TOURISM
DEVELOPMENT AS COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Author : Miss.Pattama
Sarasuk ID. 4561500176
The PHD student of Communication Arts # 5
Sukhothai Thamathirat Open University
17 October, 2013
Rural
community in China
has been placed in the flow of social transformation due to various reforms
since 1949 and rural society has changed a lot. In 1950s, land reform
classified social classes, distributed farm-land to peasants, and changed the
principle of social classification. This policy promoted agricultural productivity
and rural development to a certain extent. Later, communal construction policy
completely changed the traditional social structure, and reorganized the
economy and social life in rural society. Clan and family economy was replaced
by communal economy. The basis of social identity was also changed. Traditional
identity, for instance, which was clan identity, gave way to national identity.
In these ways, social culture in rural China and corresponding social
institutions has been changed (He 2006; Lu 2003; Shen 2007). From 1966-1977,
the Great Cultural Revolution strengthened the social classification ideology
all over the country, while also brought disaster to rural development.
Historic
Village Tourism: Community-Based Tourism
“Community-based approach” in tourism development was first
proposed by de Kadt (1979), and it takes community interests into account in
tourism planning. Timothy (2002) goes further and argues that community-based
tourism is a more sustainable form of development than conventional mass
tourism. He develops community tourism from two perspectives: public
participation in decision-making and resident involvement in the benefits-sharing
of tourism.
In this section, I will describe the state of tourism
resources in Tuanshan and argue it should be seen as a common-pool resource.
After that, I will consider this historic village tourism from the perspective
of community-based tourism to discuss community participation and resident
involvement in the benefits of tourism.
Composition
of Heritage in Tuanshan
Architecture is seen as the main tourist attraction in
Tuanshan. In the conservation list, there are 15 well-preserved local-style
dwelling houses, 3 village gates, 3 temples, and one ancestral hall, occupying 18,384.5 square meters.
Zhang’s Family
Garden is one of the most
outstanding dwelling houses for tourism. It is composed of a big gate, three
compound courtyards, one garden and one blockhouse. There are a total of 21 yards and 119
rooms, occupying 3495 square meters.
It was built by Guoming Zhang, the 15th generation inthe Zhang clan, in 1905.
One of Guoming Zhang’s sons called Hanting Zhang, who used to be senior
governor in Jianshui
County and held a good
reputation among the people, and was praised to be an active supporter of the
Communist Revolution by the government. However, he was classified as landlord (di
zhu20) when China
conducted a movement of land reformation and class categorization all over the
country after new China’s
establishment in the 1950s. His house was confiscated by the government and
redistributed to 22 poor households (zhong nong and pin nong) for
residence, only two of which share the surname of Zhang. In 1981, the
government redressed the classification of Hanting Zhang and compensated some
money and a piece of land to his children for building a new house, which is
where they currently reside. At present, there are 24 households living in this
house and they own the property titles of the parts they live in. However, the
garden within this house is not distributed to anyone but belongs to collective
property of Tuanshan village.
Composition
of Heritage in Tuanshan
Architecture is seen as the main tourist attraction in
Tuanshan. In the conservation list, there are 15 well-preserved local-style
dwelling houses, 3 village gates, 3 temples, and one ancestral hall, occupying 18,384.5 square meters.
Zhang’s Family
Garden is one of the most
outstanding dwelling houses for tourism. It is composed of a big gate, three
compound courtyards, one garden and one blockhouse. There are a total of 21 yards and 119 rooms, occupying
3495 square
meters. It was built by Guoming Zhang, the 15th
generation in the Zhang clan, in 1905. One of Guoming Zhang’s sons called
Hanting Zhang, who used to be senior governor in Jianshui County
and held a good reputation among the people, and was praised to be an active
supporter of the Communist Revolution by the government. However, he was
classified as landlord (di zhu20) when China
conducted a movement of land reformation and class categorization all over the
country after new China’s
establishment in the 1950s. His house was confiscated by the government and
redistributed to 22 poor households (zhong nong and pin nong) for
residence, only two of which share the surname of Zhang. In 1981, the
government redressed the classification of Hanting Zhang and compensated some
money and a piece of land to his children for building a new house, which is
where they currently reside. At present, there are 24 households living in this
house and they own the property titles of the parts they live in. However, the
garden within this house is not distributed to anyone but belongs to collective property of Tuanshan village.
Beside Zhang’s Family
Garden, another house,
the “Battalion Commander’s Mansion” faced the same fate during this politic
movement. It was also distributed to several poor families. For other old
houses, even though they were not confiscated and redistributed during that
time, with the growth of population and families, several families from the
same ancestors now share them and some of them were sold to other families
moving in from outside. Consequently, at present, several families share each old
house, and all of the residents own the legal property title of the parts of the
house they live in.
Furthermore, among these dwelling houses and sites listed
above, generally there are only The General’s Mansion, Zhang’s Family Garden,
ancestral hall, Dacheng temple, Shangmiao temple, Emperor
Kindness House, the Xiucai’s house, and three gates that are opened for
tourists until now. Currently, the elder citizens who believe in Buddhism and
organize themselves as an informal Buddhist association use Dacheng temple
as an activity location. The Ancestral Hall is also used as an activity location
by the elder association in Tuanshan, which is different from the Buddhist association.
Shangmiao temple is used as the gathering and dining place for villagers
when there are some ceremonies and parties, such as the ancestor worship
ceremony, Chongyang festival, wedding ceremony, funeral ceremony and so
on. Besides these sites which are managed by the committee, there is also
another old house valuable for visiting but outside the management of the TMC.
It is Sima
Mansion, which is owned
by a Mao family and charged privately. It is also the only old house that is owned
by a non-Zhang family in Tuanshan
Figure 1 Inside of Emperor Kindness House
Value
of the Heritage
The heritage value of Tuanshan village is traced back to
the 19th century. The state of the village and its architecture are
closely linked to the flourishing Gejiu tin industry and cross regional
economic trade with Southeast Asia after the construction of the Yunnan-Vietnam
railroad (commenced in 1910) and the opening of the international traffic in Yunnan. According to
some scholars, Tuanshan history is a microcosm of the history of the commercial
and industrial development in Yunnan
during that time.
Tuanshan architectures integrally conserve the
architectural style of the 19th century’s countryside, such as the
traditional cyan-and-red stone mixed road. Typical architectures include the
four-side-closed big yard of Han style (si he yuan), tuzhang fang of Yi style (house with clay-ceilings), and tile
brim tuzhang fang mixture of Han and Yi styles. Its architectures are
built in harmony with the mountains, and are varied in form and are exquisitely
made. It is one of the classic representations of local Yunnan housing architecture that
incorporates both ethnic minorities housing style and Han style. The culture in
this village is a mixture of Han and Yi cultural characteristics. Since Yunnan is the frontier area of China and the indigenous residents
are minority ethnic groups, only until the Yuan and Ming dynasty did Han people
immigrate to this area in large scale. So this village is a typical example
that Han culture (migrant) and Yi culture (indigenous) met and fused.
Furthermore, both Han culture and Yi culture are still alive in the village
nowadays. For instance, ancestor worship (ji da zu) of the Zhang family,
typical Han family culture, is one of most important ceremonies in the village
(once a year for a small-scale ceremony, once every three years for a large-scale
one) on the 20th of the first month according to the traditional
Chinese calendar. The spring festival is another important occasion for
villagers and on this festival the elders perform the Yi Yanhe dance
collectively.
Compared to the high evaluation of the heritage value of
Tuanshan shown above, some provincial experts in culture have another
relatively low appraisal. They said that what makes Tuanshan distinguished is
that so many ancient residential architectures remained in a village and these
heritage architectures are still functioning in everyday life, but not highest
architectural value, since in Yunnan
province it is abundant of many similar, even more delicate and beautiful,
ancient architectures. In another words, the most valuable thing here is that
it is a living cultural heritage site. Moreover, the history of this village
implies the Chinese family culture and the prosperous economy development
related to Southeast Asia during the 19th
century. And last but not least, this village has produced many relatively
reputed people in history, especially the ones supporting and contributing to
the communist revolution, and some relatively famous events in the communist
revolution took place in this village.
Property
Titles towards These Heritage
Property titles towards these tourist attractions are as
follows: the village gates are collective property owned by the whole village;
the garden part in Zhang’s Family Garden is also collectively owned while the
rest of the parts are owned by 24 families separately; other attractive old
houses are owned by several families part by part; Zhang’s ancestral hall and Dacheng
temple are owned by the 4th productive team[1]
and another two temples are owned by the 3rd productive team.
However, according to Chinese cultural relic law, all of the culture relics belong
to the state. Many villagers do not have a clear cognition of their rights and
obligations towards these properties (or tourism resources). Some villagers
consider the old houses to be owned privately, but at the same time, national
laws protect them. Residents can neither destroy nor can sell them. Some
villagers think that while it is prohibited to sell these houses by parts, for
instance, the windows or doors, it may be permitted to sell the whole house.
Other infrastructure and resources, such as road and land is collective owned.
Households only have the use rights of the land they cultivated but not the
ownership.
Figure 2 Intricate Three-Layer Sculpture[2]
Current
Condition as Tourism Resource
Now, tourism development in Tuanshan is facing a serious
problem: the condition of valuable old houses and architectures is far from
prepared for tourism. Most of them need to be repaired. Except that some
collective property, such as the garden part in Zhang’s Family Garden, Dacheng
temple, ancestral hall, village gates have been repaired since the
beginning of tourism development, and some houses that the owner maintains and
repairs well, many houses have been damaged partly, i.e. some walls and tiles
have fallen down, some wood beams and rafters have been destroyed, many
paintings and drawings have faded. Some wood carving decorations, doors and
windows were removed or replaced by modern ones made of bricks and glass.
Furthermore, the internal structures have been altered and
lost the original visage and functions. When these houses were built at the
beginning, each was well designed for a big family. Each part in a house had
its own function, such as for living, meeting visitors, cooking, a horse barn,
storage barn, and so on. The division and layout reflects rigorous “Li”
in Confucian culture (Yang 2004). Seen from outside, the whole family and their
activities are surrounded by high walls and kept secret from outside. Only two
or three main gates enable people to keep in touch with the outside world. Seen
from inside, the house is divided into different parts for different people and
activities. In Confucian culture, parents, the first son, other sons, and
unmarried daughters are situated in a
rigorous and strict rank. Family members are settled in different parts of the
house according to their positions within a family. Specific activities are
restricted to a certain area within the house. But, many yards and rooms are
connected to facilitate family members going to other parts with different functions.
For example, one type of loft is called “walking and turning loft”, which is composed
of four rooms in four directions. The four rooms are interconnected and make a
circle surrounding the yard. This design saves space for the steps to each
room. However, currently, most houses have been divided by several families who
altered the structure of the house. There may be five or six families living in
one yard which in past may just have functioned as the living room and meeting
room. Tourists now can seldom experience
such conveniences because most of these lofts have been altered and walls
separate the rooms. To develop tourism, great efforts need to be made to repair
and recover the original visage of those houses and architectures.
Social
Differentiation
Tourism development in Tuanshan differentiates villagers
according to capitals they occupy in tourism, including economic capital,
social capital, and cultural capital.
According to Bourdieu (1986), economic capital is the
material form of capital, which is immediately and directly convertible into
money and may be institutionalized in the form of property rights. Social
capital is the collective actual or potential resources, which are derived from
durable networks of relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition, or
put it in another way, the membership in a group (ibid). It is made of social
obligations or connections, and is convertible into economic capital. It may be
institutionalized in the form of a title of nobility. Cultural capital is
institutionalized in the form of educational qualifications. For Bourdieu, cultural
capital implies a broad consensus on valued cultural forms. Cultural resources,
such as education credentials have become a new and distinct source of
differentiation in modern societies. The cultural capital, such as knowledge,
culture, and educational credentials becomes the “second principle of
hierarchy”, while the economic capital, such as wealth, income, and property,
is the “dominant principle of hierarchy”. The idea of culture as capital
insightfully draws out the power dimension of culture and resources in market
societies (Swartz 1997).
The three kinds of capital are convertible to each other.
According to Bourdieu, capital by nature is “accumulated labor (in its
materialized form or its “incorporated”, embodied form)…enable them (agents or
groups of agents) to appropriate social energy in the form of reified or living
labor” (Bourdieu 1986). It is “the potential capacity to produce profits and to
reproduce itself” and “a force inscribed in objectivity of things so that
everything is not equally possible or impossible” (ibid). Labor is seen in a
much broader range (culture, social, just as shown above), which constitutes
power resources. Under certain conditions and at certain rates, they can be
converted into another. And the real logic underlying the functioning of
capital, the conversions from one type to another, is the changing of power
relations.
Tourism development in Tuanshan brings economic benefit and
improves the environment, but at the same time, it brings competition among the
villagers. Since the implementation of a household responsibility system,
villagers have concentrated on their family development separately and have not
gotten involved in other community resource management that generates economic
interests apparently. And their culture, family identity, and social bonds with
other villagers did not become capital before tourism development. As Bourdieu
argued, capital only becomes capital when it is included in human relations,
and capital needs a field of power relations (Bourdieu 1986). In Tuanshan,
cultural heritage tourism economy provides the field and context for
capitalization of culture and social relations. Culture and social relations
become capital and a means of servicing different social agents for getting interests
from tourism. Here, with Bourdieu’s term, we can say culture is capitalized. Villagers
are involved in the tourism economy, utilizing and manipulating their social relations
or culture differently. Cultural capital and social capital are constructed in tourism
development.
Culture
Change
Tourism in Tuanshan has formally developed for seven years.
It would be too hasty to discuss culture change in the village. But some subtle
changes have appeared. As the scholar, Yang (2004), who did research in
Tuanshan early on, wrote that during the first time she went to Tuanshan the
villagers were friendly, provided hospitality and loved to share their history
and stories with her. However, after three months, when she went to the village
again, the situation changed. Conflicts emerged and villagers were arguing a
lot about benefit sharing. Some villagers refused to accept tourists into their
houses or purposely made trouble for tourists, with the argument that they
could not get any benefit from tourism as it all went to the pocket of the committee
members, so they had no reason to open their house for tourists. The old women
who made Chinese foot binding shoes competed among themselves facing with
tourists and finally sold the products at a very low price. So she regretted
that “the folkway in Tuanshan has changed”, and “When the inherited houses from
generation to generation become a sort of capital, and their daily life become
a good for selling, their heart will no longer get quiet” (ibid: 159).
At present, although most villagers have accepted tourists
and tourism, and the old women do not gather around tourists and compete with
each other, but sell in 24 The connotation of the saying “they got the house
without paying anything” is that they should not request more from tourism
income. For instance, they should not expect the government to repair houses
for them but should repair them by themselves. some separate sites, the argument
for benefit-sharing is still going on.
Conclusion:
Property Relations, Community Participation and Tensions between Tourism
Development and Community Expectation in Historic-Village Tourism
To summarize this chapter, tourism resources in Tuanshan
village should be considered common-pool resources, and tourism development
should be discussed in the framework of community development. For the first
point, the committee members and many villagers have had some sense that they
should promote tourism together, and villagers should be united to do this
work. However, since they only think about the property relations within the
framework of private property or state property, they did not figure out the
suitable relations among themselves. Furthermore, the contested attributes of
the committee also make the property relations more complex. The property
relations towards this resource are unclear for villagers, and this leads to
many conflicts when villagers try to pursue their interests in tourism.
As to the second point, firstly, there is a low level of
community participation in tourism development. Villagers are treated as
objects to be manipulated and educated. They are not informed about management
rules and operations of the committee. They do not have a clear idea about the
attributes and responsibilities of the committee. They do not even know how the
process of election works when they were asked to elect a new committee, but
just observed that the person who got the highest vote did not become the director.
This low level of participation results in their suspicious attitude towards
the committee, both regarding the former one and the new one, and this leads to
conflicts between villagers and the committee. And since villagers did not know
how the TMC operated, they were easily convinced by some arguments against it.
Secondly, there are tensions between the limits of tourism
development stage and villagers’ relatively high expectation. Although tourism
in Tuanshan has been developing for seven years, it is still in a very low
stage of development. The income from tourism is very limited, at no more than
180 thousand Yuan per year. And villagers do not have economic capital to
develop tourism by themselves but need outside
capital coming in. The government’s project has been discussed for many years
but is still in the air. This news gives villagers great expectations. However,
the constant delay of this project also makes many of them disappointed with
tourism development. Furthermore, while tourism lacks funds to develop, it is
still expected to fulfill some public welfares, such as installing running
water, paying for the cost of irrigation water, supporting public festivals and
activities, and so on. The tourism development in Tuanshan is still low, and
investment of economic capital takes too long. So there is much tension
existing between the two demands. However, since both sides are critical in
regards to tourism development, a certain balance should be reached.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
De Kadt, Emanuel. (1979). Tourism:
Passport to Development? New York: Oxford University Press.
Timothy, Dallen J. (2002). "Tourism and
community development issues", In R. Sharpley and D.J. Telfer (eds.) Tourism
and Development: Concepts and Issues. Clevedon,
UK: Channel
View Publications.
Yang, Jin. (2004). "Reflections
on cultural exploration of dwelling house in Lu village" (Chinese title: "Lu
cun min ju wen hua kai fa de fan si"), In Zheng, Fan et al. (eds.) Yunnan
in Globalization Perspective (Chinese title: Quan Qiu Hua Shi Jiao
Xia de Zhong Guo Yunnan). Beijing: Social Science of China Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre. (1986).
"The forms of capital", In J. G. Richardson (ed.) Handbook of
Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. Westport: Greenwood
press: 280-291.
Swartz, David. (1997). Culture
and Power: the Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press.
He, Xuefeng. (2006).
"China rural social transformation and the dilemma" (Chinese title:
"Zhong guo nong cun she hui zhuang xing ji qi kun jing"), East
Mountain Forum 27(2):54-61. (in Chinese)
Lu, Huilin. (2003). "The
mode of China rural society differentiation and its change before and after the
revolution: Findings in community research" (Chinese title: Ge ming
qian hou zhong guo xiang cun she hui fen hua mo shi ji qi bian qian), in Research
on China Rural Society. Vol. 1. Beijing: Commerce Publish House. (in
Chinese)
[1] Since Tuanshan village is a natural village in the
framework of Chinese political structure, there are two productive teams in
Tuanshan village, the third and the fourth. There are 130 households and 433
villagers in the third team, and 115 households and 494 villagers in the fourth
team.
[2] It is in a door in Zhang’s Family Garden
called “Huan tian Xi di” (means happiness). In this sculpture,
the connotation is interestingly and vividly reflected by animals: the pied
magpie (in Chinese saying call “Xique”) on the top facing
the land (land is “Di” in Chinese word), while the big ancient
animal call “Huan” on the bottom looking at the sky (sky is “Tian”
in Chinese word). So make them into a phrase, that is “Huan tian Xi di”,
to wish the household happiness everyday. This sculpture consists of three
layers to give the picture a strong sense of three-D. However, the difficulty
to make is so high that the payments to sculptor is much expensive: it is said,
the payments for the first layer is silver as heavy as the wood bits they left
out from the first layer; that for the second layer is silver double heavy;
that for the third layer is gold as heavy as the wood bits.
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