Abstract
This paper adopts an interpretive approach to investigate children's perceptions of their socio-spatial surroundings. It focuses on two tourism service towns, Akumal Pueblo and Chemuyil, and two major tourism centers, Akumal Playa and Bahia Principe, all located in the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula. Drawing on scholarship related to tourism's role in demarcating and segregating space and Lefebvre's trialectics of space production, this inquiry focuses on ways in which Mayan children residing in Akumal Pueblo and Chemuyil render their surrounding spaces intelligible, while reproducing or challenging the boundaries, symmetries and inclusions/exclusions created by the tourism industry. Tourism scholarship has tended to ignore children. By contrast this study engages the geographies of childhood to understand the lived socio-spatial experiences of this demographic group.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 482-505 |
Number of pages | 24 |
Journal | Annals of Tourism Research |
Volume | 43 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 2013 |
Keywords
- Children's geographies
- Enclaves
- Mexico
- Tourism boundaries
- Trialetics of tourism space
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Development
- Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management