Sustainable Fiefdoms: A Comparative Analysis of the Political Economy of Tourism in Northwest Peru
Social Sciences
Senior Thesis in Anthropology
Two towns on the Northwestern edge of Peru, Lobitos and Máncora, have respectively taken a nascent dip, and experienced an immersion in the business of tourism. In Lobitos, development professionals and ecotourists are united in their resolve to restore the high status the town enjoyed as a colonial oil outpost by retrofitting the locality for tourism. In Máncora, the enormous challenges posed by facilitating a tourist economy requires the constant construction of new infrastructure, a redundant recuperation referred to as sustainable development. I argue the static scale of development, of which the towns seem to represent opposite ends, is employed as an illusory and sanctifying explanation for the prioritization and growth of a tourist economy at the behest of powerful actors. The processes under the label of sustainable development, moreover, are shown to be mechanisms for the consolidation of tourist fiefdoms.
