Systematic Literature Review on Alternative Governance Arrangements for Resource Deficient Situations: Small Island Community-Based Ecotourism

Abstract

This paper builds on evidence of community participation in the form of capacity-building practices following the growing trend of ecotourism development that is exponentially penetrating small islands. With an emphasis on the discussion of governance and local community involvement in development processes, this paper uses a systematic literature review combined with bibliometric analysis to identify and explore the trajectories of key themes in research in the field of alternative governance of small island ecotourism from 1980-2021. Initially, we identified 572 papers that matched the selection criteria. After filtering, we found 22 articles that revolved around the governance of (community-based) ecotourism on small islands. Building on the review, we then examined the potential theoretical contributions to guide future research regarding the building of bottom-linked socially innovative governance of ecotourism on small islands in general, and the role of participation, community capacity building, (socio-political) emancipation and (political) bargaining power in particular.