Indigenous Tourism and Processes of Resilience – About Communicative Strategies among Tourism Workers in Québec

ABSTRACT

Tourism is a well-known way of life for an increasing portion of the world's indigenous communities, and it has taken tortuous paths and undergone changes in approach and meaning.

Indigenous tourism is examined here within the theoretical framework of resilience, focusing on development, communication and justification. Men and women and their perspectives on space, time and spatial relations are the crucial agents in these processes. Based on an empirical study in Québec, Canada, we show that the impact of indigenous tourism includes networks within the local community at the regional and national levels, as well as translocal networks and relationships. Communicative processes are essential for achieving resilience, communicating identity within families and the community, and giving a voice to a political project. We argue that indigenous tourism works on several geographical levels and that these levels intersect and have the potential to increase resilience if they interact. Our study supplements resilience development theory by highlighting the need to consider communities as parts of networks. It also contributes to the field of tourism research by emphasising communication on several levels.

KEYWORDS:

• Resilience
• Indigenous peoples
• Québec
• Sustainability
• Indigenous tourism
• Gender

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the interviewed women and men who participated in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Indian Act (established in 1876 and reformulated in 1956) sets out an important framework for the lives of indigenous people. The Indian Act decides who has Indian status and constitutes the law that decides how the indigenous people of Canada should be treated and what rights they have in Canadian society. It thus differentiates indigenous people from each other, deciding political status and cultural identity (Warry 2007). For example, the income tax exemption, which applies to indigenous peoples, only applies to indigenous peoples living on a reservation. Until the Act came into force it was impossible to be an indigenous person and full member of Canadian society.

2. The grass roots movement Idle No More drew attention to the impact of Canada's colonial history and continued assimilationist practices. The movement gained momentum and popularity through the use of social media techniques such as Facebook and Twitter, similar to the Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring movements (Castells 2012). This movement also drew attention to a need for transformation of the environmental legislation.