The role of self-gentrification in sustainable tourism: Indigenous entrepreneurship at Honghe Hani Rice Terraces World Heritage Site, China

ABSTRACT

This article examines three forms of tourism gentrification within the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces UNESCO World Heritage Site in Yunnan, China. The Indigenous Hani and Yi communities who populate this remote mountainous area possess distinct cultural practices that have supported the rice terrace ecosystem for centuries. This article uses interviews and non-participant observation conducted with inhabitants and newcomers to analyse the gentrification within the site. We argue that Indigenous cultural practices, and consequently rice cultivation in the area, are threatened by gentrifier-led and state-led gentrification, combined with high levels of outward migration of Indigenous persons. This poses a significant threat to the sustainability of tourism there, to the survival of the traditions and culture of the Indigenous inhabitants and could compromise the site's World Heritage Status. Some Indigenous people are, however, improving their socio-economic standing – and becoming “middle-class” or “gentry” – particularly through adopting entrepreneurial strategies gleaned from their encounters with outside-gentrifiers and tourists. This article proposes the concept of “self-gentrification” as a way to describe individuals who seek to improve themselves and their own communities, while threatened by gentrification, and offers ways to promote that concept to help conserve both heritage landscapes and Indigenous ways of life.

可持续性旅游的自我中产阶级化：中国世界遗产地红河哈尼族水稻梯田的本土创业

该文章检验了中国UNESCO世界遗产地云南红河哈尼族水稻梯田的三种旅游自我中产阶级化。居住在这个偏远山区的具有独特的文化实践的本土哈尼族和彝族在几个世纪中支持了水稻梯田生态系统。该文章对居民和新来的人使用采访和非参与的观察方法来分析该地的自我中产阶级化。我们争论本土文化实践，和后来的该地的水稻种植，被阶层引导的和被政府引导的自我中产阶级化，还有和本土人向外迁徙的高层次而威胁。这提出了对可持续性旅游的，对传统的存活和本土原居民的文化成为一个重要的威胁，可能损害该地的世界遗产地位。但是，一些当地人，改善了他们的社会经济地位 – 和成为``中级阶层"或``贵族" – 特别是通过采用创业策略从他们和旅游者和外界中产阶级的接触中收集到了。该文章提出了``自我中产阶级化"的概念作为描述个体寻求改善他们自己和他们的社区，当被自化所威胁，提供了方法来促进该概念来帮助保护遗产景观和本土生活方式。

KEYWORDS:

• Self-gentrification
• Indigenous
• entrepreneurship
• tourism gentrification
• sustainability
• World Heritage Site

关键词:

• 自我中产阶级化
• 本土
• 创业
• 旅游自化
• 可持续性
• 世界遗产地

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the support of Yuanyang County Government, Yunnan Shibo-Yuanyang Co. Ltd., many officers and residents at the local villages and schools in the World Heritage Site, as well as many students at Minzu University of China who had assisted in the data collection and transcription, in particular Lingling Yin, Hao Qin, Zhongjuan Ji, Wenlong Li, and Xiaoyuan Pan.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Manshu, Tang Dynasty (618–970 AD), documented minority ethnic groups practising an ingenious form of mountain farming in southern Yunnan, but without further details. The more reliable records describing rice terraces and irrigation channels appeared in Ming dynasty (1368–1644 AD) (Shimpei, 2007).

2. All quotations are translated from Chinese unless specified.

3. Data for the number of households are provided by local government.

4. Income figures were collected by local government prior to the application of World Heritage listing in 2012.

5. See Chan et al. (2016) for information on the roles and corporate structure of the company.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jin Hooi Chan

Dr Jin Hooi Chan is a senior lecturer in the Business School, University of Greenwich, and an associate researcher in the Energy Policy Research Group, University Cambridge. A multidisciplinary researcher, he is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Environmentalist, with wide international experience, a PhD degree in Management Studies from Judge Business School, and an MPhil degree in Sustainable Development at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on industrial organisation, industrial policy, entrepreneurship and innovation, specialising on sustainability, environment and cleantech industry.

Katia Iankova

Dr Katia Iankova is a senior lecturer in the Business School, University of Greenwich. She researches sustainable practices and the use of alternative energies in hospitality and accommodation; climate change and adaptation strategies for the tourism and travel industries; and opportunities and challenges in the youth and the labour markets.

Ying Zhang

Dr Ying Zhang is a professor at the School of Management and deputy director of the Office of International Relations at Minzu University of China. Her research interests are in cultural heritage management, sustainable tourism development and the marketing of cultural and heritage tourism. She has managed several national-level research projects.

Tom McDonald

Dr Tom McDonald is an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology, The University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on how consumption is changing the lives of ordinary people in China, and has published on hospitality, clothing, the home and the Internet. He is researching how social media is transforming rural China, part of a large European Research Council funded cross-cultural comparative study.

Xiaoguang Qi

Dr Xiaoguang Qi is a deputy director of the OSCE Institute and IBSS faculty at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. He received his PhD degree by a joint programme collaborated between University College London-UCL and Minzu University of China; he also has an MBA degree. Research interests include economic and business anthropology, global logistics and shipping, and cross-cultural management.