Paper short abstract:

This paper highlights how the perpetuation of the myth of a people-less wilderness (which buoys Botswana’s tourism industry), produces differentiated modes of state infrastructure in rural areas, shifting local peoples ability to interface with the state, the tourism industry, and other citizens.

Paper long abstract:

This paper interrogates how the provision or absence of state infrastructure (roads, bridges, permanent buildings, water and power, transport facilities) on Botswana's lucrative rural tourism spaces are linked to the manner in which the state controls and regulates the use of space within its territory, and organizes residency and migration patterns of its citizens living adjacent to sites of tourism. It examines how ambiguous, and seemingly contradictory government expansions and retractions of state infrastructure function as mechanisms of state-building in relation to natural environments.

In the western region, the provision of infrastructure acts as a means through which to draw out previously sparsely populated and seasonally mobile people from 'the bush' to live in state-sanctioned villages, pulling them into a relationship of 'legibility' with the state. In the north of the country, where the bulk of the tourism industry is based, the calculus is different. The allocation of infrastructure is delayed or denied in order to maintain the fiction of a people-free wilderness that appeals to tourist consumers—pushing local people into 'illegibility', limiting their ability to travel freely throughout the region and shrinking their infrastructural footprint to near imperceptibility on the part of tourist visitors.

This study in contradictions across Botswana's rural conservation estate highlights the manner in which the perpetuation of the myth of a people-less wilderness (a perception buoying Botswana's tourism industry), produces highly differentiated modes of state intervention in rural areas, shifting local peoples ability to interface with the state, the tourism industry, and other citizens.

Paper short abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to present, discuss and reflect upon urban-based eco-tourism implications on biodiversity conservation and rural development based on-going research in both Dar and Mikumi.

Paper long abstract:

Can growing urban-based ecotourism from Dar es Salaam to Mikumi be good news for the rural poor and biodiversity conservation?

Over the past decades focus in debates and academic literature on Africa's rural-urban relations has primarily been on flows from rural to urban areas. In most African countries urban-based eco-tourism are either non-existing or marginally developed as in many other places in the Global South. My main arguments for the relevance of research activities on urban-based eco-tourism to rural areas in an Africa context:

Increase and intensification of urban-based activities in rural area linked to the recreational activities. A new and growing financially privileged class in Africa's urban areas shows interest in eco-tourism related activities in rural areas.

Urban-based eco-tourism into rural areas has significant impact for both local communities and biodiversity based on my experiences from both the Global North and India.

Limited documentation of eco-tourism's impact on conservation of biodiversity in Sub-Saharan Africa.

These new and intensified urban-rural activities will be focused on Tanzania with Mikumi as the rural case. Tanzania is one of the prime eco-tourism destinations in Africa and until recently almost exclusively North-South tourists. In recent years a growing number of urban-based tanzanians have shown interest in eco-tourism activities in the Mikumi area.

The presentation will be structured around the following three questions:

Why urban-based interests for eco-tourism to rural areas?

What are the implications for local communities related to growing urban-based interests?

What implications does urban-based eco-tourism have on biodiversity conservation in Mikumi?

Paper short abstract:

In Africa, the dependence of contrysides on the metropolis engender problems of development of the peripheries. Field observations reveal that, the emergence of périmétropolitan territories as secondary development poles is subject to public policy and the capacity of the local stakeholders.

Paper long abstract:

The exceptional demographic and spatial growth; ambient multiculturalism; related land issues that betray portray unceasing peripheral growth and the concentration of power institutions within them, transform Cameroonian metropolises, Douala and Yaounde, into real incubators for the development of hinterlands (Troin, 2000). Similarly, through a reforming act, the constitution of January 1996, through the decentralization policy, sanctioned endogenous initiatives as an enhancers of local development efforts (Ribot, 2002). From that moment, we see a concatenation of initiatives and logics, some complementary and others competitive, although all are oriented towards local development. The forces at work intertwine such that the local sociospatial and economic dynamics become a combination of political, economic and socio-cultural aauthorities within the metropolises ; as the main accelerators of the development of the cities and contrysides, and local stakeholders as relayers and amplifiers (Ranis and Stewart, 1993). Such is the prism of analysis of the action of Yaoundé and Douala on theier peripheries. On the one hand, this article ausculates the influence of these metropolises on their urban regions and on a national scale ; in order to grasp the mechanisms through which they energize their hinterlands. On the other hand, it is necessary to scrutinize the endogenous initiatives that capitalize and multiply the effect of the actions of metropolises on local development. Qualitative and quantitative data have been used to illustrate these metropolises and their multilevel influences on the development of the hinterland are retained as the principal analysis, alongside the dynamics deployed by the local populations.

Paper short abstract:

Looking at the migration processes occurring in urban areas of Petite Côte, the paper discusses the role of cultural tourism in the formation of migration aspirations. Narratives and daily practices of tourist guides will shed light on historical, local and material dimension of their aspirations.

Paper long abstract:

The boat migrations to Canary Islands are the more recent chapter of the history of Senegalese emigrations beyond the African borders, which dates back to the role of the tirailleurs sénégalais in first decades of the 20th century (Bertoncello & Bredeloup 2004). Although this phenomenon has been summarily dismissed by Senegalese media and institutional representatives as the acts of kamikazes or naive adventurers, the analysis of the social transformations occurring in the local urban contexts in the country of origin sheds light on the historical and socio-cultural processes from which the "aspiration to migrate" springs up (degli Uberti 2014). In view of the growing acknowledgment among scholars that migrant trajectories along which human flows occur are primarily imagined, the purpose of this study is discussing the impact of tourism in Senegalese urban areas, how the migration aspirations and the idea of 'elsewhere' are socially and spatially constructed in the Senegalese context. Drawing from the ethnographic research undertaken in the tourismified urban areas of M'bour and Saly, I examine the narratives and practices of aspiring migrants. The paper explores the impact of tourism, the relationship between tourists and local people in framing the representation of the places where they live, how these places are experienced and how the tourists' experiences plays a pivotal role in the construction of an imaginary 'elsewhere'. The paper discusses the relationship between migration, tourism and imagination, showing how among many people the 'elsewhere' is often a cultural rather than a geographical experience of mobility.

Paper short abstract:

Tourism is focused in Ngorongoro on high-end, short-stay tourism. The inhabitants do not profit from this, at best they are object of curiosity. To bring local income to grow, diversification of tourism is needed. The paper analyses how this can be realized.

Paper long abstract:

The 1,000,000 visitors to the Ngorongoro Crater in 2016 paid $70 per person per day entry fee. These $70 million go to the central government. The total revenues from tourism for the Ngorongoro district and its population are all together $2.5 million a year. At most 1250 district people (out of ~200,000) work in the 36 luxury hotels and lodges. The rest is allowed to retain its pastoral life and to dance and sing and show their traditional lifestyle … and to impoverish more and more. Currently of 1,000,000 tourists spend only between 50 and 60,000 nights in the district. And they pay per night between $250 and $1000. All tourism is oriented towards the ultimate wildlife experience in the parks, bringing high revenues for tour operators, hotel owners and government but nothing for the district population. However, real economic growth for the Maasai and Batemi families is perfectly possible outside the parks. This paper shows where, how and who can develop mid-range long-stay accommodation for leisure, health, adventure and sportive tourism and for religious and culture tourism. This will liberate the traditional inhabitants from being victims, losing land and livelihood to tourism. They will turn into subjects, actors who profit from tourism building their own future. Revenues go up to $72 million and owners of tourist accommodation employ over 10,000 district people by 2026. This will represent 22% of a District Gross Product needed to achieve middle income status. A multiplier effect will easily double this.

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