ABSTRACT
The study of tourism became a full-fledged subject in anthropology in the 1970s (Smith 1977). Since then, most anthropologists have focused either on the motivations and travel practices of tourists (MacCannell 1999) or the effects of tourism on local cultures (Nash 2001). Less attention has been paid to the actual interaction between hosts and guests (Van Beek and Schmidt 2012) and the entrepreneurship involved on the side of the local population. What are the motives, strategies, and resources for local actors to tap into a global business like tourism? What are the economic and sociopolitical conditions for their agency? How is entrepreneurship locally defined, and what are the reasons for economic success or failure? Which changes does the engagement of local actors in tourism generate in their own lives and their society? To deal with these questions, I will focus on Tuareg who have created their own travel agencies in the regional capital of Agadez in northern Niger. Together with their staff, they organize tours for affluent European and American tourists in the Aïr Mountains and the Tenere desert. These Tuareg belong to the social layers of the nobles (imajighen)1 and vassals (imghad) within the hierarchical structure of Tuareg society. For these local entrepreneurs, their engagement in tourism is not obvious.
