Abstract
Anthropologists and other social scientists have traditionally decried the effects of tourism on exotic cultures, but contemporary research reveals that this growing resource is being utilized by rational actors to achieve political and social gains. Study of the effects of tourism on the political choices of Maya in Yucatán suggests that tourism helps indigenous actors negotiate favorable terms with state and private actors. Further, the presence of tourists reorganizes the costs and benefits of behaviors such as protests or land invasions. Thus this extrainstitutional behavior is more prevalent in the largest tourist areas (Cancún, Mérida, and Chichén Itzá) and covert behaviors such as pilfering and sick-outs in nontourist areas.
Tradicionalmente, los antropólogos y científicos sociales han condenado los efectos del turismo sobre culturas exóticas, pero la investigación contemporánea pone de manifiesto que este recurso creciente está siendo utilizado por actores racionales para lograr beneficios políticos y sociales. El estudio de los efectos del turismo sobre las preferencias políticas de los maya en Yucatán sugiere que el turismo ayuda a los actores indígenas a negociar términos favorables con actores estatales y privados. Además, la presencia de turistas reorganiza los costos y beneficios de conductas como protestas o invasiones de tierras. Entonces, esta conducta extra-institucional es más prevalente en las zonas turísticas más grandes (Cancún, Mérida y Chichén Itzá) y las conductas encubiertas como el rateo y las ausencias colectivas por enfermedad prevalecen en zonas no-turísticas.
Indigenous populations lag behind others with regard to economic development and political representation. For example, in Guatemala during the years 1989–2000, poverty rates declined by 25 percent for nonindigenous populations and only 15 percent for indigenous populations (Hall and Patrinos, 2006). A similar pattern was observed in Yucatán during the years 1992–2002, when poverty rates declined by 5 percent for nonindigenous populations while there was no appreciable reduction for indigenous ones. These structural inequalities are further reinforced by indigenous populations’ limited access to public goods such as quality education, health care, and public infrastructure. Despite these structural constraints, indigenous populations’ mobilization and visibility have increased in the past 20 years. In 1991 Guatemala created the Maya Language Academy, an autonomous government agency empowered to promote Maya culture and standardize aspects of Maya languages (Sánchez, 1998). This enhanced political influence is further illustrated by the international attention achieved by the Zapitistas during the Chiapas rebellion in 1994 and, more recently, the high-profile victories of indigenous communities in presidential elections in Bolivia and Ecuador.
According to official estimates, indigenous people constitute approximately 10 percent of Latin America’s population (Hall and Patrinos, 2006). Given the historical marginalization and the relative size of indigenous populations, how can their influence and political awareness be explained? We argue that tourism empowers indigenous populations by providing them with a sphere of influence that is directly linked to their identity, a protected political space that allows them to pursue their political interests. The relationship between indigenous empowerment, state recognition, and tourism is particularly important when tourism is based on the experience of connecting with an exotic culture. In this context indigenous political actors use their identity to gain political recognition. Instead of destroying identity by assimilating populations and creating economic exploitation, tourism enhances their efficacy with regard to political mobilization.
The social science literature regarding tourism and indigenous cultures has largely focused on the exploitation of labor, income inequality, and cultural destruction. Many theorists have argued that tourism or globalization breaks down traditional structures and cultures in indigenous communities (Little, 2004; Torres and Momsen, 2005; Van Der Bly, 2007; Wolf, 1969). For example, Walter Little (2004) found that competition for tourist receipts in Antigua, Guatemala, transformed traditional communal life and cooperative relationships. He noted the “Disneyfication” of Maya culture as the community modified its behavior in order to attract the “tourist gaze.” Hitchcock (1999) has pointed out that tourism supports existing class structures by requiring indigenous people to behave in stereotypical ways and called this a new form of colonial influence. García Canclini (1995) has explored the “hybridization” that occurs when unique cultures are subsumed by consumer-based cultures. According to Torres and Momsen (2005), the concentration of wealth and employment in “tourist poles” draws resources away from nontourist rural areas and forces their inhabitants to migrate in pursuit of employment. In Cancún, especially, many tourism workers migrate great distances to find work. This limits their ability to interact with their communities of origin and fosters the creation of urban shantytowns.
These critiques provide a framework for understanding the deleterious effects of tourism, but they fail to consider the robust literature on social mobilization in peasant communities. Paige (1975) proposed that peasants behave in a politically “rational” manner, assessing the costs and benefits of their activities and adjusting their behavior in order to maximize their rate of return. He contended that large multinational plantations create bargaining space for peasants; the additional capital they have to invest in wages and productivity tools creates a flexible environment that allows them to bargain with their workers, which leads to modest wage reforms rather than revolution. In contrast, when noncultivators’ profits are derived from land they have no excess capital to address workers’ dissatisfaction with wages, and the inelasticity of resources inherent in this structure generates a zero-sum game between cultivators and noncultivators. Under these conditions, the parties are unable to negotiate a compromise, and this provides the cultivators with an incentive to challenge the existing distribution of resources. Brockett (2005: 152) has extended the idea of rational peasants to a discussion of political legitimacy for oppressed people. He suggests that oppressed people do not always internalize their subjugation within existing structures. Outside agents can become consciousness raisers for them, disrupting the existing equilibrium by providing “new sources of assistance and protection . . . [that] can change the strategic calculations” for these actors. Scott (1985) argued that, since resisters in marginalized populations may encounter life-threatening retaliation if they engage in strikes or mass demonstrations, they often engage in subtle resistance behaviors that are efficient, low-cost mechanisms for challenging the system.
Paige’s rational peasants and Brockett’s consciousness raisers do not operate in a vacuum but interact in the context of a state. As defined by Migdal (1988), the state is a unit made up of coordinated agencies and institutions that has the ability or authority to implement rules for all people and establish the criteria for rule making for other organizations in a given area, using force if necessary. In many cases, state actions influence class-based interactions because states can redistribute resources to include or exclude specific groups from political institutions and power structures. When faced with social mobilization the state can attempt to accommodate the mobilized group or ignore it; however, ignoring the group is risky because alienating it will reduce the state’s legitimacy and make it necessary to use force to maintain order (Deutsch, 1961).
The rapid increase in travel and communication contributes to a diffusion of ideas, and therefore the positive effects of differentiation are emerging as important forces in the new global economy. As Van Der Bly (2007) concluded in her study of Ireland, groups and regions are discovering that there is value in their unique cultures, and this makes cultures themselves marketable resources. Their economic value realigns the costs and benefits of cultural preservation because it gives actors an incentive to retain and celebrate their cultures and provides states with incentives to recognize and include these marginalized groups.
Theoretical Framework
The concept of indigenous-dependent tourism—tourism that is marketed as offering the tourist exposure to living indigenous people—emerges from the intersection of the literatures just described. Thus, the concept of indigenous populations is informed by the characteristics of peasant populations as described by Paige. Historically, indigenous populations are marginalized from many existing state and economic structures, and they often exist in geographic and social clusters. 1 Consequently, their ability to generate social mobility is often limited by a lack of economic or political resources. As do Paige’s peasants, indigenous people assess their political options and engage in activities to address their concerns, but these activities are constrained by the political and economic context. The distribution of resources, which is measured here as the presence and type of tourism, is the key causal variable. Indigenous-dependent tourism mirrors the agricultural commodity market described by Paige because indigenous mobilization behavior can be predicted from the group’s relationship to tourism.
Indigenous-dependent tourism differs from traditional “sun, sand, and sea” tourism in that the commodity is not the geographical setting but the indigenous culture. Tourists of this kind function as consciousness raisers by affirming the unique cultures of indigenous communities. Perhaps even more important, their presence changes the payoffs of class and state interactions. As in Paige’s model of multinational corporations and waged workers, indigenous-dependent tourism brings landholders economic growth and capital, and this makes them more likely to compromise with the demands of a mobilizing indigenous group. Beyond this, the situation provides additional protection for indigenous mobilization because tourists want indigenous people to be treated fairly and will be likely to observe mistreatment or violence against them. Instability may reduce tourism in the area, and all parties will suffer from decreases in revenue; therefore, the state allows indigenous people access to some of the benefits of indigenous-dependent tourism without challenging the privileged position of the ruling class. Consequently, indigenous-dependent tourism provides indigenous populations with leverage, and they use this leverage to increase their access to economic resources. The state also seeks to co-opt these groups by providing institutional recognition and legitimate political channels for addressing grievances. This state-sanctioned activity is designed to reduce the likelihood of violent actions and ensure that the region remains stable for continued tourism.
Methods
Case Selection
Yucatán is an excellent case for exploring the effects of tourism on indigenous political activity because it has a large indigenous population and both kinds of tourism in addition to areas in which indigenous people live but tourism is not a significant source of income. The population of self-identified Maya exceeds 10 million (some 10 percent of Mexico’s population), residing in clusters on the Yucatán peninsula and in Chiapas and Oaxaca (Hall and Patrinos, 2006). This population is distributed across tourist areas and nontourist areas, which allows for the comparison of Maya with different resource distributions.
Tourism is an extremely important source of revenue for the nation. In 2006, 33 percent of all international money that entered Mexico (US$3.8 billion) was connected to tourism (Fraga et al., 2008). The substantial revenue generated by tourism caused the Mexican government to establish tourist centers, and the state “played a strong interventionist role in ‘pushing’ tourism through planning, providing infrastructure, and acting as entrepreneur and banker” (Clancy, 2001: 132). Projects of the state of Yucatán have included lengthening of the dock in Progreso, construction of a new airport in Valladolid to provide access to Chichén Itzá, and improvements of roads and parking at Maya tourism sites (Martin and Gonzalez, 2008). In its original incarnation, Mexico’s tourism plan was centered on attracting sun, sand, and sea tourists, but over time the government sought to create additional tourism in the interior of the country. This process is evident in the Mundo Maya project, which focused on “new tourism products” and on Maya culture as a tourist commodity (Marín, 2008). Further, while these sites were originally envisioned as archaeological sites, the promotion of them includes numerous references to seeing indigenous people, buying handicrafts and clothing, and hearing indigenous languages. All buses pass through an “indigenous village” in which tourists are encouraged to order Maya calendars for birthdays and anniversaries. Women in traditional indigenous clothing are featured predominantly on all Cancún hotel brochures for trips to Chichén Itzá, and simple Maya phrases are taught on the bus.
Because this project seeks to understand the effects of different types of tourism on indigenous mobilization, we included areas that drew a majority of their revenue from each tourism type—sun, sand, and sea tourism and indigenous-dependent tourism— and a third group for which tourism was not a resource, the primary sources of income being agriculture, textiles, and migratory labor. The researcher who identified the cases confirmed the status of each site by consulting with multiple area experts and by conducting interviews during visits to the sites in 2009 and 2010.
Measures
Because ethnic identity cannot be measured through a single feature such as preferred language or geographic location, the identification of an individual as a member of the Maya community is fraught with concerns about validity. As Warren (1998) noted, ethnic identity is relatively fluid and changes according to social conditions and community choices. It may change across generations, and state policies such as outlawing the use of indigenous languages can influence what it means to be indigenous. It was only in 1992 that indigenous communities were acknowledged in the constitution, with Article 4 promising to “protect the right of indigenous Mexicans to continue existing as indigenous people” (Kampwirth, 2004: 126). Mindful of these nuances, we followed the standard established by Yoshioka (2006), for whom indigenous designations are largely a state of mind. Participants were asked to identify themselves as “indigenous” or “mestizo.”
The dependent variable, indigenous political activity, was measured by thematically grouping the reported behaviors and comparing them across the three different tourism configurations. As noted by Scott (1987) and Anderson (1990), political behavior varies in intensity, and many types of behavior are not observed in surveys. Our project was based on in-depth interviews and observations because they provide a contextual and nuanced picture of the way indigenous people interact with the state. Because, as noted by McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly (2001), the institutional/noninstitutional dichotomy is too rigid, we divided political behavior into three categories: covert, institutional, and extrainstitutional. We hypothesized that we would observe covert activities primarily in nontourist areas because the indigenous populations in these areas do not have the visibility that comes with being a focus of tourism or the incentive to act as a group. Consequently, in these areas we anticipated that we would observe more atomized behaviors, such as sabotage, theft, vandalism, work slowdowns and/or sick-outs during high-volume periods, promotion of an alternative narrative, false compliance, foot dragging, and avoidance of taxes or tariffs. This expectation was influenced by Scott’s (1985) suggestion that rational actors will choose the protest mechanisms with the least risk of retribution. We hypothesized that we would observe institutional behaviors such as voting, supporting opposition candidates, party identification, petitions, and legal mechanisms in all three areas. The key element for understanding these behaviors is the acceptance of state institutional authority as a legitimate means of achieving the community’s goals. Behaviors in this category demonstrate that actors do not conceptualize their interactions with the state as zero-sum—that the competing parties can cooperate and resolve their differences, limiting instability and overt conflict. Finally, we anticipated that we would find extrainstitutional behaviors such as union formation, protests, squatting, boycotts, land invasions, parades, picketing, and violence in indigenous-dependent tourist areas. These behaviors suggest that the system is corrupt and institutional behaviors are considered insufficient to change the distribution of resources. They are associated with instability, which may be costly for all parties that rely on tourist-based resources. When one party believes that it is losing access to tourist resources, it may feel that its only option is to force the state or the landed classes to include it in the distribution. It can achieve this by reducing access to tourist resources for all parties, which changes the incentives for cooperation or confrontation. Given the reliance of the state and citizens on tourist dollars, this type of behavior will be relatively short-lived because the state is limited in its capacity for repression.
Data Collection
Although the field researcher was fluent in conversational Spanish, she employed the services of several translators throughout this project. They provided assistance by translating local idioms and sharing their knowledge of local Maya communities and languages. They arranged meetings and provided suggestions about local areas and experts and also took careful notes during each interview. Asking interviewees if they knew people who could provide additional information about the effect of tourism on political behaviors led to some additional contacts.
The interviews were semistructured and generally took about two hours. Some questions, such as those about ethnic identification, employment, and political activities, were asked in every interview; however, at the conclusion of these questions, the interviewer allowed the conversation to be guided by the interviewee’s response to each question. Thus, she gathered specific information in the beginning of the interview and spent the remainder of the interview exploring the cultural context of the interviewee’s activities. This anthropological approach maximized the analytical leverage of each interview because the long interviews covered multiple topics and helped interviewees to become more comfortable with the situation. The interviews were not recorded because the presence of a recording device had a chilling impact on communication between the interviewer and the interviewee, but extensive notes were taken by the researcher and the translator and compared for discrepancies and clarifications later.
Findings
Indigenous-Dependent Tourism
A total of 42 interviews were conducted in areas that were identified as dependent on indigenous tourism—Chichén Itzá/Pisté, Tulum, and Izamal. In these areas interviewees did not report any covert political activities. Instead they mentioned institutional behaviors such as seeking legal representation, negotiating with state agencies to acquire well-compensated jobs in the tourist/archaeological sector, completing mutually beneficial land use and/or sale deals between indigenous ejidos and land developers, attending political rallies, advertising party identification, and utilizing state funds and resources to facilitate additional development of tourist resources. This suggests an evolving relationship between state institutions and indigenous populations.
Interviews with state-administered organizations, self-identified indigenous people, independent indigenous organizations, and individuals with substantial landholdings in tourist areas indicate that parties are constantly renegotiating the boundaries of their interactions with indigenous populations. At the same time, they indicate that indigenous populations are capitalizing on this recognition and pushing for increased rights and resources. For instance, in Tulum ejidos have been selling land to developers of tourism infrastructure projects such as new airports or lodgings. Along with the money that ejidos receive for these deals, they negotiate favorable employment opportunities for their members. Interviewees reported that hundreds of indigenous people are well compensated for their labor in construction projects or the excavation of ruins.
The town of Izamal began marketing itself as a tourist destination in 2000, and shortly thereafter local leaders requested development money from the state of Yucatán to develop tourist infrastructure such as hotels, restaurants, and shops. In 2006 Izamal was recognized as a “magical city” 2 by the Fondo Nacional de Fomento al Turismo (National Fund for Tourism Development—FONATUR) and received development money to upgrade public sidewalks. Local leaders and indigenous people reported that tourism was a positive development because it helped them appreciate their culture. An elderly female vendor said, “Tourism is beautiful, and the tourists are beautiful because they see what we have and can do—the Spanish could not see, but the tourists see, and we love them.” The interviewees also indicated that tourism is an excellent way to earn a living because local tourism businesses treat the workers well. They reported that young people are not forced to migrate to Cancún or Mérida to find work because working in the tourist industry provides them with a stable income.
According to interviewees, ejidos were instrumental in constructing development plans and distributing resources. No member of Izamal’s ejido receives funding without approval from the entire body, and the development projects are designed to maximize benefits for the largest group of people. Interviewees reported that they used institutional mechanisms to expand their presence in the tourist sector. Local leaders reported that they had learned how to use legal rights to achieve concessions that benefited their community. They reported that as tourism increased the state was becoming more involved in it; thus tourism serves as a bridge linking a previously marginalized indigenous population to local and state political institutions. This state recognition becomes a positive feedback loop. As tourism increases, Izamal gets additional recognition and funding from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (National Institute for Anthropology and History—INAH), FONATUR, and the state governor’s office, and this creates contacts and interdependence between the political apparatus and the local indigenous population. The anthropologist Elias Miguel Alcocer Puerto conducted a long-term research project funded in part by the state and in part by the former chief executive officer of Banamex, Roberto Hernandez, and his organization, Grandes Maestros del Arte Popular (Great Teachers of Popular Art), assessing the effectiveness of tourism development projects in Yaxunah and Izamal. He reported that the communities have retained their communal lands, whereas others have sold some of their land at below-market prices, and attributed this shift to comprehensive and careful tourism development planning that included the indigenous community.
Of the three indigenous-dependent tourism locations, we found the most frequent and enduring extrainstitutional behavior in Chichén Itzá. The low-level conflict there revolves around the ability of indigenous populations from Pisté to sell their wares in the area in and around the Mayan ruins. In 1996 the owner of Chichén Itzá, Fernando Barbachano, along with Mexico’s Comité de Turismo Cultural (Natural Tourism Culture Committee), used the federal police to remove vendors from the area, and this provoked a land invasion. The parties negotiated an uneasy truce that lasted until 2003, when the vendors, who numbered about 800, were evicted again. They elected a leader and retained a lawyer and won a negotiated truce with Barbachano that allowed them to continue their activities as long as they stayed on the periphery of the ruins and left the premises daily at the close of business. The agreement prohibited vendors from bringing their wares into Chichén Itzá in carts. The vendors resolved this issue by hiring “mules,” young men who carry large bundles into the park at the beginning of the day and remove them at the end.
The vendors went on to create a strong alternative narrative through publications such as ¡Por Esto!, which published the vendors’ perspectives and championed the protest activities that were taking place outside Chichén Itzá. During our first visit we observed some protest activity around the INAH office and protest fliers posted in the vicinity. In March 2010 vendors were discussing protest strategies that they planned to implement during the April 3, 2010, Elton John concert, which was scheduled to take place in front of the main pyramid. The protest activity was not violent or threatening, but it did challenge the authority of the state and Barbachano to limit access to the grounds.
The vendors who were interviewed reported that they believed in their right to profit from Chichén Itzá tourism without interference from other parties. One vendor summarized the situation as follows: “This place is ours, and everyone has been allowed to make money except us, but this is our culture, our architecture, our history. . . . It is only their laser show!” Advocates for the indigenous population in this area reported that multiple legal claims have been filed with federal judges asking them to compel the INAH to pay 15 percent of the proceeds from ticket sales to members of the local ejido. One expert reported that she believed the stalemate would eventually become noisier and more violent.
Traditional Tourism
Approximately 40 interviews were conducted in the traditional tourism areas of Mérida, Progreso, and Cancún. As in the indigenous-dependent tourist areas, institutional behaviors were common, as federal, state, and municipal governments organized human rights organizations to address the concerns of the indigenous populations. One of these organizations, Indemaya, was created by the governor’s office in the late 1990s. It supports indigenous business development and provides indigenous people with support and resources to resolve conflicts with governments or businesses. Other organizations were dedicated to preserving indigenous languages and providing translation and language instruction services for non-Spanish-speaking indigenous people. The Comisión de Derechos Humanos Estado Yucatán (Commission for Human Rights in the State of Yucatán—CODHEY) and the Comision Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (National Commission for the Development of the Indigenous—CDI) work with the state to address the concerns of indigenous populations. Interviewees reported that many people were active in party politics and that they attended political rallies to support candidates.
In Mérida, the capital of Yucatán, the field researcher observed small groups of protesters in front of the governor’s office chanting slogans and displaying banners and flags, but the protests were not violent. The protesters interviewed said that they wanted to renegotiate the terms of a land sale in order to receive more money for it. Some of the protesters were female, and when the researcher commented on this the interviewees reported that women were specifically included because the governor was a woman and including women might make her more sympathetic to their concerns: “Women look out for other women!” The federal officers who were charged with guarding the governor’s office reported that protests were common but there had not been any violence or arrests in the past few years. They said that they received occasional complaints about protesters from local businesses because “they do not want to scare the tourists.” The head counsel of CODHEY reported that the protests had remained peaceful and that the land compensation issue would likely be resolved through the governor’s office.
Outside the central tourist district in Cancún there were displays of political party affiliation and political posters, but once inside the central tourist district all these elements disappeared. This was especially noteworthy in that the country was a few months away from hotly contested elections. Interviews revealed that protests were rare in Cancún and indigenous groups and other political organizations tried to avoid overt institutional or extrainstitutional behavior in the tourist district because “Mr. Cancún” delivered an invaluable stream of revenue. Interviewees also reported that neighbors and community members were quick to discourage disruptive extrainstitutional behaviors as potentially damaging to Cancún’s reputation and upsetting to tourists.
Despite the inclination to avoid extrainstitutional behaviors, interviewees and newspapers reported the occurrence of a citywide taxi drivers’ strike in 2010 that specifically targeted tourists. During this event, the drivers physically blocked the entrance to a hotel that hired outside transport vans to perform passenger pickups and drop-offs. The alternative newspaper ¡Por Esto! covered this protest and published pictures of frightened white tourists standing beside a bus with their luggage as a small group of taxi drivers yelled and waved signs in Spanish and English. Interviews with some of the taxi drivers (many of whom are indigenous) revealed that they had been quietly protesting for approximately six months and most of the protest activity had not involved making tourists feel unsafe. When the field researcher commented that Americans were unaccustomed to angry shouting and might have a different opinion of the event, especially when they were away from home and being attacked in a language that they did not speak, he responded with a great deal of concern and asked if she would attend a future meeting to explain this to the other organizers.
No Tourism
The field researcher conducted 26 interviews in areas identified as having no tourism (Dzan, Kimbila, and Felipe Carrillo). As in the tourism areas, there were institutional political behaviors such as party identification, negotiation of concessions with political leaders, voting, and the use of state and local mechanisms to achieve political goals. For instance, interviewees in Dzan indicated a strong party affiliation and described how they coordinated votes to achieve their political goals. They reported that the current commissioner had reneged on a deal to help local indigenous farmers fund a water pump and that they planned to switch their votes to the other political party in the next election.
In addition to these institutional behaviors, there were covert behaviors. Multiple interviewees reported sabotage of local businesses, especially maquiladoras. Interviews with local community leaders, state agencies, and human rights workers revealed that maquiladora employees often engaged in covert behaviors such as sick-outs during high-volume times, refusal to pay taxes, and pilfering. A maquiladora worker provided limited information about these covert activities and strenuously argued that no union activity or protests occurred in her factory. It was reported that the maquiladoras commonly sent spies into workers’ homes to ensure that there was no discussion of unions or coordination among employees. Therefore it seems likely that maquiladora employees declined to protest for fear of retribution. In Dzan, electrical wires connected to a main line near the highway snaked to many different houses. When asked about this “arrangement,” interviewees reported that this was a method for obtaining free electricity. One recipient said, “They [the government] only build roads for the rich, and we can’t build a road, but we can take electricity and make them pay for it.”
There were some reports of protest activity in nontourism areas, but none of these could be independently verified. For example, in Felipe Carrillo, an academic from the Autonomous National University of Mexico recounted a story about a protest in which indigenous people blocked the road away from Felipe during a visit by former President Vicente Fox and would not allow him to leave until he signed an executive order that became the General Law of Linguistic Rights of Indigenous People in 2003. It appears that this may be an urban legend, but its existence is worth noting as an example of an alternative narrative. Like Dzan, Felipe is a rural area with little industry beyond farming, but it is on the “Maya Highway” connecting Cancún to Belize. This is a frequently traveled road, and several spray-painted billboards were noted ridiculing local officials, U.S. President Bush, and the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party—PRI). A local resident near one of the billboards reported that the messages that said “Not For Sale” were made in response to the buying up of land farther north for tourist resorts: “No one listens to us, so when the developers come here to look at the land the people threaten them on billboards and put tree trunks on the highway.”
Discussion
The above data suggest an intricate relationship between the state, tourism, and political behavior. The most overt political behaviors appeared in tourist areas; however, they were concentrated in Chichén Itzá and Cancún, with only a small, muted protest observed in Mérida. In the other indigenous-dependent tourist destinations, Izamal and Tulum, indigenous populations established a symbiotic relationship with state and local officials and used institutional and legal mechanisms to advance their interests within the existing structural limits. Thus, the extrainstitutional protests that were observed in Chichén Itzá and Cancún appear to be outliers in this regard, because the protesters specified that these protests were directed at tourists to raise awareness about their plight. Tourists were seen as confederates who allowed indigenous people to expand their choices with regard to political behavior.
The size of the tourism resource appeared to be a key consideration for indigenous political actors. Chichén Itzá and Cancún are two of the largest tourism resources in Mexico. Chichén Itzá is the most established and visible Maya ruin for international tourists and hosts over a million visitors annually, which makes it a substantial source of tourism revenue. Likewise, Cancún hosts millions of visitors a year, and approximately 95 percent of its gross domestic product is related to tourism. As noted by a few interviewees, the welfare of “Mr. Cancún” is extremely important for everyone in the region because it provides employment for many indigenous people who migrate from Mexico’s interior. The high revenue and visibility in these two locations provide indigenous protesters with protection against violent reprisals because the state and private actors risk a substantial loss of revenue if they destabilize the situation.
The second important variable that set Chichén Itzá and Cancún apart from the other tourist areas was an attempt by private parties to reduce indigenous people’s access to tourist revenues. Tourism does not rain down its largesse on all parties equally and can reinforce global economic disparities between the wealthy and the disadvantaged. Its effects on the indigenous hotel maid and the indigenous independent-contractor-taxi-driver or construction manager will be very different (Wilson, 2008). In all tourist locations, however, interviewees reported that tourism had been beneficial. Because tourism can be disrupted by extrainstitutional behavior such as strikes or protests, indigenous people used this behavior sparingly. In most cases, private and state actors actively included indigenous people in the distribution of tourism revenues because it was necessary to do so. When attempts were made to exclude them, indigenous people responded with highly visible and disruptive behavior that endangered the stability of tourism revenues. Tourists constituted an audience, and their presence changed the payoffs for different types of political behavior. Indigenous populations were free to protest and challenge an unfair distribution of resources because state or private reprisals would destabilize the situation, thereby reducing tourism revenues. Tourism offers marginalized populations additional options for political behavior.
Overt extrainstitutional behavior was virtually absent in nontourist areas. In these areas, the use of alternative narratives was the only extrainstitutional behavior we observed. Furthermore, the largest purveyors of alternative narratives were outside forces such as IndignaciÓn, an international human rights organization that receives funding from Catholic charities in Germany. Thus it appears that international organizations can function as observers to enable extrainstitutional activity, but their effect is less than that of a global population of tourists. Correspondingly, covert activity was commonly reported only in nontourist areas. Its occurrence there speaks to a situation in which marginalized populations lack power and protection to engage in active protest against the state and other private interests.
Conclusion
Our research indicates that tourism provides leverage and resources to assist previously marginalized populations. The field observations and interviews reveal that indigenous populations in Yucatán are capitalizing on their indigenous identity to enhance their social and economic position. Those in nontourist areas often utilize covert activities because the existing power differential makes extrainstitutional behaviors potentially dangerous or costly. Those in the largest tourism areas are free to use extrainstitutional behaviors because they feel protected by the presence of tourists. In tourism areas such as Izamal, Tulum, and Progreso the state has been extremely effective in capturing indigenous populations by addressing their concerns and distributing resources. It has also played a mediator role for indigenous protesters in Cancún, Chichén Itzá, and Mérida. It helps indigenous people navigate the system and translate their unique identity into economic and social advancement. However, in contrast to other states in the region, such as Guatemala, the Mexican state is a strong actor with substantial capacity. Future research will assess how tourism intersects with state strength to influence indigenous people’s behavioral choices.
Footnotes
Notes
Heather Hawn is an assistant professor of political science at Mars Hill University, just outside Asheville, NC. Her current research focuses on indigenous movements in Mexico and Guatemala and the economic and political development of Latin America. Jennifer Tison is a political scientist and associate director of institutional research at Morehead State University in eastern Kentucky. She has done research in education for the University of South Carolina’s Office of Program Evaluation and studied the role of women in the political apparatus of underdeveloped states.