| The Kichwa Anangu Community lives in Ecuador's Yasuni National Park. As a community, they have chosen to dedicate their livelihood to community-owned tourism, or what is commonly called turismo comunitario in Ecuador. Tourism brings multiple, ongoing challenges to the Anangu Community. Shifting market demands, growing regional and transnational competition, and large-scale climate events each present ongoing vulnerabilities. Furthermore, the Anangu do not own rights to the petroleum reserves quietly resting under their land. Nonetheless, they persist in their tourism project and have become recognized as a model for community-owned tourism in Ecuador. In part, this thesis seeks to explore why the Anangu Community has chosen to not only pursue, but expand their involvement in community-owned tourism. This research will demonstrate that tourism is locally embraced as a vehicle for livelihood wellbeing, environmental stewardship, and cultural reclamation. The key question then becomes, why is the Anangu Community's tourism project successful? Here, I argue that through community agency and governance, the Anangu Community is able to practice economic, environmental, and cultural self-determination via their local control of the tourism project. |
