Abstract

CABANILLA, Enrique. Impactos culturales del turismo comunitario en Ecuador sobre el rol del Chamán y los ritos mágico-religiosos. Estud. perspect. tur. [online]. 2015, vol.24, n.2, pp.356-373. ISSN 1851-1732.

Cultural Impacts of Community Based Tourism in Ecuador on the Role of the Shaman and Magical-Religious Rites. This article analyzes the relationship between tourists and ancestral rites, encounter which has lately intensified by the presence of a new agent called community based tourism. This study shows a new form of exposure of magical-religious rites performed by the shaman, which have a symbolic and an ancestral importance. This new “tourism” use of shamanic rituals, has led to deeper relationships that need intensive research on its impacts, to contribute to sustainability within communities and in their development. The rite is blurred, as overexposure, as a commodity to be adapted, in form and substance, to different areas and situations. Based on this new scenario, many tourists dream to create, based in just one representation, a voracious hyperreality. The shaman makes an eminently tourist role (such as a tour guide?), in a process that tests the strength of the models that support the proposal for community tourism development. In the commodified tourism scenario, that has caused several impacts that may be crucial ensuring minimal cultural integrity of shamans and their practices, the central question to be resolved is what is the impact that community tourism has on the religious-magic rites?

Keywords : Shamanism; Community tourism; Anthropology of tourism; Ayahuasca rites; Cultural impacts.

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