Tourism and Indigenous Heritage in Latin America : As Observed through Mexico's Magical Village Cuetzalan

The book assesses current multiculturalist policies in Mexico and how they affect local indigenous populations. The book examines a state tourist initiative of "Magical Villages" where tourists can have special experiences linked to ideas of indigeneity, tradition and heritage. The argument is that this policy acts as a way to contain, constrain and regulate indigenous peoples and their imagined "cultures", in line with existing policies of indigenismo in Mexico. The book explores the mechanisms by which local elites and tourist visitors get empowered, while local indigenous people get disempowered or at least channelled into certain kinds of activities.

Following the surge of regional multiculturalism and indigenous political mobilization, how are indigenous Latin Americans governed today? Addressing the Mexican flagship tourist initiative of ‘Magical Villages,’ this book shows how government tourism programs do more than craft appealing tourist experiences from ideas of indigeneity, tradition, and heritage. Rather, heritage-centered tourism and multiculturalism are fusing into a strategy of government set to tame and steer indigenous spaces of negotiation by offering alternative multicultural national self-images, which trigger new modes of national belonging and participation, without challenging structural political and social asymmetries.

By examining contemporary Mexican tourism policies and multiculturalist ideals through policy analysis and ethnographic research in a mestizo municipalcapital in a majority indigenous Nahua municipality, this book shows how mestizo nationalism is regenerated in tourism as part of a neoliberal governmentality framework. The book demonstrates how tourism initiatives that center on indigenous cultural heritage and recognition do not self-evidently empower indigenous citizens, and may pave the way for extracting indigenous heritage as a national resource to the benefit of local elites and tourist visitors.

This work is of key interest to researchers, advanced students, and critically engaged practitioners in the fields of Latin American studies, indigenous studies, social anthropology, critical heritage studies, and tourism.