"May the smoke keep coming out the fireplace": Moral connections between rural tourism and socio-ecological resilience in the EUME region, Galicia

Abstract

For several decades, tourism has been considered an important instrument for the sustainable development of rural areas. However, a great deal of scholarship has cast a doubt on the actual economic and ecological impacts of many of these initiatives. Acknowledging these critiques, we argue in this paper that a more accurate examination of the implication of rural development projects based on tourism should not merely look at the number of overnight stays or the income generated, but also at the multiple, subtle and complex implications of tourism for socioecological resilience. In order to do this, we argue, it is crucial to pay attention to the moral values underpinning tourism practices. Through an ethnographic analysis of the material, symbolic and experiential transformations brought about by a number of tourism initiatives in a rural region in Galicia, our goal is to discuss the complex connections between the promotion of this new activity, the diversification of the local economy, and the social reproduction of local communities and their specific forms of human-environment engagements.