Paper short abstract:

This paper uses a critical political economy approach to analyse the dive scuba tourism industry in Sabah to highlight the structural precarity of tourism development strategies as well as the agential vulnerabilities of tourism employment

Paper long abstract:

Long Abstract

This paper utilises critical political economy to analyse scuba dive tourism in Sabah, Malaysia and tourism workers' vulnerabilities. States using international tourism to drive growth, and the work experience of many indigenous and migrant tourism workers is described using precarity, a concept derived from political economy and seldom applied to tourism or developing countries. We present new qualitative data highlighting employment precarity, ethnic and socio-economic factors within the dive tourism industry, and the precarity of tourism as a development strategy in the area. We challenge the predominantly optimistic views of labour precarity in the political economy literature which sees precarity in the service sector as a means of empowerment. Instead we present evidence that demonstrates significant worker vulnerability, uncertainty, and contingency - especially among certain ethnic minority groups - resulting from the state-led rentier model of the Malaysian economy.