Tourism, Consumption and Inequality in Central America

Abstract

Much research in international political economy (IPE) has been criticised for focussing on large and powerful actors in post-industrial countries, to the neglect of sites, processes and actors in the global South. This article offers a corrective to this bias in two ways: by locating the analysis in two rural Central American communities; and by exploring the social relations of consumption in these communities. In doing this, I challenge assumptions about rural places being excluded from global processes and explore the complexities and contradictions of how such communities are inserted into global circuits of production and consumption. Drawing on extensive qualitative research, the article explores the ways in which capitalist development through tourism has reconstituted the political economy of consumption in terms of habits, attitudes and behaviour in these two communities. Using the community and the household as sites of analysis, I explore the complex ways in which inequalities have been reconfigured through changing relations of consumption. Certain kinds of social hierarchies, in particular traditional gendered power relations within the household, have been challenged. However, other inequalities – such as class, ethnicity and nationality – have been reinforced by these processes.

Keywords:

• consumption
• Central America
• tourism
• inequality
• gender

Notes

Many thanks to Georgina Waylen for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.  This article was developed during the course of an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship PTA-026-27-1828 at the Department of Politics, University of Sheffield.

I use the term ‘Latin American’ here to include Belize, as it does not fit the characteristics of island tourism in the Caribbean, and fits more precisely within Central American tourism model of development. Moreover, Belize is a member of the Central American Integration System, of which tourism is a key policy component.

Government of Belize, ‘Tourism’, http://www.belize.gov.bz/ct.asp?xItem=619&CtNode=542&mp=27 [Accessed 30 March 2010].

ODI, ‘Rural Community-based Tourism in Central America’, available at http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4623.pdf, p.1 [Accessed 30 March 2010].

Laura Carlsen and Michael Collins, ‘IDB Megaprojects: Displacement, Destruction, and Deception,’ Americas Program Commentary, 28 March 2010, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6708 [Accessed 30 March 2010]; James Rodriguez, ‘Honduras: Garifuna Resistance to Mega-Tourism in Tela Bay’, 31 July 2008, http://www.mimundo-photoessays.org/2008/07/garifuna-resistance-against-mega.html [Accessed 30 March 2010]; author interview with Project Director, Honduran Tourism Institute, Tegucigalpa, January 2006.

James Rodriguez, ‘Honduras: Garifuna Resistance to Mega-Tourism in Tela Bay’.

ODI, ‘Rural Community-based Tourism in Central America’, p. 2.

Celia Dugger, ‘Guatemala: Supermarket Giants Crush Farmers’, New York Times, 28 December 2004.

Anthony Harrup, ‘Wal-Mart de Mexico Completes Central America Acquisition’, Wall Street Journal, 15 February 2010.

Dugger, ‘Guatemala: Supermarket Giants Crush Farmers’.

Dugger, ‘Guatemala: Supermarket Giants Crush Farmers’.

Director of Monteverde Agricultural Cooperative (COOPESANTAELENA).

Mayor, Monteverde Council; Director, Monteverde Institute; Secretary, Village Council, Placencia; Director, Friends of Nature Belize, Placencia.

Director, Monteverde Institute; Secretary, Village Council, Placencia; Researcher, Monteverde Institute, Monteverde.

Waiter, Monteverde.

Ecotourism Teacher, Santa Elena Technical College, Monteverde; Head Teacher, Placencia School; Teacher and Founding Member of Women Making a Difference, Placencia.

Member of Placencia Chamber of Tourism.

Waiter, Monteverde; Secretary and Receptionist, Paradise Vacation Hotel, Placencia.

Director of Monteverde Agricultural Cooperative (COOPESANTAELENA).

Secretary and Receptionist, Paradise Vacation Hotel, Placencia.

Co-founder of Monteverde Women's Handicraft Cooperative (CASEM); Women Workers Focus Group, Monteverde; Secretary, Village Council, Placencia; Teacher and Founding Member of Women Making a Difference, Placencia.

Women Workers Focus Group, Monteverde; Secretary, Village Council, Placencia.

Co-founder of CASEM, Monteverde; Director, Friends of Nature Belize, Placencia.

Researcher, Monteverde Institute.

Co-founder of CASEM, Monteverde.

Researcher, Monteverde Institute, Monteverde.

Director, Belize Women's Department, Belize City.

Director, Monteverde Institute; Director, Friends of Nature Belize, Placencia.

Co-founder of CASEM; Director, Belize Women's Department.

Women Workers Focus Group, Monteverde.

Co-founder of CASEM; Gender Specialist, Monteverde Institute,; Teacher and Founding Member of Women Making a Difference, Placencia.

Co-founder of CASEM.

Gender Specialist, Monteverde Institute.

Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, ‘The Return of the Sandinistas: former guerrillas are trying to foment a tourism boom in Nicaragua, but it's not Costa Rica yet’, Wall Street Journal, 11 March 2006.

Director of Monteverde Agricultural Cooperative; President, Village Council, Placencia; Director, Monteverde Institute; Secretary, Village Council, Placencia.

Secretary, Village Council, Placencia.

Member of Placencia Chamber of Tourism, Placencia.

Director, Friends of Nature Belize, Placencia.

Co-founder of CASEM; Ecotourism Students Focus Group, Monteverde; Secretary, Village Council, Placencia; Member of Placencia Chamber of Tourism.

Secretary, Village Council, Placencia.

Director, Friends of Nature Belize, Placencia.

Ecotourism Students Focus Group, Monteverde; Teacher and Founding Member of Women Making a Difference, Placencia.