景区内的贫困:旅游扶贫的权力视角与解释

Poverty in the Scenic Area: An Explanation from the Power Perspective of Pro-poor Tourism

核心景区内存在贫困村的现象让旅游扶贫效果面临质疑,为了从理论上解释并在实践中解决这一问题,文章选取了四川省兴文县石海景区内的顺河村和僰王山景区内的博望村两个案例地进行对比分析。研究发现:景区内的贫困现象源于权力结构的失衡,即社区的旅游吸引物权及附属于集体产权上的可建设用地开发与经营权被剥夺或弱化,导致社区居民难以通过旅游参与来获得经营性收益与财产性收益;同时,社区居民话语权的不足又降低其集体收益的分配权,从而进入"越贫困、越边缘化-权力越弱-收入越低"的恶性循环之中。研究证实了旅游扶贫的关键是通过制度增权以提高当地弱势人群参与旅游的能力,并给出了基于权力再平衡的旅游扶贫策略。

Although the greater development of China’s society and economy is sound, large numbers of poor people exist in many areas in the country. Poverty alleviation is therefore one of the Chinese government’s priorities. Most of the country’s underdeveloped and poor areas have well-protected natural resources, and many of their original cultural assets have not been affected by the modern world. For these reasons, both society and academia have shown confidence that tourism can be an effective means of alleviating poverty. However, the effectiveness of pro-poor tourism toward poverty alleviation has declined in some areas, and the number of people returning to poverty after experiencing related improvements has increased. Notably, the fact poor populations are still present in some welldeveloped scenic areas is a cause for concern for many in society, as well as academic researchers, as relates to the sustainability of pro-poor tourism. This study therefore aims to focus on the poverty phenomenon in scenic areas and attempts to answer the following questions: Can tourism alleviate poverty? Why is there poverty in well-developed scenic areas? How can poverty be alleviated or eliminated in scenic areas?Shunhe village and Bowang village in Xingwen county, Sichuan province, were selected as the cases in this study. The former is located outside the core paid admission area of the 4 A scenic areas and has almost no tourism development. The latter is within the core area of the scenic areas, and the community is able to participate in tourism to a certain extent. Both villages are impoverished and both have alleviated poverty through tourism. This study analyzed the background, development process, and results of propoor tourism that has taken place in the two villages. Through this, it was found that poverty in these scenic areas is mainly the consequence of an imbalanced power structure. In other words, the actual ownership of tourism attractions in these communities and the ownership of development and management rights of developable land, which are attached to the true ownership of collective property,were taken away or weakened. This has directly led to the community struggling to obtain income from operations and property as generated through tourism participation. At the same time, the community residents’ lack of power within the discourse surrounding tourism development reduces their ability to distribute the collective income. This situation creates a vicious circle in which the severer is the poverty and marginalization, the weaker is the power of the community and the lower is the income.The investigation and analysis of the subject villages in this study confirm that tourism can in fact alleviate poverty. However, ensuring the community’s right to participate in tourism development is the prerequisite for this outcome. Additionally, based on the present results and on current related literature,this study sets forth a strategy for alleviating poverty through pro-poor tourism-the key is rebalancing the power involved in the development. In the pro-poor tourism process, the government should play its proper and full role as a regulator and coordinator. In doing so, it should coordinate the conflicting interests that exist between scenic area development and community development. This will help in achieving development that yields positive outcomes for all stakeholders.