Indigenous tourism as a response to crisis: Mapuche-lafkenche community of Budi lake, Chile

Abstract

For almost 20 years, the Mapuche-lafkenche community of Llaguepulli in the south bank of Budi lake in the La Araucanía region, Chile, has promoted an exceptional local development strategy. This arose in response to the deep economic, social and cultural crisis that they experienced in the decade of the '80s and' 90s. The crisis was the outcome of a long process of segregation, territorial reduction and isolation experienced by this community. Their strategy to recover from this crisis sustained in a varied and complex portfolio of endogenous human, social, cultural and natural resources that for a long time remained invisible, inactive or devalued by Chilean society. This story started with a very practical objective for the people of Llaguepulli: to look for income-generating job alternatives, but without having to leave its territory. This search led them to draw a new horizon of what was possible, scaling towards a local economic framework, which combined their traditional productive activities with the start of a tourism business with special interests, rural- cultural character and solidarity codes of conduct. Years later, the community has significantly strengthened its own organization and gained control over its territory.

Keywords

• crisis, siniestro, lago budi, mapuche-lafkenche, lewfu budi