Abstract
This conceptual paper explores theoretical linkages between scientific tourism and sustainability outcomes within indigenous communities. Drawing on sustainability science, boundary work theory, indigenous knowledge, and decolonial frameworks, we present a typology of scientific tourism situations mapped according to the degree in which they allow co-production of solutions that combine indigenous and scientific knowledge. This paper is based on the premise that co-produced solutions are essential for sustainability outcomes and they require effective boundary organizations capable of translating and coordinating across cultural paradigms. Two approaches to scientific tourism that can facilitate sustainability outcomes, particularly in indigenous communities, are proposed. The first approach is endogenous to the academy and requires cognition of knowledge plurality and researcher reflexivity. The second is exogenous to the academy and entails boundary organizations as well as tools and strategies necessary for horizontal co-production. Implications for future scholarship on scientific tourism in marginalized and/or global south communities are discussed.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Christine N. Buzinde
Christine Buzinde, PhD joined the School of Community Resources and Development in August of 2012. Her research focuses on two areas: community development through tourism and the politics of tourism representations. Buzinde’s work on development adopts a grassroots approach and it aims to understand the relationship between community well-being and tourism development within marginalized communities. Tourism development has been proposed by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) as one of the tools through which the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be accomplished to enhance well-being within South nations. However, questions of enduring interest posed within Buzinde’s research include: Are the well-being indicators, such those evidenced in the SDGs, (mis)aligned with wellbeing indicators articulated by communities in South nations? How does tourism development impact, if at all, the indicators articulated by communities in South nations? Buzinde’s work on the politics of tourism representations principally views tourism texts as cultural repositories through which issues of inclusion/exclusion, North/South and core/periphery can be understood. Scholarly explorations on tourism representations are central to our understanding of ways in which tourism is entangled with issues of power, oppression, agency and resistance. Buzinde has conducted research in the United States, Tanzania, Ecuador, Mexico, India, and Nepal.David Manuel-Navarrete
David Maunel-Navarrete, PhD applies an existential perspective to study deliberate transformations in social-ecological and technological systems, such as cities or coastal communities, including the subjective dimension of such transformations. His research aims at enhancing societies’ capacity to purposely deliver structural changes that simultaneously reduce inequality and sustain the planet's web of life. As a sustainability scholar, he focuses on promoting climate change adaptation, and tourism sustainability. His most recent research explores adaptation, resilience and transformation of water infrastructures in Mexico City, and the promotion of indigenous languages to advance sustainability in the Amazon. Professor Manuel-Navarrete has worked as a consultant for the United Nations, and as a researcher at King’s College London and the Free University of Berlin. He has conducted sustainability research and assessments in Argentina, Brazil, Central America, and Mexico. He teaches international development and sustainability as well as sustainability science.Tod Swanson
Tod Swanson, PhD directed Arizona State University's Center for Latin American Studies as a Title VI National Resource Center (1997-2007). In 1999, Swanson founded the Andes and Amazon Field School at Santu Urku (an Amazonian Kichwa community in Napo Province, Ecuador). Swanson serves the Santu Urku community in an elected capacity as councilman for environmental affairs. Swanson's work comes out of a lifelong interest in the Ecuadorian Amazon where he grew up. Swanson's work on Amazonian Kichwa and Shuar religion seeks to understand how heightened empathy with plant and animals species is believed to mediate emotional relations to family and community. His approach uses linguistic analysis of native discourse to uncover implicit assumptions underlying Amazonian thinking. Swanson teaches undergraduate courses on South American Indian Religion and Nature as well as a graduate course on Religion in Latin America. Every summer he brings faculty and students from various disciplines together for the Andes and Amazon Field School. In that context he teaches courses on Kichwa language (eligible for graduate FLAS Fellowship) and Amazonian Ethnobiology.
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