ABSTRACT
The previous chapters have analyzed two of the most prominent ways in which postcolonial writers challenge exploitative tourism development, foregrounding discursive demolitions of paradisal tropes (Chapter 1) and the complex negotiations entailed by contestations over touristically desirable land (Chapter 2). Addressing points of conjunction between these approaches, this chapter examines representations of sacred environmentsone of the most signifi cant concepts around which both coalesce. In recent years, both cultural and environmental commentators have examined with increased vigour the importance of the sacred in relation to their respective fi elds. From a postcolonial perspective, Bill Ashcroft et al. note that since the Enlightenment the sacred has been ‘relegated to primitivism and the archaic’ in comparison to ‘secularism, economic rationalism and progressivism’ (2002: 212). However,
at the end of the twentieth century, debates about the sacred have become more urgent as issues such as land rights and rights to sacred beliefs and practices begin to grow in importance. A paradigm shift has occurred in this area, bringing a new consideration of the complex, hybrid and rapidly changing cultural formations of both marginalized and fi rst world peoples.
