ABSTRACT
In tourism studies attention is paid in a plethora of books and articles to a wide variety of conflicts: human-wildlife conflicts, conflicts between tourists and hosts, conflicts related to destination management, conflicts on stewardship over tourism related resources, value conflicts, or conflicts over inequalities of economic development through tourism (e.g. Dahlberg, 2005; Hitchcock and Darma Putra, 2005; Okello, 2005; Porter and Salazar, 2005). A great deal of this literature has aimed to problematize conflicts and to find solutions for them, based on the taken for granted idea that conflicts ought to be dealt with in order to make sure they do not delay development or produce inefficiency for an industry with such a high net worth (Von Ruschkowski and Mayer, 2011; Bennett, et al., 2001; Hitchcock and Darma Putra, 2005). Conflicts are deemed to be in need of management solutions through ‘joint collaborative arrangements between public-private partnerships’, ‘consensus making’, ‘local involvement’, ‘participatory community practices’, ‘good governance’ and ‘compensation deals’ (cf. Bramwell and Cox, 2009; Douglas and Lubbe, 2006; Porter and Salazar, 2005; Uddhammar, 2006).
