his study treats ecotourism in National Protected Areas of Lao PDR as a “recreational frontier”T which instrumentalizes the recreation Michael Kleinod of human natures in capitalism’s centers for that of nonhuman natures at capitalism’s (closing) frontiers. This world-ecological practice of The Recreational ecorational instrumentality – i. e. of nature Frontier domination in the name of “Nature” – presents a remedy for capitalism’s crisis that is itself crisis- ridden, enacting a central tension of ecocapitalism: Ecotourism in Laos that between “conservation” and “development”. as Ecorational This epistemic-institutional tension is traced Instrumentality through the preconditions, modes and effects of ecotourism in Laos by gradually zooming from the most general scale of societal nature relations into the most detailed intricacies of ecotouristic practice. The combination of Bourdieu, Marx and Critical Theory enables a systematic analysis of the recreational frontier as enactment of various contradictions deriving from the “false-and-real” Nature/Society dualism. Michael Kleinod The Recreational Frontier ISBN: 978-3-86395-246-4 Universitätsverlag Göttingen Universitätsverlag Göttingen Michael Kleinod The Recreational Frontier This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Published by Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2017 Michael Kleinod The Recreational Frontier Ecotourism in Laos as Ecorational Instrumentality Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2017 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de Dissertation at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Address of the Author Michael Kleinod Email: [email protected] This work is protected by German Intellectual Property Right Law. It is also available as an Open Access version through the publisher’s homepage and the Göttingen University Catalogue (GUK) at the Göttingen State and University Library (http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de). The license terms of the online version apply. Set and layout: Michael Kleinod Cover design: Margo Bargheer Cover pictures: Michael Kleinod © 2017 Universitätsverlag Göttingen http://univerlag.uni-goettingen.de ISBN: 978-3-86395-246-4 Acknowledgments Innumerable people have made this study possible. I thank my PhD supervisors Boike Rehbein and Guido Sprenger for their guidance while granting me enough leeway to develop my own thoughts. I am deeply indebted to all my respondents and informants among tourists, advisors, guides, project staff and villagers for their insights, their time, patience and hospitality. I received institutional and fi- nancial support from the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through the DORISEA network. The Faculty of Social Sciences of the National University of Laos facilitated my research in Laos not least by taking care of the bureaucratic procedures. Oudomxay Thongsavath and the Ecoguide Unit Savan- nakhet, Green Discovery’s Luang Namtha office as well as Karlee Taylor and Paul Eshoo facilitated access to the field and shared information and insight. The commitment of Thippako Rasphone, Phoutthaphone Sybuamala, Bounyong Phimmasane, Saythane Photisane, Sonephet Chanthaphone and Tom Chantha- phone during village fieldwork was often extraordinary; they were not just excel- lent organizers, interpreters and assistants, but also invaluable sources of infor- mation as well as great company. My Lao language teachers Sisouk Sayaseng and Sitthisone Xaysongkham were rich sources of knowledge on all things Lao and tough discussion partners when talking politics. Rob Cole, Mike Dwyer and Neil Dawson not only shared their invaluable insights on forestry and politics in Laos but also helped brighten up cloudy moods. Tim Gorman is to be thanked for pointing me towards Moore’s world-ecology. I cannot be grateful enough to Maren and Marja Freudenberg as well as to Boris Vormann, Andrew Müller and Lars Weckbecker for their efforts in turning this into a reasonably legible text. Far beyond this book, Maren’s loving support and foresightedness were and are a sine qua non. In this vein, my deepest gratitude is for my family and the continuous encouragement and relentless love that I was fortunate to grow up with. Despite the fundamental influence of these and more people, all errors, misunderstandings and exaggerations of this book are those of its author. Content Introduction: Ecotourism and the capitalist crisis .......................................................... 1 1 Social natures .................................................................................................................... 15 1.1 Limits of discursive power ................................................................................... 16 1.2 Practice and the sociological bias ........................................................................ 19 1.3 Practice as metabolism .......................................................................................... 25 1.4 Instrumentality and the nonidentical .................................................................. 29 1.5 On “symmetrical” theories................................................................................... 35 1.6 Discussion: Reflexive materialism of practice ................................................... 40 2 Capitalist natures .............................................................................................................. 45 2.1 Capitalism’s crisis ................................................................................................... 46 2.2 Ecocapitalism ......................................................................................................... 57 2.3 Conservation as underproduction ....................................................................... 64 3 Ecotourism........................................................................................................................ 67 3.1 A short history of ecotourism ............................................................................. 68 3.2 Integrating conservation and development ....................................................... 71 3.3 Operationalizing ecotourism ................................................................................ 74 3.4 Linking ecotourism theory and practice ............................................................ 85 4 Recreational landscapes .................................................................................................. 87 4.1 Historical making of a recreational landscape ................................................... 88 4.2 Current make-up of a recreational landscape .................................................. 102 5 Ecotourism field of Laos .............................................................................................. 115 5.1 Tourism in Laos ................................................................................................... 115 5.2 The ecotourism field ........................................................................................... 117 5.3 Projects visited ..................................................................................................... 122 6 Implementing ecotourism ............................................................................................. 133 6.1 Implementing structure ...................................................................................... 134 6.2 Distributional structure ....................................................................................... 137 7 Practicing ecotourism .................................................................................................... 155 7.1 Preconditions of host-guest practice ................................................................ 156 7.2 Formation of the tour group.............................................................................. 162 7.3 The Nature part ................................................................................................... 164 7.4 The Culture part ................................................................................................... 173 7.5 Self-reintegration .................................................................................................. 190 7.6 Discussion ............................................................................................................. 198 8 Localizing ecotourism ................................................................................................... 203 8.1 The indigenous project ....................................................................................... 205 8.2 The evangelist project ......................................................................................... 214 8.3 The conservationist project ................................................................................ 219 8.4. The ecotouristic project ..................................................................................... 224 8.5 Discussion ............................................................................................................. 231 9 Final discussion: The recreational frontier ................................................................. 239 9.1 Ecotourism as world-ecology ...........................................................................
Details
-
File Typepdf
-
Upload Time-
-
Content LanguagesEnglish
-
Upload UserAnonymous/Not logged-in
-
File Pages295 Page
-
File Size-