TOURISM AND SUSTAINABILITY; THE COMPLEXITY OF DECISION MAKING IN SAN MIGUEL ALMAYA

Abstract

In this document we analyze the decision making process on tourism in San Miguel Almaya, Mexico, an Otomi locality which preserves uses and customs based on the regime of communal land tenancy, yet slowly this community has experienced transformation basically as a result from its transition from agricultural to commercial community in recent decades. The analysis was based on the approach of Policy Networks that studies the relations generated among actors gathered around public problems; in this particular case: ecologic, normative, cultural and technical, among other associated at a different extent with tourism, which hinder sustainable conditions for their inhabitants. The methodology employed was based on the proposal by Cruz (2008) that identifies the objectives and interests of the actors respect to touristic activity and its linked actions; the resources they used and the cooperative relations established to reach their ends, as well as the dependence observed with other member of the policy network constructed as an abstraction of the complex fabric of interactions in the reality of San Miguel Almaya. The documental revision, in particularly of specialized literature, in-depth interviews with key actors, fieldwork and continual meetings with local authorities provided elements to analyze the political game unfolded by local and municipal authorities, private actors and the academy, all of them members of the network. As a result we detected how some uses and customs have been surpassed by economic, social and cultural transformations and their repercussions on the natural and cultural heritage of the community, which consequently compromise tourism that is the articulating axis of actions headed to rescue, exploitation and preservation of the forest, lake, religious festivities, identity, communal labor and urban image.

Keywords

• Policy networks
• Actors
• Relationships.