Social Capital, Ecotourism, and Empowerment in Shiripuno, Ecuador
Open Access
- Author:
- Marcinek, Annie A
- Area of Honors:
- Interdisciplinary in Anthropology and Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Carter A Hunt, Thesis Supervisor
Timothy Michael Ryan, Thesis Honors Advisor
Dr. Andrew Justin Mowen, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Social capital
Ecotourism
Empowerment
Ecuador
Amazon
Oil
Sustainable
Development
Machismo
Bonding
Bridging - Abstract:
- Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon have struggled for a sustainable, long-term development path since the entrance of large, foreign-owned oil companies to the area in the 1970s. Global interest in ecotourism has increased over the past few decades and may offer a sustainable option for indigenous community development. Ecotourism’s attention to economic, social, and environmental facets of community life make it a more attractive alternative for Amazonian communities that have been largely exploited by oil companies and duped by their “trinkets,” or who have otherwise witnessed the environmentally destructive potential of these companies. But why would an impoverished community collectively reject a contract with an oil company willing to offer them money, jobs, and infrastructure? This paper describes original ethnographic research carried out in the indigenous Amazonian community of Shiripuno, Ecuador. It argues that social capital, termed by some as the “missing link” to development, was stimulated by the onset of a community-based ecotourism project. Prior scholarship on this form of capital -- that resulting from social relations -- provides a theoretical framework that demonstrates how increased inter and intra-community relationships and communication pathways provided a solid base for future sustainable development of this community. This ecotourism project’s roots in a local women’s association offers a space for consideration of the connection between social capital and empowerment, and the potential this connection provides to a machismo-dominated area of the globe.