Community, commons and tourism in Floreana (Galápagos Islands)

Abstract

Floreana inhabitants are increasingly dependent on tourism, but they do not locally control the tourist activity (flows, benefits, management). Thus, they intend to change the tourist model. The development of an alternative community-based tourism involves a necessary process of community building and the emergence of commons, which means a local repositioning both facing the market (incarnate in tour operators) and the State (defined by conservation policies). This process presents difficulties of external and internal origins, since the local society is heterogeneous. Floreana is a metaphor “good for thinking” multiple processes that are emerging in contemporary societies. How is a “commons” produced? How does community-building takes place? How much space is left between market and State to promote community and commons?