Evaluating tourism-linked empowerment in Cuzco, Peru

This study evaluates processes of tourism-linked empowerment in four communities outside Cuzco, Peru. Linking Rowlands’ power framework to ethnographic work in the region from June through December of 2013, findings suggest that tourism association members in each community, while experiencing generative empowerment in the form of enhanced agency, collectivity, and self-awareness, have also been the recipients and purveyors of non-generative empowerment in the form of enhanced domination. Potential factors influencing these processes are also identified, pointing to practical ways community-based tourism can better foster generative rather than merely sustainable (i.e., zero-sum) forms of empowerment in the region.