Following the surge of regional multiculturalism and indigenous political mobilization, how are indigenous Latin Americans governed today? Addressing the Mexican flagship tourist initiative of ‘Magical Villages,’ this book shows how government tourism programs do more than craft appealing tourist experiences from ideas of indigeneity, tradition, and heritage. Rather, heritage-centered tourism and multiculturalism are fusing into a strategy of government set to tame and steer indigenous spaces of negotiation by offering alternative multicultural national self-images, which trigger new modes of national belonging and participation, without challenging structural political and social asymmetries.
By examining contemporary Mexican tourism policies and multiculturalist ideals through policy analysis and ethnographic research in a mestizo municipalcapital in a majority indigenous Nahua municipality, this book shows how mestizo nationalism is regenerated in tourism as part of a neoliberal governmentality framework. The book demonstrates how tourism initiatives that center on indigenous cultural heritage and recognition do not self-evidently empower indigenous citizens, and may pave the way for extracting indigenous heritage as a national resource to the benefit of local elites and tourist visitors.
This work is of key interest to researchers, advanced students, and critically engaged practitioners in the fields of Latin American studies, indigenous studies, social anthropology, critical heritage studies, and tourism.
By:
Casper Jacobsen
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 435g
ISBN: 9781138088252
ISBN 10: 1138088250
Series: Routledge Advances in Tourism and Anthropology
Pages: 194
Publication Date: 20 August 2018
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Further / Higher Education
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Prologue: Hope and despair in Cuetzalan 1. Introduction 2. Governing frames 3. Working the translocal field 4. The diachronic Magical Villages Program. Frames and technologies in motion 5. When pros turn pro: Community ambassadors and social order 6. Multicultourism in the Magical Village: Setting temporality and translocality 7. Networking/rooting: Ritual co-parenthood in Tzinacapan 8. Regenerative fiesta: ritual configuration of history, identity, and society Epilogue
Casper Jacobsen holds a PhD in American Indian Languages and Cultures, and is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Copenhagen and the State University of New York at Albany, USA. His research focuses on the history and heritage of indigenous peoples in pre-Hispanic, colonial, and contemporary Latin America.
Reviews for Tourism and Indigenous Heritage in Latin America: As Observed through Mexico's Magical Village Cuetzalan
Going beyond the sustainability and empowerment frameworks frequently employed in the tourism literature, Casper Jacobsen's Tourism and indigenous heritage in Latin America: As observed through Mexico's Magical Village Cuetzalan offers the reader a critical examination of the emergence of multicultourism, defined by the author as a neoliberal governmentality frame that fuses multicultural politics of recognition with tourism, while conceptualizing indigenous heritage as a 'national resource' to be exploited in tourism initiatives. - Laura Paola Vizcaino-Suarez, Journal of Heritage Tourism
