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Abstract
Participatory development literature involving community-based ecotourism management (CBEM) has only recently addressed issues pertaining to indigenous governance and decision-making systems. This paper contributes to sustainable tourism by presenting local decision-making practices and issues arising from the perspective of the members of one village in the Boumā National Heritage Park, Fiji. It shows that introduced democratic decision-making systems may not contribute to political empowerment in CBEM and can cause difficult situations. It is argued that greater attention to local systems of governance is required if tourism practitioners are to fully understand decision-making and participation in CBEM. The paper also offers a culturally appropriate methodology that may produce more meaningful outcomes for sustainable tourism research in indigenous Fijian contexts, and in other contexts worldwide. It argues that levels of empowerment should not just be treated as the outcome but as a part of the process of tourism development. It explores the core Fijian cultural concept of vanua as a way of life, involving interrelated social, ecological and spiritual elements. An emic perspective utilising informal talanoa (discussions) is used and examined, along with the roles of kin groups, village spokesmen and clan systems, and their relationship with western business decision-making practices.
本土和民主决策：以斐济岛的Bouma国家遗产公园社区为基准的生态旅游为例
包括社区为基准的生态旅游管理(CBEM)内容的参与发展类文献中，只在最近才提到关于本土治理的决策系统的问题。该文章通过对斐济岛上的Bouma国家遗产公园中的一个村落里成员对于当地规划决策实践的看法而对可持续旅游的研究有所贡献。结论显示引进民主化决策系统可能对CBEM中的政策权利分配并无利处，而可能引起困难的局面。文章辩驳道如果旅游实践者要完全理解CBEM的决策和参与，就必须非常注意当地治理的系统。文章并且提供了适合多文化应用的研究方法，能够为本土斐济文化的可持续旅游研究提供有意义的结果，并可能对世界其他地方的相似研究作出贡献。文章指出权利分配不应该被看作是后果，而更应该被作为旅游发展过程的一部分。文章中还探讨了主要的斐济文化概念：Vanua，把它作为生活的一种方式来看待，包括相关的社会，生态和精神方面的要素。非正式的talanoa（讨论）在文章中作为对比的态度被使用和探讨。另外作为对比的还用到亲戚血缘的影响，村落发言人和部落系统，还有他们与西方商务决策实践的关系。
Acknowledgments
Trisia Angela Farrelly is a Lecturer in the Social Anthropology Programme, School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Her research interests are based in the South Pacific region and include indigenous community-based ecotourism as indigenous entrepreneurship, indigenous decision-making and indigenous epistemologies. Recently, her work has turned to more broadly address negotiations occurring at the nexus of non-indigenous notions of “environmental sustainability” and human–environment relationships in general.
Notes
1. Throughout this paper, the term “community” will be used in its most heterogeneous and complex form.
2. Koroyanitu National Park, Sigatoka Sandunes National Park, Colo-i-Suva Forest Reserve, Nausori Highlands and Lovoni Trail.
3. The National Trust of Fiji is a statutory body funded jointly by the Fiji Government, independent donors and multi-lateral projects, established in 1970 to protect Fiji's natural, cultural and national heritage (www.nationaltrust.org.fj).
4. The terms “formal” and “informal” are misleading here. Many traditional social institutions are highly formalised. For this reason, Cleaver (Citation1999, p. 601) suggests an alternative terminology, “organisational” and/or “socially embedded”, and notes that these should not be treated as mutually exclusive.
5. Emile Durkheim's (Citation1897) use of French philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau's term “anomie” in his influential book, Le Suicide, describes anomie as a disintegration of standards or values, or “normlessness”, and a feeling of alienation or purposelessness. He writes that anomie normally occurs in societies undergoing dramatic economic change. The change that occurs is at odds with what is actually achievable in everyday mundane life.
6. Avoidance/prohibitive relationships.
7. This paper is based on nine months of participant observation in two of the four villages that constitute the Boumā National Heritage Park. Although the fieldwork period took place in 2006, the first visit to Boumā was in 2005 and research continued minimally after the fieldwork period until 2006 in the form of two short visits in 2005 and 2006. I continued to follow media coverage on the Park, and limited email correspondence with a Peace Officer stationed in Boumā was maintained until 2006. While most of the research concentrated on Lavena Village where my husband, our one-year old son and I lived, I regularly visited other villages. My participants included those directly involved with ecotourism management and activities as well as those who had either little interest or little to do with the ecotourism initiatives in the Park. I talked with people across clans, ages, genders and community roles, and attended community, Park management and district meetings. In the nine months of fieldwork, I had accumulated more than 150 hours of voice-recorded talanoa with approximately 100 participants. Building rapport and trust was a slow and sometimes difficult process. However, this was vital if I was to understand anything beyond the surface public representations of “how things were” in Boumā, as informal talanoa (as the central method) is based on trust and mutual respect. Because of the often political nature of the research content, anonymity was vital. As Boumā is a relatively small community and each village within it even smaller, some key community figures could be easily identified. To overcome this, I occasionally created “composite narratives” in which some of the speaker's identities or stories were juxtaposed with others. This could only be done if the composite did not compromise the central “truth” of the research narrative. There are many lessons I took away from the research process as a whole. This included the importance of taking time to build rapport and trust, and that research should be conducted in a way that both honours and that is meaningful and valuable for all participants.
8. Village spokesperson.
