Community-based Tourism in Brazil and its status as periphery (re)produced by the State

Abstract

This paper addresses the (re)production of inequalities by the Brazilian State in relation to Community-Based Tourism (CBT). The question presented is: there is insufficient legislation and/or public policies at the national level for CBT, to the point of configuring a condition of periphery, in the field of society-State relations, regarding the communities that carry out this model of tourist management? The aim is to contribute to the discussion about the need to establish legal support in the national territory, capable of providing support and, therefore, of promoting CBT. It was applied a research with a qualitative approach, with file and field surveys. The summary of the results confirmed both the premise and the question raised, especially in relation to current legislation and the processing of draft law. In short, it is possible to verify that the relationships between the vulnerable segments of the population that work in the CBT and the laws and public policies can reinforce vulnerabilities and forms of exclusion. However, the fact that there is a categorized survey, with its own methodology at the national level, points to a possible rupture of many years during which this way of doing tourism was made invisible by the State.