Researcher(s):
Jack Andreoni
ENVS course(s): 400 Initiated: September 2013 Completed: May 2014 Go to project site
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Through community-based tourism, Mapuche entrepreneurs, Mapuche families, and the organizations that support them are working to redefine Curarrehue as a place worth noticing. Local Mapuche guides lead tourists up ancestral routes to gaze at the landscape. Local Mapuche businesses offer unique goods and services tied to their cultural heritage. Local Mapuche hosts welcome tourists into their homes to hear the stories and experience the traditions that are a part of Mapuche life and identity. This thesis is an attempt to examine the deeper meanings of these interactions between tourists and local peoples in a place that is called both home and travel destination. By listening to the stories of community members and their allies, I explore issues of accessibility, development, cultural representation, and community control in the community-based tourism network of Curarrehue. Although the dialogue between the tourist gaze and local peoples excludes some community members from participating, the Mapuche of Curarrehue utilize community-based tourism to both channel the reevaluation of their culture and to create a space for economic and cultural strength.