About this Research Topic

Background

The UN World Indigenous People Day, observed on August 9th annually, serves as a platform to raise awareness about indigenous rights, cultures, and issues faced by indigenous communities worldwide. This day provides an opportunity to highlight the rich cultural heritage and contributions of indigenous peoples, while also addressing the ongoing challenges they face in the modern world.

Indigenous communities around the world have long faced challenges in preserving their unique cultures, traditions, languages, and knowledge systems. Colonization, assimilation, globalization, industrial activities and tourism have often threatened indigenous identities and cultural practices, especially in peripheral areas. While tourism can offer opportunities for economic development and cultural revitalization, it can also have negative impacts on indigenous communities.

Indigenous tourism has also been recognized as an avenue for cultural revitalization, economic empowerment, and sustainable development. By engaging in tourism activities, indigenous communities can showcase their cultural expressions, traditional practices and promote a sense of pride and identity.

This Research Topic aims to delve into the connections between tourism, globalization, and cultural revitalization within indigenous communities, taking into account both the potential benefits and the negative impacts of tourism. Core areas of exploration for this Research Topic include:

• Economic impacts: Contribution to local development, job creation, and poverty alleviation, while addressing exploitation and unequal benefits.
• Social impacts: addressing the positive impacts such as fostering community pride, enhancing social cohesion, and supporting overall social well-being, as well as negative impacts such as cultural appropriation, commodification, and loss of authenticity
• Empowerment: opportunities for indigenous women, youth, and marginalized groups while addressing the potential dangers of reinforcing power imbalances, cultural stereotypes, and marginalization.
• Challenges and Opportunities: Exploring the barriers and prospects faced by indigenous communities in leveraging tourism.
• Collaborative Approaches: Assessing collaborative approaches between indigenous communities, governments, and the tourism industry to ensure meaningful participation, benefit-sharing, and decision-making in tourism development, while considering the complexities of power dynamics, unequal partnerships, and neocolonial tendencies.

Keywords: indigenous tourism, cultural revitalization, UN Day, indigenous communities, cultural heritage, cultural preservation, social impact, empowerment

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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