Joseph Franke <jfranke@igc.apc.org> writes:
| I am presently helping to conduct a study of indigenous generated
| tourism projects the world over. If anybody has information (including
| contact people) and could pass it on, please E-mail it to the address
| below. I am particularly interested in projects that have managed to help
| preserve indigenous culture and values and have contributed to
| preservation of of local resources. I'm in the process of assisting several
| communities who are interested in some form of "tourism" and would
| like to see what precedents exist.
|
| Thanks,
| Joe Franke, Director
| First Nations Health Project, Inc. jfranke@igc.apc.org
I am not a Native Person but rather an anthropologist who works with Maya
Indians in Yucatan. I understand the distrust and anger felt toward
anthropologists by many Native Peoples and apologize for the ethnocentrism
and failures of myself and many of my fellow anthropologists. I cannot
promise not to make more mistakes in the future and hope I am not doing so
now. I am trying and would like to both respond to your query and provide
the information I have which might be helpful to you. In the spirit of
"all our relations" I offer the following:
Address of Ecotourism Society, which has interests in promoting socially and
environmentally responsible tourism and has invited Native leaders to
international conferences and paid their way:
801 Deveon Place
Alexandria, VA 22314
Phone: 703-549-8979
Fax: 703-549-2920
I do not have with me at the moment the same info. for World Wildlife Fund
and Conservation International, but they also have done some work with
indigenous peoples.
Most experienced in these matters is probably
Cultural Survival, Inc.
11 Divinity Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617-495-2562
FAX: 617-495-1396
[ The current address of Cultural Survival, which has come in for a fair
amount of criticism lately, on the basis that they promote "neo-liberal"
policies which do not really benefit indigenous peoples (see NATIVE-L
archives for more details) is:
215 First Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-621-3818
FAX: 617-621-3814
e-mail: survival@husc.harvard.edu
(Cultural Survival has recently joined the NATIVE-L mailing list.)
--Gary ]
Books:
Hosts and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism, 1989. Ed. by Valene L.
Smith. Philadelphia: Univ. of Penn. Press. (A collection of articles
written from different points of view concerining tourists and local people
in different parts of the world.)
Empty Meeting Grounds: The Tourist Papers, 1992. by Dean MacCannell. NY:
Routledge Press. (reflections on Cannibal Tours, a movie about tourism ,
tourists and native people by O'Rourke--good discussion of power differences
and hidden meetings and differing expectations and stereotyping).
Cultural Survival Quarterly has two issues devoted to tourism and native
peoples, 1990, vol. 14, no.s 1 & 2. See address above, also may be
available at your local library.
There are also the published proeceedings of the first two international
ecotourism conferences (in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico and in Miami, Florida,
USA ) sponsored by Pronatura, Mexico; Association of Wetlands Managers;
Sierra Club, US; Yucatan Department of Tourism, Yucatan Department of
Ecology. The Procedings are entitled: Ecotourism and Resource
Conservation: A Collection of Papers. Vol. 1 & 2, Ed. Jon A. Kusler,
available through writing to the following address:
Ecotourism and Conservation Project
PO Box 2463
Berne, NY 12023-9746
There are also two excellent volumes by Liz Boo at World Wildlife Fund.
But I do not, unfortunately have their address handy at the moment.
Also Conservation International has been working with indigenous
people in Ecuador and other areas as well.
I would be interested in the perceptions of Native Americans concerning
the fairness of the above resources and in knowing about any additional
ones that might be useful to the Maya.
Where I have worked in Mexico, since 1985 off and on, people are very
interested in having tourists come to their village in the hopes of making
money. Another reason is that they enjoy learning about the world from
talking with people who are from different places. I am concerned that
they may need more information from people who have had experience with
tourism on how to protect themselves from the potential exploitation. I'm
interested in information concerning how to control tourists so that they do
not offend people and how to capture some of the profits so they do not all
end up in the hands of the tour agencies and advertisers, hotel owners, etc.
I have been working with them on designing environmentally safe, easily
constructed, rustic accomodations with minimal equipment, expertise, and
materials from outside the local area--which would be acceptable to the
Maya, affordable by them, and attractive to tourists. The goal is for the
Maya to do it themselves as much as possible and be in control and to own
the accomodations--cabins and dining room/kitchen buidling, interpretive
center, museum, etc. Ideas so far include: solar panels, storage batteries,
etc. (disadvantage, need to be improved); traditional Maya houses with
screens on windows and doors, fans; composting outhouses which furnish
safe-to-use fertilizer for organically growing fruits and veggies (my idea)
-- disadvantage: handling human wastes as fertilizer is not part of local
culture. Problem is that sewage disposal is very problematic in limestone
rock subsoil and contamination of village water supplies is already
ocurring just from the community's own use of backgardens [traditional] and
some modern septic tanks/toilets in the most affluent of the modernized
homes); community decision making and control over what will be offered to
tourists and what will not, who gets what part of charges for the privilege
to visit the village, who gets to build, run, staff, etc. the accomodations
for tourists at what salary, what will be prepared for tourist meals by whom
and how those people will be compensated (fear-- factions and conflict over
access to these positions and benefits). Incentive for all of this is that
the Maya in this village have cut down and sold most of the available timber
as raw logs and now are facing a serious economic crunch-- of the 30+
lumber trucks owned by villagers, most are being used now to haul rocks to
the city of Campeche where they are sold for building material. This use of
the trucks is not yielding much income and the wages paid to those who wrest
the stones from the earth to sell is far less than what they were paid by
their fellow villagers to cut timber and carry it out of the forest and
onto trucks. The reasons that this predominantly Maya village became
involved in rather short-term exploitation of their forest are very
complicated and have a long history involving external incentives and
pressure. But the immediate problem is that people are suffering hunger and
malnutrition, children and old people are getting sick, young people are
migrating to the city where most will probably end up in the slums. There
is an archaeological site near their village that is being reconstructed in
the hopes of bringing in more tourists and tourist dollars. The village
owns one bus collectively and two of the local families privately own two
others. They are at the end of the road and thus run the buses to service
all the towns between themselves and the big city. Therefore they could
arrange to service the archaeolgoical site which is only 2 kilometers off
the main highway to the city. They could also make and sell embroideried
blouses, shirts, skirts, and dresses to tourists--also possibly hammocks and
gourds. The problem is that most people no longer use the gourds or the
traditional embroidered clothing. However, there are enough old timers in
the village that they could teach the younger ones. Such encouragement of
cultural revival might also be very welcome among the older generation who
fears that their children no longer are interested in the traditions of the
ancestors, even though they also want them to succeed and be able to protect
themselves as Mexicans in the modern world. The language is being lost, the
parents can understand it but do not speak it, most of today's children do
not understand it. Even the grandparents are ashamed to speak it in public,
and speak only Spanish in front of outsiders or any of the younger
generation. The grandparents only speak Maya among themselves. The parents
generally think that this loss of Maya language is necessary so that their
children can learn Spanish well in order to succeed in the national
culture. The elders have mixed feelings, wanting their grandchildren to not
be poor, to be able to succeed and not have to suffer. But they also fear
the loss of the culture. A few of the young people have begun to regret
the loss and wish that they had learned Maya as children, when it is easier.
It may also be difficult to bring tourists to town or even to the
archaeological site because this area is far from the Caribbean beaches of
Cancun. Tourists may not want to come. Some people have gone to Cancun
looking for work. Some of them are dazzled by what they see there and want
more. Others are disgusted by what the see in Cancun--people who don't
work, who lie around getting drunk and making noise, who don't plant corn
and teach their children manners, etc.
In addition, I know one Guatemalan refugee in Mexico who is finishing a
Bachelor's degree in anthropology at the University of Mexico (UNAM) and who
wants desperately to come to the US and go to graduate school in
anthropology. He is a Maya Indian from the Highlands. He has struggled
against enormous odds and made it to college from a refugee camp. Most of
his family was massacred in the genocide that took place in the Guatemalan
highlands in the late 70s early 80s. He does not know very much English
yet, but already speaks three Indigenous languages and reads and writes in
Spanish at a college level. Is there anyone who can help him get funding to
come to the US to study? He would need probably a year of intensive help
with English before he could enter a graduate program in anthropology in the
US. Could he stay on a reservation where he could share his knowledge and
people whould help him with his English. I have not been able to find any
way to get him scholarship assistance in this country until he knows English.
He is also interested in returning to Guatemala and working with his
village and others to find ways in which they can work directly with
tourists instead of being used as objects by Ladino and international
tourist agencies who do not share their profits with the Guatemalan
Indians.
If you can send any information to the above address, it would be greatly
appreciated. If there is any difficulty in getting E-Mail through you
could write to me at
Dr. Betty B. Faust
1835 Fremont St.
Ashland, Oregon 97520
or FAX at 503 552-6439
or Call at 503-552-6758.
My Email address is: Faust@wpo.sosc.osshe.edu an alternative which
should also get it here is Faust@sosc1.sosc.osshe.edu --
In the spirit of "all our relations" I thank you for any help you can help
me get to the Maya.
Betty Faust
I am new at E-Mail and just figuring out how this works. I hope this
reaches you and others.
If you have any information that you think might be useful to the Maya,
or can give me any feedback on the above ideas, I would be happy to
take it with me and translate it for them when I return for two years of
research this July first.
[ I've just checked the lists, and find that Betty is still subscribed
to the NATIVE-L list, so it would appear that she has access to e-mail
even if she is now out doing her field work. Once again, my sincere
apologies for having delayed this item, which got kinda "stuck" in a
queue that I thought I had cleared out earlier. Mea culpa. --Gary ]