Free time as a central issue of tourism studies: a genealogy of leisure/idleness based on the indigenous cosmovisions of Latin America

ABSTRACT

The dominance of the neoliberal ideology over tourism praxis in the last decades have undermined the possibilities for tourism to be seen as a social transformative force. This article considers that the richest part of the tourist experience belongs to the realm of ‘free time’. There is evidence of the importance of free time and leisure in indigenous societies, and to justify that the common-sense view of leisure activities should be confronted. Most literature on indigenous voices in tourism studies identifies the potential of indigenous ideas to contribute to Western/European values of resilience, sustainability and environmental justice. However, such values are employed in the name of modernization and neoliberalism which are taken for granted as values of civilization, but are not so in reality. Thus, this article explores anthropological and indigenous bibliographic productions from Latin America and interviews with indigenous people located in Northeast Brazil to produce a genealogy of leisure, based on 'cultural anthropophagy'. Violence, racism and fear emerged as structural elements of the Western development choice. Tourism studies could further examine leisure as a means to inform contemporary development policies and contribute toward a better life in society, relatively free from such structural ills.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous; leisure; Latin America; critical tourism

Acknowledgements

This article is dedicated to the memory of Professor Keith Hollinshead and to the indigenous intellectuals of Abya Yala.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 It refers to the economic development, through tourism, that followed the Barcelona Olympic Games, in 1992.

2 These are passages of Grundrisse (Marx, 2015), which derive from a pamphlet published in 1821 entitled The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties, deduced from principles of political economy in a letter to Lord John Russell.

3 otium cum dignitate means ‘leisure/idleness with dignity’.

4 The original term ‘natural man’ is used to mean ‘natural human being’.

5 Typical and ancient indigenous houses, made of wood and straw.

6 Tupi word for ‘children’.

7 Translated by the authors as: Ideas to Postpone the End of the World.

8 Translated by the authors as: Life is not useful.

9 Authors’ translation.

10 The Kuna people is original from the Sierra Nevada, in north Columbia, and now lives in Kuna Yala, along the Caribbean coast of Panama.

11 The indigenous intellectual and shaman Yanomami Davi Kopenawa states ‘For us, politics is something else’ (Kopenawa & Albert, 2015, p. 390).

12 The interview of Sidarta Ribeiro can be found in the Selvagem youtube channel, on the website https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g92X3G832pY&ab_channel=SELVAGEMciclodeestudossobreavida, accessed in 4th August 2022.

Additional information

Funding

It acknowledges the financial support provided in part by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq – Brazil) [grant number 404508/2016-2].

Notes on contributors

Mozart Fazito

Mozart Fazito is a Lecturer and researcher at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. He is interested in the relationship of tourism with development theories, urban violence and fear, socioenvironmental conflicts, issues of leisure and free time and qualitative analysis (Foucauldian Discourse Analysis).

Sebastião Vargas

Sebastião Vargas is a Lecturer at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. He is historian and anthropologist, and is interested on the history of indigenous knowledge in Latin America.