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.