Knowledge dialogue through Indigenous tourism product design: a collaborative research process with the Lacandon of Chiapas, Mexico

ABSTRACT

This research analyzes an innovative process employed by Indigenous entrepreneurs and employees to design new and imaginative products closely related to their cultural, social and natural heritage, values and resources. In the State of Chiapas, with over one million Indigenous inhabitants, where poverty has persisted for decades, government and international agencies have promoted the development of many Indigenous tourism initiatives. However, the employment of top-down strategies focused predominantly towards the provision of tourist facilities failed to recognize the crucial role of tourism products and activities, thus sustaining and promoting stereotyped ideas of Indigenous peoples. This paper focuses on the benefits of collaborative research and knowledge dialogue between scientific and traditional wisdom to overcome some of these limitations through the application of an Indigenous Tourism Product Development Model. Using Participatory Action Research processes, university researchers worked with the management and staff of four Indigenous (Lacandon) owned and operated companies located in the communities of Lacanjá Chansayab and Nahá (Lacandon Jungle) in Mexico, to create a series of new cultural and heritage-related products. The paper explores the capacity of this process to revitalize culture while fostering feelings of accomplishment, participation, cultural pride and creative confidence among the co-researchers.

知识对话透过本土旅游产品设计：与墨西哥恰帕斯拉坎顿人的合作研究过程

在原住民聚集但贫困的恰帕斯，政府及国际机构已发展多项本土旅游计划。但发展策略未能认识到旅游产品的关键作用而维持和加深了原住民的偏见。本文应用本土旅游产品开发模型聚焦合作研究和科学与传统智慧间知识对话的益处克服部分局限性。利用参与式行动研究过程，大学研究员与拉坎顿社群4间本土公司的职员共事以创造一系列有关文化遗产的新产品；探索了此过程振兴文化同时培养合作研究员成就及参与感、文化自豪和创新信心的能力。

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous tourism
• product design
• knowledge dialogue
• participatory process and collaborative research

关键字:

• 本土旅游
• 产品设计
• 知识对话
• 参与过程和合作研究

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to the Lacandon tourism entrepreneurs, co-researches of this work, the three anonymous reviewers for their influential comments and the editor Bernard Lane for his invaluable help.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pilar Espeso-Molinero

Pilar Espeso-Molinero is a researcher at the University Institute of Tourism Research and lecturer at the University of Alicante, Spain. Her research interest and professional experience are focused on Indigenous tourism, creativity, community capacity building and product design, from a critical and decolonizing perspective.

Sheena Carlisle

Sheena Carlisle is a senior lecturer in Tourism Management at the Department of Tourism, Hospitality and Events at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Her research interests include the role and practice of tourism to assist poverty alleviation, SMEs and sustainable development and tourism ethics. She is particularly interested in a multi-disciplinary focus on tourism research and the application of project management tools for sustainability.

María José Pastor-Alfonso

María José Pastor-Alfonso is a researcher at the University Institute of Tourism Research, University of Alicante, Spain. She has conducted research on the relationship between tourism, culture, heritage, identity and the environment. Her most recent work has focused on the sociocultural impacts of tourism in Indigenous communities.