Helene Balslev Clausen

Migrants, Votes, and the 2006 Mexican Presidential Election

About one out of every ten Mexican nationals lives in the United States as either a legal or illegal immigrant. This chapter will consider and assess the part that they play in Mexican elections. Although the numbers who have cast a vote are still not significant or definitive in federal electoral processes, migrants have the potential to play an important role.

The Tourism Model in Post-Castro Cuba: Tensions between Ideology and Economic Realities

ABSTRACT Cuba is at a crossroads in its transition from a socialist to a market-oriented mixed economy. The death of Fidel Castro, and the steps taken by Raúl Castro to normalize relations between Cuba and the US, have generated a wave of tourism opportunities. However, deep tensions remain between the Cuban states centralized socioeconomic model and economic realities. Using the framework of diverse economies, we challenge tourism scholars to unlock the diversity of economies and exchanges that exist, and the Cuban case study in this paper assists in demonstrating why this is important. Within this sensitive political context, we analyse entrepreneurial businesses known as casas particulares, and their broader significance for Cubas political futures within the framework of diverse economies. In doing so, we tap into debates about diverse economies. Ethnographic fieldwork is conducted in Viñales, a municipality which has experienced tourism growth, and since 1999 has been a UNESCO World Cultural Landscape. We explore everyday tourism practices and diverse exchanges in tourism to nuance the social and political significance of the States policies.

Problem-based learning, education and employability: a case study with master’s students from Aalborg University, Denmark

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the problem-based learning model (PBL) model and how PBL can be a catalyst to motivate 17 students in a master’s program in Global Tourism Development at Aalborg University (Denmark) through co-created events between the University and actors outside the University. In this case study, the students went to Cuba in March 2017 to solve real-life tasks related to tourism issues. The paper nuances the models of experiential learning as being “enough” to prepare students to take ownership for the experience of learning. The results show that students not only learn from experience and from general reflection but they also need to be motivated by creating meaningful events or situations in which they take ownership of their own learning experience and enhance knowledge accumulation, employability approaches and skills.

Collaborative Economy in Tourism in Latin America: The Case of Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Mexico

This chapter addresses collaborative economy in four Latin American countries: Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Mexico. It challenges one of the taken for granted assumptions about the collaborative economy that it creates a more equal society with a fairer, more inclusive economic model (Botsman and Rogers, Harvard Business Review, 2010). The chapter argues that the collaborative economy is underpinned by fundamentally different rationales and structures in Latin America compared to Western societies. The chapter’s Latin American perspective suggests limitations in existing conceptualizations of the collaborative economy. In Latin American societies, digital collaborative economy is adopted into a sociocultural, political and economic context and has become an extension of well-established and social embedded historical practices of collaborative production and consumption. It has often replicated old patterns of privileged access for some and denial for others. Even though the digital collaborative economy has increased significantly, and Latin America is characterized by a solid information technology, it becomes clear that the informal sector keeps playing a pivotal role in the understanding of practices related to collaborative economy.

Social Entrepreneurship and Tourism Development in Mexico: A Case Study of North American Social Entrepreneurs in a Mexican Town

Enacting social entrepreneurship is about individual engagement, innovative ideas and creating social change. This article challenges this proposition of the individual social entrepreneur, rather social entrepreneurship is to be understood within the facilitating roles of networks through the process of mobilising collective interaction, trust and collaborate activities within networks. This case study considers the increasing flow of North Americans settling in Mexico to be social entrepreneurs. Their tourism-related business often has a social aim, not only generating economic growth but also addressing emerging socio-cultural needs in the Mexican communities. Through their non-profit organizations these transnational social entrepreneurs gain acknowledgment to the extent that they challenge the authorities’ power and even shape the meaning and nature of development. Here network ties and trust are essential factors for the sustainability of the ideas of the social entrepreneurs. We argue that these ties are based on symbolic and concrete practices such as national identity, global imaginaries and transnational practices, which makes it necessary to position transnational social entrepreneurs in tourism within a broader economic, sociocultural and political context and not understand entrepreneurship only as individual engagement.

La gubernamentalidad en lugares turísticos. Los casos de Christiania, Dinamarca, y San Cristóbal de las Casas, México

espanolEl articulo analiza el conflicto que se produce entre una comunidad y el Estado por el uso de un lugar. Especificamente dos espacios sociales que presenciaron dos protestas sociales significativas o Revoluciones culturales; la ocupacion de una instalacion militar y el surgimiento del Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN). Estudiaremos los casos de Christiania en la ciudad de Copenhague, Dinamarca y San Cristobal de las Casas en el estado de Chiapas, Mexico. Para el analisis utilizaremos la gubernamentalidad de Mitchell Dean basada en los escritos de Foucault. Este marco teorico nos permitira conocer los procesos mediante los cuales un Estado y distintos grupos sociales negocian la conformacion de lo publico, imagenes y significados de actividades, recursos, leyes relacionados a la actividad turistica. EnglishThe article analyzes conflicts over the use of place between a community and the State. We address two specific cases: Christiania in Copenhagen (Denmark) and San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas (Mexico) where significant social protests or cultural revolutions have taken place. In Christiania we explore the occupation of a military installation whereas in San Cristobal we analyze the emergence of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). Our theoretical framework is founded on Mitchell Dean’s use of governmentality based on the writings of Foucault. This framework allows us to understand the processes by which a particular state and different social groups negotiate the construction of the public place, images and meanings of activities, resources and laws related to tourism.

Mexican Mestizo identity in the twenty-first century

The former Mexican president, Vicente Fox (2000–2006), a member of the National Action Party (Partido Accion Nacional [PAN]), was not only the first president to be elected from a party other than the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional [PRI]) that had ruled Mexico since 1929 but was also the first president to recognize the importance of Mexicans living abroad. Indeed, he contributed to a marked change in the character of Mexican national discourse by referring, during his first weeks in office, to emigrants in the United States as “heroic paisanos,” heroic patriots, and “true heroes.”1