Participation as motif in community-based tourism: a practice perspective

ABSTRACT

Community-based tourism (CBT) is a diversely interpreted term, which has presented understanding and practice contests. These contests highlight the centrality (or not) of participation in CBT, and even its developmental failure. We attempt to move the conversation away from whether and how much participation exists to focus on emic interpretations of how CBT is experienced. As such, our focus is on how and why communities participate in CBTs, as informed by practice theory. We examine how participation might be understood and explained across three cases from Kenya, namely Il Ngwesi, Lumo Wildlife Sanctuary and Mwaluganje Elephant Sanctuary. The data were obtained through in-depth interviews, participant observation and documented sources. The findings highlighted that CBT was a response to contextual challenges, led by the community elders. Community participation was often through representation, which is interpreted in relation to local practices. Case narratives and thematic analysis demonstrated that community participation appeared across the cases as a recurrent practice, or motif, its different forms influenced by local sociocultural, economic and sometimes political tensions in each case environment. Understanding how community participation takes place in different settings informs possibilities for realizing and enhancing tourism-led community development strategies, freeing participation from apparent Western standards.

KEYWORDS:

• Community development
• Kenya
• practice theory
• trust relationships
• traditional governance
• tourism-led development

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge all those who participated in the interviews, particularly members of Il Ngwesi, Lumo and Mwaluganje-Golini communities. The authors also acknowledge the editors and reviewers for their valuable inputs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Melphon Mayaka

Melphon Angwenyi Mayaka holds a PhD degree in management from Monash Business School. He has research interests in tourism and development; community-based tourism; strategic issues in tourist destination management; and tourism hospitality and events higher education.

W. Glen Croy

Glen Croy is a senior lecturer in Monash Business School, and a visiting researcher at the Oxford School of Hospitality Management. His teaching and research interests are in tourism, with special research interests in the role of media in tourism; higher education; and tourism in natural and protected areas.

Julie Wolfram Cox

Julie Wolfram Cox is a professor of management in the Monash Business School and Chair of the Organization Development and Change Division of the Academy of Management. Her research interests include interpretive and critical studies of organizational change; organization development and resistance dynamics; organization theory and research metatheory; organizational aesthetics and identity politics; and occupational identity and professionalization.