A Critical Look at the State of Tourism Studies in Anthropology in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

Anthropology has expanded by including within its purview the study of tourism. Although tourism is a subject of relative recent concern among anthropologists, anthropological scholarship on tourism has contributed greatly to tourism studies. In this conceptual article, I offer a preliminary study of the state of tourism studies and anthropology in Latin America and the Caribbean, based on a survey of literature published in English, Spanish, and Portuguese in Latin America, the US, and Europe. My primary concern is to discuss the relationship between tourism studies and anthropology in studying Latin America and the Caribbean. I conclude proposing that for the anthropology of tourism to advance towards more vibrant development, there needs to be an equal and multilingual dialogue among scholars, practitioners, and tourism stakeholders in the Global North and South, as well as a conceptualization of tourism as one aspect of a larger spectrum of movements, representations, and practices.

Narcotourism: a conceptual framework and research agenda

“…Adapting the agenda of tourism anthropology (Guerrón-Montero, 2018), this paper concludes with a formal narcotourism research agenda to promote the analysis of the influence that the above-outlined forms of narco-tourism have on the interface between culture and the environment, particularly how narcotourism impacts host communities; the power relationships in narcotourism developments; narco-heritage and narco-cultural commodification; types of narco-tourism and narco-tourists; and the relationships between narco-tourism and ethnicity, identity, material culture, nationalism, and how people interact with, respond to and bring about changes in the physical and biotic environment.…”

El turismo como contexto

“…El estudio del turismo, sin embargo, se desenvuelve en unas disciplinas y entornos académicos mejor que en otros (Yankholmes 2014;Barretto y Otamendi, 2015;Corral-Marfil y Cànoves-Valiente 2016;Guerrón Montero 2018). De hecho, en España, todavía en 1993, se calificaron mis investigaciones como «un controvertido alegato a favor de una supuesta antropología del turismo» (ASANA 1993: 7).…”