The emergence of Resistance through Criticality: leisure and tourism in the Espinhaço Range Biosphere Reserve, Brazil

Abstract

Following the initial success of a sustainable tourism programme, the town of Conceição do Mato Dentro, located within the UNESCO Espinhaço Range Biosphere Reserve, in Brazil, changed remarkably after a large iron ore mining project was launched in 2006. Among the changes was the replacement of tourism with mining as the municipality’s priority development policy. The town changed from a quiet and small rural town to a dusty and busy industrial site. Although the communities affected by the mine initially supported the mining project, this research identified emergent and growing dissatisfaction among them. A discourse analysis approach was employed to unveil the seeds of a resistance movement that has been emerging from the social practices to challenge the dominant modernization and neoliberal discourses of development represented by the mining project. It is argued that resistance can be traced back to both the advantages that the previous sustainable tourism programme brought and to the preservation of leisure sites that were previously used for socialization and amusement but are now either off-limits or have been destroyed. Such people are not seen here as ‘host communities’, but tourists. Tourism and leisure experiences performed by people affected by the mine generated a sense of community and solidarity, but its discontinuity had undermined the possibilities of criticism and resistance, as such values were misrepresented in the policy arenas that hosted the debates around the mining project. Despite its importance among community members, leisure has not been used to legitimize the resistance discourses against the mining project. Rather, the resistance speech focused on job creation and the expansion of wealth and income, thus weakening the possibilities of transforming the status quo.