Sylvie Blangy

Introduction to the Special Issue on Aboriginal Ecotourism

The declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the United Nations in 2007 highlights the rights of all Indigenous Peoples to remain distinct while also promoting their full and effective participation in all matters concerning them (United Nations, 2007). This declaration provides a timely opportunity for researchers to assess the current state of Aboriginal ecotourism and to discuss to what extent communal needs are being addressed by scholarly research in this area. This special issue on Aboriginal ecotourism, in the Journal of Ecotourism, represents a selection from 23 international manuscripts. As a result of a critical and constructive review process, eight papers were judged suitable for publication and appear in this double issue. Special efforts encouraging concerted approaches between researchers and collaborators resulted in three of the eight articles featured being co-written with authors from the Sami nation, the Tl’azt’en First Nation, and members of local communities in the Kelabit Highlands of Malaysia and the Kerayan Highlands of Indonesia. The other five were written in collaboration with Indigenous partners or communities. Therefore, like Maher (this issue) in his review of the Butler and Hinch (2007) text, we recognize that further work is required in this area. However, it should also be noted that an increasing amount of information on ecotourism in the form of books, articles, workshops and conferences, research findings, and websites are now available. This is indicative of a scholarly growth and methodological diversification in this particular subject area. Of particular importance to these changes are the new and upcoming voices in Aboriginal ecotourism, a number of which were used throughout the editing and writing processes of this special issue. Whether it is guiding, cultural festivals, or corroborees, aboriginal peoples have been central to tourism activities for centuries (Denzin, 2008; McLaren, 2003; Parsons, 1997, 2002). However, the first scholarly work on the subject according to Notzke (2006) was Smith’s (1977, 1989) influential piece “Host and Guests”. But it was only in the 1990s when Butler and Hinch’s (1996) seminal work was published that the term “Indigenous tourism” become “a force in its own right” (Notzke, 2006, p. 9). The book is often defined as the catalyst on Indigenous tourism research since it provided the first

Developing a geocollaboratory for Indigenous tourism research

Collaboratories have been defined as virtual places where collaborative research can be undertaken. As part of the Aboriginal Tourism Network (ABORINET), a geocollaboratory was developed to support Indigenous tourism research. Indigenous communities are culturally distinct and remotely located and this presents geographic and sociocultural constraints when conducting research on issues affecting these communities. ABORINETs development focused on the specific goal of enabling collaboration between researchers and Indigenous peoples on issues related to Indigenous tourism planning and management, and the general issue of enabling the sharing of differing knowledge and management approaches among research and Indigenous communities. The purpose was to develop a multi-scale and multi-method data collection and analysis protocol for better understanding Indigenous tourism in a way that supports multi-site and longitudinal comparisons, for connecting Indigenous communities across the world, and for sharing the results in ways that are meaningful to stakeholders within and beyond Indigenous communities. This paper outlines the development of the geocollaboratory and describes the lessons learned with specific attention afforded the geographical nature of the collaboratory. Recommendations for mitigating challenges are proposed and future research opportunities are identified.