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A CASE STUDY OF PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH TO
ENHANCE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT:
A COMMUNITY-BASED ECOTOURISM PROJECT IN HUATULCO, OAXACA

By

Loretta Ishida

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF SCIENCE

Department of Resource Development

1999

ABSTRACT

A CASE OF PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH TO ENHANCE
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: A COMIVIUNITY-BASED ECOTOURISM
PROJECT IN HUATULCO, OAXACA

By

Loretta Ishida

Three community groups and an academic researcher collaborated to explore
ecotourism as a community development project in the area of Huatulco, Oaxaca in
Mexico. The project was initiated by a regional grassroots organization in response to
peasants’ difﬁculties making a subsistence level living from their agricultural practices.

Two issues were analyzed ﬁom a participatory action research ﬁ'amework: the
diverse nature of the participant groups and the role of the outside researcher in the
research process. The levels of participation of leaders and followers and men and
women were examined. Consequences of limited participation of some participants
included: the reproduction of the top-down power structure of the dominant society, the
lack of development or use of participants’ potential, and an uneven work distribution
among the participants. The outside researcher can play many, evolving roles throughout
the research processes. However, tensions may develop among the participants when
those roles are not clearly deﬁned, when participants’ concept of time, and their time
available for the project diﬂ‘er. The outside researcher’s alliance with a community group
can also cause tensions when the researcher deals with people who may have different or

conﬂicting interests with the community group.

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

After I obtained a bachelor’s degree in zoology and environmental studies, I
joined the US. Peace Corps to gain experience on issues where people and the
environment interacted. I worked in a small urban community in Cote d’Ivoire, West
Africa. There my ideas about participation began to develop as I struggled between
trying to help people address what they saw as problems and promoting issues that I
perceived as problems. While working with groups of people, I resisted doing the actual
tasks for them and encouraged participants to develop the conﬁdence and skills to carry
out their own projects. In graduate school, I learned that what I wanted for the groups in
the Ivorian town was a form of what the academic literature called “empowerment.” I
was introduced to more concepts that resonated with my personal and professional goals:
participatory rural appraisal, top-down development, development from below, insiders
and outsiders, conscientization, praxis, and participatory action research.

Participatory action research struck a chord. It was development not only
originating with local people, but was completely controlled by them. It was research
beyond the conﬁnes of the university, conducted by people to resolve their own
problems. It was action that went beyond building a well or latrines or a school, but
changing people’s attitudes and beliefs about themselves.

A fellow graduate student told me about her dissertation work with the Seminar
on Resource Management for Rural Development in Oaxaca, Mexico. The Seminar’s
approach is a form of participatory action research. The Seminar, supported by the

National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Institute of Social Research, is a forum in

iii

which peasants and academics can discuss problems that the peasants face in Oaxaca.
Community representatives reﬂect on their problems with others once a month. Each
delegation returns home to share these reflections with community members and to
continue the process of reﬂection. Based on these reﬂections, each community can then
decide on the best course of action to resolve its problems.

The Seminar operates on the principle of tapping into the potential of diversity
(Mejia Rosas 1998). Diversity exists in a number of ways: people of academic
backgrounds and peasant backgrounds, people of different ethnicities (around nine
indigenous groups plus Mexicans of European heritage), and people of different
nationalities (Mexican and from the United States). Though these differences could
cause conﬂict, the Seminar is a forum in which people deliberately seek to communicate
and connect across these differences. In the effort to be understood by someone with a
different background, one often has to formulate one’s language and thought-patterns to
make ideas understandable to others. The other Seminar members will then ask questions
to get the presenter to clarify the situation further or will contribute their experiences in a
similar situation. This kind of dialogue has allowed a number of communities to find
creative, non-violent solutions to often very serious conﬂicts. While most of the
participant communities sought resolution to land tenure conﬂicts in the past, many
groups are now facing the more abstract problems of economic and social development,
exacerbated by the increasingly global nature of the economy.

When my colleague said the Seminar was interested in collaborating with other
graduate students, I met with the Seminar coordinator when he visited the United States.

I asked to attend the June and July 1998 Seminar meetings in Oaxaca, in the hopes of

iv

observing ﬁrst hand the Seminar process. The graduate student introduced me to one of
the participants, the director of a grassroots organization in Huatulco, located in the
southern Oaxaca, hoping our interests might converge around one of the organization’s
project ideas. Through this organization, various communities in Huatulco had shared
their problems and had begun to test the idea of an ecotourism project within the
Seminar. After a visit to Huatulco, the director and I agreed to collaborate on developing
this project.

I approached this project on two different levels: as a scholar looking to collect
material to write a thesis and as a practitioner seeking to work on a practical project.
From this project, I hoped to learn and gain experience as well as provide assistance to
people involved in a development project. Attempting to play two roles, I sought to
apply scholarship and experience in order to contribute new knowledge to academia and
to gain knowledge and experience to enhance my practice. I not only brought with me
ideas from academia, but also my experience in Cote d’Ivoire. While the West African
and Latin American cultures are very distinct, I did see some similarities among
predominantly agricultural peoples in developing areas. This factor may have both
benefited and hindered my work: the beneﬁt comes from being able to base my work in
Huatulco on past experiences and the hindrance from acting on my potentially wrong
assumptions about similarities.

I was an outsider, not only from outside of Huatulco, but from a different culture
and from an urban, rather than rural, background. Though the director of the grassroots
organization who has along history of working with the communities in the region

introduced me to the community groups, there were inevitable barriers between insiders

and outsiders. Based on my cross-cultural experience in the Peace Corps, I knew Polit’s
statement was a strong possibility:

Developing projects creates great levels of expectation from all those

involved. When communication differences mushroom because of

distinct cultural perceptions, those expectations can’t be met and

disappointment pervades the whole performance. (Polit 1991 :359)

However, maintaining the positive attitude toward difference that the Seminar
takes, i.e. that it produces tensions that result in the most creative outcomes, we attempted
to use the differences between the Huatulco participants and me as positive elements of
this study. Sometimes we succeeded, sometimes not.

This thesis is a number of things: an account of the four month collaboration
between three community groups in Huatulco, the grassroots organization, and me; my
attempt to tell the story of these people; and most of all, my struggle to understand the
process we went through in light of others’ experiences reported in the academic
literature, my own reﬂections, and discussions with my academic peers and mentors.

Many people were integral to the research and writing processes. My graduate
studies and this research were generously funded by the United States Environmental
Protection Agency’s STAR Graduate Fellowships program. Dr. Jim Bingen has
enthusiastically supported me throughout my two years at Michigan State and spent many
hours working to help me produce this thesis. Dr. Joe Levine and Dr. Lela Vandenberg
supported me by respectfully giving me room to work, yet providing valuable
contributions to my research when it was required. Diane Ruonavaara has provided
guidance, encouragement, and commiseration from the beginning to the end of my

research. To her, my mentor, I owe many thanks for helping me understand participatory

action research, for introducing me to the people in Oaxaca, and for continually valuing

vi

my learning process. My friends and family have been vital in providing moral support,
especially Jamie Harding, Kristy Wallmo, and Pam Vigil. A number of ideas presented

in this thesis are a result of discussion with these people. While it is difﬁcult to attribute
speciﬁc ideas to speciﬁc people because of the evolutionary manner in which this thesis

was composed, I would like to acknowledge the above people for collaborating with me
in the generation, development, and ﬁne-tuning of many concepts.

My friends and collaborators in Oaxaca, Mexico, made me understand the
expression, “Estds en tu cam” (“You are in your home”) by truly welcoming me into
their lives and making me feel at home. Rogelio Ballesteros, Sandra Millan, and Olivia
Estrada at the Amigos del Sol language school and Clara Valdés should be commended
for patiently teaching me Spanish. Dr. Miguel Szekely facilitated my entry into the
Seminar and the Seminar participants graciously accepted my small attempts to
contribute to their work. I owe the greatest thanks to the people in Huatulco, who will
never know how much I have learned from them. I only hope that, in a small way, this

research will honor their struggles and successes.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................. xi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND PRONUNCIATIONS ................................... xii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE CASE STUDY: THE PROBLEM,

RESEARCH APPROACH, AND BACKGROUND .......................................... 1
Background to the Problem ................................................................ 1
Statement of the Problem .................................................................. 4
Research Directions ......................................................................... 5
Signiﬁcance of the Study .................................................................... 7
Ecotourism: Deﬁnitions and Issues ....................................................... 9
The Huatulco Ecotourism Project ........................................................ 14

The Origin of the Idea ............................................................ 15
Community Group Meetings .................................................... 15
Collecting Information Relevant to the Project ............................... 17
Observing Similar Activities ............................................ 17

Workshop .................................................................. 19
Accomplishing Speciﬁc Tasks ................................................ 20

Looking for Funding ..................................................... 20

Acquiring the Land ...................................................... 21

Work Expeditions ........................................................ 21

Organization of the Thesis ................................................................ 22

CHAPTER 2: THE SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND ECONOMIC CONTEXTS OF THE

CASE STUDY .................................................................................... 23
Introduction ................................................................................. 23
The Local Socio-Political Structures and Land Tenure ............................... 23

The Municipio ..................................................................... 23

The Agrarian Community ........................................................ 24
Community-Based Ecotourism Pilot Project Sites .................................... 26
General Characteristics ........................................................... 26
Current Challenges ................................................................ 28

Bajos de Coyula ................................................................... 29
Arroyo Xuchitl ..................................................................... 31

San Miguel del Puerto ............................................................ 31
Tourism in Southern Oaxaca ............................................................ 33
The Bays of Huatulco Tourism Complex ...................................... 33
Regional Tourism .................................................................. 36

The Mexican Economic Policies and Their Effects at the Local Level ............. 37

viii

Organizations Relevant to the Case ....................................................... 39

Local Environmental Groups .................................................... 39
ODDDECO ........................................................................ 40
Summary .................................................................................... 44
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH ISSUES AND METHODS ...................................... 45
Introduction ................................................................................. 45
The Evolving Concept of Development ................................................ 45
Research into Development ............................................................... 47
Characteristics of the Participatory Group .............................................. 48
Role of the Researcher ..................................................................... 51
Research Design ............................................................................ 54
Assumptions of the Research Approach ........................................ 54

The Case Study and Ethnography Designs .................................... 56

Data Collection .................................................................... 57

Entry into the Study Context ............................................ 57

Instrument Design ........................................................ 58

Methods for Veriﬁcation ......................................................... 60
Summary ..................................................................................... 60

CHAPTER 4: DIFFERENTIAL PARTICIPATION IN THE ECOTOURISM

PROJECT ............................................................................................. 62
Introduction ................................................................................. 62
ODDDECO’s Structure and Member Participation .................................... 62
Power Differentials Between Leaders and Followers ................................. 66

Leaders .............................................................................. 66
Followers ........................................................................... 67
Power Differentials Between Women and Men ....................................... 69
Women .............................................................................. 69
Men ................................................................................. 72
The Implications of Differential Participation for ODDDECO ...................... 73
Summary .................................................................................... 75

CHAPTER 5: THE ROLE OF THE OUTSIDE RESEARCHER ........................... 77
Introduction ................................................................................. 77
Playing Multiple Roles .................................................................... 78

My Role as Negotiated with the Director ...................................... 78
How Participants Perceived My Role .......................................... 79
Other Roles I Played .............................................................. 79
Tensions Created by Multiple Perceptions .................................... 80

ix

Implications of the Researcher’s Solidarity with Community Groups ............. 81

Relationships with Community Participants ................................... 81

Time ................................................................................. 82

Engagement and Detachment ................................................... 84

Impacts on Other Aspects of Research ......................................... 85

Summary .................................................................................... 87
CHAPTER 6: SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS ......... 88
Introduction ................................................................................. 88

Case Study Summary ...................................................................... 88
Conclusions and Recommendations for Ecotourism .................................. 90
Conclusions and Recommendations for ODDDECO ................................. 91
Conclusions and Recommendations for PAR93
Recommendations for Further Study .................................................... 95

Final Observations and Reﬂections ...................................................... 97

Was it PAR? ...................................................................... 97

The Academic Researcher in PAR ............................................ 98

The Participation of Local People in Global Trends ....................... 100

APPENDD( ......................................................................................... 103
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................. 106

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Map of Mexico, highlighting the location of Huatulco, Oaxaca .................... 3
Figure 2. Detail of the Huatulco area .............................................................. 3
Figure 3. Ecotourism as the intersection of three criteria ...................................... 11
Figure 4. Beach-front restaurants/lodging at Zipolite .......................................... 18
Figure 5. Workshop for project participants ...................................................... 20
Figure 6. Expedition to assess potential building site for cabins .............................. 22
Figure 7. Irrigated ﬁelds in Bajos de Coyula. .................................................. 30
Figure 8. Dry stream bed in Arroyo Xuchitl ...................................................... 32
Figure 9. Luxury hotels in Tagolunda Bay ....................................................... 35
Figure 10. White-water rafting near the Bays of Huatulco. .................................. 35

xi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND PRONUNCIATION S

ABBREVIATIONS
AR Action Research
GAIA Grupo Auto’nomo de lnvestigaciones Ambientales
CSE Centro de Soporte Ecolo’gico

F ONATUR F ondo Nacional de F omento al Turismo

ODDDECO Organizacién para la Defensa de los Derechos y Desarrollo
Comunitario

PAR Participatory Action Research
SEMARNAP Secretaria del Medio Ambiente, Recursos Naturales y Pesca

The Seminar The Seminar on Resource Management for Rural Development

UCI Unio’n de Comunidades Indigenas
WWF World Wildlife Fund
PRONUNCIATIONS

Huatulco Wa-tu1’-ko
Oaxaca Wa-ha’-ka
Xuchitl Soo’-chee1

Zipolite Zi-po-li’-tay

xii

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to the Case Study: The Problem, Research Approach, and Background

Background to the Problem

The peasants in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca face signiﬁcant diﬂiculties
in sustaining their livelihoods as farmers. The soil is washing away down the
mountainsides, rainfall patterns are changing, peasants must rely on fertilizers to produce
the most meager of craps, and more attractive jobs in factories along the U.S.-Mexican
border and work in the US. draw villagers away ﬁom their homes (Simon 1997). The
farmers’ investment of time and money in planting their traditional crops is usually more
thanwhattheygainattheendoftheplanting season,andsothepullto leavefarmingis
growing. Giving up farming means more thanjust changing jobs. It means giving up the
onlythingmostpeasantsknowhowto do aswellasgiving upatraditionthat Ins shaped
their culture for generations.

Recently, especially since the presidential term of Carlos Salinas de Gortari from
1988 to 1994, the Mexican government has taken a neo-hberal track to economic
development, lifting foreign investment restrictions and privatizing state-owned
companies, among many other measures, while cutting farming subsidies and eliminating
constitutional protection of communal land tenure (Warnock 1995). What has not
changed with the neo-liberal economic policy - and is actually consistent with it - is
Mexico’s tourism industry. The government has been developing the “sun and sand”

image for tourism for years and has relied on tourism as an important source of economic

development’. In 1974, this development process was placed in the hands of a special
government division called the National Fund for the Promotion of Tourism (Fonda
Nacional de F omento 01 T urismo or FONATUR).

The area of Huatulco, Oaxaca (see Figure 1), is the site of FONATUR’s most
recent resort-complex called the Bays of Huatulco (see Figure 2). This mass-tourism
project, started in 1984, attracts tourists to its 4 and 5 star hotels to enjoy the beaches, the
ocean, and the tropical dry forest. Though the Bays of Huatulco may be described by
some as ecotourism because natural resources are the main attraction, very few ofthe
beneﬁts remain in the area. The surrounding farming communities have hardly beneﬁted
from this resort (Barkin and Pailles 1999). The Mexican and foreign investors who built
and/or control the resort businesses are the ones reaping almost all of the ﬁnancial returns
and many of the employees in the service industries are from other parts of Mexico.

The Organization for the Defense of Rights and Community Development
(Organizacion para la Defensa de los Derechos y Desarrollo Comunitario or
ODDDECO), a regional grassroots organization, works with peasant communities in the
coastal region of Oaxaca that includes the area of Huatulco. Its recent work has focused
on economic development projects. The organization works predominantly with peasants
who are facing the diﬁcult ﬁnancial situations of the region and country. To tap into the
tourism industry at the doorstep of cormnunities in Huatulco yet focus the beneﬁts to

local people, ODDDECO wanted to incorporate tourism with the natural resources

 

’ To give a sense of the ﬁnancial importance of tourism, it provided $7 billion in income
to Mexico in 1996, representing 5 percent of the gross domestic product (Luxner 1997).
By 1998, tourism grew to be the second largest source of income to Mexico, passing the
oil industry (Esquiroz Arellano 1999).

 

 

 

 

Figure 1. Map of Mexico, highlighting the location of Huatulco, Oaxaca.
Adapted from Mexico International Trade (1996).

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Figure 2. Detail of the Huatulco area. Adapted from Perez de Pioli (1997).

available on cormnunal lands to develop a community-based ecotourism project.
However, members of the organization had very limited experience and knowledge on
how to launch such an enterprise, though a few ODDDECO leaders and members have
had exposure to ecotourism in the region. The peasants are experts at ﬁrming, not at
providing a service to visitors. They tend to conceptualize their environment as a place to
live and extract food, water, and ﬁrewood, not as something they can “sell” intact.
Therefore using the forests, rivers, and hills that are already in their possession to attract
tourists is a new idea to them.

Insummary,peasantsin0axacaarestrugglingto makealivingﬁomfarming.
While some alternatives are available, such as immigrating to the US. or participating in

other economic activities such as tourism, there are major drawbacks to these options.

Statement of the Problem

ODDDECO has explored economic alternatives for its peasant members that
would provide a reliable source of income while allowing them to continue their
traditional ﬁrming practices. While ecotom‘ism seemed like a good option, taking
advantage of the natural resources already belonging to the peasants, ODDDECO
members had very little idea of how to engage in such an enterprise. Therefore
ODDDECO decided to grapple with identifying and planning a development project
through a participatory action research approach that would allow it to address the
practical problem of how to develop an ecotourism business. Begirming with the

practical concerns of ODDDECO, this study examines the participatory action research

involved in the ecotourism project, with a focus on the issues relating to PAR that

emerged ﬁom the research process.

Research Directions

ODDDECO established that it would use a participatory action research (PAR)
approach to the ecotourism project. PAR is an appropriate ﬁamework to use in any
community-initiated project for several reasons. Problem identiﬁcation is integral to the
research process and is to be done by the community that the research will beneﬁt
(Selener 1997). Based on the research and reﬂection done by the community members
on a problem, the actions they choose to then take are directed at furthering the
community’s interests (Fals-Borda 1991a). Participation is required at all stages of the
research process and control of the project remains in the hands of the local community
(Hall 1982). PAR is an approach that allows the Huatulco community members to deﬁne
the problem through their eyes, to research their options in ecotourism, and to critically
reﬂect on the implications of such a solution. New knowledge will be continuously
created through these processes (Rahman 1991), speciﬁcally about how to implement an
ecotourism project and more generally, about how learning and action are complementary
means to the connnunity’s development.

ODDDECO recognizes that the organization’s power lies with its members, and
while outside “experts” can help them achieve their goals, they are not the only source of
answers to the peasants’ problems. I was invited to join as an outsider participant as an
equal with the other participants, bringing with me speciﬁc skills and knowledge that I

had gained through my experiences and education. This collaboration occurred during a

four month period at the begirming of 1999, working with three community groups in the
communities of Arroyo Xuchitl, Bajos de Coyula, and San Miguel del Puerto (see Figure
2). Being invited to participate in the initial stages of ODDDECO’s ecotourism pilot
project offered me, as a researcher, an interesting opportunity to examine how PAR
would affect the process of this community development project both in theoretical and
practical terms.

This study focuses on ﬁve objectives:

To describe and analyze the participatory action research process of this ecotourism
project.

. To understand how social relationships, speciﬁcally those between leaders and
followers and men and women, affect the participation of the members ODDDECO
in the project.

. To explore the role of the outside researcher in this participatory action research and
the implications of that role for both the researcher and the ODDDECO participants.

. To discuss the implications of this research for other participatory action research
and ecotourism projects.

. To discuss the implications of this research for ODDDECO.

Because these objectives are to be met within a speciﬁc case, it is important to
understand how this case study is bounded by the context in which it takes place (Stake
1994). In order to understand the political, economic, environmental, and social context
surrounding the Huatulco communities, the following questions ﬁamed the ﬁeld

research:

. What is the regional tourism context, especially in light of the Bays of Huatulco
tourism complex?

. What other factors affect ODDDECO’s work?

. How do the people participating in the ODDDECO project deﬁne the problem that
ecotourism my address?

. What is their concept of ecotourism and how do they envision a project in their
community?

. What is the role of ODDDECO in the participatory action research process?

The above questions shaped an understanding of the research context. Answers to
these questions would help develop insight into the people’s perceptions and knowledge
of the situation, as well as facilitate how people clariﬁed their ideas and established a
communal knowledge base on which to ground the subsequent steps of the PAR process.

In the attempt to keep the control of the research process in the hands of the
participants, the majority of the project was based on their decisions on how to develop
the ecotourism project. The PAR process for developing the project allowed me to be a
co-participant in the community groups’ eﬁ‘orts. One contribution I made was to engage
the project participants in understanding how emerging issues affected the project and

ODDDECO’s development activities in general.

Signiﬁcance of the Study
“Participation” is currently a very popular concept for community development
scholars and practitioners. In order to avoid unwanted outcomes and to meet the

development goals, many studies (e.g. Boo 1990, Escobedo 1991, Western, et a1. 1994)

underline that the key to success is involving local people in the process of deﬁning and
implementing community development projects. When speaking of participation,
generally it is people from outside of the community coming with a pre-determined
problem who seek the participation of local people to solve the problem. This form of
participation is functional, where the people’s views are sought usually in terms of
meeting some objective or contributing to some feature of a project. For example,
participation can ensure that valuable local knowledge is used, allow people to develop a
sense of having a stake in the continuation of the project, and raise the consciousness of
people as to the value of their natural resources (Escobedo 1991, Kleymeyer 1994, Wells
1994). When the process of identifying and setting the problem is open to local people’s
participation, the purpose of participation goes beyond a functioml level to sharing the
control of the project between the local people and the outsiders. Participation introduced
at this stage and carried through the entire project cycle can even involve handing over
the control and decision-making power to local people with the outsiders serving as
resources to contribute to the local people’s desired ends. This deﬁnition gives a more
operational meaning to participation.

Kauﬁnan (1997:169) states:

One of the many sources of confusion in the debates on participation is
that participation-as—empowerment is both a goal of change and a method
of change. As a goal, popular participation ultimately refers to the
organization of society in which there no longer exists a monopoly over
the means of political, economic, and social power by a particular class,
sex, race, social stratum, or bureaucratic elite. As a method of change,
participation is a means to develop the voice and organizational capacity
of those previously excluded. It is a means for the majority of the
population to express their needs and to contribute directly to the solving
of social problems.

This study examines this difference between the goal and method of change when
implementing a participatory philosophy to a real-world development process,
especially in the complexities of applying theory to practice. Using an ecotourism
project as a case study, issues are drawn out that can aﬁ‘ect any participatory,

community-based process.

Ecotourism: Deﬁnitions and Issues

A variety of deﬁnitions for ecotornism exist. Though the term’s origin lies in the
pursuit of ecological sustainability of development (i.e. providing economic and social
development possibilities to countries, regions, or local communities taking advantage of,
but striving to conserve, natural resources), the term has often been used to include
almost every sort of tourism that takes place outdoors. The academic literature is riddled
with many diﬁ‘erent deﬁnitions of ecotourism, each emphasizing a different element,
theoretical, or philosophical perspective. Hector Ceballos-Lascmain’s often quoted
deﬁnition of ecotourism focuses on the ecotourist who travels to

relatively undisturbed or uncontaminated natural areas with the speciﬁc

object of studying, admiring, and enjoying the scenery and its wild plants

andanimals,aswellasanyexistingculturalaspects(bothpastand

present) found in these areas... This person will eventually acquire a

consciousness and knowledge of the natural environment, together with its

cultural aspects, that will convert him into somebody keenly involved in

conservation issues. (Ceballos-Lascurain 1988:13)

The Ecotourism Society’s deﬁnition emphasizes the social responsibility needed
by the ecotourist, especially in terms of the conservation of the natural environment and
improvement of the welﬁre of the local community (Western 1993). Goodwin

(1996:288) also stresses the conservation of wildlife and plant habitats, achieved through

“providing revenue to the local community suﬁcient for local people to value, and
therefore protect, their wildlife heritage area as a source of income." Salazar et al. (1991)
describe how ecotourism will result in political, as well as economic, change. This
happens because the economic beneﬁts promote an increased stewardship for the
community’s natural resources, and the tourist returns home, motivated to be nrore
environmentally active. Alternative and commrmity-based tourism community (Demoi
1988, as quoted in Pearce 1992), community-based ecotourism (Kersten 1997), and
integrated conservation-development projects (Wells and Brandon 1992) suggest
additional possible goals for an ecotourism project. These are, respectively: personal and
cultural understanding between the tourists and host; the diversiﬁcation of income to the
local community and the revival of the cultural heritage of the community; and
economically and ecologically sustainable community development.

Ron Mader’s conceptualization of ecotourism was the most helpful in this study:
Instead of creating yet another deﬁnition, Mader (1999) captures the ideas of most
deﬁnitions and describes ecotourism as a special form of tourism that meets three
overlapping criteria:

“1) it provides for conservation measures
2) it includes meaningful community participation and
3) it is proﬁtable and can sustain itself.”

He advocates engaging in ecotourism as process, with the goal of balancing the
three components and seeking the convergence of all three (see Figure 3). The idea of
ecotourism was new to the commrmity groups participating in this ecotourism project and
their conceptualization continued to evolve throughout the study period and will continue

to evolve as the project develops. In a participatory and emergent process, it was not

10

   
    
   
   
 

Conservation Participation

   

  

Economic

Ecotourism Sustainability

Figure 3. Ecotourism as the intersection of three criteria (adapted from Mader 1999).

ll

appropriate to decide on a ﬁxed deﬁnition, but the general understanding of ecotourism
did revolve around the above three criteria.

Meeting the criteria of ecotourism can help ensure positive changes for a local
community, such as decreasing the depletion of natural resources, allowing people to
participate in their own development, and creating an income source. However, there are
some changes that accompany such a process that may be undesirable to some, including
environmental, social, cultural, and economic impacts.

Environmental deterioration, such as soil erosion along paths or increased sound
levels, can result ﬁom the mere presence of more people. This is especially apparent
whenthetornists’ useofthe inﬁastructure andresources isgreaterthanthatofthe local
cormnunity (Cater 1993, Eadington and Smith 1992, Ecotourism Working Group 1995,
Wall 1997, Wallace 1993). There are potential risks if tourism becomes the primary
source of income for a community (Wall 1997). Ecotourism is subject to the same forces
as conventional tourism: there are annual cycles of travel that can be affected by ﬁctors
such as recessions in the economy of the tourists’ home countries, natural disasters in the
host areas, and the comings and goings of ﬁds in types of tourism destination (Murphy
1985). Therefore if they have given up all other sources of income and ecotourism
declines or ﬁils, local commrmities rmy be in a worse condition than before engaging in
tourism. Though one of the goals of ecotourism is to increase the income of a
comrmmity, it can cause tensions when the beneﬁts are unevenly distributed among
community members (Eadington and Smith 1992). In most cases, not every member of a
community will participate to the same degree in tourist activities and this can lead to

conﬂict. One consequence may be a shiﬁ in cormnunity power structures. Those who

12

beneﬁt the most from an increase in income may have held power prior to the
introduction of tourism, but gain power due to their new ﬁnancial resources (Ecotourism
Working Group 1995).

Tourism in general, and ecotourism in particular, can impact the host
community’s culture, which is especially pronounced if a community’s culture is part of
the attraction to tourists. Though an aspect of culture tends to become “commoditized”
or given some monetary value when it becomes a tourist attraction, some argue that this
can be a positive inﬂuence, especially if local cultural forum are disappearing (Cohen
1988). However, cultural artifacts and rituals carry important meanings for the
cormnunity, and commoditization can alter these meanings. These changes can be
positive or negative, depending on one’s perspective. Some communities choose to
display their traditions through demonstrations of dances, construction methods, and
dress, even if these traditions are no longer a part of the people’s modern, everyday life
(e. g. Tilley 1997). MacCannell (1984) believes this is a negative force for a cormnunity
because its culture no longer evolves in a natural manner and a community’s customs
remains ﬂown in time. Cohen (1988), on the other hand, points out that such
commoditization may revive traditions that are beginning to disappear in modern times.
Culture is not merely art, dances, and rituals, but is an element ofhow people conduct
social relationships in everyday life. Kleymeyer (1994) advocates using culture and
traditions as a “toolbox” or resource upon which communities and planners can draw to
enhance the design, adoption, and sustainability of such projects. Many cultures have a
tradition of enviromnental care taking that achieve similar results to those desired by

ecotourism. Some communities have participatory decision-making and work-sharing

l3

traditions that are particularly conducive to ecotourism and community-based
conservation projects. In other words, the implementation of a new project can be
facilitated by already established customs. If such cultural traits no longer exist in the
modern community, a revival of them for the purposes of the project can also renew a
sense of history, especially important for marginalized ethnic minorities.

Cater (1993:89) warns that ecotourism is “not the automatic panacea for all
tourism ills whatever or wherever the destination, " as should be clear ﬁom the discussion
above. In addition to these potentially negative impacts, a community may be
overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of tourists and their high level of needs, as well as
the impacts the tourists cause, as the ecotourism destination becomes popular (Pedersen
l 991 ).

Ecotourism can be a positive form of change for a commrmity but brings serious
challenges as well. Communities, such as those in this case study, can beneﬁt from
understanding both negative and positive aspects and make decisions after reﬂecting on

issues that are problematic for them

The Huatulco Ecotourism Project
While details of the project will be discussed throughout the following chapters,
this section provides the descriptive overview of the project development during the

research periodz.

 

2 Theprocesswastakento the last stage onlyinArroyo Xuchitl. Attheendofthe
ﬁeldwork, the other two communities were still forming a solid group of committed
individuals but were on the track to following similar steps as the Arroyo Xuchitl group.

14

Min of th_e Idea

The idea for an ecotourism project had been discussed among ODDDECO leaders
and within the Seminar for several years before the beginning of this project, but due to
the lack of funds, the idea was not initiated in its fullest form. The people who live near
the Bays of Huatulco observe tourism around them. People in Arroyo Xuchitl observe
the tour trucks taking tourists on white-water rafting trips going through the village on
their way to the Copalita River. Several ODDDECO members, who in 1988 organized to
build the road that leads from the coastal road through Arroyo Xuchitl and halfway to the
Copalita, felt that these tour Operators were making money off of the natural resources
that the community members had taken actions to protect, using the road that they had
built, and leaving no beneﬁts for the community members. Therefore, they thought, why
not get involved in the nature tourism industry? The director of the organization was
aware of the growing popularity of the variety of tourism that diﬁ‘ered from the Bays of
Huatulco mass-ﬂuxury-tourism model called ecotourism He felt the communities had all
of the necessary elements — natural materials from which to build accommodations, the
natural areas that tourists were already visiting, other attractions such as pre-Hispanic
ruins and caves, and their culture which some foreigners are eager to learn about — to
develop ecotourism in the Huatulco area. The leaders of ODDDECO decided to take
advantage of my interest and presence to launch a pilot project in the three communities
of Bajos de Coyula, Arroyo Xuchitl, and San Miguel del Puerto to test their ideas.
W

The ODDDECO director and I ﬁrst met with the ODDDECO leaders at each site.

Discussions focused on the selection of the group of participants. The group would be

15

made up of 8-10 people who have participated in past ODDDECO projects and share the
characteristics of being committed to the organization, being hard workers, and willing to
invest time and energy in a project where the payoffs would only come later. The local
leader was then given the responsibility of selecting these people and inviting them to a
meeting to present the ecotourism idea. Members of the group would be the owners and
operators of an ecotourism business. Therefore a participant had to commit to attending
meetings, to invest their time and labor in building the structures and infrastructure
needed to host tourists, and eventually to take responsibility for some aspect of operating
the business depending on one’s skills and interests.

During the ﬁrst meeting, the director presented the idea of ecotourism, explaining
that many foreigners do not have daily exposure to nature as the peasants of Huatulco do
and go to great efforts to enjoy nature dining their leisure time. When he described how
some people would travel and pay money for a chance to see stars in a clear sky or
butterﬂies in a forest, several people chuckled because stars and butterﬂies are a part of
their daily environment that they take for granted. The director pointed out the tourist
activities that were already occurring around them and the community members could get
involved in the same types of activities. He said that ahnost all of the resources were
available to build simple cabins to lodge people and to take them on excursions around
the cormnunity to see nature. Since the peasants were already having diﬁculty with
agriculture and needed to migrate for work, this project could present an alternative
income that would allow them to stay in their community and develop what they already

had. After opening up the meeting for discussion, the director then asked people to

16

consider if they would be willing to participate in the project and give their commitment
at the following meeting. 1

Several other metings followed, both formally and informally. During the
formal meetings, there was always someone missing from the group even when people
were informed ahead of time of the rmeting. Information, therefore, often had to be
repeated at later meetings. Even after people were asked to commit to being a member of
the community group, some members’ commitment was not clear. However, plans
continued to be developed and carried out. During these formal meetings, the director
did most of the talking with some interjections by the local leader or me, followed by a
short period of group discussion. Much more dialogue and idea generation occurred
during informal meetings. Informal meetings occurred when the director was passing
through the cormnunity, when he and I and whoever else was present were discussing a
detail like funding, or when several of the cormnunity members were chatting during
their everyday interactions.
Collectmg' Information Relevant to the Prom' t

. Observing Similar Activities

Various excursions were taken by several group members to observe other
projects to see what ideas the ODDDECO project could imitate or borrow. Zipolite is a
beach about an hour’s drive ﬁom Huatulco. The entire beach is lined with businesses
that offer food, drink, and lodging in very simple, rustic acconnnodations (see Figure 4).
Thebuildingsaremade ﬁomwoodandthatch. Peoplecanstayinsrnallroornsorjust
rent a hammock, and share bathroom ﬁcilities. Because there were not adequate funds to

bring every person ﬁom the three cormnunity groups, those who visited took pictures and

17

 

 

Figure 4. Beach-front restaurants/lodging at Zipolite (all photos by author).

studied how the structures were built and noted details, such as the types of services
available and the prices charged. A friend of the ODDDECO director owns one of the
establishments. On video, we ﬁlmed images of his rooms while he explained how they
were constructed. He also explained on the video aspects about his garbage and
wastewater management.

During a trip to the city of Oaxaca to attend the Seminar, some members visited a
cormnunity park where most of the construction was wood, which gave them more ideas
on how to use the resources available in their communities to build similar structures. On
the return trip to Huatulco, they visited a couple that lived about 2 hours from Huatulco.
They showed the group members how they propagated ﬂowers and other decorative

plants and displayed them in attractive planters made from gourds and plastic bottles.

18

They promised to share some plant cuttings when the Huatulco groups were ready to
landscape. The wife, a nutritionist, explained that there are many dishes people may not
currently make but can be prepared ﬁom locally available foods and are very nutritious
and tasty. She also offered to give a workshop to those who would be cooking for the
tourists. The images and verbal accounts of the three experiences were later used to share
with the group members who could not see the places in person.

. Workshop

Group meetings had a number of drawbacks. People often arrived late and were
easily distracted because the meetings were held in household courtyards where children
and visitors required the group members’ attention throughout meetings. People’s
patience would have been tried if we had too many meetings or if meetings ran over an
hour. Therefore, to focus the group members’ attention and accomplish a number of
things in one day, the director and I had an idea to conduct a workshop away ﬁom
people’s homes.

I organized the workshop where the following topics were covered. Because
ecotourism was a completely new concept to most members, some literature deﬁnitions
were presented and various group members conceptualization of ecotourism were
summarized (see Figure 5). The workshop participants discussed similar projects after
viewing the video from Zipolite and hearing the experiences of some of the participants
in the tourism industry. Participants were asked to reﬂect in small groups on potential
impacts, both positive and negative, their ecotourism project could have on their
community. The workshop ended with a discussion of the next steps to take in the

project development.

19

 

Figure 5. Workshop for project participants

Accomplishing chiﬁc Tasks

. Looking for Funding

Unlike previous ODDDECO projects that began with some form of funding, this

project did not. This decision was made partly to encourage the kind of dedicated
participation that was required for the long-term success of the project. If people were
willing to work hard despite the lack of funds, their investment of time and energy was
likely to continue well into the future. Another reason for this decision was to
concentrate on the use of non-monetary resources and not depend on monetary ones. The
three groups began with the resources they had on hand, consisting mainly of people’s
time, ideas, and physical work. However, some funding would be necessary. The
director, whose role in the organization included writing funding proposals, took the

responsibility to ﬁnd some ﬁnancing. He and I wrote a proposal that included a funding

20

request for some hardware like tools and nails, food staples to compensate the group
members’ work, and for promotion material such as starting up a website. After
exploring a number of possibilities, he decided to pursue funding from a government
program.
. Acquiring the Land

Because of the communal nature of the land, certain considerations had to be
made when deciding where to build the cabins. The ODDDECO group wanted the use-
rights of the parcel in the group’s name with some written agreement among themselves
on how to share the beneﬁts and what to do if someone wanted to leave the group later.
Therefore, they began to look for parcels of communal land that had attractive features
such as large trees, distance from the village and noise, plenty of water, and a location
near the power lines. The parcel also needed to be available and not used by other
community members. At the beginning of May, they had decided to use a section of one
of the member’s land, but had yet to go through the procedures to turn over the use-rights
to the entire group.

. Work Expeditions

Actual building had to occur to make this project concrete. During my time with
the ODDDECO groups, several expeditions of group members went out to accomplish
set tasks. These tasks included evaluating potential plots of land, evaluating the plot
chosen for the layout of the facilities to house the tourists (see Figure 6), and begimring to
collect wood and thatch for building. The group members committed two days a week to

work only on the project.

21

Organization of the Thesis

This thesis is organized as follows: Chapter 2 is a description of the context that
surrounds and affects this case. In Chapter 3, certain issues arising from participatory
action research will be outlined, followed by a description of the methods used in the
research to explore these issues. Chapter 4 is an analysis the complex characteristics of
the participating community groups. Issues for the outside researcher will be addressed
in Chapter 5. The summary, conclusions, and recommendations of the study are found in

Chapter 6.

 

Figure 6. Expedition to assess potential building site for cabins

22

CHAPTER 2

The Social, Political, and Economic Contexts of Case Study

Introduction

In order to understand the processes that occurred in this case study, it is
important to recognize that this case study is bounded in a number of ways. One is the
physical location, described in this chapter for the region and then for the three study
sites. This physical location is shaped by the people, social institutions, and
organizations that exist there, all of which affect the case study. The remainder of the
chapter, therefore, is a description of the various social, political, and economic

contextual elements of the area of Huatulco.

The Local Socio-Political Structures and Land Tenure

The three communities of the ODDDECO ecotourism pilot project occur under
two governmental entities: the political structure of the municipio and the land-tenure
structure of the agrarian community.

I] l 1 . . .

A municipio is similar to a municipality in the US. in terms of services provided,
structure of elected and hired positions but comparable in size to a township. It is
governed by a president, vice-president, and various departments. The number of
departments depends on the size and complexity of activities within the municipr'o. The
president and vice-president run along national political party lines in elections held

every three years. The departments are divided among the political parties according to

23

their proportion of votes, and the parties appoint the director of their designated
departments. Because of its partisan nature, the municipio government can either support
or hinder the ecotourism project, such as when the ODDDECO groups apply for business
permits.

IheAmnanﬁemmunitx

There are two major forms of communal land tenure in Mexico: ejidos and
agrarian communities. Agrarian communities, which have roots in indigenous land use
patterns, were recognized during the colonial period and are regulated by communities
according to local tradition (Randall 1996), and therefore can vary in how they function
throughout Mexico. Baj os de Coyula and Arroyo Xuchitl are part of the agrarian
community of Santa Maria Huatulco and San Miguel del Puerto is part of the agrarian
community by the same name. The governance structure is important to the ecotourism
project because, within these two agrarian communities, any use of communal land must
ﬁrst be approved and subject to speciﬁc regulations. The ODDDECO groups envisioned
their project as rustic accommodations within each community, as well as excursions
through each community to view the ﬂora and fauna. Therefore permission for this kind
of land use was necessary from the agrarian community.

The agrarian community of Santa Maria Huatulco was approximately the size of
the municipio of Santa Maria Huatulco. The agrarian community was 51,519 hectares
(Instituto de Ecologia 1994), but lost a portion through expropriation by F ONATUR,
leaving about 30,300 hectares. The Bays of Huatulco complex is still under the
jurisdiction of the municipio of Santa Maria Huatulco. There are about 1500 comuneros,

or people who are allocated their share of the communal lands. These lands are managed

24

by the Assembly, whose members are the comuneros, both men and women. The
Assembly meets every three months to make decisions on the use of communal resources
and discusses issues that affect the comuneros. An executive committee is elected every
3 years, led by the comisariado. Comuneros are those people who have papers signed by
the President of Mexico that entitles them to the use of a given piece of land. Any son or
daughter of a comunero can apply for land after age 18. Ofﬁcially, a comunero only has
use-rights to a parcel. These use-rights can be passed on to one’s children but cannot be
sold. However, just as with ejidos which have similar rules, informal selling, leasing, and
sharecropping do occur within agrarian communities (DeWalt and Rees 1994). Selling
use-rights among comuneros occurs in Huatulco, but there are Assembly-established
rules that determine the maximum price of a plot and the percentage of the payment that
goes into the communal treasury.

The Assembly of Santa Maria Huatulco has established regulations that affect the
conservation of natural areas. There are established protected areas, it is illegal to cut
down large trees, even if one has use rights to a parcel on which those trees grow, and
burning to clear a ﬁeld is banned in almost all cases. Any plot allocated to a comunero
that has not been built upon or farmed for more than 5 years reverts to communal
property and may be reassigned. Therefore, farmers are limited to leaving their ﬁelds
fallow for a maximum of 5 years which, on the increasingly exhausted soils of this

region, can be harmful.

25

Community-Based Ecotourism Pilot Project Sites
3 l :1 . .

The pilot project sites were Arroyo Xuchitl, Bajos de Coyula, and San Miguel del
Puerto (see Figure 2), hereafter referred to as Xuchitl, Coyula, and San Miguel,
respectively. These three communities are located in the eastern portion of the region
called the Coast (la Costa) of Oaxaca, which is ﬂanked by the Sierra Madre Sur mountain
range.

Oaxaca is one of the most socially diverse state in all of Mexico in terms of
indigenous peoples. The region of la Costa is predominantly made up of the Zapotec
ethnic group, one of Oaxaca’s 16 ethnic groups. The Zapotecos are descendants of the
rulers of the pre-Hispanic Zapotec civilization, famous for having built cities like Monte
Alban and Mitla. These two areas were located near the present day city of Oaxaca and
have been excavated and opened to the public as museums. La Costa is riddled with
ruins ﬁom this civilization, mostly unexcavated or studied. The people of the three sites
do not consider themselves indigenous, but most of the residents migrated to the
Huatulco area ﬁom the predominantly Zapoteco Sierra region in the 19605. They ﬁrst
migrated in response to the seasonal or year long work that was available in the coffee
plantations, and while some have remained to work on the plantations, many moved
toward the coast to become subsistence farmers. They have physical characteristics
similar to indigenous people and share certain indigenous cultural traditions such as
communal functions called a cargo, including leadership roles, and collective work.
Collective work, called tequio, includes building the school or cleaning the streets of the

village. People are expected to carry out their cargo and tequio without monetary pay

26

(Bonﬁl Batalla 1996, Diskin 1990). Like many indigenous groups, the people of the
three communities also respect reciprocal and cooperative social relations among
relatives, godparents and godchildren (Diskin 1990). The agrarian community structure
is said to originate from a pre-eolonia land tenure system (DeWalt 1994) to which the
three communities adhere.

The state of Oaxaca contains a high level of biodiversity because of the variation
in its geography, with mountains, plains, and coastal areas, and its position at the
convergence of North American and Central American species (Nahmad, et a1. 1994).
The predominant vegetation type around Huatulco is tropical dry forest though marine,
beach, and estuary ecosystems are also important. In a tropical dry forest, the deciduous
trees of the region have adapted to the extended dry season by shedding their leaves. The
tropical dry forests throughout the world are some of the most ﬁagile and least protected
ecosystems (Barkin and Pailles 1998). Therefore, the ﬂora and fauna in Huatulco are not
only very diverse but also need protection.

The majority of the people are farmers. While there is some small-scale ﬁshing
by communities on the coast, the main agricultural crop throughout the region is maize,
the staple food of the people. Most of the peasants have rain-fed ﬁelds and therefore
agricultural activities are centered around the rainy season ﬁom November to May.
During the rest of the year, people attend to their daily chores, building and maintaining
their houses and fences, or clearing new ﬁelds to plant in the next growing season.
Before the rainy season, people prepare their ﬁelds and continue to tend their crops
through the end of the rainy season, when the maize reaches maturity. Maize is the most

important crop, though some people also grow beans, hibiscus, sesame, and chiles.

27

Coffee is grown as a major cash crop in the higher elevations of the Sierra Madre, both
by peasants and on privately-owned coffee plantations.
Cluemﬁhallengcs

Conditions for farming have worsened over the past few years. Older community
members tell of how water sources were considerably greater when they were children.
For example, the arroyo (stream) for which Xuchitl is named always ﬂowed in the past,
but now is dry during the dry season, though groundwater continues to be only a few
centimeters below the surface. Within the past 10 years, rainfall has been considerably
less and/or beginning unexpectedly early or late. In the 1998 growing season, the rains
came in August instead of June and the maize yields were very low and the bean harvest
failed completely. People also tell of new pests attacking their crops that were not
problems before, such as “worms” that eat the bean shoots. People say that one hectare
of maize now yields one tenth of the yield from ﬁve years ago. Some people attribute
this drastic decline mainly to the changes in the rainfall patterns, though the peasants also
cite natural high and low cycles in productivity, deforestation, and declining soil
productivity as additional reasons. With the current low price of maize, it is cheaper to
buy maize than to produce it. Peasants still plant maize because it is a custom and it also
provides pasture for livestock after the maize has been harvested.

Peasants who live closer to the coast are subsistence maize farmers, growing com
for consumption and selling the little surplus to cover daily costs. Those who live in the
coffee-growing areas grow coffee as their cash crop and plant maize for consumption. In

addition to the same problems of declining harvests and poor market prices for maize,

28

these peasants are subjected to the ﬂuctuations in the world price of coffee and in 1999
had to sell their coffee for half the price they received three years before.

Some families supplement their income through some kind of business venture.
Some have small stores of everyday goods such as soap, oil, and sweets. Others sell beer
and soﬁ drinks when they can afford a reﬁ'igerator. Most of the families keep some
livestock including chickens, turkeys, pigs, sheep, goats, cows, and donkeys. Some
people hunt iguana and armadillo for additional meat sources. Only a few households
have ﬁ'uit trees and even fewer have vegetable gardens.

As a result of not being able to subsist on agriculture even with additional income
from the above sources, many people look for work outside of their community. The
Bays of Huatulco tourism industry does provide some jobs though the number was far
greater during the construction period in the 19808. Many people work ﬁom one to two
years in the United States, usually as illegal immigrants. Almost every family I came
into contact with had several members living in the United States.

W13

Coyula, with a population of 385 (INEGI 1996), is a community that is located on
the edge of the expropriated land belonging to the Bays of Huatulco complex. It and the
nearby community of Arena] were incorporated into the complex with the idea that the
farmers and ﬁshers would provide food to the restaurants and hotels, though this has not
happened to the extent expected. The peasants of Coyula do plant papaya, coconuts, and
maize year-round because irrigation water is available from the Coyula River that ﬂows
through the community (see Figure 7). Members of the ecotourism group in Coyula told

of how several families have allied with FONATUR and accepted their presence. Most

29

 

Figure 7. Irrigated ﬁelds in Bajos de Coyula.

community members resent FONATUR’s imposition of regulations on the use of natural
resources that were formerly part of the communal land system. According to law,
FONATUR was to begin building infrastructure and buildings within the ﬁrst ﬁve years
after expropriation in order to maintain their claims on the land. Though this period is
long past, the community has not been able to free itself from the control of FONATUR
due to political inﬂuence and corruption at higher levels of the judicial system.
ODDDECO is currently working with a group of Coyula residents to strategize how to

regain the rights of the peasants as comuneros, independent of FONATUR.

30

AmaXuchitl‘

Xuchitl is a community of approximately 394 people (INEGI 1996). It is located
in the foothills of the Sierra Madre (see Figure 8). Maize farming dominates this
community. It is also an agencia (municipal ofﬁce), that is, there is a branch ofﬁce with
elected community members who can carry out some of the services of the municipal
government. As in the other two communities, people live in a range of housing, ﬁorn
cinderblock structures with zinc roofs to mud and stick construction with a kind of treated
cardboard rooﬁng. Most people have electricity, primarily for lighting. Drinking water
comes from ground water sources that are plentiful throughout the year. Most people
cook using ﬁrewood collected from surrounding brush. People indicated that there was
no shortage of ﬁrewood, especially in the dry season. Additionally, there is much
deadfall ﬁom Hurricanes Paulina and Rick in 1997. ODDDECO has worked closely with
the community group in Xuchitl in recent years and therefore the group is one of the most
organized and experienced of ODDDECO member groups.

SanMigneldaLRuan

The town of San Miguel, with a population of 727 (INEGI 1996), is the center of
the municipio of the same name. This municipio and agrarian community are located in
the coffee growing region of the Sierra Madre. Though still ofﬁcially classiﬁed as
tropical dry forest, the climate is much more humid and the vegetation is green year-

round. A number of private coffee plantations established during the last century provide

 

' Because I lived in Xuchitl, and because the project was the most developed in that
community by the time my ﬁeld research period was over, the majority of this case study
centers on the activities in Xuchitl. The little information provided on the other two
communities is to supplement or conﬁrm the research ﬁndings in Xuchitl.

31

 

Figure 8. Dry stream bed in Arroyo Xuchitl.

seasonal employment during the harvest and all year work for some. The plantation
workers are paid very little. For example, the current weekly wage in the plantation
where the president of ODDDECO works pays only 27 pesos a day, less than $3 US.
according to the exchange rate during the research period, where most wage earners make
40 to 70 pesos an hour. Housing is provided but conditions are very basic, for instance
workers’ houses often have no electricity even when the manager or owner’s house does.
Comuneros who are independent coffee-growers do not necessarily fare better than the
plantation workers because of the decline in world coffee prices in recent years.
However, unlike private plantation workers, they have communal land on which to grow

maize for their own consumption.

32

Tourism in Southern Oaxaca

WWW

FONATUR was established in 1974 by the Mexican government to identify and develop
resort areas throughout the country. Its main functions are to develop the infrastructure
to, and within a site, and attracting investors to purchase land on which to,build and
operate tourism businesses (Garcia Villa 1992). Each site has been chosen_based on
“scientiﬁc studies,” with a major goal of attracting outside investors (Garcia Villa 1992).
FONATUR sites include Cancun, Ixtapa, Los Cabos, Loreto, and Huatulco. The Bays of
Huatulco site, made up of 9 bays, was chosen in the 1970s but it took 15 years until the
site was ofﬁcially expropriated by the government and developed because of the lack of
infrastructure to the coast (Garcia Villa 1992). Huatulco was expected to match or
surpass Cancun in size (Garcia Villa 1992). In 1984, a little over 21,000 hectares that
spanned a band of land 32 km long, was expropriated from the agrarian community of
Santa Maria Huatulco and the Bays of Huatulco was ofﬁcially established for urban and
tourism development (Instituto de Ecologia 1994).

FONATUR established a Master Plan for the development of the Bays of
Huatulco. The plan focuses on “integrated development,” balancing tourism,
urbanization required to support the tourism, and ecological conservation (FONATUR
1991). Development was to occur in two stages: one from 1990-2000, with the
construction of hotels, high-income residential areas, and the supporting infrastructure
around most of the bays, and the other between 2000-2024, with additional hotel
construction (F ONATUR 1991). Development has not gone according to this plan. The

most severe setback occurred in 1985 with the earthquake in Mexico City. Earthmoving

33

equipment was transferred from Huatulco and other parts of the country to aid in the
clearing and rebuilding of the damaged buildings. Construction currently is only in the
ﬁrst phase (1990-1994) of the ﬁrst stage of the Master Plan.

In 1998 there were 175,000 visitors who could stay in 26 hotels, with a total of
2113 rooms, mostly 3 stars and above in ranking (F ONATUR 1998). Average
occupancy in the hotels in 1998 was 51.6% (F ONATUR 1998), with the high seasons at
Christmas and Holy Week, two of the major Mexican holiday periods.

The main developed areas are the Bay of Tangolunda, the Bay of Santa Cruz, and
the town of La Crucesita located inland of the Santa Cruz and Chahué Bays. New
construction is focused presently on the Bay of Chahué. Tangolunda (see Figure 9) is
where the 4 and 5 star hotels are concentrated, along with an 18 hole golf course, a few
stores and restaurants, and some apartments. In the Santa Cruz Bay, deep-sea ﬁshing
boats and bay tour boats use the marina. Nearby, there are dozen beachﬁ'ont restaurants.
There are also a few hotels and bank ofﬁces in Santa Cruz. La Crucesita is a half-
kilometer away and is the residential and commercial center of the entire complex. The
market is very small and expensive and there is little choice in food, clothes, and
everyday goods. The hospital, telephone company, utilities companies, and post ofﬁce
are located in La Crucesita

The town appears very planned and managed. The medians of the roads are
manicured and irrigated to be green, even in the dry season. Bus stops exist where buses
do not yet run. People who work in the tourism businesses generally live in La Crucesita

in apartment complexes and subdivisions of small row houses. There are parts of La

34

 

Figure 10. White-water rafting near the Bays of Huatulco

35

Crucesita where the roads, sidewalks, and streetlights are all in place, forming an empty
grid waiting for new subdivisions to be built.

Most of the tourists arrive by airplane, though bus service ﬁom Oaxaca City is
available several times a day. There are always taxis available to travel between La
Crucesita, Santa Cruz, and Tangolunda, though special arrangements need to be made to
go to the other bays if one does not have a car. Access to the bays west of Santa Cruz is
limited because the road is still under construction, though bay tour boats carry people in
several times a day.

Other than restaurants, bars and nightclubs, and shopping, the tourist activities
offered in the Bays of Huatulco are all nature-based. One can white-water raﬁ (Figure
10), bike, hike, snorkel, deep-sea ﬁsh, ride all-terrain vehicles, Windsurf, go horseback
riding, tour coffee plantations, and of course, tan on the beach and swim in the ocean.

E . l I .

Oaxaca City, at the center of Oaxaca state and 275 km to the north of Huatulco, is
a developed tourist destination. As a colonial city, it has many churches, museums,
restaurants featuring Oaxacan cuisine, and plenty of shopping. Nearby villages are
known for special crafts unique to each one and the area is rich in pre-Hispanic
civilizations’ ruins. Many visitors who come to Oaxaca City will take trip to the coast for
a few days to enjoy the beach.

Other papular vacation destinations along the southern Paciﬁc coast of Oaxaca
are located to the west of Huatulco. Puerto Angel is about 50 km from Huatulco and
another 5 km to the west is Zipolite, a beach made popular in the 19708 by mainly

European hippies. Zipolite still has a very casual atmosphere: one can rent a simple cabin

36

or just a hammock to sleep, small restaurants place their tables out in the sand, and nude
bathers are not an uncommon sight. Another 70 km to the west lies Puerto Escondido, a
holiday spot for Mexicans from Oaxaca. It is also famous for its surﬁng competitions.
All three destinations are featured in most tour books, especially those for low-budget

travelers.

The Mexican Economic Policies and Their Effects at the Local Level

Tourism has played an important role in the Mexican economy for many years.
As a part of the national tourism strategy, F ONATUR expropriated a large portion of
land for the Bays of Huatulco in order to attract foreign investment and foreign tourists.
In addition, the construction involved in developing the infrastructure and building
hotels, services needed to maintain these structures, and tourism businesses created many
jobs. While there were several positive aspects of the government strategy, there were
also negative effects for local people. First, the jobs created did not all go or remain with
the people from Huatulco. Many of the waiters, hotel staff, and store employees are ﬁom
other parts of Mexico. Second, a large area of the agrarian community of Santa Maria
Huatulco was taken away, and in light of the worsening agricultural conditions, the
government now controls the most attractive and lucrative portion that used to belong to
the comuneros. In return for taking away their land, FONATUR gave the comuneros the
control of the local transportation businesses. FONATUR also gave them exclusive
rights to build and operate beachfront restaurants. While these are popular tourism spots
today, they are mostly owned by non-comuneros because the comuneros were almost all

peasants, not small-business operators and therefore sold the businesses to others.

37

The municipios of Santa Maria Huatulco and San Miguel del Puerto had a border
dispute before the arrival of FONATUR. When FONATUR appeared in the picture and
needed to negotiate with the local governing bodies, the government made the boundaries
ofﬁcial and drew the line between the two municipios, placing all of the bays within
Santa Maria Huatulco. Santa Maria Huatulco received a number of direct beneﬁts ﬁom
FONATUR, including infrastructure improvement and a new municipal palace, not to
mention the indirect beneﬁts such as jobs. San Miguel, which claimed coastal land ﬁom
Tangolunda eastwards, received no beneﬁts from the tourism of the Bays of Huatulco
complex whatsoever, thus creating tension between the two municipios. Though Santa
Cruz was not greatly populated when F ONATUR began building, there were a number of
households that were displaced and given very small residential plots with small houses
as compensation.

In addition to the Mexican govemment’s tourism strategy, other economic
development policies have affected the people of Huatlco negatively. When Carlos
Salinas de Gortari was elected president in 1988, he faced a country with a large debt and
rapidly increasing inﬂation. To deal with these issues, he implemented policies of
economic liberalization. These policies were formalized when he made Mexico a partner
in a free trade agreement with the US. and Canada in 1990, which was implemented as
the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed in 1993 by all three countries
(Warnock 1995 ). To attract foreign investment, not just from the US. and Canada but
from all over the world, Salinas’ development strategy underlined “Mexico’s
international comparative advantage,” deﬁned in terms of “low wages, low costs of

production, and cheap energy” (Warnock 1995:52). Opening up the markets affected the

38

Oaxacan peasants in at least one major way: imported corn from the US. and Canada,
thanks to those countries’ subsidies of their farmers, is now cheaper than Mexican maize.
Not only is maize a traditional staple, important to people’s diet and culture, but most
peasants would grow enough surplus to sell in order to have cash for other basic needs.
Today the costs for peasants of producing maize surpasses the income they will receive
from their crop, both the subsistence and cash portions.

Organizations Relevant to the Case

localEnximnmmtalﬁmuns

Grupo Autonomo de Investigaciones Ambientales (GAIA) is a non-govemment
organization that has been working with the agrarian community of Huatulco since 1997
on a two year assessment of the natural resource use, primarily funded by the World
Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). This assessment involved community members’
participation on working groups to determine social and enviromnental problems and to
identify possible projects to address these issues. In February of 1999, GAIA gave a ﬁnal
report of this assessment work at the Assembly of comuneros meeting. At this meeting,
GAIA and the Assembly agreed on GAIA’s proposal to continue with the collaboration
and begin the implementation of projects.

Centro de Soporte Ecolo'gico (CSE) is also funded in part by the WWF. It has a
fund created by its “investors” which include the founders, the Secretariat of the
Environment (SEMARNAP - Secretaria del Medio Ambiente, Recursos Naturales y
Pesca), some of the Huatulco hotels, and other sources. It has three areas of programs:
watersheds, reforestation, and ecotourism. Its reforestation activity is to conduct WWF’s

reforestation efforts of the region after the destruction caused in 1997 by Hurricanes

39

Paulina and Rick. It has also sponsored an ecotourism project near Huatulco in a small
community. First CSE presented the idea to the community members at a meeting where
about half of the population attended. Out of that meeting, interested people came
forward and formed the project members. The project was put on hold when Paulina
wiped out the bridge going to the community, but the bridge was rebuilt in the spring of
1999, and the project picked up where it left off. The director indicated that CSE has had
difﬁculties with this project. For example, some members have withdrawn, preferring to
work in a hotel in the Bays of Huatulco. The director commented that the participants
fail to realize that hotel work is sporadic, available only in the high season, which lasts
about two months between Christmas and Holy Week, with a daily wage of 72 pesos,
plus the individuals have to pay for transportation. The ecotourism project is estimated to
pay 1500-2000 pesos a month. CSE has to struggle to point out that the beneﬁts of this
project are longer term and more dependable than working in the tourism industry.
QDDDEQQ

ODDDECO is a grassroots organization that provides support to community
groups throughout the coastal region and the Sierra Madre Sur. Its origins are in
liberation theology and base Christian community activities ﬁ'om the late 19705.
Workers in a coffee plantation, a priest, and two young social activists, one of whom is
the current ODDDECO director, began working together. They reﬂected on the coffee
workers’ lives and the social structure in which they lived and what actions they could
take to overcome their problems, through the context of applying and living out the
teachings and works of Jesus and his disciples. After reaching out to other coffee

plantation communities, the people formalized their work under an organization called

40

the Union of Indigenous Communities (Unio'n de Comunidades Indigenas or UCI). UCI
worked under two divisions, each headed by one of the social activists. One division
managed the administrative aspects of UCI’s work, such as obtaining and managing
funding, purchasing materials for projects, and coordinating the marketing for coffee for
the coffee-growing members. The other division carried out the actual social organizing
and project implementation.

UCI was very successful in terms of projects. It obtained funds from major
national and international donors and acquired expensive materials such as tractors and
trucks to carry out its projects. But certain members felt that the UCI administrators were
getting carried away in the cycle of obtaining and spending ftmds, including on their own
salaries, and was losing its focus on peasants’ needs. A group split off, led by the head of
the social action division and the community leader from the original coffee plantation,
and founded ODDDECO in 1994.

The organizational structure of ODDDECO can best be described as a network of
community groups with a total of about 1000 members, usually operating independently,
but occasionally mobilized in clusters. ODDDECO’s constitution lays out a hierarchical
structure of leadership that includes an elected executive board and provisions for
periodic member meetings. In actuality, while the executive board does represent the
major ODDDECO leaders, the one person who acts in the position of director (though his
actual title is “advisor”) carries out most of the leadership functions such as community
organizing, writing funding proposals, and serving as the ofﬁcial representative to outside
collaborators. The community leader from the coffee plantation who was one of UCI’s

founders was elected president. His role is constrained by his living in a remote coffee

41

plantation and his suffering from tuberculosis. The vice-president, who is from Xuchitl,

66

is in effect the director’s right hand man” and accompanies him to attend to many
ODDDECO duties.

ODDDECO’s work encompasses a wide range of issues that face some or all of
the region’s peasantry. ODDDECO’s constitution lists many types of activities it can
address: obtaining agricultural credits, marketing agricultural products, building and
improving houses, defending indigenous rights, initiating health activities, and
conducting research and conservation activities on the fauna and ﬂora of the region.
ODDDECO serves mainly as an organizing body that helps member groups by providing
administrative and technical skills, serves as a legal, organized ﬁont to obtain economic
and technical support from governmental and non-govemmental sources, and serves as a
networking body for the members.

The ODDDECO activities since its formation include local political action and a
number of economic development projects. During the local municipal election in 1996,
the organization allied itself with the PRD (Party of Democratic Revolution, one of the
two opposition parties to the dominant PRI — Institutional Revolutionary Party) in search
of a political space to carry out its agenda. Though the PRD lost the presidential seat to
the PRI, the division directorships are divided among the various parties that participated
in the elections, as explained above. The PRD was assigned the Ecology Division and
ODDDECO’s director was chosen to ﬁll that role. One of the accomplishments he was
able to achieve in lines with ODDDECO’s mandate was to change the boundaries of a

new national park while it was still in the planning stage. The original plans included

boundaries that extended beyond F ONATUR’s expropriated land limits and included a

42

number of communities. The Ecology director worked with SEMARNAP to keep the
national park within FONATUR’s land without taking away land ﬁ'om any communities.
This park was established in the summer of 1998.

Economic projects have included training women in sewing skills, establishing
household gardens, obtaining funds for home improvements, starting a chicken raising
cooperative with women’s groups, and planting organic Jamaica, a hibiscus used to make
a soft drink/cold tea. All of these projects were funded ﬁom regional or national credit
programs, many of which required ODDDECO to return the original amount after a
period of time to qualify for more credits. The results of these projects were mixed at
best. For the sewing project, the organization did obtain sewing machines and held
sewing classes for a number of women in Xuchitl, but the classes ended and most of the
women do not sew because of insufﬁcient training. The machines are now in storage.
The jamaica project was beneﬁcial to some, and not to others. The project members
planted different plots at different times in the hopes of spreading out the harvesting time.
They did not know that all of the plants ﬂower at once, no matter the planting time, and
they were overwhelmed with the amount of work needed in the harvesting. Some
members obtained enough and were able to sell it for a good price. Others, lacking time
to harvest a proﬁtable quantity, left a signiﬁcant amount unharvested. The other projects
had similar mixed beneﬁts and the credits extended for all projects are soon due for
repayment if the projects want to qualify for more credit programs.

While a number of activities sponsored by GAIA, CSE, and ODDDECO overlap,
the director conceptualizes ODDDECO as signiﬁcantly different than the other

organizations in its commitment to local communities. GAIA and CSE are both headed

43

up by individuals whose salaries are a major portion of the funding they seek for the
organization’s activities, thus receiving a disproportionately larger beneﬁt ﬁom the
organization’s work than community members. Their projects are driven by pre-
determined agendas that are presented to community members who are then invited to
participate. ODDDECO, on the other hand, is composed of community members. All
outside funding goes to community projects. Most of ODDDECO’s political and
economic activities are in response to community needs, deﬁned by community members

themselves.

Summary

The three pilot project sites for the ecotourism project were the communities of
Bajos de Coyula, Arroyo Xuchitl, and San Miguel del Puerto. These communities are in
the political system of municipios and the land tenure system of agrarian communities,
both of which affect the ecotourism project in terms of business permitting and granting
land use-rights. The communities are located in the tropical dry forest ecosystem and its
members are predominantly subsistence maize farmers, though the national government
economic policies and changing environmental factors have decreased farmers’ abilities
to live off farming. The government-supported mass-tourism complex called the Bays of
Huatulco has also hurt the area’s peasants by taking away land and not providing a
signiﬁcant number of jobs for local people. There are two organizations engaging local
peasants in environmental issues in addition to ODDDECO, though ODDDECO
considers its activities to be based on peasant-deﬁned concerns and focusing its interests

on local communities.

CHAPTER 3

Research Issues and Methods

Introduction

The previous chapter was a description of the context in which this research took
place. The context helps one understand factors that affected the actors, processes, and
outcomes of the research. The academic literature provides a framework through which
some issues that emerged from the research can be understood. In this chapter, two
categories of issues raised in the literature will be presented. The ﬁrst area concerns
questions relating to who controls the research process and the implications of this
control. The second category of issues is about the role of the outside researcher. The

remainder of the chapter is a description of the methods used to explore these issues.

The Evolving Concept of Development

The notion of development in its modern sense originated in the post-World War
II era, where Western nations, led by the United States, set out to spread their economic
successes to countries that lacked them (Esteva 1997). This movement was shaped and
spurred on by decolonization and the Cold War, leaving nation-states open to framing
their internal social, political, and economic relationships. These relationships had
foreign policy implications (Myrdal 1970), most notably, nations that followed the
capitalist/democracy model attracted the interest of the US. and the Soviet Union

supporting those that followed the socialist/centralized government model.

45

The central focus of development began with economic growth. While this is still
a dominant concern, considerable research and debate has sought to broaden the
deﬁnition of development. For instance, Gunnar Myrdal (1970) critiqued the West’s
overemphasis on the economic conceptualization of what represents a developed state,
where it tried to superimpose strategies that worked for its countries on very different
systems and conditions of the “undeveloped” countries. Around the same time, Dudley
Seers (1969) also critiqued the economic blinders of development advocates and sought
to broaden the measures of development from economic growth and gross national
product to measures of the alleviation of poverty, unemployment, and equality. Gustavo
Esteva’s discussion echoes Myrdal and Seers (Esteva 1997), and summarizes the
changing and widening foci of the United Nation’s development efforts. Despite this
long-standing discussion, development language today often reﬂects the dominance of
the developed countries and development organizations in deﬁning what is development.
Raff Carmen (1996:95) writes:

[The] tools of progress are, pre—eminently, education, literacy and mass

communication... So, too, are references to campaigns, strategies, targets

and approaches laid on to attack 'the problem', deﬁned - almost invariably

negatively - in terms of 'lack of education', 'lack of knowledge', 'illiteracy',

'superstitions', 'traditions', 'lack of awareness', 'lack of skills and

knowledge'.

While the emphasis of development efforts has shifted more toward people for
whom the efforts are being made (people at the “bottom” rather than the powers at the
“top”), critics demonstrate that the perspective of those at the “bottom” is often ignored.
Carmen (1996) critiques newer development movements that seemingly emphasize

people’s skills and knowledge. For instance, terms such as “Putting the Last First”

(Chambers 1997) and “Putting People First” (Cemea 1985) “is about the development

46

intervener' goals, plans and constructions, as if people had not been ‘ﬁrst’ all along. As a
matter of fact, they had not” (Carmen 1996:48).

Some academics have documented people’s movements to mobilize people to
better their condition through their own efforts, illustrating that not only are the
“underdeveloped” not as helpless as they are often portrayed, but that they are actually
taking action with or without outside intervention. Muhammad Anisur Rahman’s work
in Aﬁica revealed some interesting concepts of development from local people (Rahman
1993). He translates various local languages’ words or phrases that came closest to
“development”: "to stand up, take control over what they need to work with, to do things
themselves in their own search for life, to move forward, supporting each other.”

(Rahman 1993:135, translations in italics).

Research into Development

Both standard and participatory research approaches can be used to help people
explore their problems and propose solutions to them. In standard researchz, the
academic researcher ﬂames real-world situations into research problems that he/she can
investigate and analyze from a detached point of view, though the researcher’s biases and
assumptions do affect the research to some extent. Participatory forms of research, on the
other hand, begin with the problem for research set by a party other than the academic

researcher, a group actually facing that problem.

 

2 Standard research includes various types of research, usually called qualitative and
quantitative approaches (Creswell 1994) or positivist and constructivist research (Mertens
1998). The distinctions between these approaches are signiﬁcant, but the common
characteristic is that the academic researcher deﬁnes the research problem.

47

One type of participatory research is action research (AR). AR, developed in the
context of organizational and industrial efforts to improve performance, is where
management (or some party that holds power) deﬁnes the research problem and
determines how the results will be used, though workers or community members are
incorporated in the intermediate stages of research in order to tap into their knowledge
and abilities (Brown and Tandon 1983). Another form of participatory research is
participatory action research (PAR), which has roots in radical philosophies and in
movements of groups with little power in developing countries (Selener 1997). In PAR,
the group of people attempting to solve a practical problem controls the entire process
(Hall 1982).

Of the above research approaches possible for addressing the ecotourism project,
this research project shared the most characteristics with PAR, including local people
(through ODDDECO) deﬁning their own research problem. Two issues from PAR were
prominent in this research: the characteristics of the participant group and the role of the

outside researcher.

Characteristics of the Participatory Group

Most grassroots organizations, such as ODDDECO, organize people to address a
common concern, using the people’s abilities and ideas. One tends to assume then that
such organizations would be highly participatory with democratic decision-making
processes. Carmen (1996) notes that in fact, participation should not even be an issue
when talking about people’s control over their life and ownership of actions taken to

improve it - participation is a given. PAR seeks to establish horizontal relationships

48

within a group where all participants bring valued knowledge, experience, and abilities
(Fals-Borda and Rahman 1991). Again, the assumption is that the participants share
power equally.

In reality, groups are complex and participants are not all the same: abilities as
well as levels of power usually differ. Michael Kauﬁnan (1997) describes the concept of
“differential participation.” This addresses the different levels of power group members
have and how that power affects their participation. He uses it speciﬁcally to describe the
tendency for women to have less power than men, though he acknowledges that the
concept can be applied in different ways.

Maguire (1987) shares the concern of differential participation. Even though
PAR's main focus is to enhance oppressed people’s power through knowledge-generation
and action that leads to their liberation within society at large, Maguire critiques most
PAR work as somewhat homogenizing those who make up the "oppressed group." She
focuses on how women are usually ignored in PAR projects and accounts, speciﬁcally
through:

Male-centered language.

Women's unequal access to project participation.

Inadequate attention to obstacles to women's participation in projects.
Women's unequal access to project beneﬁts.

Unsubstantiated generalization of the beneﬁts [“community” beneﬁts
may actually be men’s beneﬁts].

Absence of feminism from theoretical debates on participatory research.

. Exclusion of gender issues from participatory research issues agenda. (Maguire
1987:51-52).

Another differentiation of roles in a group is between the leader(s) and followers
of an organization. A leader may have mobilized people to form the group in the ﬁrst

place, she may be chosen by the members to represent them to other institutions, or he

49

may be the idea generator, the task implementer, or the motivator for the group. When
considering people’s abilities to mobilize and act for their own purposes, one may
wonder ﬁ'om where the leaders emerge. The term “organic intellectual” coined by
Antonio Gramsci (Hoare and Smith 1985) identiﬁes “leadership [that] arises from, and is
nourished by, the actual situation of workers and peasants” (Hall 1981:11). Bingen
(1996: 27) describes grassroots leaders as shaped by “societal and economic interests,
historical events, and international and institutional conditions.” This background in turn
affects the organizational structure and actions members choose.

Case studies of grassroots organizations reveal that leadership and the associated
power is a problematic issue. Lara and Molina ’s study of neighborhood housing
committees in Costa Rica revealed that the use of the power of a leader is affected both
by the leader and by the followers (Lara and Molina 1997). They note: "In spite of the
ideals or good intentions of a leader, they are almost always captive to their own need
and desire for power and prestige" (Lara and Molina 1997:49). At the same time,
people’s expectations of leaders affect their leadership approach:

Whether or not . . . the leader will accept responsibility for developing

democratic and participatory practices depends on the speciﬁc community

and organization. We found that a leader's actions and options were

conditioned by the aspirations and expectations of the group as well as by

the broader socio-political context. We repeatedly saw that the attitudes,

ideals and aspirations of members play as important a role as the

individuality and convictions of the leader... In order to maintain their

leadership role, leaders must, at least to some extent, respond to the

conceptions and expectations of the community they represent. (Lara and

Molina 1997:47)

Differential participation, therefore, can be understood in at least two dimensions:

the relationship between leaders and followers and between women and men, both in

terms of roles they are expected to ﬁll and roles they choose to ﬁll.

50

Role of the Outside Researcher

The second topic highlighted in this thesis is the role of the outside researcher in
PAR. Usually this person is from an academic institution or an expert in a specialized
area. Since PAR is based on horizontal relationships between all participants (see
above), the distinction between “researcher” and “research subjects” of standard research
is not made because all participants are co-researchers (Freire 1982, Gaventa 1991, Hall
1981). Therefore I use the term “outside researcher” to indicate that this person comes
from outside of the community group engaging in research, who generally has a
specialized, academic background, and who may have different interests than the
community group, such as engaging in graduate research.

The PAR literature casts the outside researcher in a wide range of roles, such as
organizing the community group, providing moral support, establishing links to sources
of technical, ﬁnancial, or political support, among many other roles (Hall 1981, Selener
1997, Smith and Willms 1997). Whatever the role, a key factor is the balance of
contributions ﬁ'om the outside researcher and the group researchers, acknowledging that
all have knowledge and skills that are relevant to the problem at hand, and the
combination of the different knowledge and skills is the strength of PAR (Maguire 1987,
Selener 1997).

Perhaps the most emphasized role for the outside researcher is that of a facilitator.
In Paolo Freire’s approach, the role of the educator is to lead the learners in critical
reﬂection that will eventually lead to conscientization (F reire 1970), or critical

consciousness. Though Fals-Borda allows for the facilitator role to be played either by

51

an inside or outside “agent of change” (F als-Borda 199lbz4), this person guides the group
through praxis to achieve social transformation. Selener (1997:37) also underlines the
outside researcher’s role “as a facilitator in setting the research agenda, deﬁning
problems, collecting information or data, and analyzing problems in light of the social,
economic, political, and technical context.”

Because he/she can play different roles depending on his/her skills and what role
the community group needs ﬁlled, the outside researcher must deal with two factors: the
expectations from others for one who ﬁlls a particular role and the researcher’s own
drives to ﬁll a particular role. Academic researchers engaged in PAR may face
expectations from people associated with the conventional “expert” role they play in
society. Knowledge generation, mainly through scientiﬁc research, has long been the
domain of academics. People who generate knowledge and deﬁne what is considered
legitimate knowledge are powerful, often using their power to dominate those without
specialized knowledge (Selener 1997). PAR aims to validate other forms of knowledge,
especially popular knowledge, and give control of knowledge generation to local people
(F als-Borda and Rahman 1991, Selener 1997). However, community participants may
still expect an outside researcher to possess knowledge and status greater than theirs.

While facing expectations from others, the outside researcher also may have
his/her own expectations for his/her role. Giving up one’s control and power is very
difﬁcult and even threatening (Chambers 1997), thus an outside researcher may still
consider himself/herself an expert. Also, one’s motives for getting involved in PAR are
varied, and such motivations do affect the research. Maguire (1987:209), for instance,

notes that most PAR projects “begin with the researcher’s rather than participants’

52

commitment to an alternative approach to social science research.” The outside
researcher may cast himself/herself in a role when approaching research with an agenda,
such as playing the facilitator role to promote the PAR even if that approach is new or
unknown to the participating group.

A major distinction between PAR and AR is the political position of the outside
researcher. In AR, the outside researcher will often act as a go-between for management
and the workers or comparable parties, promoting cooperative action, but he/she
deﬁnitely works within the prevailing system of power structure (Brown and Tandon
1983). In PAR, on the other hand, the outside researcher clearly allies himself/herself
with the community group engaging in research (Brown and Tandon 1983). PAR
assumes a conﬂictive relationship with more powerful social structures rather than a
cooperative one, which is the case for AR (Brown and Tandon 1983). This alliance of
the outside researcher means he/she “must be committed to the cause of the people,
involving him/herself in the entire participatory research process, including the actions
implemented” (Selener 1997:21, emphasis mine). This alliance, or partisanship, can
create tensions for the outside researcher in a number of ways including going against the
class from which the researcher comes (Selener 1997). An outside researcher may ﬁnd
himself/herself in a position working against academic or political institutions that
support the researcher’s career. Logistical issues, such as the researcher’s time
commitment, may cause a constraint to the level of commitment the researcher can make.

Maguire (1987) addresses this issue of time. Most outside researchers do their
work under some kind of institutional ﬁamework. Additional professional commitments

or limited funding for their work may shorten their time working with a community

53

group. The time needed to build a trusting relationship with a community group takes a
long time. Thus, the amount of time it takes to carry out most participatory efforts
combined with one’s professional, ﬁnancial, or personal constraints may cut that time to
decrease the possibility of obtaining the ideal outcomes of community empowerment or
effective participation. Maguire (1987) cites several PAR cases where time constraints
made it difﬁcult for the research to meet PAR goals (see also Seymour 1997).

Maguire discusses time in the framework of the limitations of the local
participants as well:

While researchers may be able to invest their total work time in a

participatory research project, participants continue their regular life

activities. How much time is required of local people to participate in a

project? (Maguire 1987: 46)

These issues then raise dilemmas for all participants, both the outside researcher
and the community participants. When each participant is expected to engage in the
research process and the community group’s agenda, time limitations may decrease the
degree one is able to carry out one’s commitments.

Research Design

The issues of differential participation and the role of the outside researcher are
problematic and research into them can advance the theory and practice of participatory
action research. The following methodology was used in this study to investigate the
issues outlined above.

AssnmnﬁensnfthekesearchApnmach
PAR can use a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed design, depending on what the

participants deem appropriate to address their problem. While the potential for the use of

quantitative design exists, I used a qualitative approach for the initial research conducted

54

to become familiar with the context, as well as to analyze the information gathered after I
completed the ﬁeldwork. Creswell (1998) asserts that both the assumptions of the
qualitative paradigm and the assumptions about the qualitative methodology shape the
choice of this approach. The qualitative paradigm (Creswell 1998) assumes that
perceptions of reality are subjective and different for each study participant, and that the
researcher has an interactive role in the research. Accepting this concept of reality, I
have attempted to understand the perceptions the participants within this study,
understanding that this construction of their reality is inﬂuenced by my own perceptions,
not only because I bring biases and assumptions to the research, as do all researchers, but
my role as a co-participant in the research process lends itself to my interpretation of the
events occurring around me.

Using a case study to frame the qualitative approach, an understanding of what
was occurring within particular boundaries was developed. These boundaries included a
set time ﬁame, a moment in history: a particular location, and speciﬁc actors.
Understanding the context, however, goes beyond a methodological point. In the PAR
ﬁarnework as discussed above, the importance of allowing the participants to set the
research problem is paramount. If the issues they want to resolve emerge from their
reality, “the everyday becomes not the contingent and incidental, but that which is at

stake for those living out the circumstances that have given rise to the movement” (Pratt

1998:434)3. Thus the context in which the research takes place is not merely that which

 

3 This quote is taken from Mary Louise Pratt’s discussion of research on social
movements in Latin America. It is quite relevant in the context of PR when people take
action to change their lives. Whatever the scale of this change, it is a type of social
movement.

55

frames the research ﬁndings, but is the starting point for the entire research process.
WW

Stake (1994) emphasizes that a case study strives to understand what can be
learned from this single case more than generalizing beyond the case. Putting boundaries
around the case allows the reader to create a ﬂame, understanding that changing one of
the boundaries, such as the actors, time in history, or location, could deeply inﬂuence the
outcomes. Therefore such boundaries increase the value of single experiences because of
the rich lessons to be learned ﬁom each one. This study involved a bounded, context-
speciﬁc process regarding a particular group’s interest in ecotourism. It was also
bounded by the collaboration period between the ODDDECO groups and myself, and
bounded in location by what ODDDECO determined as pilot sites and participants.

The focus of ethnography is on describing and interpreting a group and the social
phenomena they exhibit, usually in terms of a group’s culture (Creswell 1998, Atkinson
and Hammersley 1994). Understanding how individuals interact within a group engaged
in PAR provides further information on why events occurred as they did. The group's
culture is shaped by who is a participant, the ethnic history of each person, the collective
experiences, and the experiences accrued during the research period. These factors,
again, are important to understand in order to appreciate the lessons one can extract ﬁ'om

a single case study.

56

D I ll 1' 4
. Entry into the Study Context

Developing trusting relationships is key to being able to do both qualitative
research and PAR. In qualitative research, one cannot understand people’s perceptions if
those people are not willing to share them. It is through relationships between people,
not a one-time encounter of a researcher with a list of questions interviewing a
community member, that each person will reveal his/her stories. As the people involved
in PAR strive to work in solidarity with each other and to develop equal relationships
between the researcher and the community group, trust must be built between the outside
researcher and the community participants.

Trusting relationships take time to build, usually many months or even years.
Because of the very limited time available to conduct this research, I worked through
ODDDECO’s network of relationships with community members. Mainly through
introduction by the director who served as “gatekeeper” (Creswell 1998), I met
ODDDECO members who were interested in ecotourism. I worked closely with the
ODDDECO leadership to determine the processes and methods we used to organize
community groups and begin implementing the project. In addition to working on the

project, I lived in Xuchitl and shared everyday life with most of the group members in

 

4 This study received approval from the Michigan State University Internal Review Board
for research involving human subjects (IRB# 98418). I received the consent of all
persons that participated in the different aspects of this research. People’s names have
been kept conﬁdential, though some are identiﬁed either by their residency in a
community or membership in an organization. Prior to asking for their consent, I
informed people of the goals and procedures of this study and their role in it and they
were permitted to withdraw ﬁ'om the study at anytime with no negative consequences.

57

that community. Our everyday interactions contributed to developing relationships that
nurtured trust and permitted collaboration.
. Instrument Design

The ﬁeldwork for this study took place during a four month period between
January and May 1999. Initially, observation and unstructured, open-ended group and
individual interviews with the ODDDECO leadership and members were the primary
research approaches. The same methods were used with tourism professionals and
community development workers in order to understand the research context and to
establish relationships with the participants. The type of sampling used was snowball and
opportunistic sampling (Miles and Huberman 1994). The snowball sampling began with
the gatekeeper (the director of ODDDECO) and the people to whom he introduced me. I
then proceeded to contact people who these people introduced me to, following new leads
as they arose. The opportunistic sampling involved observing or interviewing people
whenever an opportunity arose, whether it was asking about the communal lands
structure after an assembly of comuneros meeting or observing daily life as we ate
together.

In the PAR framework, the participants determine the research process, including
the decision of what research instruments to use. The ODDDECO participants and I used
the following instruments: researching and communicating with funding sources,
observing other similar tourism projects, exchanging ideas and experiences in tourism
activities, and participating in a workshop on ecotourism. As we began to organize the
community groups and carry out plans, I used participant observation to examine the

process through which we worked.

58

I kept ﬁeld notes on interviews and observations and kept a journal. Though ﬁeld
notes included reﬂective notes in addition to descriptive notes about what people’s
responses were in interviews or activities observed, the journal (or a collection of what
Maxwell (1996) calls memos) was where I speciﬁcally recorded reﬂections on my role,
assumptions, and perceptions, and how they changed, as well as on-site, preliminary
analysis of the data I was collecting. These different types of ﬁeld notes are especially
necessary to document data into different categories: accounts of events, quotes or
paraphrases of what people said, and my impressions and feelings during the research
process.

Reﬂection is one half of the process of praxis, central to what guides PAR. Praxis
involves a back and forth movement between acting and reﬂecting, one step inﬂuencing
the next. This action-reﬂection cycle can occur at various levels, each time creating new
knowledge. For example, a participant’s explanation of the agricultural practices in
Xuchitl was recorded in writing. While recording, I would realize what information I did
not understand and would construct new questions to clarify the story. Thus this
reﬂection led to action: asking more questions. On a deeper level, I would look back on a
week's activities in the project development and compare it to the PAR literature (Hall
1981, Fals Borda and Rahman 1991, Maguire 1987, Selener 1997) and to other
participatory researchers’ experiences. This reﬂection then shaped the choice of
subsequent actions, actions that would provide material for further reﬂection. While
reﬂection is primarily a mental and emotional activity and action more of a physical
activity, recording both shows the map of the development of the research process,

strongly leaning toward my personal experience in that process.

59

Methndsfcrlrriﬁaatinn

A central question to any form of research is determining if the ﬁndings are
“right,” or correctly represent what is going on. Stake (1994, 1995 as cited in Creswell
1998) focuses on triangulation, or the use of multiple perspectives in data collection and
analysis. This was especially important in order to avoid misinterpretations due to
cultural differences and language barriers. Multiple perspectives were sought from the
different researchers (an academic, community members, ODDDECO leaders, Seminar
participants), the tools and techniques used to produce data (observations by the
researcher, group reﬂection, and document analysis), and the type of data produced for
analysis (the researcher’s observations and reﬂections, other participants’ observations
and reﬂections).

A useful test of the validity of the research lies with the community group.
Because the primary beneﬁt of this study was for the community groups and ODDDECO,
and their participation in almost every step was expected because of the use of PAR, the
participants determined the validity of the ﬁndings for the ODDDECO groups by what
sense they choose to make ﬁ‘om the data and analyses. Another test of validity will occur
after the publication of this work, when the participants will receive feedback from the
analysis and writing process and assess that feedback for its ﬁt with their perception of

reality and its useﬁrlness in their context.

Summary

Development as a concept has been problematic since its modern inception after

the Second World War. Questions such as “What is development?” “Who deﬁnes

60

development for whom?” and “Who participates in development and how?” have shaped
the discussion of development. Participatory forms of research, such as PAR, are one
way to tackle these questions. Two issues in PAR that are particularly relevant to this
case study: the characteristics of the participant group and the role the outside researcher
plays in that research process. Individuals in a group of people, engaging in their own
development are not homogeneous. Different functional roles or differentials in the
power distribution, such as between men and women or between followers and leaders,
add dimensions to participatory research that cannot be ignored, for the differential
affects the promotion or decrease of the participation of the group members.
Understanding what the outside researcher’s role actually is and understanding the
implications of that role is important for the goal of fostering the empowerment and
autonomy of the community group engaged in research. Forming an alliance with the
local community group can present problems for the researcher and issues of time can
affect the outside researcher’s participation. Expectations by the community group of the
researcher as well as those imposed by the researcher also shape that person’s actual role.
The methods used in the research were qualitative in nature, framed by the case study and
ethnography research approaches. The issue of differential participation as they relate to
the Huatulco ecotourism project based on patterns in relationships that emerged during
the research will be addressed in the following chapter. The analysis in Chapter 5 will
examine the questions raised about the role of the outside researcher based on self-

reﬂection of my participation.

61

CHAPTER 4

Differential Participation in the Ecotourism Project

Introduction

The diversity within a group means its members may participate in collective
efforts in different ways. Within the context of the Seminar, differences are seen as an
asset: the variety of perspectives, experiences, and ideas result in the most creative
approaches to each member community’s problems. The Seminar, however, faces
challenges in overcoming some of the power differentials that exist among the
participants, power gained by virtue of education, gender, experience in the Seminar, or
simply a dominant personality. The dominance of some participants over others means
others’ participation is reduced, thus decreasing the beneﬁts associated with differences.
This research suggests that ODDDECO also faces these same challenges. The need to
understand the different levels of participation within a community group engaged in
PAR was raised in Chapter 3. In this chapter, the implications of differential
participation of the ecotourism project members will be explored, concentrating on the
relationships between leaders and followers and between women and men. First, the
nature of different members’ participation in ODDDECO will be described then the
power dimension behind their roles and the tensions that creates for PAR will be
explored.
ODDDECO’s Structure and Member Participation

The organizational structure of ODDDECO was described in Chapter 2. Each

community group has one or two leaders. These leaders appeared to have emerged

62

naturally rather than have been formally selected. Their responsibilities include calling
the group meetings and coordinating the group’s activities. These leaders work closely
with the director, both on speciﬁc projects and on more general issues of concern to the
organization. For instance, during a meeting with one of the community leaders about
the ecotourism project, the director and leader brainstormed about possible ecotourism
activities before moving on to a discussion about how the organization could help some
of its members deal with a legal issue ﬁom an ODDDECO-organized action in the past.
The director interacts directly with the community group members during most phases of
a project. In the ecotourism project in Xuchitl, the director was present and led most
meetings and activities, though some of the tasks were organized and carried out by the
local group.

The director plays the most number of functional roles within the organization.
He usually thinks up fundable projects based on the needs of the various community
groups, he does most of the legwork to obtain these funds, and runs the meetings with
local groups to implement the projects. He showed me a number of proposals he had
written ﬁ'om the past or shared ideas he had for future projects, some of which he planned
to submit to a speciﬁc funder, others of which were still in the idea stage. Several funded
projects were in progress during my time in Huatulco, and the director made various trips
to the involved communities and to Oaxaca City to coordinate the next phase. In addition
to playing these roles, the director had characteristics of a leader that are difﬁcult to
label - perhaps charisma or some natural ability to get people to follow him. It was
striking how many people willingly joined the ecotourism project, even though most had

no idea what the ecotourism concept was about. There were doubters, especially because

63

ODDDECO’s recent projects had mixed results, at best. Despite this doubt, most people
appeared to trust the director enough to be willing to try something new.

The director has a background that was conducive to the development of his
leadership skills and role: he comes from a poor, rural family; he has a high level of
formal education that gave him writing skills and critical drinking skills; he has a diverse
work background in social organizing, civil service, and road construction as a
contractor; and he has participated in a variety of national and international experiences.

The local leaders were people who, for the most part, had no more than a few
years of formal education. Two were in their early 30s and even the older leaders in their
40s and 505 began their social activism very young. One of the young leaders was the
community leader in Xuchitl who became involved in the community affairs of the
village and the agrarian community at age 19. He met the ODDDECO director shortly
thereafter and began to work with him on local issues. The other young leader, working
in San Miguel, is the eldest son of ODDDECO’s president, who is engaged in the
liberation theology movement like his father and has followed his father’s footsteps in
community organizing.

The local leaders did not share the same background as the director, but had other
abilities that helped them in their leadership positions. They conceptualized their
leadership being based on three types of characteristics:

1. Immnhinesslrdiahim — a person’s willingness to help a fellow community
member. If one went to a leader and asked for help, he/she could trust the leader

to help, often immediately. The Xuchitl leader told me of many instances where

64

ODDDECO members would have a crisis that the director acted upon
immediately, often postponing his other responsibilities.

2. Wm. A leader who has connections within the civil service
and/or knows people’s rights can help steer others through a system. For
example, civil servants may lazily ﬁll out a birth certiﬁcate. When errors are
discovered years later, it might cost the person bribe money to get someone to ﬁx
it. If a leader knows the head of public records or knows what kind of evidence
to present to rectify the error, he/she can ﬁnd a solution to an otherwise difﬁcult
situation.

3. WW2) - the ability to get peorile to
respond to an invitation to a meeting. One person may ask people to attend a
meeting and no one will come. One with the power to call people will announce
a meeting and people attend even if they do not know the purpose of the meeting,
knowing that that the leader had an important reason for inviting them. For
instance, the Xuchitl leader was one of the two people in his community who
provided the community announcement service: anyone who was organizing a
community meeting would send a message to him and he would read it over a

loudspeaker that could be heard throughout most of the village.

While an in-depth study into the social, economic, and historical contexts that
shaped the ODDDECO director and community leaders would give us a more complete
understanding of their leadership abilities and styles (Bingen 1996), such a study is

beyond the scope of this thesis. However, the key to the ecotourism project was the

65

leaders’ inﬂuence on community members and their abilities to organize the working
groups.

The ODDDECO members at large mainly are the beneﬁciaries of income-
generating projects or are involved in political activities, such as participating PRD
election efforts. Their participation therefore mainly involved their physical presence at
meetings or their work to carry out a task. They are not consulted purposefully for
organizational decision-making, though if they are present during such discussions, their
input is welcomed and taken into consideration. No women are local leaders and both
men and women are followers. The women have been at the center of some speciﬁc
projects. Most of the women are spouses of ODDDECO members, and therefore have
either participated directly in ODDDECO projects or have done so indirectly by working
with their husbands. For example, many women work in their family ﬁelds and therefore
worked on ODDDECO’s agricultural or livestock projects in which their husbands

participated.

Power Differentials Between Leaders and Followers
Leaders

The participants in the Seminar, including the ODDDECO director and the other
local leaders who sometimes participated in the Seminar, conceptualize their role as
representatives of their communities or community groups both in positive and negative
terms. They called themselves mandaderos (mandar is to command or send, therefore a
mandadero is one who is commanded or sent by another). While their role was to share

accounts of the activities of a community group or bring that group’s problems for the

66

Seminar to consider, several representatives described their role as one where they try to
both anticipate and solve their community's or group’s concerns and needs.

As humble as this depiction may sound, the director of ODDDECO admitted that
a mandadero is a position of power, though most of these leaders would not recognize it
as such because of the negative implications of “power.” However, the Seminar
participants discussed how power could be used for the good of a group or for a leader’s
selﬁsh aims. In many countries, connections and corruption dominate how things work.
In Mexico, it appears that people often get jobs or manipulate the bureaucracy through
personal connections. Many people in positions of political power are said to be corrupt,
using their position to inﬂuence a decision in their favor or to swindle money. A
mandadero’s connections can beneﬁt an organization or a community to access funds or
speed up paperwork for a legal process or they can be used to improve his social standing
or allocate a disproportionate part of funds for a project for his salary.

ODDDECO’s director discussed the power-trap that leadership presents. While
the rewards of effective leadership are people’s respect and trust, these are also a burden.
He says it is virtually impossible to say, “No,” “I am not able,” or “I do not know.” It is
expected of him to do whatever is asked or ﬁgure out how to do it. ODDDECO members
often come to him with personal problems and look to him for solutions. Thus, in the
Oaxacan context, followers’ expectations of the leader are to be ﬁlled, willingly or not,
and most leaders both resent and enjoy the power vested in them.

Followers
Generally speaking, the director, the local leaders, and I generated ideas for the

ecotourism project, which were then presented to the community group members. The

67

followers rarely gave or were asked for their opinions. When asked why we could not
solicit people’s ideas, both the director and the local leader of Xuchitl said that the
members could not conceptualize things beyond their everyday existence; when it came
to agricultural matters, they were experts, but with new ideas such as ecotourism, they
drew a blank. The leader in Xuchitl, who was a farmer and mason, could think critically
in broad terms. When asked how he was different than the rest of the Xuchitl group
members, he explained that his experiences outside of Xuchitl (working in the coastal
city of Salina Cruz where he learned to be a mason, holding a job in the municipal
ofﬁces, and participating in the Seminar) exposed him to a wider range of ideas, a feature
that only a few of the group members shared.

On occasion during group meetings or at the workshop, the participants were
asked for their ideas on what roles they would like to play in the ecotourism enterprise or
to reﬂect on the possible results, both positive and negative, of bringing tourists into their
communities. Responses were somewhat slow in coming and the participants did not
generate a very long list, but it appeared that this was due to not having much experience
at such discussions rather than an “inability” to think beyond their daily lives.

While granting that a range of experience allows one to begin to think beyond
one’s daily life, the adult education and PAR theorists speciﬁcally describe the processes
that allow the most sheltered of people to become critical thinkers through praxis (e. g
Hall 1981, Fals Borda and Rahman 1991), or what Freire (1970) calls conscientization.
Praxis and conscientization are processes grounded in people’s existence in the concrete
world (F reire 1970) and therefore, the broader their experiences, the more resources one

may have upon which to reﬂect and from which to learn. Perhaps this was the case with

68

the development of critical thinking skills for the ODDDECO leaders. However, even if
individuals lack a wide range of experiences, a group can learn from the collective and
varied experiences of the group members by critically reﬂecting upon those experiences
and upon what people know of their environment. This reﬂection informs action that
serves as a way to test new ideas and to acquire new experiences.

The ODDDECO leaders’ dismissal of those who lacked critical thinking skills, as
discussed above, appeared as if they were ranking participants based on their level of
critical consciousness and therefore valuing them differently. It appeared that the
followers with fewer experiences remain dependent on the leaders for guidance. This
means it is less probable that individuals or groups within ODDDECO will take initiative
to deﬁne issues or act on their concerns. For an organization with material resource
limitations, it restricts its available human resources by not developing each member’s
capabilities. For example, the director cannot visit outlying communities very often
because he lacks the money to buy gasoline or the appropriate vehicle to reach these
communities in the rainy season. If the local leaders and community members were able
to better organize themselves, the director’s input would only be necessary on rare

occasions.

Power Differentials Between Women and Men

women

Early in our collaboration when the director, local leaders, and I discussed how to
form each community group. During these conversations, I asked if there were women

among the people they intended to invite to participate. The answer was no, but the

69

question made them recognize that women would be an important part of the project.

The leaders’ acknowledged women’s participation was crucial because they felt women
were more responsible and women would be the ones cooking and cleaning the cabins for
the ecotourists. Most of the male members’ wives eventually would be incorporated into
the project whether the women were ofﬁcial members of the project or not, which was
consistent with past ODDDECO efforts.

The Coyula and San Miguel groups were only at the very initial stage of
formation during my research period. At the ﬁrst meeting in Coyula, there were three
women and three men; two of the women and two of the men were actively engaged in
the conversation. At the ﬁrst meeting in San Miguel, there were four women and 15
men; the women only listened and about half of the men actively participated. In
Xuchitl, three to ﬁve women participated in the meetings, compared to the eight men.
Three of these women were present and participated in the project meetings more
consistently than most of the men. However, more telling than these numbers were the
explanations people gave for why women’s participation was restricted.

A factor that limited women’s participation was their relationship with their
husbands. Married women must receive permission ﬁ'om their husbands to engage in
activities outside of the home. When going to run errands to the market in the nearest
large town or to do other household related tasks outside of the home, the request for
permission appeared to be a formality. However, a request to participate in a non-
conventional activity such as the ecotourism project, one’s husband could potentially
refuse. Two of the Xuchitl participants were willing to participate in the project if their

husbands gave them permission, and since their husbands were working in the US, they

70

had to wait until the next time they communicated with their husbands to ask. One of
these women was granted permission by her husband. However, she limited her
participation and sometimes sent her daughter to meetings because of her husband’s
persistent expectation for her to stay home most of the time, even during his absence.
When he was home, he disapproved of her even attending parent meetings at their
children’s school. The other woman was quite outspoken during meetings. Her husband
returned during my research period and he and his wife attended the meetings. Later
there were rumors that this man had his doubts about participating in the project so I
suggested to the director and the Xuchitl leader to encourage the wife to continue to
participate. The local leader said men become suspicious if another man asks the wife to
join an activity without her husband. I pointed out that this was very unlikely since the
woman was the leader’s sister, but my comment was ignored. On the other hand, the
third female member of the Xuchitl group was an older woman. The director and the
local leader characterized her as very responsible and reliable, so her membership in the
group was valued. When asked about the difference between her participation and that of
other women, the director replied that this woman’s husband drank too much. Since all
men drank too much on occasion, their explanation did not seem relevant to my question.
I was left with the impression that perhaps her age exempted her from suspicions.
Whatever the explanations, the end result was very limited participation by the
women. Many of the initial activities of the project, such as construction of the cabins,
were men’s activities in the general division of labor that existed. Though the group
discussed future roles for the women, such as cooking and cleaning the cabins, one

woman expressed a desire to be more active in the initial stages, beyond just attending

71

meetings. While the project site was being discussed, two of the potential sites were
rather far from where most of the group members lived. The women expressed the
difﬁculty in going back and forth to a distant site when the project was under way
because of their responsibilities at home. The leaders’ attitude was that people needed to
get serious about this project and invest a lot of effort into the work. The site was being
chosen for more than convenience, based on characteristics such as pleasant natural
surroundings, and people would have to adapt, they said. While they may have had a
point (both men and women may walk a half an hour to reach a ﬁeld that they are
farming, the same distance to the farthest potential site), it is also an indication that the
male leaders may have been ignoring the needs of the women and not very interested in
promoting women’s participation. It is hard to assess whether or not site location would
actually limit women’s participation, but it did not appear that their opinions were being
heard in the decision-making process for where the site would be.
Men

While the above discussion about women illustrate that male participants had
power over the women that reduced women’s participation, there was at least one
constraint on men’s participation as well. Several conversations with the men in the
group revealed a factor that placed pressure on them as “providers” of their families.
Men are expected to provide a certain amount of money each week to their wives for
household expenses, either from the sale of their agricultural surplus or from wage labor.
A few of the men had conﬂicts with their wives when they were under- or unemployed
and could not meet this obligation. Devoting time to develop the ecotourism project

meant the participants took time away from their regular household activities. Without

72

material compensation for this work, the men would be under ﬁnancial and personal
strain to participate. Therefore one of the motivations for seeking outside funds for the
project was to buy food staples such as maize, beans, salt, sugar, and oil that could be
distributed to those who worked on the ecotourism project. This was one attempt at
addressing men’s issues, that would beneﬁt women as well, both in terms of the wives of
the men receiving food to feed the family, and in terms of the women participants also

being compensated for their work'.

The Implications of Differential Participation for ODDDECO

Local people through their membership in ODDDECO controlled the research
and development the ecotourism project. However, different parties controlled different
phases of the project. The leaders and I dominated the decision-making and idea-
generating aspects while the local leaders and community participants shared the physical
work more equally. The intended beneﬁts were to be shared equally among all
participants. The director dominated the overall process and most of the project activities
would not have happened without his presence. Compared to the ODDDECO leaders,
the followers had little inﬂuence.

There were occasions, however, that broke from that trend. For example, I
explained to the Xuchitl leader that my approach of asking open-ended questions was to
stimulate discussion, with the intended result to get greater participants input into the

direction of the project. During this discussion he, in turn, developed his own questions

 

‘ At the time of writing, ODDDECO was still applying for funding and had therefore not
further developed this idea.

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and we decided to organize a meeting just to discuss our questions, focusing on how
people envisioned the project in general and their role in it. During this meeting, people
were asked to list their skills and talents and how they could apply them to the ecotourism
project. Despite the participants’ limited understanding at the time of ecotourism, they
were able to generate a list of abilities as well as skills they could learn that were relevant
to ecotourism activities. The director responded favorably when this meeting occurred
without his presence.

In the context of PAR, which seeks to change power structures in society at large,
not addressing oppressing power structures within the participatory group is inconsistent
(Maguire 1987). ODDDECO members are aware of power structures in the society that
limit their voice. Political power is especially noticeable: national policies have affected
agricultural prices and employment patterns; PRI, the dominant party, uses promises of
services and presents of cement and corn to gain votes; and the national government
expropriated a large portion of communal lands for a tourism complex that provides few
beneﬁts. One consequence of differential participation means duplicating dominant,
“top-down” power structures of Mexican society. This impedes ODDDECO’s goals to
promote community development based on their capabilities to sustain their livelihoods.
ODDDECO has already made progress in empowering its members politically. Engaging
in PAR with its critical analysis of power structures can allow ODDDECO to examine
how it functions as an organization, looking to improve its internal relationships to be
more empowering of its members.

The Seminar conceptualizes diversity in terms of positive outcomes. Limiting

that diversity through differential participation means not taking advantage of the

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perspectives and abilities of the people whose voices are less prominent. Another
consequence of differential participation relates to concentrating the responsibility for a
project, whether it be the decision-making or carrying out tasks, with only a few people.
This concentration places a larger burden on their time and resources than if the
responsibilities were more equally distributed.

The primary goal of the ecotourism project was to organize a community
development project, not to examine power relationships. Taking a participatory
approach enabled ODDDECO, commrmity members, and an outside researcher to
collaborate in the hopes of combining everyone’s skills, knowledge, and perspectives
toward the ecotourism project. However, PAR’s analysis of power revealed
characteristics of ODDDECO that has implications not only for the ecotourism project,

but also for how it operates in every aspect of its work.

Summary

In ODDDECO, the director has a large share of the responsibilities for the
organization. He and the local leaders collaborate in making decisions about the overall
work of the organization as well as individual projects. The followers, though they are
the beneﬁciaries of ODDDECO’s work, participate mainly in a functional manner such
as carrying out tasks. In the ecotourism project, the director, leaders, and I dominated the
decision-making and the idea generation because the followers were not expected or
thought to be able to contribute in those manners. Women, and to some extent men, had
limitations placed on their participation. Married women, for example, needed their

husbands’ permission to participate. Restricted participation for some of the members

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means not taking advantage of their skills and perspectives and it also places a
disproportionate amount of responsibility on the members who participate the most.
Addressing power issues within ODDDECO as well as power structures in society that
affect ODDDECO members can allow the organization to better meet its goals to uphold

peasants’ rights and develop their abilities.

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CHAPTER 5

The Role of the Outside Researcher

Introduction

The Seminar engages academics and peasants to address peasants’ challenges.
This process aims for the potential gains resulting from examining issues from each
participant’s worldview. Each person’s knowledge and access to information is
considered for the usefulness to this process. With this concept of collaboration, one
major contribution of an outside researcher in a community group’s efforts is to add
diversity to the problem-solving process. The results are outcomes that are different and
hopefully better than outcomes without that researcher'. In Chapter 3, several issues
were presented regarding an outside researcher engaged in PAR: understanding the
nature and expectations of the outside researcher’s role; the consequences for the outside
researcher in allying with a community group; and how time affects the outside
researcher’s participation. In this chapter, the manner these issues affected my
involvement in the ecotourism project will be explored.

PAR is about both individual and social transformation (Maguire 1987, Smith and
Willms 1997) as well as valuing different forms of knowledge, including reﬂection
(Smith 1997). The discussion presented in this chapter is a combination of accounts of
what occurred and my reﬂections on those events. The account of my learning as a

researcher, engaging for the ﬁrst time in PAR with a community group, is a result of

 

1 This is not to imply that the outside researcher’s input is more valuable, but in a
collaborative setting, his/her input adds one more viewpoint not previously available
from which the community group can draw a solution.

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observations and actions as well as my reﬂections on those concrete events, and therefore

each element cannot be separated.

Playing Multiple Roles

What emerged from this research was that the outside researcher could play many
parts. Those roles change over time and each person in the research group may perceive
the outside researcher’s role in different ways.

I l E l 1 I . l . l l E .

Because my entry was through the Seminar and ODDDECO, my initial level of
involvement was negotiated with ODDDECO’s director. A major role that Seminar
members play for those who are presenting their community’s issue is to pose questions.
Consistent with this process, it was agreed that one of my roles working with the
community groups could be to raise questions. These questions would encourage
community members to clarify their ideas and perhaps reﬂect on issues that they had not
previously considered.

In order to have a better understanding of ecotourism, I reviewed the academic
literature on the topic prior to beginning my ﬁeldwork. This allowed me to collect
information to share with the Huatulco participants. It also helped me formulate
questions that would allow community members to consider issues in ecotourism and
decide for themselves how they would address them (see Appendix for the questions,
some of which were addressed during the collaborative period, the rest of which were left

with the groups for future consideration).

78

Since the director had an academic background, he understood the constraints of
time and requirements for conducting thesis research and he committed ODDDECO’s
efforts to help me meet those commitments while I helped ODDDECO carry out its
work.

The community groups mainly saw my role as lending the perspective of a
potential tourist. Because most of the group members had not had extensive interaction
with a foreigner, they wondered what foreigners liked to eat or what kinds of activities
would interest them. The vice-president of ODDDECO was very direct in soliciting my
reactions to his community. He asked me the following questions, which I addressed at
the workshop held for the community group:

. How do you feel here as an outsider?

. Would you recommend visiting Xuchitl to others?

. Would other tourists feel comfortable the way you have been living?
. What should we change?

The director saw my role as an academic researcher fully immersed in the project
and taking the leadership to move the project along, rather than a detached observer of
events. He also recognized that my position as an academic researcher allowed me to
critique the project processes and he asked for my input on that aspect.
W

Throughout the research and collaboration process, I played other roles as well.
One was simply providing an opportunity for the people of Xuchitl to become

accustomed to a foreigner living amongst them. Every day, people would see me

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walking to the store, riding the truck into town, or collecting ﬁrewood. This acclimation
was more intense, of course, for the family with which I lived. At ﬁrst, my participation
in daily chores made some of the family members ashamed that a visitor was doing such
menial work until they realized I did not mind helping. They were surprised that I
enjoyed their everyday, simple food, which they do not consider proper to serve a guest.
My time with them may make them more comfortable interacting with tourists in the
future.

I . 2 l l I l l . l E .

Participatory engagement provides freedom for the outside researcher to play
roles that are not typically ﬁlled in conventional research. Conventional researchers are
often observers or gatherers of people’s knowledge or opinions. Even if they are more
involved with a group of people, their role is established at an early stage of the research
with those people as one trying to understand and analyze a speciﬁc phenomenon. This
role usually does not require the researcher to contribute to the group’s objectives.

With many roles, instead of a narrowly deﬁned role, the opportunities for learning
and sharing are even greater for the outside researcher. What complicates the outside
researcher’s interactions with a group is that people have different perceptions of the
outside researcher’s role, not all of which are made clear to everyone. Those perceptions
change over time, both as relationships evolve and as the researcher gains experience and
people’s trust.

The nature of the researcher’s role can be varied at a given point in time and over
time, and varied depending on who deﬁnes the role. This complexity can create tensions.

The director and I did not ﬁrlly articulate our expectations of each other until well into

80

our time together. These expectations were ﬁnally addressed when I expressed my
frustrations with the slow pace of the project and everyone’s dependence on his presence
to do anything. The director asked me to take more initiative and lead the community
groups, in other words, play a similar role as his. This request was different than my
preference for such initiative to come ﬁom the community groups. Following a
discussion of this issue and my indication that I did not want to pursue a leadership role
by myself, we agreed that the director, the local leaders, and I would collaboratively plan

for moving the project forward.

Implications of the Researcher’s Solidarity with Community Groups

In PAR, the outside researcher is accountable to the community group and PAR
theory casts the outside researcher’s role as a co-participant of equal standing as the other
participants. In practice, however, both community members as well as the outside
researcher may have expectations based on the outside researcher’s social status or level
of education. The Huatulco participants did not seem to put me on a pedestal for my
academic background. I was the same age or younger than most participants, which may
have contributed to people’s view toward me. Despite my explanations of the nature of
my academic research, one participant asked in an early interview, “Why are you asking
these questions?” This made it clear how important it was to explain why I was doing
particular things, such as interviews about farming practices to understand the context.

Not being transparent about one’s research can contribute to the mystery of academia for

81

those who are not a part of it, adding to the sense that academics have a special body of
knowledge not accessible by others.

The outside researcher’s expectations of himself/herself may differ ﬁom those of
the community group. At the same time, the researcher’s own expectations may be
multiple. The community members did not seem to expect me to be an expert or to be
more capable than them in research because of my academic status. My expectations,
however, were to respect ODDDECO’s experience in community development and not
impose my approach. I expected the project participants to deﬁne my role so that it
would meet their needs. Yet with academic requirements, such as to follow prescribed
research methods, meet deadlines, and produce a written research account, I occasionally
had to push my research agenda. For instance, I wanted to understand how the group
participants perceived the idea of ecotourism. Though a group discussion would also
contribute to the collective construction of knowledge on ecotourism, this method of
collecting data could result in results that were qualitatively different ﬁ'om individual
responses. My academic objectives were not very relevant to the group’s objectives and I
asked them to take their time to help me. My attempt to resolve this was by making clear
my academic responsibilities, asking for people’s help in meeting them, and realizing that
a collaborative process involves give and take ﬁom both sides.

Time

Outside researchers who come from North America or Europe may have a
different concept of time than people ﬁ'om the rest of the world. Tendencies to be
punctual and a focus on “getting things done” can present challenges to an outside

researcher’s involvement. Despite experience in West Aﬁica where people have a

82

similar sense of time as Mexicans, my own pace still caused me a considerable amount of
ﬁ'ustration as it clashed with that of the people around me. The director was notoriously
late for everything, sometimes up to two hours late and sometimes not showing up at all.
However, the lack of reliable and quick communications prevented him from telephoning
to say his plans had changed.

While any outside researcher who works in an institutional setting may have other
responsibilities that limit one’s time with a PAR process, graduate students face very
deﬁned time limits and research requirements. As Maguire (1987) notes, research
participants have to attend to their everyday activities in addition to working on the
research, while most, or all of the outside researcher’s time may be devoted to research.
The local leader of Xuchitl was very willing to engage in discussions, whether to help me
understand the local context, give his reaction to my reﬂections, or plan the next steps.
However, on several occasions, he apologized and excused himself to go do his work.
While the slow pace of the project was frustrating, realizing that people had limited time
to commit to the project helped me slow down.

These limits for both the community participants and myself became more and
more ﬁ'ustrating as my research period was drawing to a close. Though staying longer
may have permitted more time for data collection and participation in the project, the
peasant participants were also on a schedule. Provided the rains would begin on time,
they would become very busy from June through December with their agricultural
activities, leaving very little time for anything else. Therefore it was important to
accomplish as much as possible before both my departure and the beginning of the rainy

8638011.

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Engagementmdhetachmem

The immersion into relationships and into the research process required by PAR
can create a tension for an academic researcher. A major factor to balance the outside
researcher’s role as a researcher and as practitioner is one’s ability to step out of the
research situation to analyze what is happening without denying one’s involvement in the
research process. In PAR, reﬂection is vital, especially to be able to analyze the research
at different levels. For instance, the outside researcher’s analysis would involve
understanding the one’s emotional engagement as a co-participant. These feelings are
relevant data yet it is important to also detach from that level of engagement to be able to
see patterns in participants’ relationships, including the researcher as one of those
participants.

For example, my ﬁ'ustration with the slow pace of work can be analyzed in two
ways. Perhaps as an academic, my research time ﬁame was more important than
allowing a process to progress at its natural pace; if this was the case, my attitude was not
consistent with allowing the community group to control the process. On the other hand,
as a participant, I was expressing a frustration that was perhaps felt by others and was
therefore valid in trying to improve the group process. The local leader of Xuchitl
admitted that the director’s tardiness often interfered with his work schedule and he saw
participants’ late arrivals to meetings as their lack of seriousness about the project.

While I attempted to immerse myself into the lives of the project groups, I always
felt a level of separateness because I knew I was leaving. This helped maintain a distance
that enabled me to be analytical. At the same time, it inhibited me from making greater

commitments to the community groups and to ODDDECO than I already had.

84

Each participant has different perspectives and values that affect his/her
perception of the research process. Since the outside researcher’s perspectives and
values shape his/her analysis, the more different the outside researcher is, the more the
analysis may contradict accepted patterns in the community group’s overall culture or
organizational structure. An outside researcher must then grapple with how to address
these contradictions while maintaining solidarity with the commrmity group.

This issue was particularly difﬁcult in this research regarding gender
relationships. Because the more equitable distribution of power is so central to PAR, the
ODDDECO leaders’ machismo should not simply be dismissed as a cultural factor that
should not be questioned. However, both as an individual and as someone from outside
of the organization, I felt there was little I could do to precipitate much change in this
area. Maguire (1987:69) acknowledges this dilemma:

A possible contradiction exists between participatory [action] research’s

intention to be culturally sensitive and its intention not to collude with

systems of oppression. .. How can participatory [action] research be

culturally sensitive and yet not collude with oppressive sexist policies and

practices which are ﬁ'equently defended as culturally appropriate or

traditional?

This dilemma was not resolved in this research. I was comfortable enough with
the participants to express my values and to raise questions about gender relationships but
I had to accept the limits of my inﬂuence and be satisﬁed that I had pointed out the issue.
WWW

When the outside researcher is new to a particular area, it is important to his/her
research to explore the context in which the community group is living. However, some

of the people who can provide information about the context may have interests other

than those of the community group. How to be truthful to informants outside of the

85

community group yet not reveal information about the community group that may be
used against them is a challenge when the outside researcher has allied him-lherself with
the PAR group.

In order to understand the Huatulco context, I talked with two other
environmental organizations and people in the tourism industry. Both organizations and
some people in the tourism industry had interacted with the director of ODDDECO
before, especially during his time as head of the Ecology Division of the municipio. The
director had some strong negative opinions of the environmental organizations and how
they operated, mainly that so much of their budget was devoted to overhead costs
(especially the salaries of the employees) compared to what was invested in the
communities. He felt the people working for these organizations were more interested in
creating and maintaining their own jobs than really working for the beneﬁt of local
community members. In conversations with certain people in these organizations, some
of their animosity toward the ODDDECO director was evident as well. These
organizations clearly had differing work philosophies. Realizing this, yet being in
solidarity with ODDDECO’s efforts and understanding the possible political implications
of the ecotourism project, I was uncomfortable collecting information from the other
organizations. I also felt the need to be cautious in dealing with tour operators because
they would be potential competitors once the ODDDECO ecotourism business was in
place. I did not want to conceal any of my ODDDECO activities, yet I did not want to
provide information to outside parties that could be used against ODDDECO efforts or be
co-opted into their own projects. My attempt to overcome this dilemma was by ﬁrst

discussing with the ODDDECO director what I could and could not reveal to others about

86

the project (basically, he said I was free to discuss it). During interviews, I described the

project in general terms and explained why I was seeking information about their work.

Summary

Engaging in PAR presents the outside researcher with a number of tensions
relating to that person’s role in the research process. Different parties may perceive the
outside researcher’s role in different ways. This means the researcher can play many
roles but if all participants do not understand those roles, conﬂict may arise among the
participants. The outside researcher must be engaged personally in the research as well
as be able to detach from that involvement enough to analyze the research process. One’s
alliance with a community group can also cause tensions as the outside researcher
interacts with parties outside of the community group who may have different or
conﬂicting interests with the community group, such as to how much information the
researcher can reveal. Both participants’ concept of time and their time available to
participate in the research may differ, making time a problematic issue for the outside
researcher who is expected to participate fully yet has to meet professional or personal
responsibilities.

The discussion of the role of the outside researcher in this chapter raises
implications for future PAR, which will be discussed in the following chapter. In the
ﬁnal chapter, I will summarize the entire research process, draw conclusions from the
speciﬁc case for ecotourism and for PAR, provide recommendations for ODDDECO, for

future ecotourism efforts, and for further research in related ﬁelds.

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CHAPTER 6

Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations

Introduction

This chapter summarizes the research process and the analysis of issues that
emerged ﬁom this process. In addition, the chapter outlines implications of this study for
other ecotourism efforts and PAR studies. Recommendations for ODDDECO and for
future study are outlined. The chapter concludes with ﬁnal observations and reﬂections

on some PAR issues and how this study relates to a global context.

Case Study Summary

Peasants in the area of Huatulco in the Mexican state of Oaxaca face difﬁculties
maintaining a subsistence level living ﬁom their agricultural practices. In an attempt to
explore options for these people, a grassroots organization, ODDDECO, engaged pilot
groups in Bajos de Coyula, Arroyo Xuchitl, and San Miguel del Puerto to explore
community-based ecotourism as an income-generating business.

ODDDECO’s participation in the Seminar on Resource Management of Rural
Development allows it to contribute to the solutions to problems that other Oaxacan
communities face. The Seminar allows the organization to receive input from others into
ODDDECO’s projects as well. Together with about ten ODDDECO members from each
of the three communities, community groups were organized and each explored how it

could set up a business to house tourists and provide opportunities for the tourists to

88

interact with local people, learn about local customs and foods, and to enjoy the nature
surrounding the communities.

After meeting through the Seminar, the director of ODDDECO and I decided to
collaborate on the ecotourism idea and began a four month process of participatory action
research. Certain issues emerged out of this participatory action research that were
explored through the use of qualitative research methods, especially from the case study
and ethnographic research approaches.

Two issues in PAR that are particularly relevant to this case study were the
heterogeneous nature of the participant groups and the role of the outside researcher in
the research process.

Different roles or differentials in the power distribution affect the promotion or
decrease in participation of the group members. PAR provides a framework to analyze
these differentials. The leaders of ODDDECO, especially the director, had a large share
of the responsibilities for the organization. These leaders, for the most part, made the
decisions for the ecotourism project. The followers participated primarily by attending
meetings, contributing to ideas if they wished, and carrying out tasks such as collecting
the building material for the cabins to house tourists. Though some women attended
meetings and voiced their views, men controlled the project. Women’s participation was
limited, mainly because married women needed their husbands’ permission to participate.

Limited participation for some members of PAR means their skills and
perspectives are not used to improve the outcomes of the project. It also places a
disproportionate amount of responsibility on the members who participate the most.

While PAR explicitly examines power issues in society that affect a community group,

89

dealing with power differences within a group like ODDDECO can allow the
organization to better meet its goals to uphold peasants’ rights and develop their abilities.

The outside researcher can play many roles within the research processes. Those
roles change over time and may be perceived differently by each participant. When roles
are not clearly deﬁned and expectations not expressed, tensions among the group
participants are possible. The outside researcher’s alliance with a community group can
also cause tensions when the researcher deals with people who may have different or
conﬂicting interests with the community group. Participants’ concept of time and the
actual time people have to participate in the research may make time a problematic issue
for the outside researcher who is expected to participate fully, yet has to meet

professional or personal responsibilities.

Conclusions and Recommendations for Ecotourism

Much of the discussion about ecotourism advocates community participation as
vital to the success of an ecotourism enterprise. Within this discussion is an
understanding of the complexity of participation. For instance, participation occurring at
different stages of an ecotourism project impacts both the outcomes of the project and the
amount of power the local community gains through their participation. Authors also
understand that encouraging local participation is not a simple process. Most of these
conclusions were drawn from projects that were initiated from outside of the community.

Mader’s conceptualization of ecotourism (Mader 1999) allows us to see that there
are three criteria to meet in order to have ecotourism: community participation, economic

sustainability, and natural resource conservation. People wishing to engage in

90

ecotourism should understand which of these criteria are the most important. In many
instances, conservation is the priority. Therefore understanding how to get local
participation in order to meet that goal may help meet that priority. In the ODDDECO
case, economic development and community participation were the primary concerns,
therefore understanding how the dynamics of participation (including how different
community members participate according to age, gender, etc. and the involvement of
people from outside of the community) affect building the business is important.

This study conﬁrmed that starting an ecotourism business from within the
community was complex. The pilot group participants’ interests were placed at the
forefront and therefore their direct involvement was considered a given. However, it
took a long time to organize the pilot groups, especially because people had their
everyday responsibilities to meet ﬁrst. Therefore, people wanting to launch an
ecotourism project must understand that basing the work on community members’
knowledge, ideas, and abilities is a long process and involves more than just inviting
people to a meeting and expecting them to start work immediately. A grassroots
organization with active members has the networks and organization to facilitate

launching a project, but even then, results are not immediate.

Conclusions and Recommendations for ODDDECO

ODDDECO represents a network of largely peasant groups that have a history of
organizing people around or in response to peasant interests. Some of these efforts have
been very successful, others less so. However, each can serve as a learning experience

that informs future efforts. The decision in the ecotourism project to select the

91

participants because of their motivation and history of hard work, for instance, was based
on previous experience of people failing to meet their responsibilities overtime when
participation was open to all those interested in a project. Even though the ecotourism
project was not at a fully operational stage at the time of writing this thesis, an
examination of the initial stages can still serve as a learning experience, applicable to
both the ecotourism project and for ﬁrture ODDDECO projects.

The lack of horizontal relationships within a community group results in
differential participation. The differential participation meant that there were varying
levels of participation among the different community group members, with some people
holding more power to impact the project than others. The discussion on differential
participation relationships in the ODDDECO groups in Chapter 4 revealed possible
outcomes for encouraging more equal levels of participation. These include a greater
independence for the community groups from the director, building the members’
capacity to be critically analytical, and an increased level of members’ input into
decisions and ideas for the organization’s work. The above outcomes would mean a
more proportional distribution of work, not only with the decision-making, but also for
the actual tasks that need to be undertaken.

The literature on leadership and followership written in the context of North
American organizations may contain elements that are helpful in achieving a more equal
power distribution within ODDDECO. In this literature, the roles of leader and follower
tend not to be clearly distinguished, meaning most people ﬁll both roles at some time
(Kelley 1992). Newer organizational models are de-emphasizing the leader at the top

with followers carrying out what he/she decides. These models describe a team approach

92

where all strive to meet a common goal based on the vision and abilities of all, where the
leader facilitates this process (Hesselbein, et al. 1996, Oakley and Krug 1991). Kelley
also speaks of developing followers beyond passive people who carry out delegated tasks
to people with both “independent, critical thinking” skills (Kelley 199293) and “adding
value” (Kelley 1992:131) to their duties by transforming them into activities that forward
the organization’s goals. Therefore, ODDDECO’s director and local leaders can
encourage the members to participate in the critical thinking needed to determine
people’s problems and how they can collectively solve them, so that leadership is shared.
In addition to this focus on the group level, allowing each person to deﬁne how his/her

contribution gives individuals value in a group process.

Conclusions and Recommendations for PAR

PAR shapes a process that allows for social analysis to reveal how power
structures affect people with little power. A critical analysis for examining relationships
within a community group is rarely undertaken with as much scrutiny. Examining how
power structures limit or encourage the participation of each member can help identify
areas that affect the goal of people’s empowerment. Groups engaging in PAR efforts can
understand how members are different from each other and discover how the group can
operate more equitably through a critical self-analysis.

Part of this self-analysis on participants’ different roles and levels of power
includes the outside researcher. Very often, the researcher takes on the role of facilitator,
whether facilitating the group's analysis of reality or guiding the group through the

research process. Being a facilitator is only necessary if the community group lacks a

93

person to play this role or if the group needs assistance in social analysis and conducting
research. This assumption that the outside researcher tends to ﬁll the role of the
facilitator was clearly not valid in this project because of the capabilities of ODDDECO’s
leadership in facilitating and guiding the project. If PAR is about placing the control of
the research process into the hands of those who will beneﬁt from the research, this
means the community group can now deﬁne the role of the outside researcher for its own
purposes. Instead of the outside researcher struggling with the question of “what role
should or can I play?” the community group should make that decision. These decisions
may be the most realistic to expect when the group is as well organized as ODDDECO
was. However, future PAR can continue to push local community groups to deﬁne the
role of the outside researcher for their own purposes.

Playing a role that is useful to the community group does not mean giving up
one’s views and opinions - in fact, they are valid when the outside researcher is received
as a participant of equal standing. Some situations, such as an unequal power distribution
among the participants, may need to be addressed. However, as Smith (1997:234) points
out, “just because changes are necessary does not mean they will actually happen.”
Outside researchers need to struggle with what is ethical in terms of balancing one’s own
beliefs and supporting those of others. The outside researcher, just like all other
participants, decides to participate based on a sense of connection with the group.
Dialogue can help address and perhaps resolve differences among the group members.

Time issues are a major constraint in participatory efforts both for the outside
researcher and community participants. While an ideal situation would be for all

participants to be involved in a long-term collaboration, this should not preclude

94

engaging in less-than-ideal situations. Collaborative opportunities should be seized when
they arise if they beneﬁt the community group engaging in PAR. However, time issues
of all participants should be recognized and discussed. I participated in ODDDECO’s
work for a very short period. The organization has a history of relationships between the
leaders and ODDDECO’s membership spanning over 20 years, with numerous political
and economic collective action efforts taken on behalf and by the members. Through
what I learned about the organization, it appeared that it had established strategies for
tackling problems and a vast network of human and material resources into which it
could tap. This is not to say that the organization was without ﬂaws, nor that it had not
experienced failures, nor that it could not beneﬁt ﬁ'om more experience and resources. It
did not appear, however, that outside experts were essential to ODDDECO to help it in
its development efforts. My role in one of its projects was for a brief period toward the
beginning of the project’s evolution. The abilities of the project groups and ODDDECO
as the sponsoring organization will have a greater impact over the long term on the

ecotourism project’s success than my brief participation.

Recommendations for Further Study

From the four month collaboration with ODDDECO’s ecotourism project and the
subsequent analysis and reﬂection of what occurred, issues like leadership characteristics,
dynamics within ODDDECO, and the complexity of an outside researcher’s involvement
emerged. A closer and more extensive examination of ODDDECO’s structure and ways

of operating would deepen an understanding of how the structure and the relationships

95

among members affect the organization’s participatory approach. Hopefully, feedback to
ODDDECO will allow the members to reﬂect on these issues for themselves.

In-depth studies of similar grassroots organizations, both through conventional
research and through PAR, can broaden the concept of participation, speciﬁcally to
understand the different forms and what factors encourage or inhibit people’s
participation. These kinds of studies can also add to understanding the complexities of
each person’s participation: one’s participation can differ according to the level of one’s
inﬂuence and workload, and can be affected by social relationships, such as that between
the genders or position in a hierarchy. Conventional research in this area can contribute
to understanding participation by studying existing relationships and levels of
participation of a grassroots organization. PAR can also do this, with the added
components of examining an outside researcher’s role in promoting greater levels of
participation and an analysis of power within and outside the participatory group.

One distinguishing aspect of ODDDECO’s strategy for participation was limiting
who would participate in order to increase the chances of long-term project sustainability.
As explained above, the ODDDECO leaders chose to select the participants for the
ecotourism pilot project based on past experiences with failed projects. This model is
different than a perhaps more common participatory approach of presenting an idea to a
group of people and expecting participants to self-select based on interest. Further
studies comparing these two models may reveal how differences in these approaches
affect project success. If an outside researcher is involved with a grassroots organization

which is carrying out participatory action research, further study to examine how that

96

person ﬁts into the relationships of people can help academics and practitioners
understand how they can best contribute to local people’s movements.

This case study involved the initial stages of a community-based ecotourism
project. The Huatulco project had not progressed enough to assess how a PAR approach
affected its ﬁnal development. Applying PAR to ecotourism projects can hopefully
balance the three criteria of conservation, economic development, and participation
equally. Assessments of this approach to future projects would be helpful in ﬁne-tuning
ecotourism efforts to meet all criteria as well as examine further complexities of the PAR

approach itself.

Final Observations and Reﬂections
W

An ongoing question during my ﬁeldwork was whether or not we were engaging
in PAR. Certain aspects of our collaborative work correlated with PAR theory. For
instance, the ODDDECO leaders and I had horizontal relationships in which we
discussed the problem facing peasants around Huatulco, planned how to address it
through ecotourism, and used reﬂection throughout the research process to question and
improve the project. On the other hand, as already discussed, the rest of the group
members participated on a different level.

This question persisted druing the analysis the ﬁeld experience and the thesis
writing process. In the end, I concluded that the ecotourism project was an attempt at
PAR, both in some of the inherent characteristics of the project, such as starting with a

community-deﬁned problem, and in some of the elements that I encouraged, like

97

facilitating the reﬂection on how individuals could contribute to the project. The
analysis involved the PAR theory to examine the relationships among the participants.
The entire ﬁeld and writing experience served as a learning process on how to engage in
PAR and I now have a better understanding of the complexities involved in such an
endeavor.

W

A major struggle during my involvement with the ODDDECO community groups
was understanding the boundaries and areas of overlap of my roles. These roles involved
academic research to study a PAR process, promoting PAR, and engaging in PAR.
Playing these three types of roles required moving back and forth between three
positions: that of a full participant; that of the facilitator, limiting my involvement to
helping the participants through a process; and that of the observer researcher, detached
ﬁom the participatory process in order to study it.

A person can play each role separately. When one is a full participant, he/she is
more an activist than a researcher, though that person can gather information on an issue,
engage in praxis in order to improve one’s practice, and reﬂect on the process in order to
learn from the experience, all of which are often conducted by a researcher. Being the
facilitator is a more conventional role for the outside researcher, as pointed out above.
The facilitator is engaged in the group’s cause to the point of helping it through the
process of solving problems, but also tends to refrain from making contributions that
would directly pertain the issues the group is addressing. The third role of a detached

person most closely ﬁts the role of a conventional researcher.

98

The three roles involved the following types of work. As a participant, I
contributed to the planning and organizing aspects of the project and I added my
knowledge about ecotourism. As a facilitator, I raised questions about the participation
of women and asked open-ended questions to stimulate people’s ideas for the project. As
an academic researcher, I attempted to understand what was going on, I categorized
information to build a story, and I analyzed the entire research process in light of the
academic literature when I was separated from the situation. The beneﬁt of playing all
three roles at once is that the contributions of each role are different. These beneﬁts can
serve to both meet the goals of the community group as well as improve the chances of
meeting the goals of PAR, such as empowerment and democratic relationships among the
participants. Though many times the work with ODDDECO was following a top-down
power structure, my involvement as a facilitator allowed me to encourage greater
participation from the group members. As a researcher with a detached perspective, I
could raise issues about the implications of their leadership style to the ODDDECO
leaders. As a participant, I could contribute my personal and professional ideas and
volunteer to carry out tasks that would move the project forward.

However, moving between the three roles can be confusing. I often got emotional
when I became ﬁ'ustrated with certain individuals, but several people reminded me that
my researcher role enabled me to separate my emotions as a participant to analyze of how
people’s actions and attitudes affected the project. Sometimes I wanted to increase my
level of participation. One important instance was in planning the workshop. The format
that the director and I planned involved some ﬁnancing to cover the costs of transporting

the participants and their lodging. I considered providing the money for this but hesitated

99

and eventually decided against it because of the potential implications of such an action.
Though my contribution might have been a useful and legitimate resource, different than
what other participants could contribute, one possible impact may have been
counteracting the effort to increase the autonomy of ODDDECO and the community
groups from outside resources by tapping into their internal resources.

TIE”. EIlEl'SlllIl

The Seminar participants have been involved in an ongoing discussion of the
impact of globalization on the lives of peasants. One important impact is that the price of
corn on the world market has dropped to such an extent that it has become more
economical to buy imported maize than to produce it locally in Oaxaca. Tourism can be
seen as a globalizing process where the movements of people, capital, and culture are
increasingly erasing national borders. The peasants of Huatulco have seen drastic
changes in the past 15 years in their landscape: major infrastructure development,
previously established communities displaced by new ones, and the arrival of “outsiders,”
both Mexican and international. These changes have brought higher prices for basic
products, better services (such as a hospital and telephone), and exposure to the
materially based lifestyles of people of a higher social class.

From one perspective, all of these changes have happened to the local people
without much involvement on their part. People may be overwhelmed with their inability
to affect or control these changes. However, ODDDECO’s ecotourism idea was to
engage peasants in a process that is already happening at the local level — tourism.

Instead of allowing themselves and their lifestyles to be displaced by global forces,

peasants are examining ways to place their way of life within those forces. Despite most

100

peasants’ exclusion from tourism activities in the Bays of Huatulco because of their lack
of appropriate skills, peasants in surrounding areas can capitalize on resources they
already possess: natural and cultural resources. Lanfant and Graburn (1992: 111) discuss
this at a more abstract level:

The 'return to the local' as an important factor in [tourism] planning has

been matched by the 'return of the local' in the form of a network of grass

roots movements... The local society is no longer taken as passive but as

capable of accepting or rejecting the dominant model or of coming up with

its own... It is no longer merely a reactionary form, but as a force in

negotiation, intervention, and creativity is capable of its own initiatives,

with all their paradoxes.

The ODDDECO ecotourism groups now face the challenge of incorporating their
project into the local, regional, and global tourism arenas. Making appropriate outside
contacts with tour operators, guidebook authors, and other forms of publicity such as the
Internet will be crucial for local peasants to ﬁnd their niche in a wider tourism movement.
Taking a participatory approach to the ecotourism project allows ODDDECO to tap into
its internal resources as well as extend the circle of collaborators to people outside of the
organization, such as the members of the Seminar, the director’s contacts with other non-
proﬁt and governmental bodies, and myself. The Seminar coordinator or I, with
connections and access to resources outside of Mexico, can help ODDDECO make
contacts into the international tourism scene.

PAR enables a group of people to develop its own abilities in generating useful
knowledge and to apply that to issues with which it is concerned. Collaboration with an
outside researcher is one way a group can beneﬁt from a worldview, types of knowledge,

and contacts beyond what is available to the group members. Participants may have

other connections beyond the group as well. When each participant can extend his/her

lOl

sources of information and network of resource people beyond the group, there is an
increased chance of success of the group’s efforts and chance of participating in a wider

regional, national, or global scale of events shaping the lives of local people.

102

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

Discussion Questions Based on Issues Raised in the Tourism and Community-Based
Conservation Literature

G_oals of Ecotourism

What is ecotourism?

How is ecotourism different from what is occurring in the Bays of Huatulco?

What kind of tourism or ecotourism have you seen?

What goals do you want for this project?

What are the differences between your culture and that of the tourists?

How would you beneﬁt from people observing you and living with you?

What do you want the tourists to get out of the interaction with the community and with
nature?

The Stakeholders

Who will participate in the project?

Who should participate?

Who will be excluded from the project, and why?

Who will be affected by the project?

Who will beneﬁt and who will not beneﬁt from the project?

Who else could contribute to the project?

At what point should you have these people participate?

How can you encourage the participation of these people?

Who are the “voiceless” that you need to make special efforts to include?
Who represents the various stakeholders?

Who may mobilize in favor or against the project?

Whose participation could enhance the project and who could create obstacles for the
project by their lack of participation or opposition?

Who can contribute economic and technical resources?

Whose behavior needs to change to make the project a success?

Income

What is your income at this time?

How much will the tourists pay?

For what exactly will they pay?

What other sources of income can you create?

What are some reasons tourists may stop coming?

What would you do if the quantity of tourists coming decreases or stops?

104

Logisiticﬂ Issues

How are you going to attract tourists?

Where will the tourists live?

How will you feed the tourists?

What will you feed them?

What will you provide to drink?

What will you do with the waste products?

How will the answers to these questions change if the number of tourists doubles?
Triples?

What studies of the ﬂora and fauna already exist for the region?

Of these studies, which can help you?

What places or types of resources would be attractive to the tourists?

What kind of infrastructure exists to get to these plase?

Are there difﬁculties with this infrastructure, such as difﬁculty of access in the rainy
season?

How will the tourists get to your community?

What kind of organizations or businesses exist that deal with nature and tourism?
With which ones could you collaborate?

What will you do in emergency situations?

Potential impacts
How does your community look now?

How will it look like after tourists begin to visit?

Do you think your community will change when tourists come to visit?

How do you think it will change?

How will your daily activities change?

How will your homes change?

How will your land change?

Up to what point will you accept changes to your life, your land, and your resources?

105

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