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- Convenors:
-
Helena Ruotsala
(University of Turku)
Maija Mäki (University of Turku)
Tímea Bata (Museum of Ethnography, Budapest)
Esteban Ruiz-Ballesteros (Universidad Pablo de Olavide)
Pilar Espeso-Molinero (University of Alicante)
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- Stream:
- Economy and Work
- Location:
- Aula 3
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 16 April, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
Tourism has an extraordinary power of transformation that obliges us to continue the quest for strategies to understand and evaluate its effects. There is a vital discussion about the effects of tourism on local inhabitants and environments. This panel explores the potentials of sustainability, vulnerability and resilience for tourism analysis.
Long Abstract:
Tourism is an ubiquitous activity on our planet, a paradigmatic expression of the most sophisticated forms of capitalism, one which also serves as an important source of livelihood in small and remote communities. As an economic activity, it possesses an extraordinary capacity for adaptation expressed in its multiple forms of organization; it is also capable of converting any cultural, natural or social element into a mercantile object for tourist consumption. Tourism has however proper Janus-faces; it has its good and bad sides, but how can we avoid the bad sides and take advantage of the good sides? To understand its effects we need analytical approaches that allow us to capture its plasticity and multidimensionality. We propose sustainability, vulnerability and resilience as theoretical and methodological tools to analyze the tourism phenomenon from different yet integrated perspectives (socio-ecological resilience, community resilience, cultural heritage and resilience).Our intention is to gain a more complex understanding of the transformation processes produced by the development of tourism under the sustainable paradigm of the triple bottom line. We also propose to discuss the capacity of the resilience framework applied to the tourism industry at a global and, especially, local level. Therefore we are looking for contributions that articulate the macro- and micro-level scales that are present in tourism, presenting case studies that permit trans-cultural comparisons. Through analysis and scientific discussion, we hope to gain insights into the elements and processes that articulate tourism, sustainability and resilience.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 16 April, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
In this paper we discuss the transformation of intertwined place and community at Tuorla Observatory, Finland. The site is launched to become a science centre, touristic arena. There has been documented oral history, the everyday objects and the historical equipments of the observatory.
Paper long abstract:
Tuorla Observatory (1950-2018) was a well-known astronomical and geodetic research centre of the University of Turku in Piikkiö, Finland. It used to be a close community of researchers and students until the department was relocated to the campus area in Turku.
In the autumn 2018 most of the researchers have left from Tuorla but the buildings, including the telescopes and observatories are still in situ. The place has started its transformation into a public science centre for students, school children and family activities. All faculties in the University of Turku will be represented at the centre. The main idea is to offer products that are using pedagogy of learning through experiences. For example workshops, courses, meetings, conferences, class trips and camp schools are arranged at the premises. Tuorla is changing from scientific research place to touristic and educational arena.
In this paper we will discuss the transformation process in the context of empathetic and confidential heritage work. The oral history and the knowledge of the old scientific equipment and buildings have been under the documentation process. The heritage work made by ethnologists has softened the tensions of the transition providing the possibilities to remember and point out the meaningful places and material remains. Our ethnological gaze is directed to this transformation processes from the perspectives of heritage and identities. How community has processed the transformation? What will happen to the heritage of the observatory in becoming a science centre?
Paper short abstract:
The Faroese chain dance is recognised as "intangible heritage" of the Faroe Islands, and in recent years, there have been ongoing efforts to ensure that the tradition continues. This paper explores attempts to utilise the dance as a tourist attraction and the effect this has on the dancing community
Paper long abstract:
It has often been said that in order to be appreciate the Faroese chain dance active participation is required. The choreography is simple and the chanting is often perceived as monotonous to outsiders who do not understand the language and are unable to take part in the drama relived by the dancers. Yet for a long time this dance has also served as a way of presenting unique Faroese culture to foreigners, since the dance is known to have been danced on the Islands for many centuries and is found only there in the present form. The representative role of the dance seems to have increased over the last years and during the debates connected to the Faroese implementation of the UNESCO convention on intangible heritage this year it became clear that the dance is being perceived as a national issue to many parties, with quite a potential as part of a "Faroese brand". This presentation will focus on how the dancers are affected by the role of "staging a show" for spectators. Based on a field study, I will examine how dancers balance between trying to connect inside the circle whilst being aware of being observed and recorded by outsiders. I will be focusing on these questions of sustainability and resilience: Is there a shift in interests of those participating in the dance? Do conflicts arise regarding the strategy towards tourism? Are various ways of relating to the dance mutually exclusive or do they merge into something new?
Paper short abstract:
Tourism is not only the outcome of communities' efforts but also a 'weapon' to keep the harmony of communities and cultural resilience. This paper discusses how tourism came into being and played its role in a traditional community within cultural protection, local religion and political pursuit.
Paper long abstract:
Q village, located in the southwest China, was an essential post of ancient Tea and Salt Route. Within urbanization and modernization, the movement of Intangible Cultural Heritage, Rural Revitalization and rapid development of tourism are influencing the local communities, and inhabitants have tried various ways to attract the outsiders, develop economy as well as their culture.
This paper focuses on the rebuilding of L temple in Q village, to study how tourism came into being and played its role in a traditional community with the background of cultural protection, local religion and political pursuit. It suggests that though the community building in Q village was from bottom to top, how and why tourism developed were results of multi-discourses' negotiation. Such discussions can provide a further analysis on the relationship among tourism, vernacular culture and local community. It also help us to understand Chinese cultural logic.
Paper short abstract:
Twilight tourism has served as a lifesaver in Forks. Yet it is not without its problems and challenges. This paper shows how Forks was created a new form of tourism to the town, how it affects the local culture and how the local actors are making the tourism as sustainable as possible.
Paper long abstract:
Stephanie Meyer's Twilight books and the subsequent movies are a phenomenon. The books have sold over 120 million copies worldwide and are translated into 38 different languages and the movies have earned 2.5 billion dollars at the global box office. With numbers like this, it is no surprise that the Twilight-phenomenon has also created tourism.
Stephanie Meyer chose the town of Forks in Washington as the setting for her novels almost by pure chance. When the first Twilight novel was published in 2005, the number of visitors in Forks was around 5500 and the total number of visitors had been declining every year since 1997. After the publication of Twilight, the number of tourists started to grow slowly but steadily and in 2010 the number of visitors reached as high as 72 885. Since then the numbers have declined a little bit, but the average number of tourists is still around 40 000 a year.
The Twilight phenomenon served as a lifesaver for many of the businesses in Forks, but as it is often the case with tourism based on fiction, it also created opposition and difficulties among the local residents. This paper shows how by happenstance a small town was able to create a new form of tourism to the town, how it affects the local culture and what the local actors are doing to make the tourism as sustainable as possible.
Paper short abstract:
The aim of this paper is to present a model of sustainable use of cultural heritage through the creation of cultural tourism product, based on elements of the industrial heritage: case study of the Railway open museum Šargan Eight from Serbia
Paper long abstract:
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the introduction of narrow gauge railway through the mountain villages of western Serbia brought many changes into the lives of rural communities. In a mountain village Mokra Gora, the railroad called Šargan Eight, was built in 1925 as the part of a track that connected Belgrade with Sarajevo and Dubrovnik. Even then Mokra Gora had became recognizable by the Šargan Eight one unusual rail loop in the shape of number eight, as a unique engineering solution in Europe. After forty years of regular service, traffic on the Šargan Eight is dysfunctioned, and eventually devastated and destroyed railroad has become part of the collective nostalgic memories of Mokra Gora inhabitants. In the mid nineties, the local community has launched an initiative to restore the railway for touristic purpose, thus recognizing this segment of cultural heritage as a potential for sustainable rural development. This vision is realized through the creation of the Šargan Eight, an open museum - touristic railway, which is one of the most attractive destinations in Serbia today. The study analyzes the process of activating the local community as a holder of transformation of the "forgotten" heritage into the factor of sustainable development. The aim of this paper is to present a model of sustainable use of cultural heritage through the creation of cultural tourism product, based on elements of the industrial heritage.
Paper short abstract:
The accumulation of cases that analyze the impact of tourism in the rural world has generated results that seem contradictory. We call "Dilemma of Duality" to these disagreements. We ask ourselves about the reason for these discrepancies and we propose three explanatory hypotheses.
Paper long abstract:
In recent decades, ethnographic research on the development of tourism in rural areas has accumulated. But far from reaching general conclusions, the results of these studies seem contradictory. Sometimes, tourism appears as an engine of development, while in others it is shown as a mechanism that increases the vulnerability and dependence of the peasant. At times, it seems that it promotes feminine empowerment, but other studies show that tourism increases the workload of women and consolidates a gender division of labor that marginalizes reproductive tasks. While some studies conclude that tourism generates employment and reduces poverty, others affirm that this activity subtracts resources from traditional economic sectors and impoverishes them. These supposed discrepancies are what we call "Dilemma of Duality".
We ask ourselves what is the reason for this disparity. We propose three hypotheses: a) the consequences of tourism are different because the contexts analyzed are different; b) the researcher comes to the field with theoretical convictions that lead him to prioritize some aspects over others in his evaluations; c) the destinations go through different phases that go from expansion to crisis (Tourism Life Cycle), and the evaluation depends on the moment in which the study is carried out.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the contribution of small initiatives of community-based tourism in Galicia to the socio-ecological resilience of threatened socio-ecosystems
Paper long abstract:
The development of community-based tourism in Galicia has been slow and not well organised. The small initiatives that have appeared in the last two decades have failed to constitute a strong alternative for a more environmentally friendly way of managing natural resources at regional or municipal level. This is particularly worrying as many Galician socio-ecosystems are rapidly changing following the abandonment of small-scale farming and the expansion of eucalyptus plantations. However, those few CBT initiatives that have actually succeeded contribute to the socio-ecological resilience of the most intimate kind of socio-ecosystems: those at the domestic space. Gardens, fields, houses and orchards have been produced and reproduced through new practices as households abandon the primary and secondary economic sectors of production and move into initiatives of CBT. In fact, it is unclear whether the preservation of these domestic spaces is a strategy to develop the CBT initiative; or the CBT initiative is an instrument for the preservation of these natures. In any case, what seems clear is that these new practices generate a mosaic of resilient socio-ecosystems which aggregated might have notorious socio-ecological importance. In this paper, I will describe the kind of practices and domestic natures that CBT produces and preserves.
Paper short abstract:
This communication discusses the feasibility of using the socio-economic strategies and community practices of new households (which we call generational perspective) in a socio-ecosystem mainly defined by community-based tourism activities, as indicators of social-ecological resilience.
Paper long abstract:
Community-based tourism (CBT) seeks alternatives to the business-as-usual way of planning and managing tourism. These alternatives are characterized by a communal logic and the local control of tourism activities. This is likely to have particular effects and influence on the general socio-ecological resilience of a socio-ecosystem, although it is difficult to evaluate them consistently. The usual approach for this kind of assessment would be the analysis of the influence of CBT with regards to (1) the main drivers that regulate the functioning of the socio-ecosystem; or (2) the balance and environmental impact of other economic activities. However, we would like to develop a more phenomenological perspective, by directly analysing the tactics and strategies of the new domestic groups (generational perspective) formed in a socio-ecosystem that is fundamentally defined by tourism activities. These new households are considered contexts of micro analysis in which to investigate the macro socio-ecosystem trends, and illustrate its resilient capacity. Thus, we propose the study of the socio-economic strategies and community practices of these new households, as they will have a leading role in the evolution of the whole socio-ecosystem. This methodological and analytical proposal will be illustrated with the results obtained from a specific case study: the community of Agua Blanca (Ecuador), a successful case of CBT where I have carried out ethnographic research for 12 years.
Paper short abstract:
The role acquired by the use of housing in tourism activity in Linares de la Sierra (Huelva) is the central axis of this experience of local tourism. Specifically, the process by which a highly private element, such as housing, ends up being considered a common resource.
Paper long abstract:
Linares de la Sierra is a small municipality of 270 inhabitants located in the province of Huelva, occupying a privileged place within Sierra de Aracena and Picos de Aroche.
Under the brand name of "El Valle Escondido", provides a tourist offer of local initiative, which highlights the existence of more than 54 accommodation places (to which must be added the undeclared, but known and publicized locally), 4 restaurants (one of them of high range, quality and recognition), as well as numerous trails and paths that complement the idiosyncrasy of the town.
Within this tourist offer, it is interesting to analyze how Linares's housing rental is a great "asset" with which an important part of its neighbors participate in the local touristic business. This shared interest confers on the activity a "community" character based on Local Based Tourism (LBT). Housing is seldom considered as a resource or variable within LBT experiences; It has been mainly analyzed as a cause of major changes in the previous residential use of the territories in which it occurs (gentrification processes, price increase, change of residents, etc.), and it may be that way in urban spaces (Yrigoy 2017), but what happens when this happens in rural areas?
In Linares we found, on one hand, great real estate possibilities since half of the housing stock is empty and, on the other, a population pyramid marked by aging, which makes the shadow of depopulation a real threat, and where the use of housing can become an interesting example of social-ecological resilience.
Paper short abstract:
Nahá is an indigenous community located in the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas, Mexico. In this remote village, CBT has become a key element of the social, political and economic dynamics of its approximately 300 inhabitants. This study explores the role of tourism in this complex socio-ecological system
Paper long abstract:
Employing resilience as the theoretical and methodological framework, this longitudinal anthropological research analyzes the socio-ecological system of a small indigenous community with local-based tourism development located in the southeast of Mexico. After 10 years of ethnographic and participatory work with the Lacandon indigenous people of Nahá, this communication explores the complexities of community-based tourism and the role it plays in the system as a whole. The governance, economy and social components of the systems are analyzed from a community, family and individual perspective trying to clarify the changes, the continuities and the mechanisms that foster resiliency. Results show that although the current Lacandon political organization is quite recent, pressures from neighbor communities have generated resilience responses. To protect their space from neighbor invasion they have internalized the official political-environmentalist discourse, convincing themselves of their ethnic legitimacy as guardians of the Lacandon Jungle. At the economic level, the monetarization process is heavy marked by the influence of public and private assistance, generating patterns of dependency that coexist with examples of individual and cooperative entrepreneurship. Socially, the community life is regulated around family settings and tradition plays a crucial role in the interpersonal and communal relations. Tourism importance and impact is growing in this community, presenting an interesting case study of the socio-ecological transformation of this system.