Tourism, development, and social-environmental change on El Salvador's Balsamo Coast

Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Patel, Ruchi
- Graduate Program:
- Geography
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 15, 2024
- Committee Members:
- Brian King, Program Head/Chair
Larry Gorenflo, Outside Unit & Field Member
Douglas Miller, Major Field Member
Karl Zimmerer, Major Field Member
Brian King, Chair & Dissertation Advisor - Keywords:
- tourism
uneven development
crypto-colonialism
coastal change
El Salvador - Abstract:
- Once better known for its struggles with systemic poverty and gang violence, the Central American country of El Salvador more often grabs headlines today for its beaches, surf, and experimentation with the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, popularized largely by the policies of its strong-armed millennial President Nayib Bukele. At the center of this attention is the country’s Balsamo Coast, whose historically rural coastal economy has shifted increasingly toward tourism over the last decade, receiving a growing number of visitors, expats, and crypto enthusiasts from around the country and world. However, while tourism and crypto-driven development have brought novel economic opportunities and investments to the region, they have also exacerbated existing pressures on local people, land, and resources, as well as given rise to new social and environmental challenges that have not yet been studied. This dissertation engages approaches in environment and development geography to critically examine the dynamics of tourism, development, and social-environmental change on El Salvador’s Balsamo Coast. Specifically, the dissertation aims to (1) increase understanding of the social, economic, and environmental impacts of tourism and crypto-driven development on rural coastal communities; (2) demonstrate the ways in which development is socially and spatially uneven, particularly for historically poor and marginalized groups; and (3) explore the implications of development-driven landscape change for long-term socioecological resilience of the region. By addressing these objectives, the research contained in this dissertation serves to inform strategies and policies for more just, inclusive, and environmentally sustainable coastal development in El Salvador and elsewhere in the Global South.