ES295 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Cultural Hegemony, Eurocentrism, Ecotourism
2 Nov 2020
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Document Summary
Host communities cope with tourism by differentiating between backstage space where local culture is retained and frontstage where an adapted version of the local community is presented. Hard ecotourists specifically may gear themselves towards to backstage areas of the location to get a full understanding of the true natural environment versus what is presented. This can result in cultural and social disruption. This can present itself specifically in cases where international visitors are volunteering at parks for long amounts of time especially when visitors are motivated by egotistical decisions. Ecotourism is based on an elitist western or eurocentric value system that is often imposed on destinations under the assumption that ecotourism is the mode of tourism preferred by local residents and best for them. Cater in 2006 stated that is a cultural hegemony worried about the relative flow of wealthy tourists from the developed countries to the less developed countries.
