Paper short abstract:

In this paper I draw from ethnographic fieldwork in southern Venezuela (Gran Sabana) and Chile (Araucanía) to analyse causes and effects of the growth of tourist ventures in indigenous territories.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I draw from ethnographic fieldwork in southern Venezuela (Gran Sabana) and Chile (Araucanía) to analyse causes and effects of the expansion of tourist activities in indigenous territories. I engage classical debates on the labour theory of value to ground this analysis, resorting to Marxian contributions in order to generate new conceptual tools. Engagement with those theoretical contributions is combined with a discussion of the way in which theories of uneven development and rent-capture can facilitate our understanding of why tourism has become a common (and expanding) phenomenon in indigenous territories.

I will approach my ethnographic material through those theoretical prisms, aiming to explain how tourism affects cultural production and social relations in the locations where I have undertaken fieldwork, and how the concept of "cultural labour" might contribute to support such explanation.