Resilience and Community-Based Tourism: Mapuche Experiences in Pre-Cordilleran Areas (Puyehue and Panguipulli) of Southern Chile

Abstract

Local responses to global problems: this is the premise used in this work to approach the studies of community-based tourism (CBT) in Latin America. Resilience is a fertile concept to analytically delve into the emergency conditions of this form of tourism organization. The socio-ecological and situated narratives of resilience are enriched and used in this work to examine experiences of CBT in mapuche communities in the south of Chile. This was done through the systematization of relevant data available from the execution of participatory action research projects developed since 2013 in the communes of Panguipulli and Puyehue. This data was categorized and processed according to the variables identified for the proposed analyzes. It was found that the socio-ecological narrative is useful, but insufficient. The relevance of the situated narrative seems to be more effective to engage in dialogues and joint work with mapuche communities.

Experiences of Resilience and Mapuche Community Based Tourism in the Pre-Cordilleran Territories of Panguipulli, Southern Chile

“…Such components are related to CBT through specific categories formulated, based on the analysis of previous studies on CBT and indigenous communities in rural areas of southern Chile [24,33,34,39,[52][53][54]. Some common factors between CBT and CR were detected (Table 1).…”

“…Simultaneously, this landscape embodies a social and symbolic burden linked to the Mapuche population inhabiting the area and preserves elements of their identity and culture, such as language, agricultural and botanical knowledge, worldview, and toponymy or knowledge of the natural environment, among others [38]. However, the existence of extractive dynamics in the areas that alter ecosystems, produce pollution, or affect spaces with high cultural and ethnic value constantly confront Mapuche communities with the State as individuals fight for land ownership and access to use of natural resources [24,39] Another situation to be taken into account is the existence of high levels of multidimensional poverty above the regional and national average: the national average reaches 20.7% and the regional average reaches 22.2%, while the communal average exceeds 32% [40]. This index, prepared by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), was adopted by the State of Chile since 2015 to identify multiple deficiencies and their intensity at the household level.…”

“…The Trawun Cooperative is perceived as a real development alternative for their communities by its members, with high youth participation and valorization of the work carried out as an element that enhances tourism in their territory [24]. This has become a stable source of employment that complements the salaried work of some of the members of the family nucleus [50,60].…”

“…Proposal to examine community resilience (CR) from community based tourism (CBT) experiences in the case of Mapuche communities[24,[33][34][35]39,[52][53][54].…”

Cuestionamientos al modelo extractivista neoliberal desde el sur Capitalismo, territorios y resistencias

“…biliarias. Cuatro de estas causas han sido denunciadas por la lamgen Cecilia Caniumán del lof Challupen (Caniumán, 2020) y también han sido reportadas por investigadores independientes y académicos (Aylwin & Cuadra, 2011;Torres-Alruiz et al, 2018;Pilquimán, 2017).Todas ocurren en el que estamos denominando territorio mapunche, una macro-identidad emplazada en la denominada zona lacustre y red interlagos, como muestra la figura 1. Para responder esa pregunta, es necesario situarnos en la ribera sur del gran Biobío.…”