Tourism in the Ecuadorian Amazon: Political Ecology, Cultural Commons, and Emic/Etic Understandings
Open Access
- Author:
- Marcinek, Anne A
- Graduate Program:
- Recreation, Park and Tourism Management
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- November 07, 2017
- Committee Members:
- Carter A Hunt, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Peter B Newman, Committee Member
Larry James Gorenflo, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Tourism
Indigenous
Amazon
Culture
Political Ecology
Empowerment
Commons
Ecuador - Abstract:
- Tourism is among the largest global market forces driving social and environmental change in the Anthropocene. The particular set of challenges faced by indigenous and rural communities living among the most biodiverse areas of the planet prompts timely inquiry into the ways in which individuals and communities integrate into the global tourism market as an alternative livelihood strategy to extractive activities. A political-ecological approach to such research considers the ways that interwoven global discourses advance particular approaches to tourism at the local level. Common-pool resource theory, on the other hand, is useful in categorizing sustainable use and management of cultural and knowledge resources related to tourism. This particular case study uses ethnographic research gathered in and around the rural Amazonian town of Misahuallí, Ecuador to answer the following question: how can tourism lead to positive social and economic outcomes for indigenous and rural communities? With a consideration for both the emic and etic research paradigms, two theoretical frameworks were applied to the gathered corpus of qualitative text in order to understand both the utility of Tsing’s notion of friction for identifying tourism outcomes, and the usefulness of a common pool resource framework for understanding use and management of cultural resources. Key findings indicate that tourism can influence positive outcomes including autonomous management of cultural resources, social empowerment of women, diversification of job skills, and economic empowerment. This work will be of interest to scholars working in the areas of political ecology, applied cultural anthropology, and community development.