ABSTRACT
This introduction chapter illustrates how political ecology is enacted in and through tourism development, and how human and nonhuman actors produce nature through politically mediated tourism development initiatives. It examines the networks and circuits of ecological production as they are linked with local, national and transnational tourism development practices by building on Paul Robbins's inclusion of all producers of nature actors that range from Indigenous community members, transnational business executives, tourists on mopeds and local tour guides. The chapter considers how various forms of development and conservation agendas articulate with broader circuits of ecological production that extend well beyond the local. Additionally, the capacities of tourism development to empower and marginalize local ecological traditions are theoretically and empirically investigated. The essentialization and exotification of environmental degradation in economically poor communities is denaturalized against the backdrop of broader national and transnational politics of human rights to fundamental resources.
