior through discourse, emotion, and symbolism. Rather than testing pre-formulated hypotheses, the research aims to theoretically generate a multi-dimensional framework of disciplinary mechanisms based on the lived experiences of various actors involved in marine waste governance. The researcher maintained reflexive awareness of their dual role as both participant and observer, acknowledging how their presence and background may have influenced interactions and interpretations.

Research site and design

Fieldwork was conducted on Qingbang Island, a coastal tourism site in Zhoushan, China, facing growing tensions between environmental protection and economic development. The island serves as a critical site where multiple forms of gaze: tourist, institutional, communal, and ecological, converge and influence environmental subjectivity. Participants were purposively selected to capture a diversity of perspectives across social positions and roles in the island's environmental governance landscape. All participants provided informed consent.

Study context: Qingbang Island

Qingbang Island is a small inhabited island of approximately 1.47 km² with a 9.2 km coastline, located in the Eastern China Sea (Pu Tuo Fisheries Gazetteer Compilation Committee, 2015). With a population density of around 125 people per square kilometer, everyday life unfolds in a highly visible environment where individual actions are easily observed. The island's low elevation and limited flat space constrain waste treatment infrastructure. Its scenic coastline attracts seasonal tourism, yet the absence of a major port or airport means both tourism logistics and municipal waste removal remain restricted. These structural conditions generate persistent tensions between rising waste volumes, limited governance capacity, and strong community expectations for environmental cleanliness.

Marine waste accumulation on Qingbang Island originates from three primary streams: (1) small amounts of household waste generated by residents, (2) substantial tourist-generated waste produced during peak seasons, and (3) significant volumes of ocean-borne debris carried by tides. Although the municipality arranges daily collection in the village center, coastal areas remain difficult to maintain, leading to recurrent friction between expectations for a clean tourism environment and the practical constraints faced by residents and cleaners. Qingbang Island previously operated a small waste incinerator, but residents reported that it was shut down due to pollution concerns. As a result, the municipality now transports all collected household and village center waste off the island by boat to Zhoushan's central waste facilities. While village waste is collected daily, coastal waste remains difficult to manage because it must be manually gathered, carried uphill, and consolidated at designated pick up points. These logistical constraints mean that much of the island's marine debris accumulates faster than it can be removed, intensifying local frustrations and heightening the moral scrutiny surrounding waste behavior.

Tourists visit Qingbang primarily for its beaches, seafood restaurants, and coastal scenery, creating heightened sensitivity around environmental presentation. Residents often feel that their environmental behavior is scrutinized by outsiders, and many interpret tourist comments, photographs, and online reviews as forms of judgement. These dynamics intensify the operation of the ecological gaze and help explain why self-disciplinary mechanisms, rather than formal enforcement, play a central role in regulating environmental conduct on the island.

This contextual configuration makes Qingbang an analytically valuable site for examining how environmental subjectivities are produced through visibility, emotion, and symbolism in tourism-dependent island communities. These intersecting pressures make Qingbang an ideal site for analysing how the ecological gaze unfolds in an infrastructure-constrained coastal environment.

Data collection

The fieldwork consisted of two primary methods:

Participant Observation: The researcher embedded as a volunteer in a local environmental NGO for two weeks, participating in beach cleanups, waste sorting, and community outreach. This immersive involvement allowed for direct observation of behavioral performances, emotional responses, and the spatial distribution of gaze-induced discipline.

In-depth Interviews: A total of 22 semi-structured interviews were conducted with local residents, homestay operators, retired fisherfolk, tourists, sanitation workers, NGO organizers, and volunteers. The interviews explored perceptions of environmental responsibility, emotional reactions to pollution, feelings of being watched, and the symbolic significance of environmental degradation.

Data analysis

Interviews were conducted in Mandarin and later translated into English for analysis, with care taken to preserve cultural nuance and local expressions. Grounded theory was selected because it allowed conceptual categories to emerge inductively from the data rather than being imposed a priori. Although the paper engages with existing theoretical work on disciplinary power and environmental subjectivity, the mechanisms identified, discursive framings, affective responses, and symbolic cues, were derived through iterative coding rather than predetermined. This approach was essential for capturing how participants themselves understood environmental responsibility, moral evaluation, and self-regulation within the island's socio-cultural context. Grounded theory therefore serves as the methodological foundation through which the ecological gaze is reconceptualised in this study. The analysis followed three stages:

Open coding identified initial concepts, such as “being judged by tourists,” “shame from dumping waste,” or “the sea god's anger.”

Axial coding grouped these codes into broader categories corresponding to discursive discipline, affective discipline, and symbolic/visual discipline, while also identifying cross-cutting themes like spatial exposure and embodied labor.

Selective coding focused on how these categories interacted to form a coherent theoretical framework of ecological gaze as disciplinary power.

Memo-writing and theoretical sampling were used throughout the process to refine emerging categories and pursue theoretical saturation. Symbolic materials (e.g., volunteer uniforms, social media images, temple references) were treated as visual and affective texts, triangulated with fieldnotes and interview transcripts.

Result

Before analysing the mechanisms of the ecological gaze, it is important to situate the environmental practices of Qingbang Island. The island faces a combination of locally generated household waste, tourist generated waste during peak seasons, and marine debris carried ashore by tides. Tourism plays a significant role in shaping residents’ everyday environmental practices, as visitor expectations for cleanliness and online visibility heighten the sense of being evaluated. Municipal waste management capacity remains limited, especially along the coastal perimeter, creating recurring tensions between maintaining a clean environment for visitors and coping with the volume and speed of waste accumulation. This section presents findings from in-depth interviews and participant observation, organized around three primary disciplinary mechanisms identified through grounded theory analysis: discursive discipline, affective discipline, and symbolic/visual discipline (Table 1).

Table 1.

Coding summary of disciplinary mechanisms.

Code Category	Subcode	Example Quote/Observation
Discursive Discipline	Tourist expectations and online reviews	“We should leave a bad review… it was nothing like the photos we saw online.” (N-6-FT)
	NGO slogans and zero-waste messaging	“We’re promoting a zero-waste lifestyle… but people need small incentives.” (Y-9-NGO)
	Government environmental language	“The government keeps talking about environmental protection… but no sorting bins.” (Y-1-LO)
Affective Discipline	Shame from being observed	“In front of guests, I support recycling… but we don’t have time when it's busy.” (Y-2-LO)
	Guilt for environmental damage	“Sometimes I think about dumping garbage into the sea… but I’m afraid karma would come back to me.” (Y-3-LO)
	Pride in voluntary environmental action	“A lady gave me a sticker. I want to help the ocean.” (N-5-FT)
Symbolic/Visual Discipline	Uniforms and volunteer visibility	“When I wore the red vest, people looked at me differently.” (N-7-OV)
	Images of polluted nature (e.g., dead fish)	“Dead fish… with plastic fragments inside them.” (N-9-OV)
	Cultural/spiritual symbols (e.g., sea god)	“You can’t let trash pollute where the sea god lives.” (Y-8-LF)

Discursive discipline: Norms, narratives, and expectations

Before presenting discursive discipline, it is important to situate how environmental expectations circulate on Qingbang Island. Tourism places strong pressure on residents and homestay operators to maintain a curated image of cleanliness, while NGOs and municipal actors disseminate environmental messages across physical and digital spaces. These overlapping audiences create a dense discursive environment in which individuals are constantly evaluated through both tourist reviews and community norms.

Because the island's economy depends heavily on seasonal tourism, residents repeatedly emphasized that environmental behavior was inseparable from the island's public image and livelihood. Discursive discipline operates as a normative force that regulates conduct through language, institutional messaging, and socially shared expectations. It shapes what counts as “responsible” environmental behavior and defines the boundaries of moral citizenship on the island.

Homestay owners frequently referenced how tourist expectations of cleanliness influenced their behavior. As one put it: “In front of my guests, I absolutely support environmental protection. I even set up a special bin for recyclables!” (Y-2-LO). However, such efforts were often framed as strategic performances rather than intrinsic commitments, rooted in the fear of bad reviews or reputational damage. The threat of digital visibility functions as a soft form of audit, disciplining environmental conduct through the anticipation of external judgment. This demonstrates how the ecological gaze becomes economically consequential, linking moral judgment to reputation, marketability, and livelihood. Homestay operators thus navigate a dual pressure: the internalized desire to appear responsible and the external imperative to satisfy tourist expectations.

NGO actors and environmental volunteers reinforced this discursive field by promoting “zero-waste” lifestyles and normative slogans. Y-9-NGO, the founder of a local NGO, described posting on social media to attract volunteers and construct behavioral norms: “We wanted more people to experience the reality of marine pollution.”

Government rhetoric also contributed to the discursive environment, though often viewed as hollow or insufficient. One resident noted, “The government keeps talking about environmental protection, but they won’t even give us proper sorting bins” (Y-1-LO). Such gaps between discourse and infrastructure produce a sense of symbolic regulation without material support.

These discursive formations do not merely reflect environmental values. They discipline them into routine performances that become socially expected and morally evaluated. These patterns show how discursive expectations circulating through tourism, government rhetoric, and NGO messaging activate the ecological gaze by defining the moral boundaries of acceptable behavior.

Affective discipline: Shame, guilt, and moral emotion

Affective responses on Qingbang Island are shaped by the intimate scale of the community, where social relations are highly visible and environmental misconduct is quickly noticed. Tourism intensifies emotional scrutiny: residents described embarrassment when tourists pointed out waste, and many linked guilt or shame to both spiritual beliefs and interpersonal evaluations. These emotional conditions frame the ways individuals interpret their behaviors and responsibilities.

The intimate scale of the island means that environmental actions are rarely anonymous, and tourists often photograph or comment on local cleanliness, intensifying emotional scrutiny. Affective discipline functions as an internalized regime of emotional governance. Rather than being externally imposed, affective discipline emerges from within—through shame, guilt, and pride—disciplining individuals into self-monitoring subjects who act “correctly” not out of obligation, but to avoid emotional dissonance and social disapproval.

Residents, particularly women, reported feeling shame when others judged their cleanliness or blamed them for waste accumulation. One homestay owner confessed, “Sometimes I think about dumping garbage into the sea… but I’m afraid karma would come back to me” (Y-3-LO), illustrating how guilt and spiritual anxiety disciplined behavior in the absence of formal enforcement. On Qingbang, these spiritual frameworks function as internalized moral surveillance, shaping how individuals interpret guilt and responsibility in ways that differ from secular environmental governance. Here, guilt is not only an emotional response but also a culturally mediated moral logic shaped by spiritual cosmology. The invocation of karma suggests that the ecological gaze operates across metaphysical as well as social registers, expanding the scope of disciplinary power.

Pride also functioned as a moral motivator. A child volunteer described how he received a sticker after collecting plastic caps: “I want to help the ocean” (N-5-FT). Such symbolic recognition transformed minor gestures into meaningful moral actions, reinforcing pro-environmental subjectivity.

This form of discipline intensified through collective affect and ambient judgment. Y-2-LO noted, “When everyone's littering, how can we manage?” suggesting that emotional regulation was not purely individual, but shaped by the emotional atmosphere and shared anxiety of falling short.

In this way, affective discipline produces emotionally attuned citizens whose environmental actions are governed through feelings rather than force. These emotional responses demonstrate the affective dimension of the ecological gaze, demonstrating how shame, guilt, and pride operate as internalized regulatory mechanisms in this tourism dependent island setting.

Symbolic and visual discipline: Seeing, performing, believing

Symbolic and visual discipline are universal on Qingbang Island, from volunteer uniforms to environmental posters to images of polluted marine life shared online. These symbols reflect broader cultural, spiritual, and ecological imaginaries. Religious beliefs associated with the sea god also infuse waste practices with moral significance. Together, these cues construct a visual and symbolic field that shapes how individuals perceive environmental responsibility.

These visual and symbolic cues are particularly salient on a small island where landscapes, seascapes, and religious sites form part of both the tourism appeal and the community's moral universe. Symbolic and visual discipline functions by visually inscribing moral codes onto bodies, spaces, and imaginations. The third mechanism involves the power of symbolic and visual cues in shaping behavior. The sight of volunteers in red vests, the presence of environmental signage, and social media imagery of clean vs. polluted beaches all functioned as visual regimes that organized moral perception.

N-7-OV noted, “When I wore the red vest, people looked at me differently,” indicating how visual markers signal responsibility and activate performative behavior. Similarly, N-9-OV recalled, “Dead fish… with plastic fragments inside them,” a disturbing image that served as both ecological indictment and emotional provocation. Such images collapse ecological harm and moral blame into a single visual moment. They function as affective triggers that reshape how individuals perceive the consequences of waste, reinforcing environmental subjectivity through visceral moralization.

Spiritual and cultural symbols amplified visual discipline. Y-8-LF described local fears about angering the sea god: “You can’t let trash pollute where the sea god lives,” framing waste as a moral violation with supernatural consequences. This belief demonstrates that environmental responsibility on Qingbang is not only socially regulated but cosmologically reinforced. Spiritual cosmology magnifies the ecological gaze by introducing moral accountability to non-human observers, such as deities or ancestral spirits. These culturally specific beliefs therefore infuse waste practices with emotional weight and help explain why some residents perceive environmental misbehavior as morally dangerous rather than merely improper. In these cases, symbolism disciplined behavior not only through social optics but through cosmological belief systems.

Symbolic and visual cues thus function as aesthetic techniques of governance, transforming environmental degradation into moral visibility and behavioral regulation. These symbolic and visual cues therefore extend the ecological gaze beyond interpersonal observation, mobilizing cultural and cosmological meanings that deepen the moral force of environmental governance.

Discussion

This study examined how environmental behavior is shaped not only through formal regulation but through subtle mechanisms of gaze, emotion, and symbolism. Drawing from Foucault’s (1977) theory of disciplinary power and subsequent work on environmentality (Agrawal, 2020), we find that the ecological gaze operates through three primary channels, discursive, affective, and symbolic/visual, each contributing to the construction of moral subjectivity and the internalization of environmental norms. Taken together, these findings refine the ecological gaze from a largely visual metaphor into a multi-dimensional disciplinary apparatus that links visibility, emotion, and symbolism in the production of environmental subjectivities.

First, the findings affirm that discursive discipline remains a central mechanism in marine waste governance. Through official messaging, NGO campaigns, and social media discourse, individuals learn to associate environmental cleanliness with civic virtue and modernity. This aligns with earlier research showing that language and institutional narratives play a key role in shaping how communities imagine their environmental responsibilities (Zhang, 2024). Importantly, these discourses do not remain abstract; instead, they become performative expectations, particularly for homestay owners who curate their environmental image for tourists and online reviews. As Urry (1992) argued in his study of the tourist gaze, visibility and self-presentation are tightly interlinked in tourism contexts, and our data shows that this extends to environmental behavior as well.

Second, affective discipline emerged as a powerful internal regulator. Participants frequently described emotions such as shame, guilt, and pride as shaping their environmental decisions. This supports findings from affective environmental psychology, which shows that moral emotions are significant predictors of pro-environmental behavior (Bissing-Olson et al., 2016; Shipley and van Riper, 2022). Unlike external penalties, these emotions function through self-surveillance and anticipated judgment. Residents feared “being judged” not only by tourists but by peers, neighbors, or even supernatural entities such as the sea god. These findings echo the work of Tangney et al. (2007) on moral emotions and self-regulation, as well as recent studies emphasizing anticipated pride as a stronger behavioral motivator than anticipated guilt (Harth et al., 2013).

Third, the role of symbolic and visual discipline cannot be underestimated. Our data reveal how images, uniforms, and spiritual symbols reinforce the sense of being watched, even in the absence of physical observers. This aligns with Bateson, Nettle, and Roberts’ (Bateson et al., 2006) experimental findings that the simple presence of eye images can significantly increase cooperative behavior. On Qingbang Island, this operates through visible cues such as volunteer vests, garbage disposal signs, and even ritual offerings, all of which embed environmental morality into the island's visual and spatial landscape. Moreover, these symbolic materials are not neutral; they carry affective weight and help construct the visual economy of virtue, echoing broader debates on how moral meaning is culturally embedded in space (Agrawal, 2020; Zhang, 2024).

Together, these mechanisms show that the ecological gaze operates not as a metaphor but as a concrete disciplinary apparatus that shapes environmental subjectivity through emotional and symbolic processes. It converts environmental governance from a system of control into a system of self-regulation, where individuals police themselves in anticipation of being seen, evaluated, or judged.

Furthermore, the intersection of tourism and environmentality adds a global dimension to this gaze. The imagined presence of a global audience—“the world is watching”—raises the stakes for environmental performance. In this sense, ecological governance is mediated not just locally but through translocal imaginaries of sustainability, modernity, and morality. This aligns with research on moral tourism (Zhang, 2024) and global environmental citizenship (Dobson, 2007).

It is important to note that the influence of the gaze can produce both superficial compliance and deep internalization, and governance must be mindful of this difference (Andrejevic, 2004; Maoz, 2006; Reed, 2002). Some individuals might engage in green behaviors only when observed, for example, picking up trash during tourist season but littering when alone—a purely performative subjectivity (Brick et al., 2017). Others internalize the gaze so fully that they carry those norms into all contexts, for example, feeling accountable to an imagined audience or personal ethics always (Isenberg, 1949; Mkono and Hughes, 2020). The aim of community-based and tourism-linked governance should be to move from the former to the latter, from external regulation to genuine ethical commitment (Ruiz-Ballesteros, 2023). Mechanisms like public pledges, community eco-initiatives, and education can help translate the moral pressure of visibility into personal conviction (Ben Almassi, 2017). As one analysis put it, environmental governance is not enforced by laws alone “but also through the subtle, everyday discipline of being seen—or believing one is being seen” (Brick et al., 2017). Over time, believing one is seen (by society, by the environment, or by one's own moral standards) even in solitude is what defines the environmentally responsible self.

In addition to these empirical insights, this study contributes a novel conceptual tool—the ecological gaze—to the field of environmental sociology. Building on Foucault’s (1977) notion of disciplinary power and subsequent frameworks such as environmentality (Agrawal, 2020), the ecological gaze captures how environmental behavior is shaped not only by institutional enforcement but by the felt presence of social, moral, and symbolic observation. By theorizing the gaze as a multidimensional mechanism encompassing discourse, affect, and visuality, this study offers a framework that future scholars can adopt to analyze environmental subject formation in diverse contexts, from urban sustainability campaigns to indigenous conservation practices. In doing so, it extends the analytical repertoire of environmental sociology and provides a bridge between sociological theory, affect studies, and everyday environmental governance.

Conclusion

This study investigated how the ecological gaze operates as a disciplinary force shaping environmental behavior in a coastal tourism context. Drawing on constructivist grounded theory and fieldwork on Qingbang Island, it identified three interlocking mechanisms: discursive, affective, and symbolic/visual, that channel visibility, emotion, and meaning into environmental self-regulation. Through interviews, observations, and symbolic analysis, the research demonstrated how individuals internalize moral expectations about environmental responsibility, not through coercion but through the anticipation of being watched, judged, and evaluated.

By advancing the concept of the ecological gaze, the study contributes a novel theoretical tool to environmental sociology. It shows how power circulates through gaze-related mechanisms to construct environmentally responsible subjectivities. In doing so, it bridges Foucault’s (1977) theory of discipline with contemporary concerns about environmental governance, emotion, and symbolic communication. The findings also highlight how global tourism intensifies the moral stakes of local environmental action, as residents perform not only for local authorities but for a global imagined audience.

Future research could mobilize the ecological gaze framework in settings such as urban waste governance, sustainable consumption, or climate movements to analyse how diverse publics, technologies, and affective regimes structure environmental action. Moreover, as visual culture and environmental discourse continue to expand through digital platforms, the moral visibility of individual behavior is likely to grow, making the ecological gaze increasingly relevant to studies of sustainability, identity, and power.

Highlight

Introduces the concept of the ecological gaze to explain moral regulation in marine environmental governance.

Identifies discursive, affective, and symbolic mechanisms as disciplinary tools shaping pro-environmental behavior.

Draws on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews from a coastal tourism site in China.

Shows how visibility, emotion, and symbolism govern environmental conduct in everyday life.

Contributes to affective environmental governance and spatial theory through a Foucauldian lens.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express sincere gratitude to the residents, volunteers, and local officials of Qingbang Island for their openness and participation in this research. Special thanks go to the environmental NGO whose collaboration made immersive fieldwork possible.

Clinical Trial registration

Not applicable. This study did not involve a clinical trial.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are not publicly available due to confidentiality agreements with participants and the sensitive nature of interview content. Anonymized excerpts may be shared by the corresponding author upon reasonable request and with appropriate ethical approval.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ethics approval statement

This study did not undergo formal institutional ethics review. However, all research activities were conducted in accordance with established ethical principles for research involving human participants, including informed consent, voluntary participation, and anonymity. Participants were fully informed of the study's purpose, and consent was obtained prior to data collection.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Patient consent statement

Not applicable. This study did not involve patients or clinical data.

Permission to reproduce material from other sources

Not applicable. This manuscript does not contain material reproduced from other copyrighted sources.

ORCID iDs

Jie Zhuo

Jingzhou Liu

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