Tourism, land grabs and displacement: A global study Event as iCalendar

Professor Andreas Neef | University of Auckland

Tourism is often presented as a peaceful and benevolent sector that brings people from different cultural backgrounds together and contributes to employment, poverty alleviation and global sustainable development. This seminar will shed light on the lesser known and much darker side of tourism as it unfolds in the Global South. While there is no doubt that tourism has been an engine of economic growth for many so-called developing countries, this has often come at the cost of widespread dispossession and displacement of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. In many countries of the Global South, tourism development is increasingly prioritised by governments, businesses, international financial institutions and donors over the legitimate land and resource rights of local people.

In this talk, I will examine the actors, drivers, mechanisms, discourses and impacts of tourism-related land grabbing and displacement, drawing on case studies from several world regions. Theoretically, I will draw on notions of ‘violent tourism geographies’ (Devine & Ojeda, 2017) and Harvey’s (2006) concept of ‘accumulation by dispossession’. I will also briefly discuss the potential of several international legal frameworks and voluntary guidelines to prevent tourism-related land grabs and involuntary relocation

Andreas Neef's current research focuses on the ethics and politics of global land and resource grabbing, development-induced displacement, adaptation and resilience to climate change, and post-disaster response and recovery. Most of his recent research has been conducted in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. His recent publications include The Tourism-Disaster-Conflict Nexus, co-edited with Dr Jesse Hession Grayman and published by Emerald in 2018. He is the author of the policy study “Land Rights Matter! Anchors to Reduce Land Grabbing, Dispossession and Displacement,” published by Bread for the World in 2016.