Journal of Sustainable Tourism
Editors: Bill Bramwell (Sheffield Hallam University) and Bernard Lane (Visiting Research Fellow, Sheffield Hallam University)
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Volume: 10 Number: 3 Page: 191–206
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The Development of Community-based Tourism: Re-thinking the Relationship Between Tour Operators and Development Agents as Intermediaries in Rural and Isolated Area Communities
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Stephen Wearing and Matthew McDonald
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The purpose of this paper is to invoke a Foucauldian framework in order to re-think the development of community-based tourism by focusing on the relationship between intermediaries and rural and isolated
area communities in Papua New Guinea. Foucault's concepts of power/knowledge and governmentality provide a 'way of thinking' about this relationship that challenges the dominant discourse of the tourism
industry. To further elaborate these alternative concepts, the researchers lead a discussion through a number of areas that impact on the development of community-based tourism. These include the introduction
of western models of management and their ability to undermine traditional forms of knowledge, the conceptualisation of the tourist destination as interactive space, and a critique of the tourism industry
through poststructuralist feminist theory. From these perspectives community-based tourism or ecotourism suggests a symbolic or mutual relationship where the tourist is not given central priority but becomes
an equal part of the system.
© Multilingual Matters 2002
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