Abstract

HERNANDEZ PULGARIN, GREGORIO. TERRITORY, TOURISM, AND COMPETITIVENESS: METAPHORS OF SUCCESS AND PROGRESS DESIRE IN THE MAGDALENA MEDIO. Luna Azul [online]. 2010, n.31, pp.104-121. ISSN 1909-2474.

This article presents a critical analysis of the way in which the territory is seen using metaphors and economist type ideologies. This is expressed through public agents and other agents and institutions discourses that see in the territory a competitive entity, oriented to the search of success through strategies which are closer to those used by the private business, instead of to those built through the tradition of the public sector which are mostly interested in the common welfare rather than in factors such as efficacy or usefulness which are considered ends in themselves. This case study approaches tourism (historical, ecological, etc.) as the activity which, with a questionable rationality, is thought as the means for the accomplishment of the plans for territorial development in Magdalena Medio (Colombia). The methodological proposal appeals to the analysis of the discourses and the State ethnography, searching to identify and question the discourses in which the territory is reduced to a competitive entity which follows the approaches close to "social Darwinism."

Keywords : Competitiveness; Magdalena Medio; tourism; territorial development; ideologies.

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