Entre el lentisco y la jara. Cinco conclusiones socio-antropológicas sobre el turismo

Abstract

After  a  countless  number  of  socio-an-thropological   research   studies   and   an   infinite  number  of  articles  published  in  scientific  journals,  what  have  we  learned  since anthropologists realized that tourists alter  the  nature  of  the  local  societies  they  visit? Written as an essay and by no means claiming  to  be  exhaustive,  this  article  ar-gues  that  we  have  reached  five  considera-tions:  1.  Tourism  is  nothing  but  another  name  for  power;  2.  The  complex  nature  of  tourism  cannot  be  fully  understood  without  studying  the  social  and  cultural  processes  that  constitute  a  tourism  envi-ronment; 3. The socio-ecological processes that construct territory determine and are determined by the social space and the dif-ferent kinds of capital distributed; 4. The industry of seduction creates a body of de-sires  through  which  socio-cultural  groups  forge  their  own  frame  of  sense  and  iden-tity;  5.  The  potentialities  shown  by  tourism to mediate in the creation of meanings allow researchers to suggest alternate paths for the development of tourism.