Análisis Crítico  
Kalpana Nro. 15 (2017) (pp.63-71) ISSN: 1390-5775  
Latin American Scholars and the Heritage Tourism: a critical analysis.  
Maximiliano Korstanje  
Latin American Scholars and the Heritage  
Tourism: a critical analysis.  
Maximiliano Korstanje  
Department of Economics,  
University of Palermo, Argentina  
mkorst@palermo.edu  
63  
Abstract  
This paper explores the problems of Latin American scholars in tourism at the time of  
defining not only the meaning of heritage but also the valid policies to follow to protect  
the tourist destination. In consonance with the latest advances of cultural theory we hold  
that the obsession for heritage, not only within tourism but also in anthropology, exhibits  
a neocolonial discourse to commoditize the non-western others.  
Key Words: Heritage, Tourism, Latin America, Consumption, Commoditization  
Análisis Crítico  
Kalpana Nro. 15 (2017) (pp.63-71) ISSN: 1390-5775  
Latin American Scholars and the Heritage Tourism: a critical analysis.  
Maximiliano Korstanje  
The onset of 19s century brought for first anthropologists the belief that the advance of  
industrialism not only would be irreversible but will erode primitive kinships and forms  
of organization, which means the disappearance of nonwestern cultures. As Harris puts  
it, concerned in questions of heritage, heirs, and inheritance the first ethnologists were  
lawyers (Harris, 2006). One of the aspects that defined the field-work of anthropology  
was the efficacy to collect the lore, customs and object of primitive societies before their  
disappearance. Indeed, the “Other”, far from being an independent entity, was  
subordinated to European-gaze. The European paternalism envisaged the world as an  
amalgam of different cultures, which evolved in different ladders depending on their  
economies or ways of production. Europe was conceived as the most evolutionary and  
refined form of civilization respecting to these “Others” who had not skills in arts and  
trade. This seems to be the context, when the conceptualization of patrimony and heritage  
surface. From that moment on, the relation of both with development took a material  
connotation that suggested further trade and commercialization would be beneficial for  
natives. Native backwardness was explained by their disinterest for economic progress,  
as it was imagined by Europeans´ travellers. If the colonial order connected the center  
with its periphery, travels paved the ways for the acceleration of colonization (Korstanje,  
64  
2
012).  
Nowadays, tourism and heritage seem to be inextricably intertwined. Tourism scholars  
echo the assumptions that the fresh incomes generated by this industry alleviate the  
poverty of natives or their living conditions. A fairer distribution of wealth, experts, and  
public account balance give to the community a substantial economic improvement.  
Tourism, of course, can help in such a stage. One of the benefits, these experts adhere, of  
tourism consists in its ability to exploit intangible assets (as heritage and patrimony)  
which have limited costs for investors. In parallel, abandoned cities or communities or  
in the bias of destruction can be revitalized by the introduction of heritage. The discourse  
of patrimony should be understood as an effective instrument to boost economies,  
communities, or even cultures. ¿What are the commonalities of first ethnologists and  
modern tourism policy makers?  
Análisis Crítico  
Kalpana Nro. 15 (2017) (pp.63-71) ISSN: 1390-5775  
Latin American Scholars and the Heritage Tourism: a critical analysis.  
Maximiliano Korstanje  
At the time of entering in the field, ethnographers defied the classic conception of science,  
which experimented at desks or in controlled conditions. B. Malinowski, the founder of  
modern ethnography, acknowledged a clear gap between what people overtly say and  
finally do. Therefore, for social scientists, the needs of moving beyond where the native  
laid, were associated to the idea of “being there” to validate empirically what senses often  
captivate.  
Changing the epistemological basis of discipline, Malinowski and his seminal studies  
showed the importance of fieldwork to expand understanding of cultures. In this vein,  
two main assumptions cemented the western-gaze; the concern for some culture’s  
disappearance was conjoined to situate the supremacy of Europe as an unquestionable  
truth. It can be found in texts authored by many founding parents of the discipline as  
Tylor, Boas, Durkheim, Mauss, Radcliffe-Brown, Malinowski Evans-Pritchard and other  
65  
founding parents (Racdliffe-Brown, 1975) (Pritchard, 1977) (Mauss, 1979) (Boas, 1982)  
(Malinowski, 1986) (Tylor, 1995) (Durkheim, 2003). However, this sentiment of  
protection resulted in an uncanny obsession to understand (not to correct) the lives of  
these nonwhite others. Instead of correcting the factors that lead Imperial powers to  
exploit the periphery, heritage became in a social institution that mediates between the  
disciplinary violence of Europe and natives´ suffering. This does not mean that  
anthropology was conducive to imperial order, but many of the produced knowledge  
served for colonial administrators to discipline “indigenous customs”. This romantic view  
of the world, not only facilitated the expansion of colonialism worldwide but facilitated  
the conditions for the rise of anthropology as an academic discipline. Doubtless, in this  
process, the concept of backwardness and wealth played a crucial role.  
As the previous argument given, between 1975 and 1985 two senior scholars, J Heytens  
(1978) and Gray (1982) used the term patrimony to denote development. In this respect,  
tourism enables social capital to optimize wealth and resources to the extent to attract  
more capital investment, which produces a virtuous circle. Underpinned by the  
proposition that further tourism equals to further development, scholarship in tourism and  
hospitality adopted a material conception of patrimony, as a new valuable resource to  
Análisis Crítico  
Kalpana Nro. 15 (2017) (pp.63-71) ISSN: 1390-5775  
Latin American Scholars and the Heritage Tourism: a critical analysis.  
Maximiliano Korstanje  
exploit that may very well help societies or human groups historically oppressed by  
nation-states (Comaroff & Comaroff, 2009).  
In Latin America, scholars ushered the idea of patrimony in order to preserve landscapes,  
environments or with others sustainable purposes. Local resources, unless otherwise  
resolved, should be protected from the exploitation or the interests of market. That way,  
the theory of patrimony suggests, natives receive the good (eluding the negative) effects  
of tourism. At a second viewpoint, heritage plays a crucial role by cementing the local  
identity. Locals not only acquire a self-consciousness that will facilitate potential  
negotiations respecting to the proposed programs, but they administer their own resources  
(
Vitry, 2003) (Aguirre, 2004) (Dos-Santos and Antonini, 2004) (Mondino, 2004)  
Espeitx, 2004) (Toselli, 2006). As Korstanje pointed out, though in different contextsof  
(
production and times, the spirit of colonial order respecting how the “other” is constructed, lingers  
66  
(
Korstanje 2012). It seems worth noting that the channels for  
scientific discovery and “the concept of the Other”, are inextricably linked. The empirical  
research findings in tourism fields, far from questioning this connection, validate earlier  
assumptions in regards to heritage. While tourists seek authenticity as a new form of  
escapement from the alienatory atmosphere of greater cities, natives offer their culture as  
a product to be gazed. Dean MacCannell and other followers offered a good description  
of the role of tourism in a society of mass-consumption. MacCannell conceives that  
tourism consolidated just after the mid of XX th century, or the end of WWII. Not only  
the expansion of industrialism, which means a set of benefits for workers as less working  
hours and salaries increase but the technological breakthrough that triggered mobilities  
were responsible from the inception of tourism. There was nothing like an ancient form  
of tourism, Maccannell notes. Taking his cue from the sociology of Marx, Durkheim, and  
Goffman, Maccannell argues that tourism and staged-authenticity work in conjoint in  
order for the society not to collapse. If totem is a sacred-object that confers a political  
authority to chiefdom in aboriginal cultures, tourism fulfills the gap between citizens and  
their institutions, which was enlarged by the alienation lay people face. The current  
industrial system of production is finely ingrained to expropriate workers from part of  
their wages. A whole portion of earned salaries is spent to leisure activities, even in  
Análisis Crítico  
Kalpana Nro. 15 (2017) (pp.63-71) ISSN: 1390-5775  
Latin American Scholars and the Heritage Tourism: a critical analysis.  
Maximiliano Korstanje  
consuming tourism. As Krippendorff, Maccannell believes, industrialism forged a  
tourist consciousness” that revitalizes the glitches and deprivations produced by  
“
economy. Tourism would be a type of totem for industrial societies that mediates among  
citizens, officials and their institutions. In this context, tourism, like the totem in  
primitive communities, revitalizes psychological frustrations and alienation proper of  
urban societies. Not surprisingly, Maccannell adds, Marx was in the correct side at  
denouncing the oppression suffered by the work-force. Nonetheless, leisure, far from  
being an ideological mechanism of control (as in whole Marxism), prevents the social  
disintegration (Maccannell, 1976; 1984). Over recent years, he was concerned by the lack  
of ethics in tourism consumption. Coalescing contributions of Giddens with Derrida, he  
points out that globalization entails to type of mobilities. Nomads who are defined as  
forged-migrants are pitted against tourists who are encouraged to consume landscapes  
and exotic cultures. Since tourists are conferred by a certain degree of freedom, this leads  
them to think they are part of a privileged class, a sentiment that is reinforced by the quest  
of “the local other”. Reluctant to contact others, tourists affirm their own self-esteem  
enjoying the precarious conditions where natives live. If this is not controlled tourism  
may produce a progressive process of dehumanization (Maccannell, 1973; 1976, 1984;  
67  
1
988; 1992; 2001; 2009; 2011; 2012). It is interesting to discuss to what extent, the  
discourse of heritage never left behind the idea of rationality, as it was formulated by the  
founding parents of anthropology. The Other (good savage) is conceived in opposition to  
civilized European. While Europeans have reached their stage of civilization because of  
trade, the legal jurisprudence which is based in the principle of right and property and an  
organized way for concentrating derived surplus, natives developed economies of  
subsistence (Posner, 1983). This allegory suggests that problems of international  
commerce are fixed by further investment. Therefore, aborigines who have been pressed  
to live in peripheral and desert areas believe in the market as a platform to launch towards  
prosperity. The needs of revitalizing tourists’ destinations by the adoption of loans and  
international financial aid not only validates this assumption, but aggravates economic  
problems simply because solicitant is unable to accrue their higher tax of interest  
imposed by central nations. This is exactly the resulted denounce issued by sociologists  
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Latin American Scholars and the Heritage Tourism: a critical analysis.  
Maximiliano Korstanje  
of development as Escobar (1997) Viola (2000) and Esteva (2000). Historically, the term  
development was coined after American President Henry Truman in 1949, when he  
claimed on the needs of helping others towards the trace of development. From that  
moment onwards, the world was divided in two, developed and underdeveloped nations.  
At a first glimpse, pundits asserted that development would be helpful in contributing to  
enhance the living conditions of underdeveloped groups. The financial aid was the  
touchstone in order for West to expand their cultural values to the rest of the world.  
Needless to say, things do not turned out as planned. Financial assistance was issued  
without any type of control to governments which failed to obtain fairer levels of wealth  
distribution. Instead of accepting the liability, international business organizations as  
World Bank, International Monetary Funds and Development Bank chose for using a  
blaming the victim tactic. They, rather, replied that cultural incompatibilities between  
developed and underdeveloped cultures were the main reason that explains why the  
original promise of theory of development diluted (Esteva 2000; Escobar 1997).  
68  
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