The End Of Tourism podcast

1:09:31

Mi entrevistado en este episodio es Ernest Cañada. Es coordinador de Alba Sud y docente de la Universidad de Barcelona. Investiga en torno al trabajo, los conflictos socioecológicos y las alternativas en el desarrollo turístico. Ha publicado: Viajar a todo tren. Turismo, desarrollo y sostenibilidad (Icaria, 2005, con Jordi Gascón); Turismo en Centroamérica: un nuevo escenario de conflictividad social (Enlace Editorial, 2010); Turismo placebo. Nueva colonización turística: del Mediterráneo a Mesoamérica y El Caribe. Lógicas espaciales del capital turístico (Enlace Editorial, 2011, con Macià Blàzquez); El turismo en el inicio del milenio: una lectura crítica a tres voces (FTR, 2012, con Jordi Gascón y Joan Buades); Turismos en Centroamérica. Un diagnóstico para el debate (Enlace Editorial, 2013); Turismo comunitario en Centroamérica. Experiencias y aprendizajes (Enlace Editorial, 2014). Notas del Episodio * Alba Sud y su historia * El despojo en Nicaragua * El surgimiento de turismo en Costa Rica como una herramienta neoliberal * El Malestar en la Turistificación: Pensamiento Crítico Para Una Transformación de Turismo * El fin de turismo barato y el policrisis de hoy * Postcapitalismo y terminos complementarios * Monstruos peores * Aprender poner limites * La pluralidad de posibilidades de turismos postcapitalistas Tarea * El malestar en la turistificación. Pensamiento crítico para una transformación del turismo - Icaria Editorial * Alba Sud - Facebook - Instagram - Twitter * #TourismPostCOVID19. Turistificación confinada * Ernest Cañada - Facebook - Instagram - Twitter Transcripcion en espanol (English Below) Chris: [00:00:00] Bienvenido Ernest, al podcast del fin de turismo. Ernest: Muchas gracias. Muy encantado estar aquí. Chris: igual es un gran honor poder hablar finalmente contigo. Mi pregunto si, pues, para empezar, si podrías decirnos de este, dónde hablas hoy y cómo es el mundo allá por ti? Ernest: Yo habitualmente resido en Barcelona, entre Barcelona y Mallorca, porque estoy entre la universidad de las Islas Baleares y Alba Sud, y en estos momentos estoy en Buenos Aires que estoy trabajando en una investigación sobre experiencias de gestión distinta, fuera de las lógicas del capitalismo. Y esto nos llevo a identificar distintas experiencias. Y ahora estoy empezando una investigación con el Hotel Bauen, a lo que fue el Hotel Bauen y a cerrado y la cooperativa que lo gestionó durante 20 años, Es parte el proceso que estamos haciendo, identificación [00:01:00] de experiencias diversas plurales que tienen que ver con como pensar la posibilidad de organizar el turismo bajo otros modos y esto nos elevado por caminos distintos de América Latina, de España. Y ahora estoy aquí. Chris: Pues gracias Ernest. Y si vamos a estar hablando de ese tema pero más allá de las vision que que hay, que existe, que podemos imaginar sobre un turismo post-capitalista o algo alrededor, algo así. Pero antes de meternos en eso, pues tú y yo hemos estado en contacto durante los últimos dos años, en parte debido a tu trabajo en el ámbito de los estudios críticos de turismo y a tu proyecto Alba Sud que en algunos de nuestros invitados anteriores incluidos de Ivan Murray, Robert Fletcher y Macia Blasquez ha participado. Me encantaría que pudieras contarme un poco [00:02:00] sobre Alba Sud, Ernest, su misión, su historia y su situación actual Ernest: Con mucho gusto. Ah, mira, Alba Sud nace en 2008. Legalmente lo habíamos legalizado antes por si algún grupo de compañeros por si algún día nos hacía falta, pero formalmente empieza a funcionar el año 2008 y empieza a funcionar en Managua, Nicaragua, que era donde yo residía en ese momento. Y fundamentalmente fue un acuerdo de personas que nos dedicábamos a la investigación y a la comunicación para trabajar con análisis críticos y al mismo tiempo propositivos en torno al turismo. Esto fue algo que fue original desde el principio, esta doble preocupación, por cómo pensar los impactos, los efectos que tenía el desarrollo turístico bajo el capitalismo y que tipo de dinámicas de violencia estructural y directa generaban y al mismo tiempo, cómo pensar posibilidades de salir de ese [00:03:00] marco de esas lógicas. Y eso fue un sello que desde el principio empezamos. Con los años Alba Sud fue creciendo, integrándose como una red de investigadoras e investigadores en turismo. Ahora tenemos presencia en 10 países en España, en Francia, en Europa, y luego en América latina, en la República Dominicana, en México, en El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Brasil, Uruguay y Argentina. Entonces es una red que conformamos gentes que nos dedicamos a distintos ámbitos de la análisis turístico y que compartimos espacios de trabajo y análisis e intervención política. Para nosotros, Alba Sud es un centro de investigación, pero no es un centro académico si nos preocupa menos las dinámicas académicas, aunque hay una parte de nuestro equipo de personas que colaboran que están en la universidad, distintas universidades. Lo que nos preocupa es cómo generar [00:04:00] conocimiento que sea útil para las comunidades, para las organizaciones comunitarias, para las asociaciones civiles, para sindicatos, para cuando es posible la administración pública. Es decir, intentamos generar conocimiento, análisis sistematización, propuestas que de alguna manera contribuyen a hacer visible las cosas que funcionan mal, que son un desastre que generan dolor en este mundo en relación con el turismo y al mismo tiempo, a pensar horizontes de esperanza. Este es un poco el propósito. Para ello, nos dotamos de eso de un equipo amplio de personas que colaboran unas más estrechamente con el día a día, otras que puntualmente colaboran y montamos básicamente nuestros trabajos se articula en torno a una web, la www.AlbaSud.Org, y lo estructuramos en trabajos de investigación que salen después en un formato [00:05:00] escrito por distintas formas, que luego te cuento un trabajo, además de la forma de la investigación, vinculado a la formación a poner a generar procesos de diálogo que nos permitan escuchar, reflexionar conjuntamente, poniendo en el mismo nivel personas que vienen de la academia con personas que tienen experiencias concretas de trabajo. Y finalmente, un ámbito más de incidencia política, más de acompañamiento organizaciones y de acompañarles para incidir políticamente. En el ámbito de la investigación, luego lo expresamos, básicamente a través de unos artículos cortos que hacemos, publicamos alrededor de 100, 110, 120 al año, que son artículos cortos de 2000-2500 palabras, que sabemos que son muy usados en las universidades, como material de discusión. Y un poco del propósito es este que se hiervan como pequeñas artículos bien escritos o intentamos que estén bien [00:06:00] escritos, que estén en un lenguaje simple, que la complejidad no tiene que ver con las palabrotas académicas que usamos, sino la profundidad del pensamiento que incorporan, pero que tienen que estar poder ser leídas por mucha gente. Tenemos esto. Luego, pusimos en marcha un sello editorial propio que es Alba Sud Editorial, en el cual tenemos una colección de libros, una de informes y recientemente una de policy brief más dirigidos a recomendaciones de política. Y básicamente Alba Sud eso. Es un espacio de encuentro entre personas que no nos resignamos a pensar que el desarrollo turístico necesariamente tenga que comportar esto, que estamos acompañando las resistencias, las luchas de los muchos males y violencias que genera este desarrollo capitalista a través del turismo y que al mismo tiempo, intentamos construir lo que decía antes "horizontes de esperanza" que nos permitan estimular la lucha y la resistencia, [00:07:00] pensando en en futuros más deseables que es creo que en estos momentos también necesitamos. Chris: Gracias, Ernest. Sí. Pues por lo que he visto, lo que he leído, lo que he encontrado ahi en el sitio de Alba Sud. Pues es, es una organización y sitio único en el mundo. Y pues yo tengo mucho honor de estar contigo hoy hablando de estas cosas y especialmente contigo como el fundador, Y entonces, para agregar, para profundizar un poco más de la historia, de tu historia, la próxima pregunta viene de nuestro amigo mutuo compañero Macía Blasquez a quien entrevisté en la temporada cuatro. Europa. Y el pregunta, "afirma que tú has sido entre muchas otras cosas activista en Centroamérica, como nos dijiste, y entonces él quiere saber cómo han cambiado tus opiniones y tu carrera de este [00:08:00] entonces?" Ernest: Buena pregunta. Ah, yo empecé a trabajar en Centroamérica acompañando. Bueno, primero pasé seis años que iba y venía. Estaba medio año en Centroamérica más o menos a otro medio en España. Y finalmente me quedé a trabajar en Nicaragua con una organización que se le llamaba "Luciérnaga" ahora "Ilegalizada," dedicada a la comunicación. Y desde ahí empezamos a organizar campañas de comunicación en distintos temas que tenían que ver con las necesidades y los derechos de la mayoría de la gente y de como estaban sufriendo procesos de despojo de posesión. Y trabajamos en torno a temas que tenían que ver con la salud y los derechos sexuales o reproductivos o la soberanía alimentaria. Y en una de estas, organizamos una campaña que duró cuatro años de investigación y comunicación sobre turismo. En un contexto, estoy hablando del año [00:09:00] 2004-2008, en el cual Nicaragua se estaba abriendo al turismo en esos momentos. Y entonces identificábamos claramente los altos niveles de violencia que eso podía comportar con procesos de desplazamiento. Y había que acompañar a las comunidades en esas dinámicas, y que además eran compartidas en El Salvador, en Guatemala, en Honduras, en Costa Rica y al mismo tiempo, empezar a pensar posibilidades de "si era posible utilizar el turismo bajo el control de las propias comunidades." Esa fue mi mi inserción en el mundo fundamentalmente del turismo. Y a partir de ahí, después de trabajar unos cuatro años en Luciérnaga y pusimos en marcha Alba Sud y en parte recuperamos en Alba Sud esa especialización vinculado con el turismo. Pensábamos, y es algo que hemos reflectado muchas veces con Ivan Murray que también le entrevistaste que no nos estábamos dando cuenta desde el mundo de las [00:10:00] izquierdas de la importancia que tenía el turismo para el funcionamiento al capitalismo. Y a veces cuando decíamos que nos necesitábamos al turismo, la gente lo tomaba como algo como irrelevante, como algo superficial, incluso casi jocoso como te gusta viajar, verdad? Y entonces era como, como no darse cuenta de, por un lado, como sobre todo desde la aplicación de los programas neoliberales, cómo el el turismo estaba ayudando a expandir los procesos de desarrollo capitalista, pero al mismo tiempo, como tenía una segunda función muy importante que era, cómo ayudaba a a estabilizar los desórdenes que provocaba ese mismo programa neoliberal? Recuerdo que me impresionó mucho trabajando en Costa Rica cuando me di cuenta que el año 1985, cuando se aplican los programas de ajuste estructural, [00:11:00] una de las cosas que se hace es desmontar el CNP, que era el consejo nacional de producción, que era lo que permitía durante bastantes años, que el campesinado costarricense tuviera la seguridad de que los granos básicos, frijoles, arroz, maíz tenía donde venderlos con precios estables. Y esto le daba seguridad al campesinado. Esto el año en el marco de la aplicación de esas políticas neoliberales que eran de hecho un chantaje, decir bueno, en un contexto de crisis de la deuda o aplicas determinadas programas políticos para liberalizar el comercio o no tienes apoyo en ese contexto, la contrapartida de achicar el estado y reducirlo. Y uno de los ejes de disminución del gasto público fue, por ejemplo, desmontar el CNP, este consejo nacional de producción. Y a cambio, lo que se pedía al campesinado estimularlo en la producción [00:12:00] de cultivos que tuvieran supuestamente mejor inserción en el mercado internacional para atraer la llegada de divisas. Y ahí se promovía la vainilla, la curcuma, la pimienta, productos que al final no acabaron de funcionar. Pero al mismo tiempo se promovió el turismo rural como un mecanismo para que el campesinado, por una parte, aportara con esa desarrollo de servicios turísticos divisas, al mismo tiempo le permitiera estabilizarse y no comprometerse en una dinámica que tenía que ver con el sufrimiento que estaban viviendo, que estaban generando procesos migratorios muy grandes. Entonces, con Iván, una de las cosas que reflexionábamos es, esto del turismo empieza a ser muy importante para el capitalismo. Y después de la crisis de 2008 creo que tuvimos bastante conciencia de que la dinámica de solución que encuentre el capitalismo para su [00:13:00] reproducción en parte tiene que ver con la expansión del turismo. Y esto lo hemos visto después de la crisis de la COVID con la pandemia que tuvimos en la cual... recuerdo perfectamente una llamada que nos hicimos con Iván, decíamos no nos puede pasar en 2020 lo mismo que nos pasó en 2008, que no nos dimos cuenta hasta mucho después de lo que estaba ocurriendo. Y por tanto, dijimos "paremos todas las publicaciones que tenemos pendientes y pidamos a todo el equipo amplio que está en torno de Alba Sud, pongámonos a reflexionar y analizaron que nos equivoquemos, pero pongámonos a analizar que cambios supone esto." Y en ese memento, alguna gente se reía de nosotros. Decía que seamos futurologia, que si habíamos convertido Alba Sud en una bola de cristal y que pretendíamos invocar el futuro. Y de hecho, lo que intentábamos hacer era el análisis desde la economía política para entender qué es lo que nos venía encima y de alguna manera, respondiendo a la pregunta que nos hacía [00:14:00] Macia, yo creo que lo que ha cambiado mi pensamiento es la intuición. O sea lo que antes era una intuición de que debíamos trabajar, generando conocimiento fuera de las lógicas de la reproducción académica y teníamos que generar conocimiento vinculado a los problemas sentidos por la gente más desfavorecida, que esa institución estaba en lo cierto y que había un espacio para hacer eso y que era necesario hacerlo. Y que este era un espacio que debíamos construir en relación con el mundo de las universidades de la academia, pero independiente de él, pero también independiente de las empresas, que es lo que vimos que también les había ocurrido algunas ONGs que durante años trabajaron tratando de generar algún tipo de pensamiento en torno de turismo, pero que rápidamente habían caído en una cierta trampa de pensar que era posible incidir en las empresas, generar dinámicas de responsabilidad, etcétera. Y nosotros pensamos que la cosa no iba por ahí, que la cosa tenía que ver con cómo [00:15:00] fortalecíamos otros actores para que pudieran combatir, resistir y construir cosas fuera de los marcos del capitalismo. Entonces, yo creo que, no sé si cambiaron muchas las cosas en términos de pensamiento, pero si se consolidó una convicción de lo que empezamos a hacer de una forma un poco intuitiva, se acabó convirtiendo en un espacio de investigación, de colaboración, de acompañamiento, de formación, de ciencia política para para un montón de gente que está vinculado con el turismo. Chris: Yeah. Gracias, Ernest. Pues yo siento que esa intuicion ha abierto un montón en los últimos años. Y hay un montón de gente en muchos lados, normalmente los lugares turisteados o sobreturisteados dando cuenta y dando cuenta no solo de [00:16:00] las consecuencias, pero de los patrones y pues, a dónde vamos con los patrones o canales de turismo convencional, pero también, como dijiste, en el turismo, como un gran factor dentro de la expansión y destrucción del capitalismo en nuestro tiempo. Entonces, a través de Alba Sud y Icaria Editorial en España, ustedes han publicado recientemente una antología titulada El Malestar en la Turistificación: Pensamiento Crítico Para Una Transformación de Turismo. Hay toneladas de capítulos fascinantes, tengo que decir, de excelentes autores y investigadores, incluidos trabajos que hacen referencia Silvia Federici y David Harvey, Pierre Biourdeau, Donna Haraway, Foucault, Graeber, y Ursula Le Guin, entre otros. [00:17:00] Estoy curioso, Ernest, cuál fue el impulso detrás de la creación de este antología? Ernest: Muchas veces, buena parte de las cosas que hacemos o que impulsamos de que son más grandes, vienen de una llamada telefónica con Ivan Murray y nos llamamos decimos, "tenemos que hacer esto, tenemos que hacerlo otro." Y de estas llamadas, lo que acabamos, y luego es algunos elevándolas a cabo. En este caso concreto, recurrentemente, teníamos una reflexión que cada vez era menos interesante leer sobre el turismo o que nos interesaba menos leer sobre turismo y que para entender el turismo, necesitábamos leer otras cosas. Y incluso la gente que nos dedicamos a los análisis críticos del turismo, nos dábamos cuenta de que estábamos leyendo mucho solamente entre nosotros. Y que de alguna manera estábamos reproduciendo lo mismo que le pasaba la academia vinculada al turismo. Es una academia muy endogámica, [00:18:00] muy auto concentrada que discute los mismos temas que se cita unos a otros y nos dábamos cuenta que de alguna manera, los que nos dictábamos a la crítica y a la propuesta fuera de esos marcos, teníamos el riesgo de no estar captando parte de la complejidad que tenía el desarrollo turístico en la medida que este se estaba haciendo cada vez más grande y que estaba penetrando en más esferas de la vida. Y ahí la idea fue, necesitamos hacer cuando compartíamos con Iván y luego se sumó Clément Marie dit Chirot, que es un profesor de la Universidad de Angers, que colabora también con con Alba Sud. De ahí surgió la idea de decir bueno, nos compartíamos tú que estás leyendo, que te está interesando. Y ahí empezamos a compartir autores y autoras. Y nació la idea deberíamos hacer algo con esto. Hicimos un primer seminario en Barcelona sobre la obra de David Harvey y en Lefevbre de qué nos pueden aportar estos dos autores a la comprensión [00:19:00] actual del desarrollo turístico. Y fue un seminario por eso el libro en parte, a veces la gente dice, por qué tanto Harvey y tanto Lefevbre, porque el origen del libro tenía que ver con este primer seminario que fue una prueba, un ensayo, de cómo podemos hacer que autores que no necesariamente han hablado sobre turismo, cómo podemos hacer que dialogan con nuestro objeto de de análisis? Y ahí hicimos un poco el mismo llamado que habíamos hecho en 2020 en cuando empezamos a trabajar en torno de la pandemia, que eso se convirtió en dos libros. Uno que fue Turistificación Confinada y otro Turismos de Proximidad, que fue el mismo proceso de empezar a preguntar a nuestros colegas, amigos, compañeros y compañeras, en qué estaban trabajando, que estaban viendo que estaban... Pues hicimos lo mismo, empezar a preguntar en nuestro entorno del equipo de Alba Sud, personas que colaboran, qué autores estaban leyendo que les interesaba y que no hubieran hablado antes de turismo? Y como [00:20:00] podíamos hacer el ejercicio de llevarlos a los análisis turísticos con el fin de robustecerlos, de hacerlos más sólidos, de incorporar dimensiones que si solamente nos fijábamos en lo que veníamos leyendo y escribiendo sobre el turismo, a lo mejor se nos estaban escapando. Por supuesto, nos quedaron un montón de trabajos de referencias fuera de este marco, es decir nos salía un volumen con 25 capítulos y nos podía haber salido perfectamente un segundo volumen, que es algo que no descartamos, pero no en términos inmediatos por el cantidad de trabajo que también supone. Pero si logramos poner en diálogo una serie de personas que nos permitían, de alguna manera, enriquecer el análisis turístico y brindar a gente que se estaban metiendo en determinados temas desde el ámbito de la comprensión, de lo como funciona el turismo, encontrar referencias teóricas, críticas con el capitalismo que le pudieran ayudar a [00:21:00] como mínimo, abrir caminos, entender qué lecturas podríamos hacer a partir de ellas. Seguro que hay autoras o autores que podrían haber tenido otro tipo de lectura, pero es la que hicieron las personas que colaboran con nosotros y de alguna manera era una de las posibles lecturas. Y bueno, ese es el origen del libro y la motivación. Chris: Ajá. Y me gustaría preguntarte sobre, pues, tu capítulo sobre Eric Ollin Wright, pero antes de eso, me gustaría preguntarte qué tipo de reflexiones te sorprendiste más fuera de tus propios investigaciones? Ernest: Sí, Ivan, Clemente y yo no solo lemos, sino que editamos y discutimos todos los capítulos. Tuvimos que rechazar lamentablemente también algunos. En algunos casos, había gente que nos mandó escritos que eran más complejos que el propio autor. Elegimos necesitamos que se entienda o en otros casos, la lectura no nos interesaba mucho. [00:22:00] No fue que aceptáramos todo, en este proceso. Y para mí, uno de los descubrimientos fue Jason Moore y el trabajo que hizo Iván con él para pensar o plantear la hipótesis del fin del turismo barato. Esto ha dado lugar un proyecto de investigación en el que estamos en la Universidad de Las Islas Baleares, con el grupo CRIGUST en el que estoy trabajando, pensando decir, bueno, qué significa este escenario de emergencias crónicas, esta dinámica, la cual el capitalismo ha funcionado a partir de la lógica de disponer de naturalezas baratas... qué significa si esto empieza a acabarse? Y hasta qué punto este modelo de desarrollo turístico que hemos tenido las últimas décadas en realidad no está objeto a demasiadas tensiones? Está demasiado en crisis y habría que tal vez plantear la hipótesis del fin del turismo barato, pero la [00:23:00] apertura de nuevos escenarios y sobre esta hipótesis estamos estamos desarrollando un proyecto de investigación y de alguna manera también ha servido para nosotros desde Alba Sud para pensar los escenarios de esta dinámica de reactivación. Decir no, no todo es igual a lo que venía siendo antes. Yo creo que para entender el memento actual del desarrollo turístico a nivel global, hay que situarnos en dos crisis: ya antes mencionamos el programa neoliberal y como el neoliberalismo incorpora el turismo con un mecanismo de expansión por al mismo tiempo de estabilización. Pero las dos últimas crisis la de 2008 y 2020 generan un salto de escala en términos de turistificación, un proceso turistificación global como nunca habíamos vivido, siendo un salto exponencial, en parte porque después de la crisis de 2008 se produce una situación en la cual las vías que habían optado a través de los préstamos [00:24:00] bancarios, la construcción, hipotecas, etcétera, colapsa y no es posible seguir reproduciendo el capital a través de esas vías. Y esto necesita encontrar otros mecanismos a traves de los cuales el capital se puede reproducir. Ahí, david Harvey ha hablado muchas veces de la importancia que tiene la urbanización de China en este proceso de salida de la crisis de 2008. Nosotros entendemos que, además de esto, el papel del turismo es clave. No es casualidad que una empresa como Airbnb nazca en 2008, que se produzca esta expansión del turismo urbano. Es decir, tiene que ver con esta lógica. Y la pandemia de alguna manera lo que hace es detener, pero al mismo tiempo, una salida, una reacción de los capitales muy agresiva por recuperar lo que no han ganado en los años anteriores. Y por tanto, se produce como una vuelta de tuerca más en esta dinámica. En este punto, para eso no es útil el pensamiento de Jason Moore, que yo lo leo fundamentalmente [00:25:00] como aportación de Iván Murray en esta obra que hacemos, en el malestar de la turistificación. Esta hipótesis del fin del turismo barato que planteamos a partir de la relectura de Jason Moore, lo que nos permite pensar es, o interpretar más bien , la dinámica de redituación es igual que la anterior a la crisis o hay algo cualitativamente distinto? Y hay algo cualitativamente distinto, porque estamos ante un escenario de riesgo para este desarrollo capitalista vinculado a las naturalezas baratas. Y ahí es donde nos damos cuenta que, en parte hay un efecto champagne, que cerca las reactuaciones no has podido viajar durante dos años y cuando hay la apertura, la gente sale. Pero más allá de esto y que nos expresa en estos últimos años de una forma desmesurada de tenemos turismo en los destinos más purificados, turismo de todo tipo, desde lujo a despedidas de [00:26:00] soltero o de soltero, que no alquilan ni una habitación, que sencillamente pasan de noche el viernes y el sábado de fiesta y se va en el domingo y ya está. O sea, tenemos de todo. Y ahí es donde recupero a Jason Moore y la ideas del fin de las del turismo barato, este riesgo de fin de turismo barato, lo que nos empezamos a dar cuenta es que empieza a ver una mayor competencia entre territorios, entre ciudades, por atraer un turismo de mayor poder adquisitivo. Se dan cuenta que hemos salido de la crisis y hay una serie de emergencias crónicas o lo que algunos le llaman policrisis que siguen estando presentes, que tienen que ver con el cambio climático, con la crisis de combustibles o la crisis energética y la crisis de materiales con las interrupciones a las cadenas globales de suministros, con las tensiones geopolíticas. Y todo esto nos ponen alerta de los riesgos que tiene el [00:27:00] desarrollo turístico. Si estamos en un escenario muy vulnerable. Además, después de la salida, empezamos a ver que hay un nivel de destrucción de los ecosistemas enorme, que no decir, esta lógica de crecimiento constante es inviable, porque hemos superado con mucho la capacidad del planeta y en ese contexto también vemos otro naturaleza barata que empieza a ser cuestionada, que es el trabajo, es decir la idea de la renuncia, de la dimisión, y uno de los grandes problemas que tienen las empresas en estos momentos es la falta de personal, gente que no quiere trabajar ahí y que busca trabajo en otros sitios. Entonces, en ese contexto que llamamos de emergencias crónicas que además se retroalimentan unas con otras, lo que empezamos a ver es que los capitales, a través de las autoridades públicas en distintos territorios, empiezan a competir por atraer un turista de mayor poder adquisitivo. Buscan cómo concentrar esa franja de segmento [00:28:00] turístico que va a ser menos sensibles a situaciones de crisis, que va a seguir viajando y cómo traerlo. Y implica un programa de gasto público enorme en términos de infraestructuras para traerlos en términos de promoción internacional, términos de macro-eventos para consolidar esa atracción. El problema es que, por definición, los turistas de mayor poder adquisitivo son mucho menos que la clase media o las clases trabajadoras en las que se ha sentado el turismo en las últimas décadas. Y por tanto, esa competencia entre territorios, por atraer ese segmento turístico de mayor poder adquisitivo, se incrementan. Es una competencia feroz por atraer a ese tipo de turistas y yo creo que estamos en este en este contexto. Y yo creo que no nos hubiéramos dado cuenta si una de las hipótesis posibles que formulamos a partir del libro en Malestar en la Turistificación no fuera precisamente esta [00:29:00] idea que extraemos de Jason Moore sobre el fin de las naturalezas baratas. La otra hipótesis tiene que ver con el trabajo que desarrolla a partir de Erik Ollin Wright sobre las posibilidades y cómo de transformar el sistema capitalista, hablando también desde el turismo, que es algo que Erik Ollin Wright nunca hizo, pero no sé si querías que habláramos ahora de él o o como quieres que lo planteemos. Chris: Pues sí, sí, me encantaría si podrías platicar un poco sobre Erik Ollin Wright, porque escogiste el específicamente, pero también para empezar, porque el capítulo que escribiste está titulado como un Turismo Postcapitalista: Siguiendo Los Pasos de Erik Ollin Wright. Entonces, antes de meternos en sus obras y su trabajo me gustaría preguntarte, pues, cómo defines Postcapitalismo? Ernest: Yo parto un posicionamiento anticapitalista. Y no tengo ninguna duda. Si me [00:30:00] opongo a a este modelo de producción, creo que nos lleva el desastre tanto en términos humanos como planetarios. Desde esa posición de esa convicción anticapitalista, lo que plantea es la necesidad de encontrar salidas que nos lleven a otro escenario. Podríamos llamarle socialismo. Podríamos llamarle ecosocialismo. No lo sé. Me interesa más pensar la posibilidad de pensar horizontes que escapen del capitalismo. Este es el posicionamiento. A veces hay gente que duda, porque una cosa o la otra. No una cosa o la otra. Si partimos del anticapitalismo para intentar construir algo fuera del capitalismo, pero no es algo tampoco mecánico, es algo que construimos. No es una fase superior del capitalismo. Después del capitalismo podría ser formas de violencia y de explotación mucho mayores. Es algo que tenemos que construir. Entonces, la idea es no resistimos, confrontamos con las lógicas capitalistas y desde [00:31:00] intentamos construir algo distinto, algo que podemos llamarle metafóricamente del momento postcapitalismo, pero no es contradictorio una posición con la otra. A partir de ahí, yo, sinceramente, estoy en este camino de buscar como pensar las posibilidades de transformación. Esto lo tenía claro. Y cuando me acerco a distintos autores, Erik Ollin Wright no era un autor que me resultaba especialmente simpático. Venía de una tradición socialdemócrata. Venía del marxismo analítico, que era algo que no especialmente me seducía. Si me interesaba una cosa especialmente de su obra, que era el rigor metodológico en las formas de analizar la sociedad. Esto me a atrevía especialmente. Es decir, salir fuera de las metáforas y del lenguaje a veces tan obtuso del marxismo y empezar a construir utilizando las mejores herramientas de las que disponemos en un determinado memento desde las ciencias [00:32:00] sociales. Esto reconozco que era algo que sí que me atraía, pero no es necesariamente todo el pensamiento de Erik Ollin Wright y Erik Ollin Wright me interesa partir de leer Utopía Reales y después Como Ser Anticapitalista en el Siglo XXI, por la visión que tiene. El lo que hace es un intento de recuperar distintas tradiciones de la izquierda para pensar un programa de acción complementario. Y a mi, esta idea me seduce especialmente, cómo pensamos en términos complementarios. Es decir cómo la acción de uno es la que uno puede hacer, la que uno desea hacer o la que las condiciones le han marcado, pero no son mejores ni peores que las que hace el otro compañero que está desde otra trinchera y como dejamos de competir por cuál es la mejor idea y empezamos a reconocernos que unos están intentando transformaciones desde el ámbito, de la lucha política parlamentaria, otros lo hacen desde del mundo sindical, otros desde del mundo [00:33:00] ecologistas y otros de cooperativismo. Reintegrar, repensar conjuntamente esas distintas tradiciones de acción de la izquierda. Me parecía que era algo necesario. Discrepo en una posición de Erik Ollin Wright que no acabo compartir, que es esta idea de negar la posibilidad de la revolución. Y me explico, Erik Ollin Wright dice en parte como buen social demócrata, lo que viene a decir es, después de las experiencias históricas, es fácilmente reconocible que cuando hemos tomado el poder después de un proceso revolucionario, las dinámicas que hemos generado después casi han sido peores que contra lo que combatíamos. Y probablemente tenga razón. Y yo he vivido 11 años en Nicaragua y sé de lo que estoy hablando. Se de qué significa los supuestos nuestros cuando están en el poder. Entonces, cuidado con esta idea, la simple toma del poder en [00:34:00] nombre de una bandera, de una determinada cristalización ideológica es ya un futuro deseable y mejor. Cuidado porque efectivamente generamos monstruos peores. Pero lo que discrepo con Erik Ollin Wright es que, si bien, en sí misma la toma del poder no te garantiza una sociedad ni mucho más justa, ni mucho más equitativa, sino que al final, muchas veces lo que te encuentras son dinámicas de estabilización de nuevos grupos que ascienden al poder y desde ahí ejercen el control. Pero lo que sí, quiero que no podemos renunciar a la idea de la movilización social, incluso de la toma del poder político como un mecanismo defensivo, como un mecanismo de respuesta ante el desorden que genera el capitalismo. En estos contextos, aunque fuera para salvaguardar dinámicas democráticas, aunque fuera para salvaguardar, creo que no podemos renunciar a la herramienta [00:35:00] revolución, pensado probablemente en términos defensivos no ofensivos, si no pensando que vamos a cambiar y vamos a generar un mundo mejor a partir de la toma del poder inmediata. Pero sí, salvaguardarlo como un mecanismo defensivo ante la lógica del avance del desorden que genera el capitalismo, la posibilidad de restaurar ciertos equilibrios a través de procesos revolucionarios. Creo que esta es la idea que recuperamos de Walter Benjamin cuando dicen que a veces se marca como la revolución, como la locomotora de la historia y el dice más bien, es el freno de mano. Es decir, es ante el despeñadero pensar en esto. Bueno, esto mi distancia de esta posición tan categórica de Erik Ollin Wright, pero en cambio, me parece interesante cómo construir una posibilidad de un mundo post capitalista a partir de cuatro grandes estrategias o vías de lo que ella denomina erosión del [00:36:00] capitalismo. O sea si no es posible darle la vuelta de inmediato, probablemente habrá que pensar en un tránsito a largo plazo en el cual este orden capitalista he agujereado desde distintos ámbitos de intervención y fundamentalmente desde el estado y desde fuera del estado. Y él plantea esta idea del desmantelar, domesticar, huir y resistir como formas de intervención. Y yo lo que hago en el capítulo es subir, bueno, si el turismo es tan importante en el capitalismo, cómo podríamos pensar estas categorías, estas dinámicas de ejes de intervención que contribuyen a erosionar el capitalismo de ir agujereándolo, de ir creando nuevas lógicas, aunque sean frágiles, aunque sean temporales, pero como mostrar, y como de algún modo ir asentando y que iba creciendo áreas de funcionamiento social que no reproducen las lógicas del capitalismo, sino que [00:37:00] avancen en otras direcciones. Y esto en un largo proceso que nos vaya avanzando, que nos permite avanzar. Y yo lo que intento hacer es cómo podría ser esto desde el turismo? Y ahí implica, por una parte, la intervención desde el estado, es decir por un lado, desde el estado, entendiendo al estado cómo la cristalización de una determinada correlación de fuerzas en un determinado memento. Podríamos pensarlo en términos de, bueno, es la reproducción de, es el mecanismo que tienen las clases dominantes para reproducir bien. Yo quiero más bien siguiendo otros autores de la tradicion marxista, como Poblanzas y otros más bien entendiendo como una cristalización de una determinada correlación de fuerzas. Y esto puede cambiar. Bien, desde esa perspectiva, pensar como desde el estado, podemos intervenir abriendo dinámicas que funcionen fuera de las lógicas del capitalismo. Una de ellas que no significa que sean necesariamente anticapitalistas, que a veces ayudan a [00:38:00] estabilizar el mismo capitalismo, pero pueden ser leídas de múltiples maneras. Una de ellas tiene que ver con esta idea de ponerle límites al capital, introduciendo mecanismos de control, de regulación, de fiscalidad. Es decir desde la inspección del trabajo hasta la fiscalidad hasta las tonificaciones en determinadas ciudades de qué se puede hacer, si podemos permitir más hoteles o no podemos permitirlos, cierto? Todo esta dimensión de "desde el estado," cómo ponemos mecanismos de limitación y contención al desarrollo de capital turístico? Otra vía, otra estrategias, como desde el mismo estado, generamos igual que por ejemplo, hemos hecho en algunos países en el ámbito de la salud o en el ámbito de la educación, cómo establecemos programas públicos que garanticen el acceso a las vacaciones, al descanso, etc. de una parte de la población, con programas de turismo social, [00:39:00] con creación de infraestructuras, desde parques urbanos a mejora transporte público, acompañamiento los programas de la economía social y solidaria, el cooperativismo. Es decir cómo desde el estado generamos dinámicas que contribuían a garantizar el acceso de los sectores más desfavorecidos a vacaciones. La tercer eje de intervención de que plantea Erik Ollin Wright tiene que ver con la idea de resistir resistir fuera del estado, es decir, resistir en el combate a este desorden que genera el capitalismo, el capital turístico. Y esto implica resistir desde dentro de las empresas con las organizaciones sindicales, pero tremendas de fuera desde los movimientos comunitarios, ecologistas, vecinales, es decir, ponerle límites al capital, no solamente esperando lo que va a hacer el estado con políticas públicas, sino que hacemos de forma organizada colectivamente dentro y fuera de las empresas.[00:40:00] Y la cuarta dimensión de esta proceso de entender mecanismos de erosión del capitalismo y en este caso, del capitalismo de base turística, sería la idea de huir. Hay que salir ya hoy y aquí de este mundo capitalista. Y esto implica crear cooperativas, ensayar formas de organización distinta que nos permitan garantizar vacaciones, descanso, formas diversas de construir el ocio que pueden incluir el desplazamiento. Y esto podemos hacerlo fundamentalmente desde las organizaciones comunitarias, desde el ámbito de las cooperativas, pero también desde fuera del mercado. Es decir, si la tutela del estado y si la tutela del mercado. Es decir, reorganización del ocio popular sin pasar por el mercado. Esto que en algunos países llamamos domingueros, dominguiar, hacer uso del día del señor para [00:41:00] descansar o tocarnos las narices o leer debajo un árbol. Es esta idea de hacer lo que queramos de forma autoorganizada, en colectivo o individualmente. Es decir, abrir estos espacios. Entonces yo creo que estas cuatro dimensiones es lo que nos permite pensar la posibilidad de una transformación del turismo bajo otras lógicas. Y aquí creo que hay que introducir un matiz porque a veces siento que hay una cierta confusión, como si todo fuera un problema de palabras. Es decir que nos negamos a utilizar la palabra turismo porque es una palabra que es capital. Bueno, nosotros, lo que reivindicamos fundamentalmente es el tiempo libre, el tiempo liberado del trabajo. Esto es lo que nosotros reivindicamos. Y creo que eso es lo que tenemos derecho a el tiempo que liberamos del trabajo para poder hacer lo que necesitemos en términos de descanso, de alimento de nuestro pensamiento, de goce, de desarrollo, de posibilidades.[00:42:00] Esto es lo que nos interesa. Y esto se puede organizar en el propio lugar de residencia en tu espacio próximo de residencia en términos de ocio, de entretenimiento, de recreación. Pero si implica desplazamiento, es cuando empezamos a hablar de turismo y este turismo, podemos organizarlo que implica ocio más desplazamiento. Esto podemos organizarlo, que es como hemos hecho hasta ahora, bajo las lógicas del capitalismo para reproducir el capital o podemos organizar este ocio con desplazamiento para satisfacer necesidades humanas. Y ahí es donde creo que tenemos el centro de la propuesta. Es decir, cómo pensar que una práctica humana, una práctica social no pueda ser solamente definida por las lógicas de reproducción del capital, sino que tenemos que poder desarrollarla bajo otras lógicas. Y esta es la reivindicación. Es decir, no resignarnos a que solamente el [00:43:00] capital organice nuestras vidas. Hay una frase de David Harvey que tiene toda la razón cuando dice no hay ninguna idea moralmente buena que el capitalismo no pueda compartir en algo horroroso. Y tiene toda la razón. El capitalismo tiene la capacidad para hacer esto, pero nosotros también pensamos que al mismo tiempo, no hay ninguna práctica social que no podamos organizar bajo otras lógicas distintas a las del capitalismo, que un mundo socialista, un mundo ecosocialista, podría ser organizado bajo otras lógicas y eso tiene que empezar ya ahora y aquí. No esperar a que venga una revolución y no sabemos cómo saldremos de ésa, sino que tenemos que empezar a organizarlo ya ahora y aquí. Yo creo que esta es la segunda hipótesis con la que construimos a partir de este libro del Malestar en la Turistificacion, que creo que, como mínimo a mí, hay muchísimas más lecturas del libro. Pero a [00:44:00] mí esta idea que extraemos de Jason Moore en torno al fin del turismo barato y la disyuntiva entre elitizacion o empezamos a pensar propuestas de transformación que den respuesta a las necesidades de la mayoría social, esta segunda hipótesis es lo que creo que sale con más fuerza de este libro. O como mínimo es mi lectura. Estoy seguro que otras compañeras y otros compañeros han hecho otras lecturas del del libro y les está estimulando para hacer otras cosas. Y creo que esa es la potencia que tiene el libro, que es empezar a robustecer el pensamiento crítico en turismo con abriendo nosotros posibilidades. Chris: Mm-hmm. Wow, Gracias, Ernest. Este yo creo que para mucho de nosotros, más ustedes que tiene mucho más tiempo en las investigaciones, los límites o el límite es la palabra, es el concepto [00:45:00] central de cómo podemos pensar, distintamente cuando estabas hablando de esas cosas, yo pensé, casi no hay límites a los instituciones que tenemos en el mundo capitalista moderna, solo los límites que los instituciones ponen en uno mismo. Pero luego tenemos que invertir lo que está pasando en el sentido de poner límites en las instituciones y luego poner en pausa las límites que son impuestos a nuestras lógicas, nuestras capacidades o maneras de pensar el mundo, de entender al mundo, pero también de pensar de otros mundos. Y entonces, poner un límite en cuántas vuelos puede llegar en un lugar en un día o cuántos hoteles podemos construir, etcétera. Cuántos turistas podemos tener? Pero al final cuando yo pienso en eso, a veces pienso como los pueblos en México y Oaxaca en donde vivo que algunos son pueblos ecoturísticos y tienen economías relativamente cerradas o relativamente mucho más [00:46:00] cerradas que las ciudades y eso y que tienen la capacidad, que si se hacen, se ponen los límites y se dice vamos a aceptar toda x cantidad de gente en este año porque entendemos que Los recursos o la naturaleza alrededor va a sufrir sino. Pero también se este. Hay otras preguntas, eh, como de la influencia social, el intercambio de capital entre gente de culturas distintas que viene con expectativas. Pero entonces quizás empezamos con la la cuestión de resistencia, porque a México, como muchos otros países que dependen en gran medida de las economías turísticas, las formas de resistencia política, no todas, pero algunas sí, que se emprenden contra esas economías a menudo apuntan a los turistas como los principales beneficiarios o cupables. Parece haber una fuerte resistencia a nombrar a la población local como dependiente y defensora de estas [00:47:00] economías. Si vamos a construir una resistencia política que abarque las necesidades económicas de todas las personas dentro de un lugar, cómo podemos ir más allá de esta crítica, yo digo superficial, que tiene la capacidad de esencializar a los extranjeros y infantalizar a los locales. Ernest: Yo creo que, bueno, has dicho un montón de cosas que me sugieren en reacción. Ah, pero para empezar por el final, yo diría que muchas veces nos encontramos con formas des legitimación de las protestas diciendo bueno, todos somos turistas, como si tuviéramos que tener un comportamiento virtuoso, decir apelando una cierta coherencia individual en todos nuestros comportamientos. De hecho, lo que están haciendo con este tipo de críticas, es sencillamente negar la legitimidad de las reivindicaciones, decir, señalando la contradicción como si todo fuera un problema individual [00:48:00] de comportamientos individuales. Y cuando lo que nos estamos diciendo es esto es un problema político, no de una persona en concreto, sea turista o sea población local que resiste y luego hace turismo, si el problema dejémonos ya de moralismo y de buscar ciudadanos virtuosos moralmente. Y empecemos a plantear que ambas son las estructuras políticas que pongan límites a este capital turístico. Yo creo que el grueso de la pelea es salir de esta idea de la responsabilidad individual de quedar atrapados en estas ideas de responsabilidad que tampoco sin desmerecerla, es decir es otro campo de intervención, pero el centro no puede ser la decisión individual y la coherencia individual en relación a nuestros comportamientos. Tiene que ver con dinámicas estructurales y lo que hay que cambiar son dinámicas de conjunto y para eso se falta hacer política con mayúsculas, ,implica movilización, pero para [00:49:00] cambiar estructuras. Cuál es el problema que a veces en esta maraña de capitales, que haces más difícil de identificar quién es el responsable de estas políticas o de estas violencias? Si quienes al final del último, que toma decisiones detrás de estos fondos de inversión. En cambio, el turista lo tenemos cerca y puede ser efectivamente blanco del malestar, porque es el que tienes más cerca. Entonces, y yo creo que desde los medios de comunicación, se nos intenta situar en ese terreno, a cuando se pone en circulación la idea de turismofobia, que empieza sobre todo en Barcelona y que luego circula a nivel internacional. Es una campaña dirigida a quitar la legitimación al movimiento vecinal que está protestando. No hay turismofobia. Puede haber alguien que de un día te caiga mal a alguien, pero no es un problema contra una persona. Lo que pasa es que a veces al que tienes cerca, el que te molesta es el turista, [00:50:00] es la parte final de ese proceso y es mucho más difícil señalar a las autoridades públicas, locales, nacionales, internacionales que han diseñado esos marcos de representación, a las empresas escondidas en esas dinámicas financieras. Entonces yo creo que es un proceso contradictorio, pero que, al mismo tiempo, no debemos renunciar a él. Es decir, aquí la cuestión no tiene que ver con como eres más o menos coherente, más o menos responsable, siendo población local, receptora o siendo turista o siendo muchas cosas a la vez. No tiene tanto que ver con eso, sino como reorganizamos el sistema de organizar el sistema turístico. Esta es la clave. Aquí está el problema. Y esto implica ponerle límites. Y como bien decías en tu primera parte, la intervención, si yo creo que la palabra límites adquirido, una connotación política fundamental. Las últimas manifestaciones que se están organizando [00:51:00] en España, en la que tuvimos hace dos, dos fines de semana en Barcelona, o la que va a ver este domingo en Palma, especialmente pongámosle límites al turismo. Pero esta demanda de ponerle límites y al mismo tiempo que le ponemos límites, tenemos que saber que hay una parte de la población que en España es de un 30 porciento, pero que la Union Europea gira en torno también otro 30% con niveles también muy desiguales, pero que cuando lo miramos desde América Latina, es mucho más, más de la mitad de la población que no puede hacer vacaciones. Es decir que estamos en esa discusión pero por otra parte, tenemos una parte de la población que no tiene infraestructuras que le permiten hacer vacaciones, sea desde que legalmente, no le permiten tener esas vacaciones en buenas condiciones, que no hay infraestructuras para que puedan pagárselas, que faltan programas públicos de calidad de turismo social que le [00:52:00] permitan disponer de esas infraestructuras. Entonces, yo creo que la dinámica es doble, es por uno de que ponerle límites al capital. Y hay que hacerlo como parte de una reflexión y de una intervención política no individual en términos morales, pero que al mismo tiempo, hay que plantear un horizonte de deseo. Queremos algo, queremos disfrutar del tiempo libre. Queremos disfrutar de un tiempo libre de calidad. Una de las formas posibles, no la única puede ser el turismo, que implicar este ocio más desplazamiento. Y para hacer esto y poder gozar de conocer otros espacios, otros lugares fuera de mi realidad cotidiana. Para hacer esto, necesitamos infraestructuras sociales que nos permiten hacerlo. Y yo creo que ahí está la batalla, por un lado, ponerle límites al capital y por otro lado, expandirnos. Ofreciendo un mundo deseable. Queremos disponer de tiempo libre. [00:53:00] Queremos desarrollarnos en nuestro tiempo libre. Queremos que nuestro tiempo libre lo podamos organizar en la proximidad en nuestra casa, en nuestros alrededores, pero puntualmente también viajando. Y eso significa disponer de infraestructuras públicas y también de mecanismos porque el dinero y el mercado va a ser la única forma de decidir quien vuela y quien no vuela. Si tenemos que ir un mundo con muchos menos vuelos, serán los que puedan pagarlos o podemos organizarlo de otro modo. Cuántas veces puedes volar al año? Cuántas veces puedes hacer por cuánto tiempo? Como podemos, si le imp, implica un un ejercicio que a veces, cuando lo planteas, parece que esta gente no vive en el mundo, que la realidad es otra efectivamente. Ocurre esto, pero para avanzar en esta dirección, necesitamos horizontes de esperanza, horizontes que nos digan debemos ir para allá, no solamente como pérdida de privilegios, no [00:54:00] solamente por restringirnos porque el planeta se desmonta, sino porque queremos vivir mejor y queremos vivir mejor todos. Entonces, yo creo que esta conjunción, porque si no tenemos otro problema que tiene que ver con el crecimiento de la extrema derecha en un mundo de inseguridades en un mundo de amenazas, quién está ofreciendo seguridades, aunque sea con discursos racistas xenófobos de culpar al penúltimo, culpando al último. Es decir en este contexto, cómo podemos organizar dinámicas que a la vez que le ponemos límites a este desarrollo turístico capitalista, estemos ofreciendo seguridades, seguridades en términos de el control implica también mejores de condiciones de trabajo. Y el control sobre esto es también para poder organizar el turismo de otra manera que tú no pierdas tu trabajo, sino que podamos organizarlo de otra manera y que podamos satisfacer las necesidades [00:55:00] que tiene mucha más gente. Yo creo que la cosa va por ahí entre la resistencia y la propuesta de un mundo deseable también en el turismo. Chris: Ya ya igual subió mi mente como esa noción de el ocio, el tiempo de ocio son momentos también fuera de trabajo que en un análisis puede decir que el trabajo es un tipo de esclavitud moderna, a veces no, pero a veces sí, muchas veces creo y que tiempo de ocio o descanso es un tiempo también para organizarse. Organizar la comunidad. Organizar por otros mundos o contra lo que tienes, eh? Pero el turismo parece que también ha sido como un herramienta contra eso. O sea, ya tienes tu tiempo descanso. Pero mira, mira, mira las playas de Cuba... Ernest: No es exclusivo del turismo. Es decir, cuando hablamos de turismo, estamos hablando de ocio, más desplazamiento. [00:56:00] Si no nos desplazamos, resulta que este ocio que hacemos desde nuestra casa es el mas emancipatorio del mundo. Es decir, estar en casa viendo Netflix es lo mejor, estar yendo al centro comercial a pasear porque hubiese en un mundo de inseguridades de mierda. Es decir, en este contexto, esto no es algo exclusivo del turismo. También desde el ocio, tenemos estas dinámicas de alineación y de mercantilizacion. Entonces, necesitamos salir de las palabras para construir escenarios que nos permitan satisfacer necesidades y expandir posibilidades, capacidades de la gente de explorar y vivir mejor. Pero hay muchos ejemplos que te permiten de manera diversa y es parte de lo que decíamos al principio de la conversación de en lo que estamos trabajando en Alba Sud de intentarse sistematizar un montón de estas experiencias que han [00:57:00] probado aspectos distintos de transformación, de salir de estas lógicas y avanzar en otras direcciones. Y quiero que el problema es que muchas veces la academia no ha puesto atención en estas posibilidades. Y en cambio, en la vida, en la vida cotidiana, hay muchas más cosas que se están haciendo que no hace falta que nos pongamos a inventar que también, pero empecemos también por reconocer y recuperar muchas de las cosas que están en nuestra propia historia y también en nuestro alrededor, en en estos otros contextos que podemos encontrar experiencias ricas en estas otras formas y las encontraremos en el ocio y las encontraremos en el turismo. Pero a veces tengo la sensación de que cuando solamente identificábamos el turismo como un proceso de mercantilizacion, nos estamos pegando un tiro al pie. El turismo, igual que muchas otras cosas, puede ser eso y efectivamente es una dinámica de reproducción del capital que [00:58:00] genera violencia, violencia estructural y directa. Nos tenemos que resignar a que solamente pueda ser eso. Podríamos imaginar cómo construimos eso de otra manera y para imaginar, empecemos por reconocer lo que está en otro alrededor que ya está funcionando de otras maneras y que a lo mejor algunas de estas experiencias son frágiles, son limitadas, tienen contradicciones, fracasan, pero muestran que durante un tiempo ha sido posible organizar esto. La próxima fracasaremos mejor. Y a la siguiente, lo haremos perfecto. Es decir, es un proceso constante de tensión, de organización, de intento de generar cambios que nos permitan construir una vida digna, que también pasa por recuperar ese tiempo libre que lo podremos organizar de maneras distintas. Y ahí podríamos o no incluir el turismo en función de nuestras necesidades y posibilidades. Chris: Gracias, Ernest. Gracias por ofrecer eso y [00:59:00] clarificar. Entonces, si podemos imaginar otros mundos, otras formas de caminar y caminar juntos, podemos comenzar a dar pasos hacia esos caminos. Si pudieras imaginar un otro mundo de esa manera, libre de las limitaciones contemporáneas de las fronteras estatales, la hospitalidad industrial y las expectativas extractivas cómo sería para ti, Ernest? Ese viaje que tanto deseas hacer sería una peregrinación? Sería posible solo una vez en tu vida? Cómo sería ese viaje para ti? Ernest: Claro, yo diferenciaría y pensaría en que necesariamente sea plural. Es decir, que las opciones sean múltiples. No hay una respuesta, no hay una forma de organizar otro turismo. Hay o deben haber muchas formas. En función de las muchas necesidades que tenga la gente. El otro día, en una entrevista, a preguntar cómo hacías vacaciones tú cuando eras adolescente? Como pensando en [01:00:00] cómo encontrar ese anexo en lo que ahora me preocupa y yo digo, lo que hacía era pasarme en los veranos en la biblioteca. Y lo que deseaba era tener infraestructuras públicas de calidad en la que pudieras leer sin ruido, constantemente. Y quería infraestructuras públicas que me permitieran hacer eso. Y creo que una forma de organizar tu tiempo libre tiene que ver con que dispongamos de infraestructuras públicas que nos permitan organizarlo. Y ahí, no hay una sola forma, ni una sola necesidad. La mía tiene que ver con esto o ha tenido que ver con esto en un determinado momento de mi vida y para otros es otra y para otros es una distinta. Entonces yo me imagino no un camino, sino me imagino unos muchos caminos que pueden responder a formas y necesidades distintas. Si me imagino programas robustos potentes de calidad de turismo social en el que [01:01:00] la gente pueda acceder al mar, puede acceder a la montaña, puede acceder a espacios que en la cercanía y tomando en cuenta a los límites del planeta, podamos movilizarnos masivamente para dormir fuera de nuestra casa, viendo las experiencias, pero que no solamente en infraestructuras o espacios natural, sino que también implique un programa pedagógico pensado para cómo desarrollar potencialidades, como ver esas distintas apuestas. Pero veo esto y también veo con deseo, las apropiaciones que hace a la gente los parques públicos, como la gente se toma al parque y celebra fiestas y organiza actividades. Creo que necesitamos pensar en términos plurales. Es decir no hay unas vacaciones. A lo mejor en la vida, necesitaremos tener disponer de la posibilidad de organizar nuestros tiempos de trabajo de manera distinta, que nos permitan viajar más tiempo que en lugar de hacer lo que no tendría [01:02:00] sentido es pensar que podemos universalizar viajes de Alemania al Caribe por cuatro días. Eso no tiene ningún sentido, pero estamos seguros de que ya no podremos conocer otros territorios. A lo mejor será menos veces en la vida. Será por más tiempo. Será combinando trabajo con espacios de ocio con espacios. Es decir, creo que lo que debemos abrirnos es a la pluralidad de posibilidades de organizar esta parte de nuestro tiempo libre que hemos asociado con el desplazamiento. De alguna manera, yo creo que lo que necesitamos son horizontes por los que merezca la pena, no solamente resistir, sino movilizarse para avanzar hacia ellos. Queremos vivir mejor y tenemos derecho a vivir mejor. Tenemos que resistir todas las mierdas y todas las cabronadas que nos hace el capital. Pero al mismo tiempo, tenemos que poder aspirar a una [01:03:00] vida organizada bajo otras lógicas. Ahí es donde creo que que está la clave algo por lo que merezca la pena luchar. Chris: Gracias, Ernest por esas palabras muy importantes y tus reflexiones en el día dehoy, desde mí, mi parte y mi corazón y la parte de los oyentes también. Entonces, por último, Ernest, cómo podrían nuestros oyentes saber más sobre tu trabajo y Alba Sud y donde se pueden comprar el Malestar en la Turistificacion? Ernest: Al bas sud? Tenemos nuestra página web AlbaSud.Org. Ahí, todas nuestras publicaciones son de descarga gratuita. Tenemos una sección de formación en la que vamos recuperando todos los videos de los debates actividades que organizamos. Si la página web, la herramienta. Disponemos de un boletín que mandamos mensualmente. Estamos en redes [01:04:00] sociales varias, en Facebook, en Twitter, en Linkedin, disponemos de un canal en Telegram. Por ahí se pueden informar de lo que hacemos, de las actividades de las convocatorias y con Icaria que tenemos varios libros publicados, dependiendo del lugar en España, es posible en cualquier librería. Si no lo tienen, pedirlo y lo llevan. Y en muchos otros lugares, creo que hay que pedirlo directamente por la editorial. Es decir, en algunos países de América Latina, Icaria tiene distribución comercial normal. En otros es más difícil, pero en la página web de Icaria Editorial se pueden conseguir estos trabajos. Y si no lo encuentran, que nos escriban que algo resolveremos. Chris: Muy bien, pues voy a asegurar que todos esos enlaces están ya en el sitio de Fin de Turismo cuando lanza el episodio y una vez más Ernest, desee que tendríamos más tiempo para [01:05:00] platicar, pero seguramente en otra ocasión. Fue un gran honor, oportunidad de hablar contigo y espero que podemos hacerlo de nuevo en algún momento. Ernest: Con mucho gusto. Encantado de poder conversar contigo. Y estoy realmente seguro de que vamos a continuar caminando juntos. Muchas gracias. English Transcription Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome Ernest, to the end of tourism podcast. Ernest: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. Chris: It's a great honor to finally be able to talk to you. I wonder if, to start with, you could tell us about this, where you speak today and what the world is like there for you? Ernest: I usually live in Barcelona, between Barcelona and Mallorca, because I am between the University of the Balearic Islands and Alba Sud, and at the moment I am in Buenos Aires working on research into different management experiences, outside the logic of capitalism. And this led us to identify different experiences. And now I am starting a research with the Hotel Bauen, what was the now closed Hotel Bauen and the cooperative that managed it for 20 years, It is part of the process that we are doing, identifying [00:01:00] diverse plural experiences that have to do with how to think about the possibility of organizing tourism under other modes and this has taken us along different paths from Latin America, from Spain. And now I am here. Chris: Well, thank you Ernest. And yes, we are going to talk about this topic, but beyond the visions that exist, that we can imagine about post - capitalist tourism or something around it, something like that. But before we get into that, you and I have been in contact for the last two years, partly due to your work in the field of critical tourism studies and your Alba Sud project, in which some of our previous guests, including Ivan Murray, Robert Fletcher and Macia Blasquez, have participated. I would love for you to tell me a little bit [00:02:00] about Alba Sud, Ernest, its mission, its history and its current situation. Ernest: With pleasure. Oh, look, Alba Sud was founded in 2008. We had legalized it before in case some group of colleagues needed it one day, but it formally began to operate in 2008 and it began to operate in Managua, Nicaragua, which was where I lived at the time. And it was basically an agreement between people who were dedicated to research and communication to work with critical and at the same time propositional analysis around tourism. This was something that was original from the beginning, this double concern, about how to think about the impacts, the effects that tourism development had under capitalism and what kind of dynamics of structural and direct violence they generated and at the same time, how to think about possibilities of getting out of that [00:03:00] framework of those logics. And that was a hallmark that we started with from the beginning. Over the years, Alba Sud has grown, becoming a network of tourism researchers. We now have a presence in 10 countries in Spain, France, Europe, and then in Latin America, in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. So it is a network made up of people who are dedicated to different areas of tourism analysis and who share work spaces and analysis and political intervention. For us, Alba Sud is a research centre, but it is not an academic centre and we are less concerned about academic dynamics, although there is a part of our team of people who collaborate who are at the university, different universities. What we are concerned about is how to generate [00:04:00] knowledge that is useful for communities, for community organizations, for civil associations, for unions, and for public administration when possible. That is, we try to generate knowledge, analysis, systematization, proposals that in some way contribute to making visible the things that do not work well, that are a disaster that generate pain in this world in relation to tourism and at the same time, to think of horizons of hope. This is the purpose. To do this, we have a large team of people who collaborate more closely on a day-to-day basis, others who collaborate occasionally, and we basically put together our work, which is organized around a website, www.AlbaSud.Org, and we structure it into research papers that are later published in a format [00:05:00] written in different ways, which I will then tell you about. In addition to the form of research, work is linked to training to generate dialogue processes that allow us to listen, to reflect together, putting people who come from the academy on the same level as people who have specific work experiences. And finally, a more political influence area, more of accompanying organizations and accompanying them to influence politically. In the field of research, we then express it, basically through short articles that we write, we publish around 100, 110, 120 a year, which are short articles of 2000-2500 words, which we know are widely used in universities, as discussion material. And a bit of the purpose is this, that they are boiled down as small, well-written articles, or we try to make them well [00:06:00] written, that they are in simple language, that the complexity has nothing to do with the academic swear words that we use, but the depth of the thought that they incorporate, but that they have to be able to be read by many people. We have this. Then, we started our own publishing house, Alba Sud Editorial, in which we have a collection of books, a collection of reports and recently a collection of policy briefs aimed more at policy recommendations. And basically Alba Sud is that. It is a meeting space between people who do not resign ourselves to thinking that tourism development necessarily has to involve this, who are supporting the resistance, the struggles against the many evils and violence generated by this capitalist development through tourism and who at the same time, try to build what I said before "horizons of hope" that allow us to stimulate struggle and resistance, [00:07:00] thinking about more desirable futures, which I think is what we also need at this time. Chris: Thank you, Ernest. Yes. Well, from what I've seen, what I've read, what I've found on the Alba Sud website. Well, it is, it is a unique organization and site in the world. And so, I have a great honor to be with you today talking about these things and especially with you as the founder. And so, to add, to go a little deeper into the story, into your story, the next question comes from our mutual friend, colleague Macía Blasquez, whom I interviewed in season four. Europe. And he asks, "He claims that you have been, among many other things, an activist in Central America, as you told us, and so he wants to know how your opinions and your career have changed since then ?" Ernest: Good question. Ah, I started working in Central America as an accompanist. Well, first I spent six years going back and forth. I spent half a year in Central America more or less with another media outlet in Spain. And finally I stayed to work in Nicaragua with an organization called "Luciérnaga" now "Ilegalizada," dedicated to communication. And from there we began to organize communication campaigns on different topics that had to do with the needs and rights of the majority of people and how they were suffering processes of dispossession of possession. And we worked around topics that had to do with health and sexual or reproductive rights or food sovereignty. And in one of these, we organized a campaign that lasted four years of research and communication on tourism. In context, I'm talking about the year [00:09:00] 2004-2008, when Nicaragua was opening up to tourism at that time. And then we clearly identified the high levels of violence that this could entail with displacement processes. And it was necessary to accompany the communities in these dynamics, which were also shared in El Salvador, in Guatemala, in Honduras, in Costa Rica, and at the same time, to begin to think about possibilities of "if it was possible to use tourism under the control of the communities themselves." That was my insertion into the world of tourism, fundamentally. And from there, after working for about four years at Luciérnaga, we started Alba Sud and in part we recovered in Alba Sud that specialization linked to tourism. We thought, and it is something that we have reflected on many times with Ivan Murray, who you also interviewed, that we were not realizing from the world of [00:10:00] left of the importance that tourism had for the functioning of capitalism. And sometimes when we said that we needed tourism, people took it as something irrelevant, as something superficial, even almost humorous, like you like to travel, right? And then it was like, how could we not realize, on the one hand, especially since the implementation of neoliberal programs, how tourism was helping to expand the processes of capitalist development, but at the same time, how it had a second very important function , which was how it helped to stabilize the disorders caused by that same neoliberal program? I remember that I was very impressed when I worked in Costa Rica when I realized that in 1985, when the structural adjustment programs were implemented, [00:11:00] one of the things that was done was to dismantle the CNP, which was the national production council, which was what allowed for many years, the Costa Rican peasantry to have the security that basic grains, beans, rice, corn had somewhere to sell them at stable prices. And this gave security to the peasantry. This was in the context of the application of neoliberal policies that were in fact blackmail, saying, well, in the context of a debt crisis, either you implement certain political programs to liberalize trade or you have no support in that context, the counterpart of shrinking the state and reducing it. And one of the axes of the reduction of public spending was, for example, to dismantle the CNP, this national production council. And in exchange, what was asked of the peasantry was to stimulate them in the production [00:12:00] of crops that supposedly had better insertion in the international market to attract the arrival of foreign currency. And there, vanilla, turmeric, and pepper were promoted, products that in the end did not work out. But at the same time, rural tourism was promoted as a mechanism for the peasantry, on the one hand, to contribute foreign currency with the development of tourist services, and at the same time to allow them to stabilize and not get involved in a dynamic that had to do with the suffering they were experiencing, which was generating very large migration processes. So, with Ivan, one of the things we were reflecting on was that this tourism thing is starting to be very important for capitalism. And after the crisis of 2008, I think we became quite aware that the dynamics of the solution that capitalism finds for its [00:13:00] reproduction partly has to do with the expansion of tourism. And we have seen this after the COVID crisis with the pandemic that we had in which... I perfectly remember a call that Iván and I had, we said that the same thing that happened to us in 2008 cannot happen to us in 2020, that we did not realize until much later what was happening. And so, we said "let's stop all the publications that we have pending and ask the entire broader team that is around Alba Sud, let's think about it and analyze that we are wrong, but let's analyze what changes this means." And at that time, some people laughed at us. They said that we should be futurologists, that we had turned Alba Sud into a crystal ball and that we were trying to invoke the future. And in fact, what we were trying to do was the analysis from political economy to understand what was coming our way and in some way, answering the question that [00:14:00] Macia asked us, I think that what has changed my thinking is intuition. In other words, what used to be an intuition was that we had to work, generating knowledge outside the logic of academic reproduction and we had to generate knowledge linked to the problems felt by the most disadvantaged people, that this institution was right and that there was a space to do that and that it was necessary to do it. And that this was a space that we had to build in relation to the world of universities and academia, but independent of it, but also independent of companies, which is what we saw had also happened to some NGOs that for years worked trying to generate some kind of thinking around tourism, but that had quickly fallen into a certain trap of thinking that it was possible to influence companies, generate dynamics of responsibility, etc. And we thought that this was not the way to go, that it had to do with how [00:15:00] we strengthened other actors so that they could fight, resist and build things outside the framework of capitalism. So, I think that, I don't know if many things changed in terms of thinking, but a conviction was consolidated about what we began to do in a somewhat intuitive way, it ended up becoming a space for research, collaboration, support, training, political science for a lot of people who are linked to tourism. Chris: Yeah. Thanks, Ernest. Well, I feel that this insight has opened up a lot in recent years. And there are a lot of people in many places, usually touristy or over-touristy places, realizing and realizing not only [00:16:00] the consequences, but the patterns and, well, where we are going with the patterns or channels of conventional tourism, but also, as you said, in tourism, as a great factor in the expansion and destruction of capitalism in our time. So, through Alba Sud and Icaria Editorial in Spain, you have recently published an anthology called The Discontents of Touristification: Critical Thinking for a Transformation of Tourism. There are tons of fascinating chapters, I have to say, by excellent authors and researchers, including works referencing Silvia Federici and David Harvey, Pierre Biourdeau, Donna Haraway, Foucault, Graeber, and Ursula Le Guin, among others. [00:17:00] I'm curious, Ernest, what was the impetus behind the creation of this anthology? Ernest: A lot of times, a lot of the things that we do or push that are bigger, come from a phone call with Ivan Murray and we call each other and say, "We have to do this, we have to do that." And what we ended up doing with these calls is some of us taking them forward. In this particular case, we had a recurring reflection that it was becoming less and less interesting to read about tourism or that we were less interested in reading about tourism and that to understand tourism, we needed to read other things. And even those of us who are dedicated to critical analysis of tourism realized that we were only reading a lot about each other. And that in some way we were reproducing the same thing that was happening to the academy linked to tourism. It is a very endogamous academy, [00:18:00] very self-concentrated that discusses the same topics that are cited to each other and we realized that in some way, those of us who were dedicated to criticism and proposals outside of those frameworks, had the risk of not capturing part of the complexity that tourism development had to the extent that it was becoming increasingly larger and was penetrating more spheres of life. And there the idea was, we need to do when we shared with Iván and then Clément Marie dit Chirot joined, who is a professor at the University of Angers, who also collaborates with Alba Sud. That's where the idea came from to say, well, we shared with you what you're reading, what you're interested in. And that's where we started to share authors. And the idea was born that we should do something with this. We held a first seminar in Barcelona on the work of David Harvey and in Lefebvre on what these two authors can contribute to the current understanding [00:19:00] of tourism development. And it was a seminar, that's why the book was partly written. Sometimes people say, why so much Harvey and so much Lefebvre, because the origin of the book had to do with this first seminar, which was a test, an essay, on how can we get authors who have not necessarily spoken about tourism, how can we get them to dialogue with our object of analysis? And there we made a bit of the same call that we had made in 2020 when we started working on the pandemic, which became two books. One was Confined Touristification and the other was Proximity Tourism, which was the same process of starting to ask our colleagues, friends, partners, what they were working on, what they were seeing... Well, we did the same thing, we started asking around the Alba Sud team, people who collaborate, what authors were they reading that interested them and who hadn't talked about tourism before? And how [00:20:00] could we do the exercise of bringing them to the tourism analyses in order to strengthen them, to make them more solid, to incorporate dimensions that if we only focused on what we had been reading and writing about tourism, we might have missed. Of course, we were left with a lot of reference works outside this framework, that is to say, we had a volume with 25 chapters and we could have easily come up with a second volume, which is something we don't rule out, but not in immediate terms because of the amount of work that it also entails. But if we managed to put a series of people in dialogue that allowed us, in some way, to enrich the tourism analysis and provide people who were getting into certain topics from the field of understanding how tourism works, to find theoretical references, criticisms of capitalism that could help them [00:21:00] at least, open paths, understand what readings we could make from them. There are certainly authors who could have had another kind of interpretation, but it is the one that the people who collaborate with us did and in some way it was one of the possible interpretations. And well, that is the origin of the book and the motivation. Chris: Yeah. And I'd like to ask you about, well, your chapter on Eric Ollin Wright, but before that, I'd like to ask you what kind of insights you were most surprised by outside of your own research? Ernest: Yes, Ivan, Clemente and I not only read, but edit and discuss all the chapters. Unfortunately, we had to reject some of them as well. In some cases, there were people who sent us writings that were more complex than the author himself. We chose those that needed to be understood or in other cases, we weren't very interested in reading them. [00:22:00] It wasn't that we accepted everything in this process. And for me, one of the discoveries was Jason Moore and the work that Ivan did with him to think about or raise the hypothesis of the end of cheap tourism. This has given rise to a research project that we are working on at the University of the Balearic Islands, with the CRIGUST group in which I am working, thinking about saying, well, what does this scenario of chronic emergencies mean, this dynamic, in which capitalism has functioned based on the logic of having cheap nature... what does it mean if this starts to end? And to what extent is this model of tourism development that we have had in recent decades actually not subject to too many tensions? It is too much in crisis and we should perhaps raise the hypothesis of the end of cheap tourism, but [00:23:00] opening of new scenarios and based on this hypothesis we are developing a research project and in some way it has also served us at Alba Sud to think about the scenarios of this dynamic of reactivation. To say no, not everything is the same as it was before. I believe that to understand the current moment of tourism development at a global level, we must place ourselves in two crises: We have already mentioned the neoliberal program and how neoliberalism incorporates tourism as a mechanism of expansion while at the same time stabilizing. But the last two crises, in 2008 and 2020, generate a leap in scale in terms of touristification, a process of global touristification like we have never experienced before, being an exponential leap, partly because after the 2008 crisis, a situation occurs in which the paths that had been chosen through bank loans , construction, mortgages, etc., collapse and it is not possible to continue reproducing capital through those paths. And this requires finding other mechanisms through which capital can be reproduced. There, David Harvey has spoken many times about the importance of the urbanization of China in this process of emerging from the 2008 crisis. We understand that, in addition to this, the role of tourism is key. It is no coincidence that a company like Airbnb was born in 2008, that this expansion of urban tourism took place. In other words, it has to do with this logic. And the pandemic in some way stops it, but at the same time, it is an exit, a very aggressive reaction by capital to recover what it has not earned in previous years. And so, this dynamic is like another twist. At this point, Jason Moore's thinking is not useful for that, which I read fundamentally [00:25:00] as Iván Murray's contribution to this work that we are doing, in the malaise of touristification. This hypothesis of the end of cheap tourism that we propose based on the rereading of Jason Moore, what it allows us to think is, or rather to interpret, is the dynamic of profitability the same as before the crisis or is there something qualitatively different? And there is something qualitatively different, because we are facing a risk scenario for this capitalist development linked to cheap nature. And that's where we realize that, in part, there is a champagne effect, that close to the reopenings you haven't been able to travel for two years and when there is the opening, people go out. But beyond this and what has been expressed to us in recent years in an excessive way, we have tourism in the most purified destinations, tourism of all kinds, from luxury to bachelor or bachelorette parties , who don't even rent a room, who simply spend the night on Friday and Saturday partying and leave on Sunday and that's it. In other words, we have everything. And that is where I go back to Jason Moore and the idea of the end of cheap tourism, this risk of the end of cheap tourism, what we are beginning to realise is that we are beginning to see greater competition between territories, between cities, to attract tourism with greater purchasing power. They realise that we have emerged from the crisis and there are a series of chronic emergencies or what some call polycrises that are still present, which have to do with climate change, with the fuel crisis or the energy crisis and the crisis of materials with the interruptions to global supply chains, with geopolitical tensions. And all of this alerts us to the risks that [00:27:00] tourism development has. We are in a very vulnerable scenario. In addition, after the exit, we began to see that there is an enormous level of destruction of ecosystems, not to mention, this logic of constant growth is unviable, because we have far exceeded the capacity of the planet and in that context we also see another cheap nature that is beginning to be questioned, which is work, that is, the idea of resignation, of resignation, and one of the great problems that companies have at the moment is the lack of personnel, people who do not want to work there and who look for work elsewhere. So, in this context of what we call chronic emergencies that also feed off each other, what we are beginning to see is that capitals, through public authorities in different territories, are beginning to compete to attract tourists with greater purchasing power. They are looking for ways to concentrate that segment of the tourist segment [00:28:00] that will be less sensitive to crisis situations, that will continue to travel, and how to bring them back. And it involves a huge public spending programme in terms of infrastructure to attract them in terms of international promotion, in terms of macro-events to consolidate that attraction. The problem is that, by definition, tourists with higher purchasing power are much less than the middle class or the working classes on which tourism has been based in recent decades. And so, that competition between territories to attract that tourist segment with greater purchasing power increases. It is a fierce competition to attract that type of tourist and I think we are in this context. And I think we would not have realized it if one of the possible hypotheses that we formulated based on the book in Malaise in Touristification was not precisely this [00:29:00] idea that we extract from Jason Moore about the end of cheap nature. The other hypothesis has to do with the work that he developed based on Erik Ollin Wright on the possibilities and how to transform the capitalist system, also speaking from tourism, which is something that Erik Ollin Wright never did, but I don't know if you wanted us to talk about it now or how you want us to put it. Chris: Well yes, yes, I would love if you could talk a little bit about Erik Ollin Wright, because you specifically chose him, but also to start, because the chapter that you wrote is titled Postcapitalist Tourism: Following in the Footsteps of Erik Ollin Wright. So, before we get into your works and your work, I would like to ask you, how do you define Postcapitalism? Ernest: I start from an anti-capitalist position. And I have no doubts. If I [00:30:00] oppose this model of production, I think it will lead us to disaster both in human and planetary terms. From that position of that anti-capitalist conviction, what is raised is the need to find solutions that will lead us to another scenario. We could call it socialism. We could call it eco-socialism. I don't know. I'm more interested in thinking about the possibility of thinking about horizons that escape capitalism. This is the position. Sometimes there are people who doubt, because it's one thing or the other. Not one thing or the other. If we start from anti-capitalism to try to build something outside of capitalism, but it's not something mechanical either, it's something we build. It's not a higher phase of capitalism. After capitalism there could be much greater forms of violence and exploitation. It's something we have to build. So, the idea is that we don't resist, we confront capitalist logic and from [00:31:00] we try to build something different, something that we can call metaphorically the post-capitalist moment, but one position is not contradictory to the other. From there, I, honestly, am on this path of looking for how to think about the possibilities of transformation. This was clear to me. And when I approached different authors, Erik Ollin Wright was not an author that I found particularly sympathetic. He came from a social democratic tradition. He came from analytical Marxism, which was something that did not particularly appeal to me. One thing that interested me in particular in his work was the methodological rigor in the ways of analyzing society. This was what I was particularly daring about. That is, going beyond the metaphors and the sometimes obtuse language of Marxism and starting to build using the best tools that we have at a given moment from the social sciences . I admit that this was something that did attract me, but it is not necessarily all of Erik Ollin Wright's thinking, and Erik Ollin Wright interested me starting from reading Real Utopias and then How to Be Anticapitalist in the 21st Century, because of the vision he has. What he does is an attempt to recover different traditions of the left in order to think of a complementary action program. And I am particularly seduced by this idea, how we think in complementary terms. That is to say, how one's action is what one can do, what one wants to do or what the conditions have dictated, but it is neither better nor worse than what the other comrade who is in another trench does, and how we stop competing over which is the best idea and begin to recognize that some are trying to make changes from the sphere of parliamentary political struggle, others do it from the union world, others from the world [00:33:00] environmentalists and others from the cooperative movement. To reintegrate and rethink together these different traditions of action on the left. I thought it was necessary. I disagree with Erik Ollin Wright's position, which I do not fully agree with, which is this idea of denying the possibility of revolution. And let me explain, Erik Ollin Wright says, partly as a good social democrat, what he is saying is, after historical experiences, it is easily recognizable that when we have taken power after a revolutionary process, the dynamics that we have generated afterwards have been almost worse than what we were fighting against . And he is probably right. And I have lived 11 years in Nicaragua and I know what I am talking about. I know what our assumptions mean when they are in power . So, be careful with this idea , the simple seizure of power in [00:34:00] The name of a flag, of a certain ideological crystallization is already a desirable and better future. Be careful because we actually generate worse monsters. But what I disagree with Erik Ollin Wright about is that, although taking power in itself does not guarantee a society that is much more just or much more equitable, in the end, what you often find are dynamics of stabilization of new groups that rise to power and from there exercise control. But I do want to say that we cannot give up the idea of social mobilization, even of taking political power as a defensive mechanism, as a response mechanism to the disorder generated by capitalism. In these contexts, even if it were to safeguard democratic dynamics, even if it were to safeguard, I think we cannot give up the tool [00:35:00] revolution, probably thought of in defensive, not offensive terms, but thinking that we are going to change and generate a better world from the immediate seizure of power. But yes, safeguard it as a defensive mechanism against the logic of the advance of the disorder generated by capitalism, the possibility of restoring certain balances through revolutionary processes. I think this is the idea that we recover from Walter Benjamin when he says that sometimes it is marked as the revolution, as the locomotive of history and he says rather, it is the handbrake. That is to say, it is in the face of the precipice to think about this. Well, this distances me from this very categorical position of Erik Ollin Wright, but instead, it seems interesting to me how to build a possibility of a post-capitalist world from four great strategies or paths of what she calls the erosion of [00:36:00] capitalism. In other words, if it is not possible to turn it around immediately, we will probably have to think about a long-term transition in which this capitalist order has made holes from different areas of intervention and fundamentally from the state and from outside the state. And he raises this idea of dismantling, domesticating, fleeing and resisting as forms of intervention. And what I do in the chapter is to raise, well, if tourism is so important in capitalism, how could we think about these categories, these dynamics of axes of intervention that contribute to eroding capitalism by making holes in it, by creating new logics, even if they are fragile, even if they are temporary, but as if to show, and how to somehow establish and grow areas of social functioning that do not reproduce the logic of capitalism, but rather [00:37:00] move in other directions. And this is a long process that will advance us, that will allow us to move forward. And what I am trying to do is, how could this be from a tourism perspective? And that implies, on the one hand, intervention from the state, that is, on the one hand, from the state, understanding the state as the crystallization of a certain correlation of forces at a certain moment. We could think of it in terms of, well, it is the reproduction of, it is the mechanism that the dominant classes have to reproduce well. I would rather follow other authors of the Marxist tradition, such as Poblanzas and others, rather understanding it as a crystallization of a certain correlation of forces. And this can change. Well, from that perspective, thinking about how, from the state, we can intervene by opening dynamics that work outside the logic of capitalism. One of them does not necessarily mean that they are anti-capitalist, which sometimes help [00:38:00] to stabilize capitalism itself, but they can be read in multiple ways. One of them has to do with this idea of putting limits on capital, introducing mechanisms of control, regulation, taxation. That is to say, from labour inspection to taxation to the toning down of certain cities, what can be done, whether we can allow more hotels or not, right? This whole dimension of "from the state," how do we put mechanisms of limitation and containment in place for the development of tourism capital? Another way, another strategy, like from the state itself, we generate, just as, for example, we have done in some countries in the area of health or in the area of education, how do we establish public programs that guarantee access to vacations, rest, etc. for a part of the population, with social tourism programs, [00:39:00] with the creation of infrastructure, from urban parks to improved public transport, support for social and solidarity economy programs, and cooperatives. That is to say, how we, as a state, generate dynamics that contribute to guaranteeing access to vacations for the most disadvantaged sectors. The third axis of intervention proposed by Erik Ollin Wright has to do with the idea of resisting outside the state, that is, resisting in the fight against this disorder generated by capitalism, by tourist capital. And this implies resistance from within companies with union organizations, but tremendous resistance from outside, from community, environmental, and neighborhood movements, that is, putting limits on capital, not only waiting for what the state is going to do with public policies, but doing so in a collectively organized way inside and outside companies. [00:40:00] And the fourth dimension of this process of understanding the mechanisms of erosion of capitalism and in this case, of tourist-based capitalism, would be the idea of fleeing. We must leave this capitalist world here and now. And this implies creating cooperatives, try out different forms of organisation that allow us to guarantee holidays, rest, and different ways of constructing leisure time that may include travel. And we can do this fundamentally from community organizations, from the cooperative sphere, but also from outside the market. That is, under the protection of the state and under the protection of the market. That is, reorganizing popular leisure without going through the market. This is what in some countries we call Sunday-goers, Sunday-going, making use of the Lord's day to [00:41:00] rest or scratch our noses or read under a tree. It is this idea of doing what we want in a self-organized way, collectively or individually. In other words, opening up these spaces. So I think that these four dimensions are what allow us to think about the possibility of a transformation of tourism under other logics. And here I think we need to introduce a nuance because sometimes I feel that there is a certain confusion, as if everything were a problem of words. In other words, we refuse to use the word tourism because it is a capital word. Well, what we fundamentally demand is free time, time freed from work. This is what we demand. And I think that is what we have the right to, the time that we free from work to be able to do what we need in terms of rest, nourishment for our thoughts, enjoyment, development, possibilities. [00:42:00] This is what interests us. And this can be organised in the place of residence itself, in your immediate residential space in terms of leisure, entertainment, recreation. But if it involves travel, that is when we start talking about tourism and this tourism, we can organise it as involving leisure plus travel. We can organize this, as we have done until now, under the logic of capitalism to reproduce capital, or we can organize this leisure time with movement to satisfy human needs. And that is where I think we have the core of the proposal. That is, how to think that a human practice, a social practice cannot be defined only by the logic of capital reproduction, but that we have to be able to develop it under other logics. And this is the demand. That is, not resign ourselves to the fact that only the [00:43:00] capital to organize our lives. There is a phrase by David Harvey that is absolutely right when he says that there is no morally good idea that capitalism cannot share in something horrible. And he is absolutely right. Capitalism has the capacity to do this, but we also think that at the same time, there is no social practice that we cannot organize under logics other than those of capitalism, that a socialist world, an ecosocialist world, could be organized under other logics and that has to start now and here. We should not wait for a revolution to come and we do not know how we will get out of it, but we have to start organizing it now and here. I think that this is the second hypothesis that we built on from this book, The Discomfort in Touristification, which I think, at least for me, there are many more readings of the book. But for me , this idea that we get from Jason Moore about the end of cheap tourism and the dilemma between elitism or starting to think of proposals for transformation that respond to the needs of the social majority, this second hypothesis is what I think comes out most strongly from this book. Or at least that is my reading of it. I am sure that other colleagues have read the book in other ways and it is stimulating them to do other things. And I think that is the power of the book, which is to begin to strengthen critical thinking in tourism by opening up possibilities for ourselves. Chris: Mm-hmm. Wow, Thank you, Ernest. I think that for many of us, especially those of you who have been doing research for a long time, limits or the limit is the word, it is the central concept [00:45:00] of how we can think differently when you were talking about these things, I thought, there are almost no limits to the institutions that we have in the modern capitalist world, only the limits that the institutions put on us. But then we have to reverse what is happening in the sense of putting limits on the institutions and then put on hold the limits that are imposed on our logic, our capacities or ways of thinking about the world, of understanding the world, but also of thinking about other worlds. And then, putting a limit on how many flights can arrive in a place in a day or how many hotels we can build, etc. How many tourists can we have? But in the end when I think about that, sometimes I think like the towns in Mexico and Oaxaca where I live, some are ecotourism towns and have relatively closed economies or relatively much more [00:46:00] closed than the cities and that and they have the capacity, that if they are done, they set limits and say we are going to accept all x amount of people this year because we understand that the resources or the nature around will suffer if not. But also this. There are other questions, eh, like social influence, the exchange of capital between people from different cultures who come with expectations. But then perhaps we start with the question of resistance, because in Mexico, like many other countries that rely heavily on tourist economies, the forms of political resistance, not all of them, but some of them, that are undertaken against those economies often target tourists as the primary beneficiaries or culprits. There seems to be a strong resistance to naming the local population as dependent on and defenders of these [00:47:00] economies. If we are going to build a political resistance that encompasses the economic needs of all people within a place, how can we move beyond this, I would say superficial, critique that has the capacity to essentialize foreigners and infantilize locals? Ernest: I think that, well, you have said a lot of things that suggest a reaction to me. Ah, but to start at the end, I would say that many times we find ways of delegitimizing protests by saying well, we are all tourists, as if we had to have virtuous behavior, by appealing to a certain individual coherence in all our behaviors. In fact, what they are doing with this type of criticism is simply denying the legitimacy of the claims, that is, pointing out the contradiction as if everything were an individual problem [00:48:00] of individual behaviors. And when what we are saying is that this is a political problem, not of a specific person, be it a tourist or a local population that resists and then goes on holiday, if the problem is, let's stop with moralism and looking for morally virtuous citizens. And let's start to consider that both are the political structures that put limits on this tourist capital. I believe that the bulk of the fight is to get out of this idea of individual responsibility of being trapped in these ideas of responsibility that also without discrediting it, that is to say it is another field of intervention, but the center cannot be the individual decision and the individual coherence in relation to our behaviors. It has to do with structural dynamics and what needs to be changed are group dynamics and for that we need to do politics with capital letters, it implies mobilization, but to [00:49:00] change structures. What is the problem that sometimes, in this tangle of capital, makes it more difficult to identify who is responsible for these policies or this violence? Yes, those who, at the end of the day, make the decisions behind these investment funds. On the other hand, we have the tourist close by and can be effectively the target of the discontent, because he is the closest to you. So, and I believe that from the media, they try to place us in that terrain, when the idea of tourismophobia is put into circulation, which begins above all in Barcelona and then circulates internationally. It is a campaign aimed at removing the legitimacy of the neighbourhood movement that is protesting. There is no tourismophobia. There may be someone who one day you dislike, but it is not a problem against a person. What happens is that sometimes the one who is close to you, the one who bothers you is the tourist, [00:50:00] It is the final part of this process and it is much more difficult to point the finger at the public, local, national and international authorities that have designed these representation frameworks, at the companies hidden in these financial dynamics. So I think it is a contradictory process, but at the same time we should not give up on it. That is to say, the question here is not about how you are more or less coherent, more or less responsible, being a local population, a host or a tourist or being many things at the same time. It is not so much about that, but about how we reorganize the system of organizing the tourism system. This is the key. Here is the problem. And this implies putting limits on it. And as you said in your first part, the intervention, yes, I believe that the word limits has acquired a fundamental political connotation. The latest demonstrations that are being organized [00:51:00] in Spain, the one we had two, two weekends ago in Barcelona, or the one that will take place this Sunday in Palma, especially let's put limits on tourism. But this demand to set limits and at the same time that we set limits, we have to know that there is a part of the population that in Spain is 30 percent, but that the European Union also revolves around another 30% with very unequal levels, but that when we look at it from Latin America, it is much more, more than half of the population that cannot take vacations. That is to say that we are in that discussion but on the other hand, we have a part of the population that does not have infrastructures that allow them to take vacations, either because legally, they are not allowed to have those vacations in good conditions, that there are no infrastructures so that they can pay for them, that there is a lack of quality public programs of social tourism that allow them [00:52:00] to have those infrastructures. So, I think the dynamic is twofold: one is to put limits on capital. And this has to be done as part of a reflection and a political intervention that is not individual in moral terms, but at the same time, we have to set a horizon of desire. We want something, we want to enjoy our free time. We want to enjoy quality free time. One of the possible ways, but not the only one, may be tourism, which involves this leisure plus travel. And to do this and be able to enjoy getting to know other spaces, other places outside of my daily reality. To do this, we need social infrastructures that allow us to do so. And I think that's where the battle lies: on the one hand, putting limits on capital and on the other hand, expanding. Offering a desirable world. We want to have free time. [00:53:00] We want to develop in our free time. We want to be able to organize our free time in our home, in our surroundings, but occasionally also by traveling. And that means having public infrastructures and also mechanisms because money and the market will be the only way to decide who flies and who doesn't. If we have to go to a world with far fewer flights, it will be those who can afford them or we can organize it in another way. How many times can you fly a year? How many times can you do it for how long? How can we, if it is imp, it implies an exercise that sometimes, when you raise it, it seems that these people do not live in the world, that reality is effectively different. This happens, but to advance in this direction, we need horizons of hope, horizons that tell us we must go there, not only as a loss of privileges, not [00:54:00] only to restrict ourselves because the planet is falling apart, but because we want to live better and we all want to live better. So, I think that this conjunction, because if we don't have another problem that has to do with the growth of the extreme right in a world of insecurities, in a world of threats, who is offering security, even with racist xenophobic speeches of blaming the penultimate, blaming the last. That is to say, in this context, how can we organize dynamics that, while we put limits on this capitalist tourism development, we are offering security, security in terms of control that also implies better working conditions. And control over this is also to be able to organize tourism in a different way so that you don't lose your job, but we can organize it in a different way and we can satisfy the needs [00:55:00] that many more people have. I think that the issue is somewhere between resistance and the proposal of a desirable world also in tourism. Chris: Well, the idea of leisure time, leisure time, is also moments outside of work, that in an analysis can be said to be a type of modern slavery, sometimes not, but sometimes yes, many times I believe, and that leisure time or rest is also a time to get organized. Organizing the community. Organizing for other worlds or against what you have, eh? But tourism seems to have also been a tool against that. I mean, you already have your time off. But look, look, look at the beaches in Cuba... Ernest: It's not exclusive to tourism. I mean, when we talk about tourism, we're talking about leisure, more travel. [00:56:00] If we don't travel, it turns out that this leisure that we do from our home is the most emancipatory in the world. I mean, being at home watching Netflix is the best, going to the mall to walk around because there would be a world of shitty insecurities. That is to say, in this context, this is not something exclusive to tourism. In leisure, we also have these dynamics of alignment and commodification. So, we need to go beyond words to build scenarios that allow us to satisfy needs and expand possibilities, people's capacities to explore and live better. But there are many examples that allow you in a diverse way and it is part of what we were saying at the beginning of the conversation about what we are working on at Alba Sud, trying to systematize a lot of these experiences that have [00:57:00] tested different aspects of transformation, to get out of these logics and move in other directions. And I want to say that the problem is that many times the academy has not paid attention to these possibilities. And instead, in life, in everyday life, there are many more things that are being done that we don't need to start inventing, but we should also start by recognizing and recovering many of the things that are in our own history and also around us, in these other contexts where we can find rich experiences in these other forms and we will find them in leisure and we will find them in tourism. But sometimes I have the feeling that when we only identify tourism as a process of commodification, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Tourism, like many other things, can be that and it is indeed a dynamic of capital reproduction that [00:58:00] generates violence, structural and direct violence. We have to resign ourselves to the fact that this is all it can be. We could imagine how we build this in another way, and to imagine, we must begin by recognizing what is elsewhere around us that is already working in other ways, and that perhaps some of these experiences are fragile, limited, have contradictions, fail, but they show that for a time it has been possible to organize this. Next time we will fail better. And the next time, we will do it perfectly. In other words, it is a constant process of tension, of organization, of trying to generate changes that allow us to build a decent life, which also involves recovering that free time that we can organize in different ways. And here we could or could not include tourism depending on our needs and possibilities. Chris: Thank you, Ernest. Thank you for offering that and [00:59:00] clarifying. So if we can imagine other worlds, other ways of walking and journeying together, we can begin to take steps toward those paths. If you could imagine an other world like that, free from the contemporary constraints of state borders, industrial hospitality, and extractive expectations, what would that look like for you, Ernest? Would that trip you so much want to make be a pilgrimage? Would it be possible only once in your life? What would that trip be like for you? Ernest: Of course, I would differentiate and think that it is necessarily plural. That is, that the options are multiple. There is no one answer, there is no one way to organize another type of tourism. There are or should be many ways. Depending on the many needs that people have. The other day, in an interview, I was asked how you spent your holidays when you were a teenager? As if thinking about [01:00:00] how to find that link to what now worries me and I say, what I did was spend the summers in the library. And what I wanted was to have quality public infrastructures where you could read quietly, constantly. And I wanted public infrastructures that would allow me to do that. And I think that one way of organizing your free time has to do with having public infrastructures that allow us to organize it. And there is no single way, nor a single need. Mine has to do with this or has had to do with this at a certain moment in my life and for others it is another and for others it is a different one. So I imagine not one path, but I imagine many paths that can respond to different forms and needs. If I imagine robust and powerful quality social tourism programs in which [01:01:00] people can access the sea, they can access the mountains, they can access spaces that are close by and taking into account the limits of the planet, we can mobilize en masse to sleep outside our homes, seeing the experiences, but not only in infrastructures or natural spaces, but also involving an educational program designed to develop potential, how to see these different bets. But I see this and I also see with desire the appropriations that people make of public parks, how people take over the park and celebrate parties and organize activities. I think we need to think in plural terms. That is to say, there is no such thing as a vacation. Perhaps in life, we will need to have the possibility of organizing our work time in a different way, which allows us to travel for longer than doing what would not make sense to think that we can universalize trips from Germany to the Caribbean for four days. That doesn't make any sense, but we are sure that we will no longer be able to visit other territories. Maybe it will be less often in our lives. It will be for longer. It will be combining work with leisure time with spaces. In other words, I think that what we should open ourselves up to is the plurality of possibilities of organizing this part of our free time that we have associated with travel. In some way, I think that what we need are horizons that are worth not only resisting, but mobilizing to move towards them. We want to live better and we have the right to live better. We have to resist all the s**t and all the b******s that capital does to us. But at the same time, we have to be able to aspire to a [01:03:00] life organized under other logics. That is where I believe the key lies, something worth fighting for. Chris: Thank you, Ernest, for those very important words and your reflections today, from me, my part and my heart and the part of the listeners as well. So, finally, Ernest, how could our listeners find out more about your work and Alba Sud and where they can buy Malaise in Touristification? Ernest: To the south bass? We have our website AlbaSud.Org. There, all our publications are free to download. We have a training section where we upload all the videos of the debates and activities we organize. Yes, the website is the tool. We have a newsletter that we send out monthly. We are on various social networks , on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, we have a Telegram channel. There you can find out about what we do, the activities of the calls and with Icaria, where we have several books published, depending on where you are in Spain, it is possible in any bookstore. If they don't have it, ask for it and they will bring it. And in many other places, I think you have to ask for it directly from the publisher. That is, in some Latin American countries, Icaria has normal commercial distribution. In others it is more difficult, but these works can be found on the Icaria Editorial website. And if they can't find it, they can write to us and we will sort something out. Chris: Okay, so I'll make sure all those links are already on the Fin de Turismo site when the episode launches and once again Ernest, I wish we had more time to [01:05:00] talk, but probably another time. It was a great honor, opportunity to talk to you and I hope we can do it again sometime. Ernest: With pleasure. I am delighted to be able to talk to you. And I am really sure that we will continue walking together. Thank you very much. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

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S6 #5 | Turismo Psicodélico y Sabiduria Indígena | Claude Guislain 1:02:02

6 weeks тому1:02:02

1:02:02

Mi huesped en este episodio es Claude Guislain, un antropólogo peruano que pasa la mayor parte de su tiempo con pueblos indígenas en Perú, Colombia y Brasil. Con su primera investigación sobre el uso de la ayahuasca y el chamanismo por parte de los occidentales en Iquitos (2005-2007), inició el viaje que lo llevó a dedicar su vida a tender un puente entre la sabiduría indígena y el mundo moderno. A lo largo de más de quince años dedicados casi exclusivamente a apoyar tanto a curanderos indígenas como a pacientes y exploradores occidentales, ha estado al servicio de los procesos de curación de cientos de personas. Ha estado trabajando y formándose con los Shipibo desde 2013, ayudando a la familia López a construir su propio centro. Fue facilitador y asesor en relaciones indígenas en el Templo del Camino de la Luz (2015-2023). Trabaja y aprende con un mamo Arhuaco desde 2012, con un Jaguar del yurupari del Tubú desde 2016 y con el pueblo Yawanawa de Brasil desde 2018. Hoy es asesor y miembro del Comité Técnico del Fondo de Conservación de Medicinas Indígenas y colabora también con ICEERS, y otras organizaciones, inspirándolas y ayudándolas a tejer sus esfuerzos y dones con los procesos indígenas de base. Notas del Episodio * La historia y esperanza de Claude * La idealizacion de los pueblos indigenas * El renacimiento psicodelico * Curacion y cantos * Contradicciones en el turismo psicodelico * La deforestacion, la demanda y la continuidad del conocimiento * Conservacion biocultural * ICEERS & MSC Tarea Claude Guislain - Facebook - Instagram Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service Transcripcion en Espanol (English Below) Chris: Bienvenido Claude, al podcast El Fin del Turismo. Claude: Chris. Muchas gracias. Chris: Me gustaría saber si podrías explicar un poco de dónde te encuentras hoy y cómo el mundo aparece para ti? Claude: Buena pregunta. Estoy, ahora mismo estoy en Rio de Janeiro, donde vivo. Soy peruano y también estudié antropología y dedico mucho mi tiempo a los pueblos indígenas, sobre todo en Brasil, en Colombia y en Perú y he estado trabajando en las Amazonas durante muchos años. Y como veo el mundo hoy, desde aquí, pues con mucha preocupación, evidentemente, pero también por lo que hago con alguna esperanza, Chris: Yeah y pues en esa cuestión de lo que haces y de lo que hemos hablado antes, parece que es un gran camino, un camino de ya [00:01:00] décadas y décadas. Y me gustaría, si podemos viendo un un poco más de ese camino. Podrías comentar un poco de cómo llegaste en este gran momento sea por tus viajes, a otros países, a otros mundos, a otros maestros y maestras. Claude: Sí, claro, a ver cómo te explico. Llevo unos 20 años trabajando con lo indigena en general, pero sobre todo con el tema de espiritualidad, plantas maestras como la ayahuasca y esas cosas, y llegue ahí como, creo que, como la mayoría de personas que hoy en día llegan ahí a la selva, o a buscar estas medicinas como se les llaman, que es una, una cierta o una profunda insatisfacción por nuestra propia cultura, por la respuesta que nuestra propia sociedad [00:02:00] nos puede dar existenciales, diría yo. Es como siempre hay una pregunta que uno se dice, "No tiene que haber algo más. No puede ser eso solamente." Esa propuesta, digamos de occidente, no puede ser solamente eso, debe haber algo más, verdad? Entonces eso me embarcó a mí en una búsqueda desde, no sé cuando tenía por ahí unos veinti, veinti y pocos años. Que me llevó a experimentar estas medicinas como la ayahuasca, el San Pedro, los hongos, no por una cosa lúdica, ni ni evasiva, sino por el contrario, con una curiosidad por otras formas de saber y conocer, . Entonces yo me acerqué a estas medicinas, con curiosidad de entender cómo los pueblos indígenas saben lo que saben. Cuál es el origen de su [00:03:00] conocimimomento verdad? Entonces, estudié antropología. Me alejé de la academia rápidamente porque, me pareció mucho más interesante lo que me enseñaban los abuelos que para la antropología eran mis informantes, verdad? Era como, tenía que a mi informante tal, el informante tal. Y me di cuenta que no, que no eran mis informantes, sino que eran maestros y aprendía mucho más con ellos que lo que me enseñaba los libros, o las clases, o los seminarios, verdad? Entonces decidí mas dedicarme a seguirlos a ellos y a seguir aprendiendo con ellos, y ver de qué manera los podía ayudar a ellos. Estos abuelos, estos sabios indígenas. Y eso me llevó a un camino maravilloso de que hoy en día le llamo "la gente puente," no? O sea, gente que estamos en ese lugar de interface, entre el conocimimomento, la sabiduría que nos queda de los pueblos [00:04:00] indígenas y el mundo occidental, el mundo moderno. Y en ese nuevo tipo de encuentro que está surgiendo hace una década o tal vez dos décadas. Es este nuevo tipo de encuentro de nuestros mundos, verdad? Que hasta hoy era, siempre había sido extremadamente problemático, sino asesino, verdad? La manera con nuestro mundo occidental se encontraba con los mundos indígenas era pues y destructor. Hoy en día nos encontramos en una manera diferente, en el que muchos jóvenes y adultos y gente del norte global llegan en busca de conocimiento, de sabiduría, de cura, de sanación, de alternativas, buscando respuestas que nuestra propia civilización no nos puede dar. Habiendo un hambre, una sed de sentido por algo mayor, pues mucha gente empieza a ir allá con otros ojos, con un [00:05:00] respeto que no creo que había existido antes. Y eso trae cosas positivas y cosas negativas, evidentemente. Parece ser que estamos mal. Hay una gran maldición, que, como todo lo que toca, occidente eventualmente se vuelve en un gran desastre. parece como un súper bonito, súper maravilloso, ilusorio, nos enamora, nos seduce, pero después al poco tiempo nos vamos dando cuenta de las de las terribles consecuencias que traemos, verdad? Pero algo, no sé, algo también está cambiando, algo está mudando. Hay como una cierta madurez de ambos lados, tanto de los del lado indígena como del lado no indígena para encontrarnos desde un lugar en donde podemos celebrar nuestras diferencias y entender que esas diferencias son material para la construcción de un tiempo nuevo, verdad? Entonces esa es la parte que traigo un poco de esperanza. Chris: Ya, qué bonito. Gracias, Claude . o sea, yo siento [00:06:00] mucho de la esperanza, pero también de la desesperación por alguien que ha visitado a varios pueblos indígenas en las Amazonas hace como 15 años de más ya, en ese tiempo esas medicinas fueron llegando poco a poco a la mentalidad colectiva del occidente. Y pues me ha ayudado un montón, no solo por cuestiones espirituales, pero también por reparar el daño que hice a mi cuerpo, por ejemplo, pero también metiendome en esos círculos, en las Amazonas, por ejemplo, pero también mi tierra nativa Toronto, Canadá y otras partes Oaxaca, México. hemos visto poco a poco la descuidado de la sabiduría indígena, las culturas indígenas, las medicinas, y más que nada, las contradicciones que [00:07:00] aparece dentro de el renacimiento" psicodélico. Entonces, ya tienes mucho tiempo en esos no solo respecto a la medicina, pero también en las culturas indígenas en las Amazonas. Me gustaría preguntarte que has visto allá en el sentido de contradicciones, sobre el turismo sobre la medicina, puede ser el lado del extranjero viniendo para sanarse, o igual los locales o indígenas aprovechando al momento. Claude: Contradicciones tienen todas las culturas, tienen contradicciones. Y la contradicción principal es entre lo que se dice, no? Lo que se profesa y lo que uno ve en la práctica no? Es como si tú vas a la iglesia y escuchas al pastor hablando de cómo debe ser un buen cristiano. Y después te paseas por yo que sé por Chicago o por ciudad de México, y ves lo que [00:08:00] son los cristianos y dices wow hay una enorme contradicción, verdad? Es terrible la contradicción Cuando hablamos de los pueblos indígenas y de los conocimientos, de los pueblos indígenas, la sabiduría indígena, parece ser que hablamos desde un lugar de idealización no? Y a mí no me gustaría, caer en eso de idealizar sino tratar de ser muy concreto. Una cosa es la realidad, que es realmente terrible. Vivimos en un momento que es la cúspide, es la continuación de un proceso de colonialismo, de exterminación que no fue algo que sucedió con la llegada de los españoles, y los portugueses y el tiempo de la conquista. Y no fue algo que pasó. Es algo que sigue pasando,. Es algo que [00:09:00] sigue pasando. Como decía el gran Aílton Krenak, un gran líder indígena de aquí de Brasil, y un intelectual, miembro de la academia brasilera de las letras, recientemente. Decía lo que ustedes no entienden es que su mundo sigue en guerra con nuestro mundo. El decía eso. Él lo dice, o sea, ustedes no entienden que el mundo occidental, el mundo moderno continúa en guerra y de, y haciendo todos los esfuerzos para que las culturas indígenas desaparezcan. O sea, en la práctica, eso es lo que estamos haciendo. Entonces, cuando yo hablo de esperanza, hablo porque hay algo que está surgiendo, que es nuevo, pero realmente es muy pequeño. Y como dices tú, cuando, o sea, la expansión de la ayahuasca, del San Pedro, de lo del peyote y de una cierto [00:10:00] respeto y un cierto entendimiento sobre la importancia de los conocimientos indígenas, todavia realmente e no entendemos eso, no entendemos. Y cuando hablamos desde el norte global, y lo que se llama esta el renacimiento psicodélico, cuando hablan de los pueblos indígenas, hay una idealización, sobre todo, es solamente parte de un discurso que es un poco "woke." Es un poco para hacer bonito tu discurso, pero en la práctica no se ve, no, no, no ocupa un lugar importante. Ya está diseñado el camino por donde va esta revolución psicodélica, es extraer los principios activos de las plantas, hacer medicamentos, de hacer una pastilla que va a ayudar a la gente a mantenerse en mejor forma dentro de la locura que propone occidente. Cómo le damos a la gente [00:11:00] herramientas para que se adapten y para que resistan, es el absurdo al que los estamos sometiendo, eso es realmente. O sea necesitamos ya drogas como "Brave New World", no como "soma". Te sientes deprimido? Tómate tus pastillas. Estás cuestionando mucho las cosas, tomate esto para que puedas seguir funcionando y operando y produciendo, verdad? Pero hay una cosa muy, muy clara para mí, es que aún no hemos logrado entender la magnitud de los conocimientos indígenas. Y digo conocimientos, y no creencias porque en general, cuando hablamos de los pueblos indígenas, lo que sabe un chamán, como le dicen, un curandero, o lo que hablan ellos alrededor de su espiritualidad, la gente piensa, "ah, son sus creencias." Y en el mejor de los casos, dice "ay qué bonito, hay [00:12:00] que respetarlo, hay que cuidar sus derechos, y tienen derechos culturales y tienen todo el derecho a creer en lo que creen." Pero cuando decimos creencias, también es una incomprensión porque de creencia tiene muy poco en realidad. Cuando uno estudia más, y cuando uno profundiza sobre lo que sabe hacer un curandero, un ayahuasquero, Shipibo, Ashaninka, Huni Kuin, Karipuna, Noke Koi Kofan, lo que ellos saben, no tiene nada que ver con las creencias. No tiene nada que ver con la adoración religiosa de ciertas deidades. Nada que ver. Estamos hablando de conocimiento profundamente práctico, verdad? Es una acumulación de conocimientos durante generaciones y generaciones por estudiosos de la selva, que se organiza este [00:13:00] conocimiento. Socialmente y además que se transmite con un método. Hay un método muy estricto, muy específico de transmisión de estos conocimientos y de estas maneras de conocer, entonces te acabo de dar una definición no de una religión. Te acabo de dar una definición de ciencia. Entonces, lo que no hemos llegado a entender hasta ahora es que lo poquito que ha sobrevivido hasta hoy de esos conocimientos se asemeja mucho más a una ciencia que a una religión. Es mucho más un conocimiento práctico que una creencia religiosa, verdad? Y en ese sentido, es de suma importancia. Y entonces, cuando tenemos más y más personas tienen esta experiencia, qué es lo que pasa? Mucha gente viene a la selva en Iquitos, he trabajado muchos años, durante años he sido como el centro principal donde he recibido mucha gente para [00:14:00] tomar ayahuasca y esas cosas, y viene gente a sanarse de cosas que en sus países, pues no, nadie los puede sanar de depresiones, de traumas, cosas físicas también, pero sobre todo cosas psicológicas, verdad? Y después vuelven y dice "oh, yo tomé ayahuasca y me curé." "Cómo te curaste?" "Ah, fui, tomé ayahuasca," pero nadie dice estuve tomando con un viejo que todas las noches me cantaba durante media hora. Y después venía en la mañana y me preguntaba cómo era mis sueños. Y después venía con otros remedios y me daba y me hacía unos baños. Y cuando me hacía esos baños me cantaba de nuevo. Y después me daba esto, y me daba esta medicina y me cantaba, y cuando él me cantaba, me hacía ver este tipo de... Nadie habla de eso. La gente dice "yo tomé ayahuasca y el ayahuasca me curó", pero el viejito que estaba cantando solamente parece un accesorio de un viejito cantando. Pero no es así. La mayoría de la gente dice, "Wow, cómo te curaste de eso? Qué pasó? Qué hiciste? "Ah ya tomé ayahuasca. El ayahuasca me curó." Verdad? Realmente yo he escuchado muy poca gente decir "el abuelito, la abuelita, me dio ayahuasca, pero me cantó durante horas, me dio baños, me preguntó mis sueños, adaptó todas las plantas y el tratamiento que iba haciendo según mis sueños, según lo que iba viendo. Cuando me cantaba, me guiaba para ver cosas, o no ver cosas." Parece ser que el abuelito que cantaba fuese un accesorio, decoración. Y no realmente, no le damos crédito al trabajo profundo que ellos hacen, y el conocimiento que ponen en practica. Y no es extraño porque es muy difícil de entender, cómo una persona cantando, me va, me va a curar con un canto, verdad? No, como para nosotros, es muy difícil, no tiene sentido. [00:01:00] Tiene que ser la substancia que tomaste y que se metió en tu cerebro y hizo alguna cosas de conexiones neurológicas. Yo que sé. No puede ser esa cosa, porque para nosotros, ya sería el pensamiento mágico, verdad? Pero como te digo, eso que nosotros llamamos pensamiento mágico para ellos no es un pensamiento mágico. Es un conocimiento muy concreto que se aprende que tiene métodos de aprendizaje. Son conocimientos y habilidades, y capacidades que se adquieren con métodos de transmisión, verdad? Y hasta ahora no hemos logrado darle realmente el lugar que le corresponde a eso. Por el contrario, estamos impactando en eso de maneras muy profundas, y hay una contradicción fundamental que yo veo en lo, en para volver un poco a la pregunta que me haces. En todo este turismo que ha llegado, y [00:02:00] esta fascinación, este interés. Cuáles son los impactos que esto ha tenido en las comunidades indígenas en el mundo indígena, verdad? Entonces yo creo que hay dos cosas que parecen ser un poco contradictorias. Por un lado, hay una gran bendición. Hace 20 años, tú no veías gente de nuestra edad, jóvenes interesados en sentarse con los abuelos y aprender realmente, y ser continuadores de esas tradiciones y cultivadores de ese tipo de conocimientos. La mayoría de gente de nuestra edad, un poco más viejos, hasta la edad de nuestro, gente que tiene hoy día 50, 55 años, 60 años, no querían hacer, no. Querían ser profesores interculturales bilingües, querían ser [00:03:00] profesionales, pertenecer al mundo de los blancos, verdad? Entonces, los viejos, eran de un tiempo pasado que estaba destinado a extinguirse. Entonces, con la llegada de los occidentales y con este interés por esas cosas, ha habido cierto renacimiento y sobre todo, un verdadero interés de la juventud por aprender estas cosas como una alternativa profesional, digamos. Digamos, oye, para qué voy a ser abogado? Si yo, si mira todos los gringos que están viniendo, yo puedo ser esto y me va a ir mejor, verdad? Entonces, por un lado, hay esa parte que, hoy en día vemos, por ejemplo, en los Shipibo, muchísima gente que está aprendiendo, verdad? Muchos jóvenes están interesados, no solamente en los Shipibo, pero sino, pero en muchos lugares en Brasil, en Colombia, en Ecuador, yo veo, veo eso, una juventud que está poco a poco interesándose más y [00:04:00] volviendo a sus propias raíces. Es como, como decir, todo desde que eres niño, siempre te dicen, "los antiguos ser una porquería ya ese mundo acabó, lo único que cuenta es la modernidad y integrarse a la vida urbana, a la vida oficial de esta civilización, ir a la iglesia, tener una carrera, y ser alguien en la vida," verdad? Y entonces era como, y los estados con políticas de esa naturaleza, los gobiernos, los estados de nuestros países, era, pues la cuestión indígena era cómo civilizamos a los indios. Civilizar al indio no es otra cosa que hacerlo olvidar de sus sistemas, de sus culturas, pero como una parte así de como digo, "woke," no como, "ay, que lindo los indios que mantengan sus danzas, que mantengan su folclore, que mantengan [00:05:00] sus ropitas y que mantengan su ciertas cosas que es como bonito, que ellos mantengan como algo pintoresco y algo folclórico," pero sin entender realmente la profundidad. Pero hoy en día, yo creo que en gran medida, gracias a esto, no solamente, es una cosa más compleja evidentemente, pero, la juventud, viendo que hay esta llegada de blancos, de extranjeros, de gringos, no? Interesadisimos por los conocimientos de los abuelos, por la medicina. Y que van y están ahí, dicen "uy acá tiene que haber algo interesante, yo también quiero aprender." Si a los gringos les gusta esto, es porque algo bueno debe haber entiendes? Llegamos a ese punto en que estaba destinado a desaparecer, pero de una a otra manera, hay un renacimiento, verdad? Al mismo tiempo, [00:06:00] en la transmisión de estos conocimientos, como te decía sumamente complejos, sumamente estricta, estrictos métodos de transmisión, pues se ha tenido que simplificar porque los jóvenes no están aptos ya, habiendo ido a la escuela, teniendo un pie en la ciudad. No, no es tan aptos ni tienen el interés, ni las condiciones, ni las aptitudes para realmente entrar en esos procesos como lo podían haber hecho los abuelos, que hoy en día tienen 70, 80 años, verdad, que fueron realmente los últimos. A menos que uno se vaya muy lejos en la selva donde lugares que no tienen mucho contacto, que ellos todavía deben de mantener algunas cosas, pero ellos están alejados también de estos circuitos, Pero entonces, sí, hay una gran simplificación de estos sistemas. Entonces se pierden muchas cosas. Para bien o para mal, no? Mucha gente dice, bueno, por lo menos se está perdiendo toda esta parte de la brujería y [00:07:00] los ataques chamánicos y toda esa cosa, pero a lo cual se le da mucha, mucha importancia que tampoco logramos entender, porque nosotros lo vemos con esa visión judeo cristiana, esa distinción maniquea del bien y del mal, que en los mundos indígenas no es que no exista, sino que es totalmente diferente, no?. Y eso forma parte de esas diferencias que son importantes de entender y de respetar, verdad? Entonces, toda esta parte que nosotros vemos como brujería, como diabólico y tal, tienen su función dentro de un sistema, y que no, tratar de hacerlo desaparecer es hacer desaparecer el sistema mismo, verdad? Porque no lo entendemos. Es lo mismo que pasa, es lo que ha pasado siempre, algo que nos escandaliza, entonces lo queremos cambiar, pero nos escandaliza desde nuestra propia visión del mundo y no estamos entendiéndolo desde la visión de [00:08:00] ellos. No quiere decir que todo se puede relativizar, verdad? Hay cosas que son, pues muy difíciles, no, y muy delicadas, pero en en reglas general, cuando hay algo que nos escandaliza, lo queremos cambiar, sin realmente profundizar en un entendimiento de la función de esas cosas, pues estamos siguiendo los mismos patrones que los curas que llegaban hace 400 años, 500 años. Que decían ah, esto es diabólico. Tenemos que extirpar estas cosas, no? Entonces seguimos haciendo eso. Entonces, por un lado, vemos que hay un renacimiento del interés de la juventud y una reconexión con su propia identidad al mismo tiempo que hay una simplificación algo peligrosa de estos sistemas, quiere decir que los jóvenes que de aquí a poco van a ser los abuelos no saben la [00:09:00] mitad de lo que sabían sus abuelos. Saben lo mínimo indispensable que sirve para darle al gringo lo que requiere, lo que necesita, lo que está buscando, lo suficiente para hacer negocio en realidad y eso no es para culparlos a ellos, sino que es parte del sistema en el que estamos navegando, porque todo funciona así. Para qué te vas a profundizar tanto si con este mínimo ya te alcanza? Sobre todo cuando vemos que muchos gringos, muchos extranjeros van toman ayahuasca unas cuantas veces o hacen alguna dieta, y después se llevan ayahuasca a sus países, se ponen las plumas, agarran su guitarrita, y empiezan a cantar estas cosas como decoración alrededor de esta experiencia y hacen mucho dinero. Y así se ha ido expandiendo la ayahuasca por el mundo, verdad? Y eso cumple su función también. No es para juzgarlo, pero [00:10:00] también hay, es de una superficialidad, muchas veces, hiriente, cuando tú ves lo que sabe un abuelo y lo que ha tenido que pasar las dificultades, las pruebas y las responsabilidades que tiene un curandero amazónico para su comunidad, y los sistemas de rendición de cuentas que son los que más o menos lo mantienen a raya, que uno no puede hacer lo que le da la gana con ese poder, sino que hay un sistema de control, cuando esto sale y se va afuera en estos círculos, medios new age, medios hippie, medio neochamánico, pues toda esa cuestión se pierde y se empiezan a inventar un montón de cosas, y sobre todo, un discurso que es bastante problemático. Entonces surge esta idea que la ayahuasca es la panacea universal, y "la madrecita ayahuasca" me [00:11:00] dijo, y, "esto es lo que va a salvar el mundo." Entonces más personas tenemos que buscar la forma que más y más personas tengan esta experiencia para salvar el mundo verdad? Y la verdad que yo creo que eso no es así. Si fuera así, si fuera por la cantidad de ayahuasca que se toma en el mundo, pues el mundo ya habría cambiado, porque realmente se toma mucha ayahuasca. Cuando yo, el principio de los años 2000 en Europa, era muy raro escuchar de eso no? Hoy en día, en cualquier país europeo, todos los fines de semana tú puedes encontrar una ceremonia de ayahuasca, en todas partes. Eso se ha expandido. Se ha normalizado. Ya es mainstream, ya se volvió mainstream. Pero qué se ha vuelto mainstream? Nuestra propia interpretación, que es bastante problemática sobre esto y no se le ha dado el lugar que le [00:12:00] corresponde a los guardianes de esos conocimientos. Entonces eso es lo que yo tengo para criticar en todo este tema de la revolución psicodélica, que hablamos de psicodélico psicodélico, psicodélico, como la panacea, lo que puede salvar el mundo, pero cuánta experiencia tiene nuestra sociedad con los psicodélicos? Dos generaciones? Máximo? Desde Hoffman, y esa, ya de la generación Beat, de los 50. Vale?, un poco eso. Y entonces, hoy día, tú tienes psychodelic studies en las universidades y formación de terapias con psicodélicos que los enseñan en institutos, de estudios bastante importantes. Y uno se pregunta, pero qué estudia? Qué les enseñan? Qué podemos haber acumulado como conocimiento en esas dos generaciones, siendo que durante más o menos 40 años, esto ha sido o 50 o 60 años. Esto ha sido prohibido. Era [00:13:00] ilegal. Hoy en día se está más o menos legalizando, entonces se puede estudiar más abiertamente, se puede investigar, se puede aprender, se puede experimentar mucho más, pero durante muchos años, era ilegal, era underground, subterráneo, verdad? Entonces, qué es lo que hemos podido acumular como el conocimiento? Es mínimo, es muy superficial, sobre todo si lo comparas con lo que saben allá en la selva, los indígenas en México, los Wixarika allá donde, por donde tu estás, los mazatecos y toda esa gente que tiene conocimiento de los hongos. Eso es una acumulación, de conocimiento extraordinaria. Lo que pasa es que, como son indios, no les damos el lugar. Qué me va, si tú tienes un doctorado en cualquier universidad del mundo y te sienta junto con indios, adentro de uno tiene esa terrible arrogancia que tenemos [00:14:00] los occidentales de decir, si yo soy un doctor, qué me va a enseñar un indio? Entiendes? Y eso, eso demuestra que aún por más que tratamos de idealizar y por más que hay un gran respeto, y algo que esté cambiando, todavía seguimos regidos por un profundo racismo. Un profundo complejo de superioridad, que creo yo, que está la base de los grandes problemas que tenemos hoy en día como humanidad es realmente la arrogancia y el complejo de superioridad que tenemos como miembros de esta civilización, que es extraordinaria, pero también es la que nos está llevando el hecatombe verdad? Es la que está destruyendo el mundo. Entonces, hay verdades muy incómodas que no queremos ver pero es la verdad, a pesar de toda la grandeza que hemos logrado con este, con los conocimientos de nuestra ciencia, es también nuestra misma ciencia la que está destruyendo [00:15:00] el mundo, nuestra manera de entender y de conocer el mundo. Entonces ahora, poco a poco, nos estamos dando cuenta que necesitamos de la participación de estos otros pueblos que tienen otras maneras de ver, de entender, de estar en el mundo, y de conocer, de aprender otras maneras, no? Entonces sucede una cosa muy bonita y extraordinaria cuando juntamos personas que piensan diferente y realmente ya no es una discusión sobre cuál es mejor, cuál sistema es mejor, si mi ciencia o tu ciencia o no, sino que es como complementamos nuestros tipos de conocimiento, verdad? Lo que decíamos también, o sea, a partir de nuestras diferencias, con nuestras diferencias como material, que es lo que podemos tejer juntos, que no se ha hecho nunca, verdad? Entonces, eso es lo que está surgiendo también, pero en un contexto muy [00:16:00] problemático en lo que surgen los intereses económicos, financieros, grandes farmacéutica, grandes capitales que quieren invertir en estas cosas y no se les da el lugar a los grandes detentores de estos conocimientos. Y sobretodo no se les da lugar en el diálogo, ni en la creación de acuerdos, sino que no se le da una participación financiera de lo que se puede recaudar como beneficios a partir de sus conocimientos, verdad? Entonces seguimos reproduciendo ese sistema colonial, ese sistema de explotación del otro y de la tierra, de la naturaleza en beneficio del capital, en beneficio para generar, ingresos económicos, no? Entonces estamos en eso es, es altamente complejo. [00:17:00] Hay cosas buenas y hay cosas negativas. Hay un impacto muy grande también en la Amazonía con toda la llegada de toda esta gente, pero impactos positivos. Yo, yo he encontrado muchos líderes, en Amazonía que me dicen "gracias a ustedes que vienen acá. Nosotros estamos volviendo a nuestras raíces", "Si no fuera por ustedes, ya estaríamos perdidos." Entonces hay algo que está sucediendo, que es algo muy positivo, pero también, como venimos con esos programas, no logramos darle la profundidad que podríamos estar alcanzando. Y que nuevamente, creo yo, que lo que está la base es nuestro terrible complejo de superioridad, que creemos que todos lo sabemos y que, pues somos mejores y que, qué nos va a enseñar, me entiendes? Aunque algo esté cambiando, aunque haya un poco de esperanza, todavía hay mucho camino por delante, [00:18:00] no? Chris: Mm. gracias Claude poder sacar algunos de esos hilos del nudo enorme en que vivimos. Pues sí, yo siento que, una de las cosas menos escuchados en nuestros tiempos de gente que tiene comentarios, opiniones, lo que sea, es, pues "no sé la verdad, no sé" . O sea, hay una una falta enorme de humildad. Creo que de la gente que critica la revolución o renacimiento psicodélico, o la gente que celebra no? O sea, hay una gran falta de humildad igual de tiempo profundo o de conocimiento histórico podemos decir, y como mencionaste, la cuestión de los abuelos y las relaciones que la gente tiene, o sea, las Amazonas y los pueblos indígenas ya por miles y miles de [00:19:00] años con sus lugares. Y como poco a poco se profundizaron su propio lugar dentro de los otros seres en su ecología, en su ecosistema, sus ecosistemas, y que, ese idea de que alguien puede irse a un lugar así. tomar la medicina como es una pastilla nada más volverse o simplemente quedarse y decir que "ah me curó" o algo Pues eso, eso me suena como bastante fascinante, no? Y porque, para mí al final también tiene que ver con la relacion con los ancianos o sabios de un lugar o sea, el maestro mío me dijo una vez que son los jóvenes que hacen ancianos, que hacen sabios que hacen como elders no? No son los viejos. O sea, los viejos son el vehículo para la función de esa sabiduría. Pero son los jóvenes que tienen que preguntar y [00:20:00] eso. Parece que está muy, muy perdido en el mundo occidental. O sea más bien la gente urbana, la gente del norte, la gran mayoría son migrantes o familias de inmigrantes. Entonces, yo siento que la relación que tenemos con la medicina, que es solo medicina, es una pastilla o aunque sí, es un ser que no, como dijiste, como no tenemos a veces la capacidad de entender, el lugar del abuelo, abuela humana en esa relación, pues hay muchas, muchas direcciones que podemos ir en ese sentido, pero también lo que he visto, lo que he escuchado, he leído un poco es sobre la deforestación de las medicinas, las plantas sagradas, y que la gente va [00:21:00] domesticando poco a poco las plantas y que las plantas domesticadas no tienen la misma fuerza, en parte porque están cosechadas o cosechados más y más joven, más y más antes de su maduración, y que eso también quizás tiene algo que ver con nuestra contexto del occidente como la necesidad o rapidez o velocidad en que necesitamos conseguir y consumir la medicina y ser curado, etcétera. Entonces entiendo que también has estado trabajando por algunas organizaciones que trabajan específicamente en la conservación de las medicinas, y también, otras que trabajan en la educación e investigaciones sobre lo etnobotánico. Entonces, me gustaría preguntarte sobre y ICEERS y MSCF tiene [00:22:00] un, una perspectiva fija o quizás como desde tu perspectiva, cómo vamos en ese camino? Claude: Mira, esa es una problemática, que corresponde a ese mismo sistema, no? O sea, en otras palabras, por ejemplo, cuando surgió este fondo, esta fundación, que es el fondo para la conservación de las medicinas indígenas o INC por sus en inglés. La primera inquietud que surgió, o sea el primer impulso y el primer, el primer capital semilla para para lanzar esto era exactamente esa idea no? Estas medicinas se están expandiendo, más y más personas lo van a necesitar, lo van a usar. Entonces va a haber un impacto en la sostenibilidad de estas plantas. Se va a poner en riesgo su continuidad, verdad? Cuando a mí me propusieron a [00:23:00] trabajar en esto y ayudar a la creación de este fondo, y me lo pusieron en esos términos, mi respuesta fue negativa. Yo dije no tengo el menor interés en trabajar en eso. Porque, o sea, en otras palabras, es ¿Cómo hacemos para garantizar la demanda? Cómo hacemos para para que tengamos suficiente, vamos a hacer plantaciones de peyote y plantaciones de ayahuasca para que no se acabe, para que alcance para todas las personas en el mundo que lo van a necesitar. Y yo dije no tengo el menor interés en hacer eso. Además, no creo que ese sea el real problema. Dije ahora si se tratase de la conservación de los conocimientos, estamos hablando de otra cosa. Eso es lo realmente precioso que debemos poner todo nuestros esfuerzos [00:24:00] para que exista una continuidad, para que no desaparezca como está desapareciendo, desaparece. Cada vez que se muere un abuelo y se han muerto muchos últimamente, sobre todo con el COVID, se han muerto muchos abuelos, pues se pierde, se pierde, o sea, es una tragedia para la humanidad entera, que se muera un abuelo que no tuvo la posibilidad de transmitirle a uno, a dos, a tres de sus hijos, a sus nietos, ese conocimiento, que no haya nadie que vaya a saber lo que sabe él, pues es una tragedia para todos nosotros. Entonces, cuando estamos pensando en cómo vamos a hacer? Se va a acabar la ayahuasca, o hay plantaciones, si no es lo mismo, es una inquietud válida, evidentemente, dentro nuestra lógica. Pero olvidamos que lo principal es la conservación de estos conocimientos. Entonces, tanto [00:25:00] MSC como ICEERS se está enfocando cada vez más en un trabajo profundo de desarrollar relaciones, cultivar relaciones con estos abuelos detentores de conocimientos, con estas comunidades que aún practican, mantiene sus sistemas, verdad? Y trabajando con ellos, digamos para ellos, para con programas, y con proyectos, y procesos que son diseñados por ellos, guiados por ellos, y nosotros solamente nos dedicamos a dar, un apoyo técnico y financiero, no? Para garantizar esto, entonces, al hacer esto, al dedicarlos más a la conservación de estos conocimientos, nos damos cuenta que la cultura no puede sobrevivir sin el [00:26:00] territorio. El conocimiento de los abuelos no tiene sentido sin un territorio, verdad? Y cuando hablamos de la conservación de la Amazonía, tampoco podemos entender la conservación de los ecosistemas sin la conservación de las culturas que han vivido ahí durante miles de años. O sea, todo va de la par, todo va de la mano, no? Entonces con una visión mucho más holistica, digamos más amplia. Pues entendemos eso, que cuidando de la cultura y poniendo todos los esfuerzos necesarios para la continuidad de esas culturas también estamos cuidando a la Amazonía, cuidando la biodiversidad, cuidando el agua, cuidando las medicinas, cuidando todo. Entiendes? Ya existen en Brasil enormes plantaciones de ayahuasca, de chacruna. Encuentras plantaciones en diferentes partes del mundo, [00:27:00] en Hawaii, y en Costa Rica, y en diferentes lugares. Ya la gente ha ido a sembrar hace años. Entonces, hay, no, eso no va a faltar. Lo que sí no vanos faltar, nos estamos quedando huérfanos de esos conocimientos. Y eso sí que es una gran pérdida porque yo tengo la certeza, la convicción que en esos, en esos conocimientos están las llaves, las respuestas que nos pueden ayudar a resolver los grandes desafíos que tiene la humanidad hoy en día. Desde nuestra ciencia no vamos a resolver, estamos, estamos en una crisis civilizatoria, estamos en una crisis global, y lo único que nos dicen los científicos es que tenemos que reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero. Y ahí van 20 años o más tratando de hacer eso, y no lo consiguen. No [00:28:00] solamente es insuficiente pensarlo de esa manera tan reduccionista, sino que, igualmente están acatandose a una sola cosa y no lo consiguen, no hemos logrado nada, no? Lo que realmente necesitamos es un cambio de sentido, un cambio entender una profundidad mucho mayor de cuál es nuestra relación como especie con este planeta. Y para eso necesitamos los entendimientos de lo más extraordinario que ha guardado la humanidad hasta hoy, no solamente de la civilización occidental, sino de todos, no? Entonces, cada vez que se pierde una lengua, cada vez que se muere un abuelo sabedor es una tragedia para toda la humanidad. Entonces, está muy bien que utilicemos estas medicinas, está muy bien que se esté expandiendo estas prácticas, pero esto sirve, [00:29:00] como un proceso inicial, como abrir una ventana hacia un mundo de posibilidades. Entonces, a mí me gusta que haya gente dando ayahuasca en Estados Unidos, en Europa. Me gusta porque mucha gente tiene la experiencia y dice "wow, en verdad si hay algo más. En verdad, aquí hay todo un mundo que yo no tenía idea que existía y que podría leer millones de cosas, y puedo creer o no creer, pero teniendo la experiencia, ya no necesito creer. Yo sé que hay algo. Sé que la naturaleza está viva. Sé que la naturaleza habla, sé que hay manera de comunicarse con la sutileza del funcionamiento de este planeta, de las aguas, de los ríos, de los vientos de las montañas. Todo es un sistema que está vivo, y hay manera de comunicarse con eso y mantenerse en una profunda relación, simbiótica, de profundo respeto y de amor con todo esto no? Entonces, es [00:30:00] importante que muchas personas tengan ese tipo de experiencia, pero después qué? Después de esa experiencia qué? Volvemos a nuestra vida normal, a nuestro trabajo de siempre, a la dificultad de nuestras relaciones cotidianas y el drama de la imposibilidad de mantener una conexión profunda con el tejido de la vida. Todo de nuestra civilización está hecho para mantenernos desconectados de la vida, del funcionamiento de la vida en este planeta, verdad? Entonces, hacia eso es lo que tenemos que apuntar, porque el problema no son las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero, el problema es nuestra relación con el mundo. No es las historias que nos hacen creer que el mundo es una fuente de recursos para extraer, transformar y generar riqueza. Esa historia es profundamente [00:31:00] problemática. Y cuando conversamos con los sabios, con los abuelos, con los indígenas, escuchamos esas historias. Nos damos cuenta. Wow. Estas historias necesitan ser escuchadas. Estas historias necesitan, necesitan ser contadas en diferentes espacios. Y estos abuelos, estos sabios necesitan ocupar el lugar que les corresponde en la mesa de negociaciones de la humanidad. No se trata de conservar esto como algo folclórico, como un derecho de estos pobrecitos pueblos que tienen el derecho de vivir, como siempre vivieron, como quieran vivir. No, se trata de nuestra sobrevivencia. Entonces, hacia eso, creo yo, que debemos estar apuntando y sobre todo el tema de la revolución del renacimiento psicodélico yo creo que es una punta de lanza. Es una primera entrada en el que vamos poco a poco, demostrando que no se trata [00:32:00] solamente de convencer así retóricamente, sino que hay que demostrar, con hechos, la pertinencia, la utilidad de estos conocimientos para hoy para el mundo de hoy, verdad? Entonces, el tema de la salud y el tema de la salud mental es como es una problemática gigantesca, no? Enorme, hiper compleja. Es la primera cosa que, más y más científicos y gente que decide se está dando cuenta. "Uy, aquí esta gente sabe algo que nosotros no sabemos y tiene una manera de saber y entender el funcionamiento de la mente y el espíritu humano que nosotros no tenemos idea y que realmente funciona." Entonces eso es como una primera parte, como una punta de lanza. Estamos entrando en un lugar para poder demostrar al mundo. "Oye, lo que saben estos [00:33:00] pueblos es importante no solamente para ellos, no solamente para la continuidad de sus culturas, de sus tradiciones, no solamente para la salvaguarda de la selva Amazónica sino para toda la humanidad." Verdad? Y es muy triste ver en nuestros países, en Colombia. Bueno, Colombia hay otro nivel de entendimiento mucho más maduro, sobre lo indígena. Creo que están mucho más avanzados en ese sentido, pero en Brasil, en Perú, en Ecuador, en México, no le estamos dando la importancia que merece a esta problemática, o sea al rescate de lo poco que ha sobrevivido esos conocimientos extraordinarios que se mantienen en las selvas, en los desiertos, en las montañas, que se han ido guardando en secreto hasta hoy, o sea es heroico que haya [00:34:00] sobrevivido hasta hoy. Y hoy en día nos estamos dando cuenta de la pertinencia y la importancia de todo eso. Entonces, cuando hablamos de conservación, estamos hablando de conservación biocultural. Entender que no se puede preservar una cultura sin preservar la totalidad de su territorio, sin derechos de esos pueblos sobre sus territorios, y no se puede preservar los ecosistemas y los derechos si no se hace todos los esfuerzos para preservar esas culturas que han vivido en profundo respeto, en simbiosis con esos ecosistemas. Y tenemos muchísimo que aprender. Todo este tema de la cooperación internacional, de las ayudas de las ONGs, de los proyectos de los pueblos indígenas es de un paternalismo triste y absurdo que en el fondo dice "ay pobrecitos los indios vamos a ayudarlos", vamos a ayudarlos a qué? Vamos a ayudarlos a que sean más como nosotros. Eso es lo que estamos haciendo, creyendo que [00:35:00] somos lo mejor. Pero entonces más y más estamos entendiendo que es es mucho más lo que nosotros podemos aprender de ellos, que ellos transformarse en nosotros. Tenemos que re indigenizarnos, sabes?. Tenemos que volver a ciertas raíces que nos permitan una profunda conexión con la vida, con la naturaleza, con todos los seres que viven en nuestro territorio. Y eso es lo que en la misma naturaleza, la misma tierra nos está indicando, nos está llamando. O sea, si siguen así de desconectados, los vamos a exterminar. Tienen que re conectarse con eso, entonces ahí yo creo que hay una, algo nuevo que está surgiendo, que es maravilloso, verdad? Y espero yo que eso llegue a más y más personas. Estamos trabajando duro para eso la [00:36:00] verdad. Chris: Mm, pues muchísimas gracias por esos trabajos Claude. Y por tener la capacidad de afilar el cuchillo, en estos tiempos y en nuestra conversación, para sacar la grasa, digamos, como digamos. Yo siento que es, es un trabajo muy fuerte, no? O sea, para mí, eso es el fin de turismo, la capacidad de parar, de ver al mundo como algo que existe sólo por tus gustos. Algo que existe en un sentido temporal, es decir desechable. Pero eso va a durar como un montón de trabajo en el sentido de recordar, de recordar que en algún momento sus antepasados, los urbanos, los del norte, etcétera, fueron indígenas. Pero qué pasó? Qué ha pasado? Qué rompió [00:37:00] esa relación con la tierra? Y eso, eso es un trabajo muy, muy fuerte y obviamente generacional y intergeneracional, entonces. Pues hay mucho más que podemos hablar y ojalá que tenemos la oportunidad en algún momento, pero quería agradecerte por la parte de mí, por la parte del podcast y los escuchantes. Y al final quería preguntarte, y para nuestros oyentes, si hay una manera de seguir a tu trabajo o contactarte, si estás dispuesto a eso, cómo se pueden conocer lo de ICEERS y MSC? Claude: Bueno, tienes, el trabajo de MSC es muy importante. Y pues, si necesitamos a más gente que se sume, que done. Necesitamos canalizar muchos [00:38:00] recursos para poder hacer estas cosas bien, verdad? Con pocos recursos estamos haciendo cosas increíbles, pero ya estamos viendo que, ya llegamos a niveles en los que podemos administrar mucho mayores recursos. Entonces, si la gente se siente inspirada y pueden entrar a la página web de MSC o ICEERS, y MSC fund FND, ver lo que estamos haciendo, los diferentes proyectos que tenemos ahí y se sientan inspirados para donar o conseguir recursos, pues, genial. ICEERS también hace un trabajo extraordinario en la creación de conocimientos, artículos científicos y defensa legal también de estos detentores, de estas medicinas. Trabajo con incidencia política con gente que decide en el mundo. [00:39:00] Entonces estamos luchando ahí por los derechos de los pueblos indígenas, por el derecho del uso de estas medicinas que en muchos lugares son ilegales, y también sobre todo, decir a la gente que más que ir a la selva, o tomar ayahuasca cerca de sus lugares, muchas veces ahí cerca también tienen una reserva, algunos abuelos, pueblos indígenas que están cerca de ustedes, no? En sus países, cerca de sus ciudades. Y pues es tiempo de reconectar, y es muy difícil, pero la verdad que vale la pena, ir, ver lo que necesitan, cómo podemos ayudar, cómo podemos colaborar, simplemente con esa presencia, con otro tipo de encuentro, y cultivar esas relaciones de amistad, es algo, es algo muy importante que podemos hacer hoy en día, y que, [00:40:00] pues la tierra nos está pidiendo a gritos que nos re conectemos. Y ahí están los abuelos, todavía hay abuelos que, como dices tú, solamente esperan que vengan los jóvenes a preguntar no? Y muchas veces cuando no son los propios jóvenes de sus comunidades, pues están muy felices cuando viene gente de afuera de otros lugares, con esas preguntas, porque los ayaban a practicar, los ayudan a compartir, pero también inspiran a los jóvenes de su comunidad a sentarse con los abuelos. Creo que es un tiempo en el que es muy importante volver a sentarse con los abuelos, y los abuelos están ahí y están necesitando mucho de nosotros. Entonces, hagámoslo. Chris: Oye, gracias, hermano. Voy a asegurar que esos enlaces están en la página de El Fin del Turismo cuando lance el episodio. Y [00:41:00] pues, desde el norte hacia el sur te mando un gran abrazo. Y gracias por tu tiempo hoy, por tu trabajo y por tus compromisos Claude. Claude: Un placer, Chris, gracias a ti. Gracias por lo que estás haciendo. Saludos. English Transcription Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome Claude, to the podcast The End of Tourism. Claude: Chris. Thank you very much. Chris: I was wondering if you could explain a little bit about where you are today and how the world appears to you? Claude: Good question. I am, right now I am in Rio de Janeiro, where I live. I am Peruvian and I also studied anthropology and I dedicate a lot of my time to indigenous peoples, especially in Brazil, Colombia and Peru and I have been working in the Amazon for many years. And as I see the world today, from here, well, with a lot of concern, obviously, but also because of what I do with some hope, Chris: Yeah, and in that matter of what you do and what we talked about before, it seems like it's a great path, a path of [00:01:00] decades and decades. And I would like, if we could see a little more of that path. Could you comment a little on how you got to this great moment, be it through your travels, to other countries, to other worlds, to other teachers. Claude: Yes, of course, let me explain. I've been working with indigenous people in general for about 20 years, but especially with the topic of spirituality, master plants like ayahuasca and those things, and I got there like, I think, like most people who go to the jungle today, or to look for these medicines, as they are called, which is a certain or deep dissatisfaction with our own culture, with the existential response that our own society [00:02:00] can give us, I would say. It's like there's always a question that one asks oneself, "Doesn't there have to be something more? It can't just be that." That proposal, let's say from the West, can't just be that, there has to be something more, right? So that led me on a search since, I don't know when I was around twenty, twenty-something years old. What led me to experiment with these medicines like ayahuasca, San Pedro, mushrooms, not for a playful or evasive reason, but on the contrary, with a curiosity for other ways of knowing and understanding. So I approached these medicines, with curiosity to understand how indigenous peoples know what they know. What is the origin of their [00:03:00] knowledge at the moment, right? So, I studied anthropology. I quickly moved away from academia because I found it much more interesting what my grandparents taught me, who for anthropology were my informants, right? It was like, I had to have my informant, this informant. And I realized that no, they were not my informants, but they were teachers and I learned much more from them than what I was taught in books, or in classes, or in seminars, right? So I decided to dedicate myself more to following them and to continue learning with them, and to see how I could help them. These grandparents, these wise indigenous people. And that led me to a wonderful path that today I call "the bridge people," right? In other words, people who are in that place of interface, between the knowledge, the wisdom that remains to us from the indigenous peoples [00:04:00] and the Western world, the modern world. And in this new type of encounter that has been emerging for a decade or maybe two decades. It is this new type of encounter of our worlds, right? That until today was, had always been extremely problematic, if not murderous, right? The way our Western world met the indigenous worlds was destructive. Today we find ourselves in a different way, in which many young people and adults and people from the global north come in search of knowledge, wisdom, cure, healing, alternatives, looking for answers that our own civilization cannot give us. There is a hunger, a thirst for meaning for something greater, so many people begin to go there with different eyes, with a [00:05:00] respect that I don't think had existed before. And that brings positive things and negative things, obviously. It seems that we are wrong. There is a great curse, that, like everything that the West touches, it eventually turns into a great disaster. It seems like something super nice, super wonderful, illusory, it makes us fall in love, it seduces us, but after a short time we begin to realize the terrible consequences that we bring, right? But something, I don't know, something is also changing, something is shifting. There is a certain maturity on both sides, both on the indigenous side and on the non-indigenous side, to meet from a place where we can celebrate our differences and understand that those differences are material for the construction of a new time , right? So that's the part that brings me a little bit of hope. Chris: Yeah, that's nice. Thank you, Claude. I mean, I feel [00:06:00] a lot of hope, but also despair for someone who has visited several indigenous peoples in the Amazon for about 15 years now, during which time these medicines were gradually reaching the collective mentality of the West. And it has helped me a lot, not only for spiritual reasons, but also for repairing the damage I did to my body, for example, but also getting into those circles, in the Amazon, for example, but also my native land Toronto, Canada and other parts Oaxaca, Mexico. We have seen little by little the neglect of indigenous wisdom, indigenous cultures, medicines, and more than anything, the contradictions that [00:07:00] appear within the "psychedelic renaissance." So, you have been in those for a long time, not only regarding medicine, but also in indigenous cultures in the Amazon. I would like to ask you what you have seen there in the sense of contradictions, about tourism regarding medicine, it can be the side of foreigners coming to heal themselves, or maybe the locals or indigenous people taking advantage of the moment. Claude: All cultures have contradictions. And the main contradiction is between what is said, right? What is professed and what one sees in practice, right? It's like going to church and listening to the pastor talking about what a good Christian should be like. And then you walk around, I don't know, Chicago or Mexico City, and you see what [00:08:00] Christians are like and you say, wow, there's a huge contradiction, right? The contradiction is terrible. When we talk about indigenous peoples and knowledge, indigenous peoples, indigenous wisdom, it seems like we're speaking from a place of idealization, right? And I would not like to fall into that idealization but rather try to be very concrete. One thing is reality, which is truly terrible. We live in a time that is the peak, it is the continuation of a process of colonialism, of extermination that was not something that happened with the arrival of the Spanish, and the Portuguese and the time of the conquest. And it was not something that happened. It's something that keeps happening, . It's something that [00:09:00] It keeps happening. As the great Aílton Krenak, a great indigenous leader from here in Brazil, and an intellectual , member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, recently said, what you don't understand is that your world is still at war with our world. He said that . He says that, in other words, you don't understand that the Western world, the modern world, continues at war and making every effort to make indigenous cultures disappear. I mean, in practice, that's what we're doing. So, when I talk about hope, I'm talking about it because there's something that's emerging, that's new, but it's really very small. And as you say, when, I mean, the expansion of ayahuasca, of San Pedro, of peyote and of a certain [00:10:00] Respect and a certain understanding of the importance of indigenous knowledge , we still don't really understand that, we don't understand. And when we talk from the global north, and what is called the psychedelic renaissance, when they talk about indigenous peoples, there is an idealization, above all, it is only part of a discourse that is a bit " woke. " It's a bit of a way of making your speech pretty, but in practice it's not visible, no, no, it doesn't occupy an important place. The path that this psychedelic revolution is going to follow is already designed, it is to extract the active principles from plants, to make medicines, to make a pill that will help people stay in better shape within the madness that the West proposes. How we give to people [00:11:00] tools to adapt and to resist , that's the absurdity we're subjecting them to , that 's really it. I mean, we need drugs like Brave New World now , not Soma. Are you feeling depressed? Take your pills . You're questioning things too much , take this so you can keep functioning and operating and producing, right? But one thing is very, very clear to me, and that is that we have not yet managed to understand the magnitude of indigenous knowledge. And I say knowledge, not beliefs, because in general, when we talk about indigenous peoples, what a shaman, as they call him, a healer, knows, or what they talk about regarding their spirituality, people think, "ah, those are their beliefs." And in the best of cases, they say, "oh, how nice, we have to respect it, we have to take care of their rights, and they have cultural rights and they have every right to believe in what they believe." But when we say beliefs, it is also a misunderstanding because it has very little of belief in reality. When one studies more, and when one goes deeper into what a healer, an ayahuasca, Shipibo, Ashaninka, Huni Kuin, Karipuna, Noke Koi Kofan, knows how to do, what they know, it has nothing to do with beliefs. It has nothing to do with the religious worship of certain deities. Nothing to do with it. We are talking about deeply practical knowledge, right? It is an accumulation of knowledge over generations and generations by scholars of the jungle, who organize this [00:13:00] knowledge. Socially and also transmitted with a method. There is a very strict, very specific method of transmitting this knowledge and these ways of knowing, so I just gave you a definition not of a religion. I just gave you a definition of science. So what we haven't really understood until now is that the little bit of that knowledge that has survived to this day is much more like a science than a religion. It's much more practical knowledge than a religious belief, right? And in that sense, it's of the utmost importance. And so, when we have more and more people having this experience, what happens? Many people come to the jungle in Iquitos, I have worked for many years, for years I have been like the main center where I have received many people to [00:14:00] take ayahuasca and those things, and people come to heal themselves of things that in their countries, well, no, no one can heal them of depression, trauma, physical things too, but above all psychological things, right? And then they come back and say, "Oh, I took ayahuasca and I was cured." "How did you get cured?" "Oh, I went, I took ayahuasca," but nobody says, "I was drinking with an old man who sang to me every night for half an hour. And then he would come in the morning and ask me what my dreams were like. And then he would come with other medicines and he would give me baths. And when he would give me baths, he would sing to me again. And then he would give me this, and he would give me this medicine and sing to me, and when he would sing to me, he would make me see this kind of... Nobody talks about it. People say, "I took ayahuasca and the ayahuasca cured me," but the old man who was singing just seems like an accessory to an old man singing. But that is not the case. Claude: [00:00:00] Most people say, "Wow, how did you heal from that? What happened? What did you do? "Ah, I already took ayahuasca. Ayahuasca cured me." True? I've actually heard very few people say, "Grandpa, Grandma gave me ayahuasca, but he sang to me for hours, gave me baths, asked me about my dreams, adapted all the plants and the treatment he was doing to my dreams, to what he was seeing. When he sang to me, he guided me to see things, or not see things." It seems as if the old man who sang was an accessory, a decoration. And no, really, we don't give credit to the deep work they do, and the knowledge they put into practice. And it's not strange because it's very difficult to understand how a person singing is going to heal me with a song, right? No, for us, it's very difficult, it doesn't make sense. [00:01:00] It has to be the substance that you took that got into your brain and made some neurological connections. I don't know. It can't be that thing, because for us, it would be magical thinking, right? But as I say, what we call magical thinking is not magical thinking for them. It is a very concrete knowledge that is learned and has learning methods. It is knowledge and skills and abilities that are acquired through transmission methods, right? And up to now we have not really managed to give it the place it deserves. On the contrary, we are impacting this in very profound ways, and there is a fundamental contradiction that I see in this, in going back to the question you asked me. In all this tourism that has arrived, and [00:02:00] this fascination, this interest. What are the impacts that this has had on indigenous communities in the indigenous world, right? So I think there are two things that seem to be a bit contradictory. On the one hand, there is a great blessing. Twenty years ago, you didn't see people our age, young people interested in sitting with their grandparents and really learning, and continuing those traditions and cultivating that kind of knowledge. Most people our age, a little older, up to our age, people who are 50, 55, 60 years old today, didn't want to do anything, no. They wanted to be bilingual intercultural teachers, they wanted to be [00:03:00] professionals, to belong to the white world, right? So, the old people were from a bygone era that was destined to become extinct. So, with the arrival of the Westerners and with this interest in these things, there has been a certain renaissance and above all, a real interest among the youth to learn these things as a professional alternative, let's say. Let's say, hey, why should I be a lawyer? If I, if you look at all the gringos that are coming, I can be this and I'll do better, right? So, on the one hand, there is this part that, today we see, for example, in the Shipibo, a lot of people who are learning, right? Many young people are interested, not only in the Shipibo, but in many places in Brazil, in Colombia, in Ecuador, I see, I see that, a youth that is little by little becoming more interested and [00:04:00] returning to their own roots. It's like, how to say, since you're a kid, they always tell you, "The ancients were crap, that world is over, the only thing that matters is modernity and integrating into urban life, into the official life of this civilization, going to church, having a career, and being someone in life," right? And then it was like, and the states with policies of that nature, the governments, the states of our countries, it was, well, the indigenous question was how do we civilize the Indians. Civilizing the Indian is nothing other than making them forget their systems, their cultures, but as a part of how I say, " woke, " not like, " Oh, how nice the Indians are that they keep their dances, that they keep their folklore, that they keep [00:05:00] their clothes and that they keep certain things that are kind of nice, that they keep as something picturesque and somewhat folkloric, " but without really understanding the depth. But today, I think that to a large extent, thanks to this, not only is it a more complex thing, obviously, but, the youth, seeing that there is this arrival of whites , of foreigners, of gringos, right? Very interested in the knowledge of their grandparents, in medicine. And they go and are there, they say " oh, there must be something interesting here, I also want to learn. " If gringos like this, it's because there must be something good, you know? We got to that point where it was meant to disappear, but one way or another, there's a rebirth, right? At the same time, [00:06:00] In the transmission of this knowledge, as I was saying, it is extremely complex, extremely strict, strict methods of transmission, so it has had to be simplified because young people are no longer capable, having gone to school, having one foot in the city. No, they are not as capable, nor do they have the interest, nor the conditions, nor the aptitudes to really enter into these processes as the grandparents could have done, who today are 70, 80 years old, right , who were really the last . Unless you go very far into the jungle where there are places where there is not much contact, they still have to maintain some things, but they are also far from these circuits, But then, yes, there is a great simplification of these systems. So many things are lost. For better or worse, right? Many people say, well, at least this whole part of witchcraft and [00:07:00] shamanic attacks and all that stuff is being lost, but to which a lot, a lot of importance is given that we also fail to understand, because we see it with that Judeo-Christian vision, that Manichean distinction of good and evil, which in the indigenous worlds does not just not exist, but is totally different, right? And that is part of those differences that are important to understand and respect, right? So, all this part that we see as witchcraft, as diabolical and such, has its function within a system, and that no, trying to make it disappear is to make the system itself disappear, right? Because we don't understand it. It's the same thing that happens, it's what has always happened, something that scandalizes us, so we want to change it, but it scandalizes us from our own worldview and we are not understanding it from the vision of [00:08:00] They do not. It does not mean that everything can be put into perspective, right? There are things that are very difficult, no, and very delicate, but in general, when there is something that scandalizes us, we want to change it, without really going into an understanding of the function of those things, because we are following the same patterns as the priests who arrived 400, 500 years ago. They said, "Oh, this is diabolical. We have to eradicate these things, right?" So we continue doing that. So, on the one hand, we see that there is a rebirth of interest among the youth and a reconnection with their own identity, while at the same time there is a somewhat dangerous simplification of these systems, meaning that the young people who will soon be grandparents do not know half of what their grandparents knew. They know the bare minimum that is needed to give the gringo what he requires, what he needs, what he is looking for, enough to actually do business, and that is not to blame them, but it is part of the system in which we are navigating, because everything works like that. Why are you going to go so deep if this minimum is enough? Especially when we see that many gringos, many foreigners, take ayahuasca a few times or go on a diet, and then they take ayahuasca back to their countries, put on the feathers, grab their little guitar, and start singing these things as decoration around this experience and make a lot of money. And so ayahuasca has been expanding throughout the world, right? And that serves its purpose too. Not to judge, but [00:10:00] there is also, it is a superficiality, many times, hurtful, when you see what a grandfather knows and what he has had to go through, the difficulties, the tests and the responsibilities that an Amazonian healer has for his community, and the systems of accountability that are more or less what keep him in line, that one cannot do what one wants with that power, but rather there is a system of control, when this comes out and goes out in these circles, new age media, hippie media, neo-shamanic media, then that whole issue is lost and they start to invent a lot of things, and above all, a discourse that is quite problematic. So this idea arises that ayahuasca is the universal panacea, and " the little mother ayahuasca " [ 00:11:00] He said, and, " This is what is going to save the world. " So more people have to find a way for more and more people to have this experience to save the world, right? And the truth is that I believe that That is not the case. If it were so, if it were because of the amount of ayahuasca that is consumed in the world, then the world would have already changed, because there is really a lot of ayahuasca consumed . When I was in Europe in the early 2000s, it was very rare to hear about that, right? Nowadays, in any European country, every weekend you can find an ayahuasca ceremony, everywhere. That has expanded . It has become normalized . It is already mainstream, it has become mainstream. But what has become mainstream? Our own interpretation, which is quite problematic about this and it has not been given the place that it should be [00:12:00] It is up to the guardians of that knowledge. So that is what I have to criticize in this whole issue of the psychedelic revolution, that we talk about psychedelic, psychedelic, psychedelic, as the panacea, the thing that can save the world, but how much experience does our society have with psychedelics? Two generations? Maximum? Since Hoffman, and that one, already from the B eat generation, from the 50s. OK?, a bit like that. And then, today, you have psychodelic studies in universities and training in psychedelic therapies that are taught in institutes, of quite important studies. And one wonders, but what does he study? What do they teach them? What can we have accumulated as knowledge in those two generations, given that for more or less 40 years, this has been or 50 or 60 years. This has been prohibited . It was [00:13:00] Illegal . Nowadays it is more or less legalized, so you can study more openly, you can research, you can learn, you can experiment much more, but for many years, it was illegal, it was underground, subterranean, right? So, what have we been able to accumulate as knowledge? It is minimal, it is very superficial, especially if you compare it with what they know there in the jungle, the indigenous people in Mexico, the Wixarika. there where, where you are, the Mazatecs and all those people who have knowledge of mushrooms. That is an extraordinary accumulation of knowledge. The thing is that, because they are Indians, we don't give them a place. What do I care, if you have a PhD from any university in the world and you sit with Indians, inside you have that terrible arrogance that we Westerners have of saying, if I am a doctor, what is an Indian going to teach me? Do you understand? And that, that shows that even though we try to idealize and even though there is great respect, and something is changing, we are still governed by a deep racism. A deep superiority complex, which I believe is the basis of the great problems we have today as humanity. It is really the arrogance and the superiority complex that we have as members of this civilization, which is extraordinary, but it is also what is leading us to the catastrophe , right? It is what is destroying the world. So, there are very uncomfortable truths that we do not want to see but it is the truth, despite all the greatness that we have achieved with this, with the knowledge of our science, it is also our very science that is destroying [00:15:00] the world, our way of understanding and knowing the world. So now, little by little, we are realizing that we need the participation of these other peoples who have other ways of seeing, of understanding, of being in the world, and of knowing, of learning other ways, right? So something very beautiful and extraordinary happens when we bring together people who think differently and it really is no longer a discussion about which is better, which system is better, whether my science or your science or not, but rather it is how we complement our types of knowledge, right? What we were also saying, that is, from our differences, with our differences as material, what is it that we can weave together, which has never been done before, right? So, that is what is also emerging, but in a very [00:16:00] problematic context in which economic, financial interests, big pharmaceuticals, big capital that want to invest in these things arise and the great holders of this knowledge are not given a place. And above all, they are not given a place in dialogue, nor in the creation of agreements, but they are not given a financial share of what can be collected as benefits from their knowledge, right? So we continue to reproduce that colonial system, that system of exploitation of others and of the land, of nature for the benefit of capital, for the benefit of generating economic income, right? So we are in that, it is highly complex. [00:17:00] There are good things and there are negative things. There is also a huge impact in the Amazon with all these people arriving, but positive impacts. I have met many leaders in the Amazon who tell me "thanks to you for coming here. We are returning to our roots." "If it weren't for you, we would already be lost." So there is something that is happening, which is something very positive, but also, as we come with these programs, we are not able to give it the depth that we could be achieving. And again, I think that what is at the base is our terrible superiority complex, that we believe that we all know it and that, well, we are better and that, what is it going to teach us, do you understand? Even though something is changing, even though there is a little hope, there is still a long way to go, [00:18:00] no? Chris: Mm. Thank you Claude for being able to pull out some of the threads from the enormous knot we live in. Well, yes, I feel that one of the things that is least heard in our times from people who have comments, opinions, whatever, is, well, "I don't know the truth, I don't know." In other words, there is a huge lack of humility. I think that people who criticize the psychedelic revolution or renaissance, or people who celebrate it, right? I mean, there is a great lack of humility, as well as deep time or historical knowledge, we can say, and as you mentioned, the issue of the grandparents and the relationships that people have, that is, the Amazons and the indigenous peoples for thousands and thousands of [00:19:00] years with their places. And as they gradually deepened their own place within the other beings in their ecology, in their ecosystem, their ecosystems, and that, this idea that someone can go to a place like that, take the medicine like a pill as soon as they come back or simply stay and say "ah, it cured me" or something. Well, that, that sounds pretty fascinating to me, right? And because, for me in the end it also has to do with the relationship with the elders or wise men of a place. I mean, my teacher once told me that it is the young people who make elders, who make wise men who act like elders, right? It is not the old people. I mean, the old people are the vehicle for the function of that wisdom. But it is the young people who have to ask and [00:20:00] that. It seems that it is very, very lost in the Western world. I mean, rather the urban people, the people from the North, the vast majority are migrants or immigrant families. So, I feel that the relationship we have with medicine, which is just medicine, is a pill or although yes, it is a being that, as you said, as we sometimes do not have the capacity to understand, the place of the human grandfather, grandmother in that relationship, well, there are many, many directions we can go in that sense, but also what I've seen, what I've heard, I've read a little is about the deforestation of medicines, sacred plants, and that people are [00:21:00] slowly domesticating plants and that domesticated plants do not have the same strength, partly because they are harvested younger and younger, earlier and earlier than they mature, and that this also perhaps has something to do with our Western context like the need or speed or velocity at which we need to get and consume medicine and be cured, etc. So I understand that you have also been working for some organizations that work specifically on the conservation of medicines, and also, others that work in education and research on ethnobotany. So, I'd like to ask you about ICEERS and MSCF has [00:22:00] a, a fixed perspective or maybe from your perspective, how are we going on that path? Claude: Look, that is a problem that corresponds to that same system, right? In other words, for example, when this fund, this foundation, which is the fund for the conservation of indigenous medicines or INC for its name in English, emerged. The first concern that arose, that is, the first impulse and the first seed capital to launch this was exactly that idea, right? These medicines are expanding, more and more people are going to need them, they are going to use them. So there will be an impact on the sustainability of these plants. Its continuity is going to be put at risk, right? When I was asked to [00:23:00] work on this and help create this fund, and they put it to me in those terms, my answer was negative. I said I have no interest in working on that. Because, in other words, it's: How do we guarantee demand? How do we make sure we have enough? We're going to start peyote plantations and ayahuasca plantations so that we don't run out, so that there's enough for all the people in the world who are going to need it. And I said, I have no interest in doing that. Besides, I don't think that's the real problem. I said now if it were about the conservation of knowledge, we are talking about something else. That is what is really precious and we must put all our efforts [00:24:00] so that there is continuity, so that it does not disappear as it is disappearing, it disappears. Every time a grandparent dies and many have died lately, especially with COVID, many grandparents have died, well, it is lost, it is lost, I mean, it is a tragedy for all of humanity, that a grandparent dies who did not have the possibility of transmitting that knowledge to one, two, three of his children, his grandchildren, that there is no one who will know what he knows, well, it is a tragedy for all of us. So, when we are thinking about how we are going to do it? Is ayahuasca going to run out, or are there plantations, if it is not the same, it is a valid concern, obviously, within our logic. But we forget that the main thing is the conservation of this knowledge. So, both [00:25:00] MSC as ICEERS is increasingly focusing on a deep work of developing relationships, cultivating relationships with these grandparents who hold knowledge, with these communities that still practice, maintain their systems, right? And working with them, let's say for them, with programs, and with projects, and processes that are designed by them, guided by them, and we only dedicate ourselves to giving technical and financial support, right? To guarantee this, then, by doing this, by dedicating ourselves more to the conservation of this knowledge, we realize that culture cannot survive without the [00:26:00] territory. The knowledge of our ancestors is meaningless without a territory, right? And when we talk about the conservation of the Amazon, we cannot understand the conservation of ecosystems without the conservation of the cultures that have lived there for thousands of years. I mean, everything goes hand in hand, right? So with a much more holistic vision, let's say a broader one. Well, we understand that, by taking care of the culture and putting all the necessary efforts for the continuity of those cultures, we are also taking care of the Amazon, taking care of biodiversity, taking care of water, taking care of medicines, taking care of everything. Do you understand? There are already huge plantations of ayahuasca and chacruna in Brazil. You find plantations in different parts of the world, [00:27:00] In Hawaii, and in Costa Rica, and in different places. People have been planting for years. So, there is, no, that is not going to be lacking. What we are not going to be lacking is that we are being left without that knowledge. And that is a great loss because I am certain, I am convinced that in that knowledge are the keys, the answers that can help us solve the great challenges that humanity faces today. With our science we are not going to solve them, we are, we are in a civilizational crisis, we are in a global crisis, and the only thing that scientists tell us is that we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And there they go for 20 years or more trying to do that, and they don't get it. No [00:28:00] Not only is it insufficient to think of it in such a reductionist way, but they are also sticking to one thing and not achieving it, we have not achieved anything, right? What we really need is a change of direction, a change to understand a much greater depth of what our relationship is as a species with this planet. And for that we need the understanding of the most extraordinary things that humanity has preserved until today, not only from Western civilization, but from all of us, right? So, every time a language is lost, every time a wise grandfather dies, it is a tragedy for all of humanity. So, it's great that we use these medicines, it's great that these practices are expanding, but this serves, [00:29:00] as an initial process, like opening a window to a world of possibilities. So, I like that there are people giving ayahuasca in the United States, in Europe. I like it because a lot of people have the experience and say, "wow, there really is something more. There really is a whole world here that I had no idea existed and that I could read a million things about, and I can believe or not believe, but having the experience, I don't need to believe anymore. I know there is something. I know that nature is alive. I know that nature speaks, I know that there is a way to communicate with the subtlety of the functioning of this planet, of the waters, of the rivers, of the winds of the mountains. Everything is a system that is alive, and there is a way to communicate with that and maintain a deep, symbiotic relationship, of profound respect and love with all of this, right? So, it's [00:30:00] important for many people to have that kind of experience, but then what? After that experience, what? We go back to our normal life, to our usual work, to the difficulty of our daily relationships and the drama of the impossibility of maintaining a deep connection with the fabric of life. Everything about our civilization is designed to keep us disconnected from life, from the functioning of life on this planet, right? So that's what we have to aim for, because the problem is not greenhouse gas emissions, the problem is our relationship with the world. It is not the stories that make us believe that the world is a source of resources to extract, transform and generate wealth. That story is deeply [00:31:00] problematic. And when we talk to the wise men, to the elders, to the indigenous people, we hear these stories. We realize. Wow. These stories need to be heard. These stories need to be told in different spaces. And these grandparents, these wise men need to occupy their rightful place at the negotiating table of humanity. It is not about preserving this as something folkloric , as a right of these poor people who have the right to live, as they have always lived, as they want to live. No, it is about our survival. So, that is what I think we should be aiming for, and especially the issue of the psychedelic renaissance revolution, I think it is a spearhead. It is a first entry in which we are going little by little, proving that it is not about [00:32:00] Not only to convince rhetorically, but it is necessary to demonstrate, with facts, the relevance, the usefulness of this knowledge for today's world, right? So, the issue of health and the issue of mental health is like a gigantic problem, right? Huge, hyper complex. It's the first thing that more and more scientists and decision-makers are realizing. "Wow, these people here know something that we don't know and they have a way of knowing and understanding the functioning of the human mind and spirit that we have no idea about and that really works." So that's like a first part, like a spearhead. We're entering a place to be able to show the world. "Hey, what these [00:33:00] people know is important not only for them, not only for the continuity of their cultures, their traditions, not only for the safeguarding of the Amazon rainforest but for all of humanity." Right? And it is very sad to see in our countries, in Colombia. Well, in Colombia there is another level of much more mature understanding about the indigenous. I think they are much more advanced in that sense, but in Brazil, in Peru, in Ecuador, in Mexico, we are not giving the importance that this problem deserves, that is, to the rescue of the little that has survived of that extraordinary knowledge that is kept in the jungles, in the deserts, in the mountains, that has been kept secret until today, that is, it is heroic that it has [00:34:00] survived until today. And today we are realizing the relevance and importance of all that. So when we talk about conservation, we are talking about biocultural conservation. Understanding that you cannot preserve a culture without preserving its entire territory, without the rights of those peoples over their territories, and you cannot preserve ecosystems and rights if you do not make every effort to preserve those cultures that have lived in profound respect, in symbiosis with those ecosystems. And we have a lot to learn. This whole issue of international cooperation, of NGO aid, of indigenous peoples' projects is a sad and absurd paternalism that basically says "poor Indians, let's help them." Let's help them with what? Let's help them to be more like us. That's what we're doing, believing that [00:35:00] we are the best. But then we're increasingly understanding that there's much more we can learn from them than them becoming us. We have to re-indigenize ourselves, you know? We have to return to certain roots that allow us a deep connection with life, with nature, with all the beings that live in our territory. And that is what nature itself, the earth itself is telling us, it is calling us. In other words, if you continue to be so disconnected, we are going to exterminate you. You have to reconnect with that, so I think there is something new that is emerging, which is wonderful, right? And I hope that this reaches more and more people. We are working hard for that, really . Chris: Mm, well thank you very much for that work Claude. And for having the ability to sharpen the knife, in these times and in our conversation, to remove the fat, let's say, whatever we call it. I feel that it is, it is a very hard job, right? I mean, for me, that is the end of tourism, the ability to stop, to see the world as something that exists only for your tastes. Something that exists in a temporary sense, that is to say disposable. But that will last like a lot of work in the sense of remembering, of remembering that at some point your ancestors, the urban ones, those from the north, etc., were indigenous. But what happened? What has happened? What broke [00:37:00] that relationship with the land? And that, that is a very, very strong and obviously generational and intergenerational work, then. Well, there is much more that we can talk about and hopefully we will have the opportunity at some point, but I wanted to thank you for my part, for the podcast and the listeners. And finally, I wanted to ask you, and for our listeners, if there is a way to follow your work or contact you, if you are willing to do that, how can they find out about ICEERS and MSC? Claude: Well, you see, MSC's work is very important. And so, if we need more people to join, to donate, we need to channel a lot of [00:38:00] resources to be able to do these things well, right? With few resources we are doing incredible things, but we are already seeing that, we have reached levels where we can manage much greater resources. So, if people feel inspired and can go to the MSC or ICEERS website, and MSC fund FND , see what we are doing, the different projects we have there and feel inspired to donate or get resources, well, great. ICEERS also does an extraordinary job in the creation of knowledge, scientific articles and legal defense of these holders of these medicines. I work with political advocacy with people who make decisions in the world. [00:39:00] So we are fighting there for the rights of indigenous peoples, for the right to use these medicines that are illegal in many places, and also above all, to tell people that more than going to the jungle, or taking ayahuasca near their places, many times there is also a reserve nearby, some elders, indigenous peoples who are close to you, right? In your countries, near your cities. And so it is time to reconnect, and it is very difficult, but the truth is that it is worth it, to go, to see what they need, how we can help, how we can collaborate, simply with that presence, with another type of meeting, and to cultivate those relationships of friendship, it is something, it is something very important that we can do today, and that, [00:40:00] Well, the earth is crying out for us to reconnect. And there are the grandparents, there are still grandparents who, as you say, are just waiting for the young people to come and ask, right? And many times when they are not the young people from their communities, they are very happy when people from outside come with these questions, because they help them practice, they help them share, but they also inspire the young people from their community to sit down with their grandparents. I think it's a time when it's very important to sit down with our grandparents again, and our grandparents are there and they need us a lot. So let's do it. Chris: Hey, thanks bro. I'll make sure those links are on the End of Tourism page when I release the episode. And [00:41:00] well, from the north to the south I send you a big hug. And thank you for your time today, for your work and for your commitments, Claude. Claude: Nice to meet you, Chris, thanks to you. Thanks for what you're doing. Cheers. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

1
S6 #4 | Radicalismo Rigido y el Algoritmo | alF Bojorquez 1:08:39

9 weeks тому1:08:39

1:08:39

En este episodio, mi invitada es Alf Bojórquez, novelista y ensayista yucateca. Su primera novela, Pepitas de calabaza (2023) salió en la editorial Fondo Blanco. Se segundo libro, No existe dique capaz de contener al océano furioso. Potencia, alegría y anarquismo , apareció hace unos meses. Fue ganadora del premio Moving Narratives (2024) de Prince Claus Fund y el British Council. Ha hecho giras en América Latina, Europa, Estados Unidos, Marruecos y Filipinas haciendo lecturas de su obra y dando talleres sobre narrativa, arte y teoría crítica. Tiene un programa de radio sobre lo mismo que se puede escuchar gratis en cualquier aplicación de podcasts: Un sueño largo, ancho y hondo . Ha colaborado con varios colectivos y organizaciones abajo y a la izquierda. Notas del Episodio * La traduccion de Joyful Militancy a Militancia Alegre * Diferencias en el radicalismo rigido entre norte y sur * Recuperando la miltancia y el contexto contemporaneo en militancia alegre * Tejiendo a la Organización Revolucionaria * La perdida de propiedad comunal en Mexico y la llegada del turismo * Las redes sociales como una arma del imperio * La imagen y la gestion, el usuario y el premio * Contraturismo como peregrinaje Tarea * Pagina profesional - Instagram * Un sueño largo, ancho y hondo - Instagram * No existe dique capaz de contener al océano furioso - Volcana - Polilla - Utopicas - Traficantes de Suenos - Novedades don Gregorio (OAX) * Militancia alegre: Tejer Resistencias, florecer en tiempos toxicas * Pepitas de calabaza Transcripcion en espanol (English Below) Chris: [00:00:00] Bienvenida al podcast El Fin del Turismo, Alf. Un placer hablar contigo hoy. Alf: Ajá. Chris: Este me gustaría empezar preguntándote donde te encuentras hoy y cómo se ve el mundo a través de tus ojos? Alf: Este hoy me encuentro en mi cocina. Desde ahí trabajo yo. En la ciudad de México, en una colonia se llama Iztaccihuatl. Cómo se ve el mundo? Pues mira, yo no tengo una vista tan mala. Este no es un edificio grande, pero tengo una vista linda, no? O sea, no me tapa la vista otro edificio ni nada. Se ven muchas plantas. Y bueno, supongo que sabes que yo soy de provincia. Entonces yo siempre he sentido que aquí donde yo vivo es como una, un poquito provincia en la capital, porque no hay edificios tan grandes. Este y bueno, desde aquí se ve, se me olvida que estoy en CDMX ahora, sabes a Chris: Gracias. Pues eres entre otras cosas, autora de varios [00:01:00] textos entre ellos Pepitas de Calabaza y el muy reciente No Existe Dique Capaz de Contener al Océano Furioso. También coordinaste la traducción al español del texto en inglés de Militancia Alegre: Deje Resistencias Florecer en Tiempos T óxicos. (o Joyful Militancy) A esa traducción le siguió un podcast complementario con Pamela Carmona titulado Alegría Emergente: Deshaciendo el Radicalismo Rígido. Entonces, para empezar, me gustaría preguntarte cómo conociste, el libro Joyful Militancy y qué te llevó a traducirlo. Alf: Yo conocí ese libro. Lo cuento un poquito en el prólogo, pero yo conocí ese libro, en Estados Unidos, porque yo tenía una banda. Yo toqué en una banda de hardcore punk muchos, muchos años, la batería. Y entonces así accedí a Estados Unidos y estando [00:02:00] en el underground americano, que fue una parte importante de mi de mi de mi vida, estando en en California en concreto. Me encontré ese libro como en una cafetería y yo me enamoré. Entonces lo traje y primero lo leí en inglés con alguna gente y muy lentamente empecé a trabajar con ese libro, traducir. Eso es una historia más larga que está ahí bien en el prólogo, pero bueno, llevo años como militando ese libro. También hubieron una serie de coincidencias de gente muy amable como Tumba a la Casa, como los autores canadienses, los derechos nos los regalaron. Se metió la gente de Traficantes de Sueno. O sea, en realidad hay un montón de gente. Es como una red de redes, ese libro y una serie de casualidades y favores y gestos agradables de mucha gente que logró que eso saliera como salió, la verdad. O sea, yo pienso mi irrepetible, esa esa serie de factores. Ajá. Chris: Ah chingón. Muy bien, Bueno, pues ese libro originalmente [00:03:00] se publicaron en 2016. A leer, reeler y traducir ese texto, tengo curiosidad por saber que crees que ha cambiado de este entonces, o qué diferencias principales has visto entre el radicalismo rígido descrito en el libro de la anglosfera o America norte, Anglosajona y la hispanesfera o Latinoamérica? Alf: Este? Pues muchas cosas que decir, no. La parte que confirmé yo fui trabajando ese libro, eh? Porque digamos que yo, todavía este año presenté ese libro. O sea, y le fue muy bien en Costa Rica. Fue la última. A mí se me acabaron los ejemplares. Y digamos, terminé mi labor con con Militancia en Costa Rica hace dos, tres meses. No es tanto, no? O sea todavía después de la del programa de radio con Pamela, se hizo en Costa Rica de presentación y le fue muy bien, eh? Y se [00:04:00] reimprimió ese sí. Ese libro fue un éxito de muchas maneras, no? Y fíjate a mí. Una cosa que con por me pasaban los años, no me gustó, es que yo siento que tiene un lado como muy liberal, osea, hay un lado donde es demasiado suave, no? O sea, al criticar lo rígido, siento que se pasa de flexible, por decir así. Entonces, y eso pasa un poco como con ciertos radicalismos del norte, que tienen que ver con la retórica de la amistad de la ternura como tan enfocados en el cuidado. Y así, yo siento que sin querer como por llevarle la contraria al opuesto, como el machismo lo rígido, bla, bla, bla, caen en una cosa un poco... o sea yo siendo que ese el libro o por lo menos mi lectura de ese libro, ya estas alturas, si lo siendo demasiado suave, porque yo creo que la parte negativa de militar y de organizarse, pues es importante, no, eh? Es importante de hablar, no? Entonces, cierto que en el libro, se pasa de buena onda, por [00:05:00] decirlo asi. Creo que por eso es un éxito porque hay lado "pop" en ese libro, un lado suavecito, dulcecito, que se mastica bien. Y está bien para los activismo, pero hay una parte en mi que dice bueno, pero hay que hablar del resentimiento, hay que hablar del odio. Hay que hablar de la importancia de romper entre nosotras, de pelearnos entre nosotros, sin caer en el castigo y la culpa y la persecución. Pero yo sí, creo que la ruptura o la negatividad en general ese el libro no lo logra del todo. Habría que ir a otros lados y pienso que de un año para acá, desde que se recrudeció el genocida ahora, pues justo toca repensar el antiimperialismo, toca repensar cosas que no pueden ser tan flexibles, no? O sea, pues están matando, están cayendo bombas y no se trata de vamos a ver si nos cae el 20 o no, o cuando nos cae el 20. Pues hay un imperio gestionando un genocidio que se recrudeció muy fuerte el último año. Y eso implica, se endurece, se endurece. O sea, ha cambiado el panorama político. Y hay [00:06:00] procesos donde podemos ser muy flexibles y pacientes, pero hay procesos donde no, donde hay que responder porque la bomba te ca en la cabeza, o sea, y ya está. Entonces me recuerdo un poco como en los del paso de los 60s a los 70s, o el paso hacia los 20, no? O sea, históricamente esto ha pasado. Se acaba el hipismo y y llega la guerrilla. Se acaba el anarquismo y empieza el partido comunista. O sea, hay momentos donde la historia te come y se vuelve un poquito más pues no te voy a decir duro, pero pero sí, incluso en el norte, los anarquistas que venían de escribir ese libro como muy ticunistas se están volviendo más de izquierda, más revolucionario, más leninistas mucho. Y yo creo que eso tiene que ver, bueno, una especie el leninismo, pues moderno o buena onda. El tipo zapatismo en versión anglo, pero yo creo que eso tiene que ver con las condiciones actuales. Yo creo que antes de la pandemia, después de la pandemia, son dos planetas, tanto por el reconocimiento de genocidia, como porque lo que se [00:07:00] hizo toda la década que para mí acaba en pandemia. Pues tenía un lado muy chido, pero también a un lado muy de todo es válido. La insurrección ya está aquí. Y pues ahora decimos no, pues no está aquí. No estamos parando a Estados Unidos este el imperio, no lo estamos parando. En otros momentos de la historia, si se la podido o poner ciertos límites al imperialismo." No del todo, pero se han ganado algunas luchas. Entonces, bueno, ese libro creo que fue de su época. O sea, 2016 y ese anarquismo de la amistad y de hay que conectar y fluir y todo ese lado que para un poco hippie. Creo que es muy de su momento, de la década pasada, pero yo creo que esa época, ya no es la nuestra, por las por las condiciones. O sea, porque estamos reaccionando y respondiendo y organizándonos frente a otros problemas. Chris: Claro, claro. Y si podrias actualizarlo en tus propios palabras, cuáles serían los temas más importantes [00:08:00] para cambiar o reemplazar? Alf: O sea, mira te voy a contar de otro libro, pero también es del norte. Entonces, pues no me encanta darle tanto entre ellos, pero un libro que, por ejemplo, le respondería fuerte de ese libro, sería este que me regalaban los de Traficantes, ahora que trabaje con ellos en en Madrid, que se llama Hacia Una Nueva Guerra Civil Mundial, de Lazzarato, no? Entonces digo, lo que pasa es que él es un leninista, no? Entonces, le pega duro, le pega duro. O sea, pero esto ha pasado siempre, pero hay varias banda que está respondiendo, no? O sea, por ejemplo, en el caso de este libro que te a acaba de mencionar Lazzarato. Pues él dice que los últimos 50 años, incluido militancia, que estaría al final de 50 años, lo político como tal no se habló? Entonces, si le aplicas Lazzarato a Militancia Alegre, efectivamente, nunca se habla de que a ver, o sea, el gobierno estadounidense control el mundo y va ganando. O sea, y hubieron luchas en los 60s, 70s, que lograron más o menos parar [00:09:00] ese imperialismo, los liberaciones nacionales, por ejemplo. Las luchas de empezamos por Vietnam, Malher y Cuba y acabando con otras. Si más o menos se le pudo parar a ese imperialismo de ese momento? Pero por ejemplo, Militancia en ni un solo momento habla de política en un sentido duro, no? O sea anti-Trump, por ejemplo, anti-global como global north o norte y global. O sea, en el sentido que gobiernan en el mundo, no? Y eso no se habla no? O sea, en ningún momento se dice bueno, nosotras, como norte, tenemos una deuda con el sur, no solo económica, sino política, no? O sea, en cuanto a no permitir la autonomía de los sur. Y palestina y Líbano es el, pues es el caso más extremo, no? Aunque aquí es lo mismo, no? O sea, la lucha la guerra contra los zapatistas es el mismo genocidio, con la misma bala. O sea el mismo inversionista, las mismas ganancias. Es el mismo genocidio. Entonces, pero no hablar de eso, no hablar de lo meramente político, [00:10:00] no? O sea de como Morena trabaja para el gobierno gringo y mata a los zapatistas y los centroamericanos. Al no hablar de este tipo de cosas como duramente políticas. O sea, como Trump controla a la milicia mexicana, la la la. Pues sí que es un libro hippie, no? O sea, en el sentido de que, ahí los leninistas tienen un punto. En este caso, Lazzarato pero mucha otra banda, al contestarle a la banda anárquica. Si muy chida la amistad y muy chida la... Lets tune in. O sea, está bien, pero tú estás parada en un mundo que de beneficia de destruir este mundo donde tú y yo estamos parada, no? Entonces, de muchas maneras: lo real, lo simbólico en lo económico. El turismo, para mí solo es un capítulo de esa serie de industrias de muerte. Entonces no, al no hablarlo. Yo pienso que es un libro que omite el lugar de enunciación principal, que es el imperio si habla del imperio, pero yo siento que si le faltó lo político político. Osea, como el norte domina y controla [00:11:00] al sur, el gobierno del norte en concreto. Al no hablar eso pues si hizo darle un libro que pues no sé cómo va a envejecer. O sea, digo, bueno, a ver cómo le va, porque porque sí que sirve para lo que sirvió Tiqqun y esas cosas en su momento que era contestarle a la izquierda vertical, por decir así. Pero ese momento, por lo menos en el norte, ya pasó, no? Y ellos esos mismos ya regresaron a la verticalidad. O sea, los que atacaron al leninismo, estamos en esta otra. Entonces chistosasto porque ellos tienen sus propios ciclos y nosotras tenemos otros ciclos de lucha, no? Y otras genealogías y otras retóricas. O sea, es muy diferente. Ahí la traducción. Por eso milita tanto ese libro porque, había que defender nuestro propio contexto, no? Y decir bueno, es la genealogia de ellos, la nuestra tiene otras conceptos. O sea, ha ganado guerras y revoluciones. Hay muchos triunfos en nuestra historia del sur. De hecho, en la del norte hay más derrotas y en cambio, [00:12:00] las liberaciones nacionales, pues prácticamente todas triunfaron, si las piensas, contra el imperialismo. Claro que ya no está de moda hablar de eso porque de colonial ya está en otra... ya se fue a otro lado. No? La mayoría de de anticolonial ya no está viniendo su genealogía en las luchas de liberación nacional y o la violencia? Ya la violencia pasó de moda y justo este libro tiene algo de eso? Como de no hay que hablar de cómo en México tuvimos que tirar balazos para recuperarlo un poco que tenemos. No! Hay que hablar de la amistad del amor, la ternura. Esa parte es la que yo pienso que ya no le habla mucho a nuestro tiempo y a ver qué va a pasar después, a ver qué va a pasar después. No, aunque tienes utilidad, no? O sea, mucha gente que está en el activismo vive con mucho, cariño de ese libro y está bien. O sea, Creo que está bien. Yo creo que le falta la parte política y negativa, pero bueno, no lo pudimos pedir todo a un solo libro. No. Eso es lo que hicieron los europeos con nosotros, traer la biblia y [00:13:00] matarnos pretexto de un solo libro. Entonces yo creo que no hay que caer. Eso es, es colonial quererle pedir todo a un solo libro. Si ese libro dio lo que tuvo que dar en su contexto y ese contexto para mí pasó este listo. O sea, fue una herramienta útil que respondió y ya este lo que sigue. Chris: Pues sí, este recuerdo que hubo una, una nota de pie en en el libro, de Silvia Federici y la tengo. La cita aquí decía que "lo que más importa es descubrir y recreer la memoria colectiva de las luchas pasadas. En los Estados Unidos, hay un intento sistemático de destruir esta memoria. Y ahora esto se está extendiendo por todo el mundo. Revivir la memoria de las luchas del pasado nos hace sentir ser parte de algo más grande que nuestras vidas individuales y de esta manera de un nuevo sentido a lo que estamos haciendo y nos da coraje, porque nos hace tener menos miedo en lo que [00:14:00] nos puede pasar individualmente." Y siento que hay algo allá como también la, no sé si está impulsado desde arriba o si es solo una falta de memoria, pero sí, siento que es, es muy fuerte que hay una falta de linaje, en la política en el día de hoy, en los momentos sociales contemporáneos. Pero pues, quería preguntarte un poco de tus experiencias también con el turismo. Me gustaría preguntarle de qué tipo de reacciones recibiste, recibieron cómo resultado del podcast y si esas conversaciones cambiaron sus ideas sobre los temas tratados. Alf: Este una parte había que preguntárselo directo a Pame porque yo creo que ella lo vivió a su forma también. Pero bueno, pues fue muy chido. Primero que nada, lo lo bonito. Ese programa varias cosas. Primero, ese programa fue apoyado por el instituto de estudios anarquistas americano, y eso [00:15:00] fue lindo, tener el apoyo. O sea, no precarizarnos tanto. Y tampoco tener que pedirle dinero a gente de mierda para hacer co chidas no, eso siempre se siente bien. Como no traicionar el contenido, o sea que vaya mucho la forma con el fondo, no. Entonces, de entrada, eso fue muy alegre. De segunda gran alegría, yo siempre trabajo a puerta cerrada. Yo soy un poco celosa de mi trabajo. Entonces, pues a abrir la puerta y trabajar con no solo dos, vieron un podcast que éramos cuatro, cinco. Eso es rarísimo. Yo nunca había hecho eso. Yo no suelo hacer eso. Si, trabajo con gente, pero no con el micrófono, normalmente no, eh? Siempre trabaj o con grupos y movimientos y cosas, pero digamos que a puerta cerrada por decir así o o coyunturas específicas. Entonces, primero la congruencia que yo siento que tuvo ese programa, como alinearnos en un anarquismo internacionalista, que yo creo que hay que recuperar. El internacionalismo en general, eh? Y creo que a [00:16:00] veces la lucha contra el turismo sin querer se vuelve muy nacionalista y no distingue entre migrante y turista esas cosas, como en un México, es mejor que todo lo demás. Un poco raro, pero bueno, antes de perderme, yo creo que ahí hubo un gesto internacionalista lindo. O sea, entre anarquistas del norte con los del sur primero y segundo, pues, abrir el micro porque que yo no es algo que suelo o solía hacer hasta hace hasta este año, por decir, o sea, yo llevo en un monólogo de locutora varios años porque mi parte social la hago cuerpo a cuerpo, por decir así. Y ya te podría platicar muchas cosas. Pero a mí me emociono muchísimo el programa con Tejiendo a la Organización Revolucionaria, eh? La verdad me encantó. O sea, a mí ellos me parece que hacen un trabajo importante. Y me parece que nuestro tiempo se está pensando desde los revolucionarios también. No necesariamente como la decada pasada la insurreccional y el todo se vale. Este, yo creo que está [00:17:00] cambiando un poco esos enfoques y justo ellos que llevan más de 20 años y son como 50 personas organizadas desde abajo con mucha claridad y mucha fuerza. Pues hicimos un puente muy chido, no entre en anarquismo y otras partes de la izquierda radical, que normalmente no nos damos la mano y no platica. O sea, no es común ni es fácil. Y cuando se da, suele ser tenso. Y no hubo para mí nada de tensión, al revés. Hubo una complementación muy chida contorno. Es el último capítulo de Emergente. Bueno, o sea, y siento que conecta con Militancia Alegre. O sea, llamarla en militancia y no "activismo alegre" era una provocación de los autores. Y yo creo que movimiento es como ?, entre muchos otros que se mencionan justos son militantes, no activistas, no? O sea que el activista tiene genealogía muy del norte y muy de los noventas para acá. Y yo creo que ellos como que leídos por "los cool" que Militancia Alegre sigue siendo el libro más cool, como que no suelen voltear, la gente cool, no suele voltear a ver a ese tipo de militancias como Thor. [00:18:00] Todos estuvieron muy chidos, pero yo le tengo especial cariño, a ese último, porque sí, pienso que hay que pensar alianzas insólitas, como todas las izquierdas radicales, tratar de articular. Y para mí, eso lo más cercano fue contorno. Y yo lo sigo reescuchando. Y hay cosas que me dejar pensando, por ejemplo, lo que dicen de los sectores de la clase trabajadora, que hay un sector indígena, entonces se pelean entre ellos y como son sectorizados, en fin a mí, hay varias cosas que ellos me hacen pensar. Me hacen pensar mucho. Y su chamba es muy chida. Solo que, como no es la más cool y como nice. No tiene este super diseño ni nada. Pues mucha gente no les presta atención. Entonces yo, para mí, fue importante darles el micro a ellos y más bien me faltaron programas con ellos, la verdad. Entonces, para mí, eso fue muy lindo, con el pretexto del libro, porque la verdad, casi ni hablamos o muy poquito. Ya haber podido entrevistar, por ejemplo, a Raquel Gutiérrez. De poder pues yo hubiera [00:19:00] entrevistado a John Holloway. O sea, yo me hubiera seguido. Lo que pasa es que la chamba entrevistadora es muy distinta a la que yo hago como locutora, o sea, es otro camino. Y pues, el recurso. Pues no lo hay. Claro. Claro. Porque esa lo pudimos hasta pagar un poquitito de dinero a la gente que entrevistamos. Pudimos autocobrar un poquitito. Pagarle a la diseñadora. Fue muy distinto a todo lo que yo hago. No este ese ese programa. Insisto por el apoyo internacionalista que poco o mucho, pues fue muy lindo tener, porque normalmente no se puede pagar entrevistas y cosas, que es chistoso tanto tanto de lucha de clases, con compas que pu pues obviamente les cuesta venir para acá. Chris: Ya no, pues es muy difícil, pero sí, fue un episodio muy bonito. Y lo voy a poner en el sitio web d El Fin de Turismo cuando lanzamos este podcast y también por los que quieren saber, es el último episodio de Alegría Emergente. Pues, hablando de tus obras Alf [00:20:00] en Pepitas de Calabaza, exploras algunos temas periférico de turismo, desde la Merida en la que creciste, los chiqui loteros o aquellos que dividen grandes lotes en lotes pequeños para venderlos a un precio normalmente superior, a veces a extranjeros. Es uno de esos temas. Cómo influyó tu tiempo en Merida en tu comprensión del turismo? Alf: Primero, extender un poco la la invitación a la lectura de mi trabajo. Este el tema de la propiedad y del turismo y del colonialismo, básicamente atraviesa toda toda mi obra, pero medida en concreto que que te interesa con Pepitas también es algo que menciono en el libro nuevo. Él No Existe Dique Capaz de Contar y hablo específicamente de cómo el turismo, la industria del turismo ha ido como arrebatándonos a quienes venimos de las clases populares. Crecimos abajo y demás, sobre todo el placer, el ocio. Olvídate de la [00:21:00] tierra. Si el acceso al agua, una serie de cosas, no. Entonces ahí se trabaja un poco más elabor adamente pero efectivamente desde Pepitas. Pues a mí, es un tema que me, central en mi trabajo. El tema del colonialismo, porque para mí, hablar de turismo se hablar de colonialismo actual, colonialismo interno externo, pero es el colorismo vigente. O sea, es un desplazamiento, parte de un proceso de desplazamiento em. Entonces, en Pepitas, pues efectivamente eso es un protagonista, que digamos es el burgués nacional, por decirlo como muy teóricamente el chiquilotero, le decimos regionalmente, que es el es el terrateniente. No es Carlos Slim. O sea, no es el más rico, el lo rico, pero es, digamos, el terrateniente de mediano alcance que puede comprar tierra y fragmentarla y venderla, especular con la tierra, al final. Pero en el sur resiste, el año pasado, para para subir el tono a lo político otra vez... El el año pasado en el sur [00:22:00] resiste, nos decía el Congreso Nacional Indígena, que la mitad de la tierra en México es propiedad social, no? Y esto lo platicaba presentando no Existe Dique con Yasnaya Aguilar porque Oaxaca es un caso distinto y da mucha envidia. Tiene una tercera forma de tierra que en la tierra comunal, pero no vamos entrar a las legalidades. El sureste de México, como representa a Paco y hablo en mi segundo libro también este de ah, el turismo ha entrado porque legalmente, desde el 92 se cambió la constitución y se ha roto la propiedad ejidal y ha entrado la propiedad privada, no? Entonces, para llevarlo lo meramente político, luchar en contra del turismo hoy en México sería exigir que no se pueda vender, como en Oaxaca existe la propiedad comunal, no en ninguna otra parte del país hasta donde yo sé, que no se pueda legalmente vender esa tierra. Entonces, para no abstraer, o sea para ir a concreto, el turismo avanza, por el primermundista, coludido con [00:23:00] con con el tercermundista de la clase alta, en este caso, Paco, para romper la la propiedad social y meter la propiedad individual o privada, no? Si hubiera un mecanismo que la revolución mexicana nos heredó, ese mecanismo legal no podría existir el turismo en México, por lo menos no legalmente. Entonces, como desde el 92, se terminó de caer lo que nos quedaba de revolucion mexicana y que se peleó a balazos. Hay que recuperar esa negativa. En el 92 se cambia, es perdemos eso que habíamos ganado la revolución. Y entonces el turismo ya explotan. Y eso es muy notorio para gente que somos del sur. O sea, si yo te cuento cómo fui a Tulum por primera vez, y cuando volví a Tulum 10 o 20 anos después, o cómo fui a Zipolite por primera vez. Y eso es el resultado. O sea, te puedo escribir 30 libros, pero todo eso es result resultado específicamente una partecita de la constitución que menciona en mi segundo libre, legal, que permitió destruirlo lo que ganamos en la revolución mexicana, [00:24:00] que es la propiedad colectiva, en algunos casos propiedad indígena en otros casos, simplemente propiedad social de las clases populares. Y esto lo he trado mucha gente y me fui enterando estando con la gente en territorio, por ejemplo, con la asamblea de defensores de territorio Maya Muuch Xiinbal, ellos en la práctica, me enseñaron toda esta serie de mecanismos y defensas caminando con los pueblos, estando ahí. O sea, porque hay que estar ahí a veces para entender la magnitud. O sea, si tú lo piensas, el los muchos pueblos indígenas y clases populares son dueñas de hectáreas, el 40% del país, está en sus manos a nivel de propiedad legal, pero la propiedad privada va ganando, no, no. Y para mí, el turismo solo es un pedacito de ese proyecto colonizador actual, que va, va quitándonos, lo poquito que ganamos en la revolución mexicana. Bueno, ganamos varias cosas: la educación pública, salud pública, todo eso lo van privatizando. Pero es muy loco tierra y territorio, porque es muy específico. O sea 40 percent versus [00:25:00] 60 percent, un artículo de constitución, no hay que perdernos, osea. Ahí está. Pero mira el ombligo del pedo. Ajá. Chris: Mm, gracias. Me gustaría proponer algunos algunas preguntas, algunas provocaciones. Quizás respeto de cómo el turismo y más bien, más recientemente, las entrecomillas invasiones de turistas, nómadas digitales a México desde la pandemia y otras partes también. O sea, no es solo México, pero obviamente hay otros lugares. Y pues, hay ciertas cosas que ha surgido en otros episodios de podcast, respeto de el radicalismo rígido, y como lo veo a veces culturas de descartabilidad, que siento que es algo fundamental y también como desconocido en cómo funciona, pues la modernidad, la colonia, toda ese trayectoria [00:26:00] de mierda. Pero lo vemos mucho. Siento, siento yo en los redes sociales. Entonces, me gustaría preguntarte, qué piensas sobre los efectos de las redes sociales en los contextos de las luchas contemporáneas, pero también bajo de este contexto de turismo, de las invasiones en México. Entonces mi pregunta es, cómo crees que las redes sociales contribuyen al radicalismo rígido? Alf: Eh? Pues mira, yo creo que no solo contribuyen radicalismo rígido, o sea, respondiendo muy rápidamente. Yo creo que el algoritmo está diseñado y eso lo sabe la mayoría, espero, supongo este para generar estos echo-chambers que le llaman. Entonces, yo creo que lo mínimo, o sea, lo más x es que genere radicalismo rígido yo creo que en realidad la [00:27:00] ultraderecha está ganando en el mundo por las redes sociales. Y esto no lo digo yo. Esto está demostradisimo. O sea, Milei, Trump y todo el fascismo en el poder que desgraciadamente es, yo calculo la mitad del planeta, Bukele, etcétera, Bolsonaro, tienen mucho que ver con lo que aquí sería Chumel Torres, con lo que aquí sería Eduardo Verastegui. Tiene todo que ver, no? Y yo creo que eso, el pensamiento crítico, como le nos queremos llamar a este el otro lado antifascista sea, no hemos tomado suficientemente en serio eso como un enemigo, no? Porque volviendo la negatividad, el resentimiento, pues hay ese es un nuevo enemigo. Para mí, hay que destruirlo este. Acomodé lugar, o sea, como tenga que hacer. Entonces, esto lo hablaba también con Benja, la pareja de Yasnaya, el día de mi presentación en Volcana. O sea, qué pasa que mucha izquierda, mucho pensamiento crítico y todo, no quiere hacer pop. Entonces la derecha sí que está haciendo [00:28:00] pop y por eso ganó Trump, y por eso está Milei en el poder, porque hacen un un tipo de redes sociales poperas. No tienen miedo a reducir el pensamiento, a provocar. No tienen miedo porque tienen el poder, obviamente, controlan el mundo. En concreto, Trump, no? Entonces, nosotras desde el miedo y desde un un clasicismo extraño, un machismo raro, como que decimos el "pop" está mal porque reduce. Ser influencer está mal porque hace de lo abstracto. Lo reduce. Lo simplifica. Y ese es un problema. Es un problema grande que tiene que para mí tiene que ver con el problema de la es escolarización. Pero para contestarte, y yo creo que las redes sociales sostienen al fascismo actual, más que cualquier otra cosa, yo creo que más que ninguna otra cosa. Y por eso nos gobiernan celebridades y estamos en una fase nueva de la política como espectáculo. Y no estábamos ahí, volvemos a militancia como un libro que ya no responde a esta época, yo no siento que Obama era eso. Yo no [00:29:00] siento que el PRIismo y el PANismo era eso. Estamos en otro momento, entonces, como siempre la izquierda o como lo quieras llamar, el pensamiento, el antifascismo general, que a mi me da igual los conceptos, como siempre estamos lentas, lentas en reaccionar. Porque? Pues porque nos asusta. Las redes sociales, yo pienso que nos están bombardeando, emocionalmente con el genocidio. Yo creo que la manera en que están manejando la imagen del genocidio está tronando la salud mental, terminando de tronar, si no, es que ya la había tronado de buena parte de de de quienes estamos contra de Trump y Milei, por decir el amor que yo espero que seamos más o de la mitad de la tierra otra vez, este me gusta creer. Entonces eso, yo creo que estamos lentas porque quieren ellos porque nos han tronado la la salud mental. Y eso hace que nos aletargamos en responder con la fuerza con la que ellos, o sea nos faltan influencers un poco más rudos, para decirlo como es, o sea un poco más tan fuertes y provocadores como ellos. Yo [00:30:00] siento que los influencers de este lado hacen un trabajo importante, pero muy suave. O sea, está muy abajito. Muy bien portado. Cuando tú escuchas a Bukele, tú escuchas hablar a Milei o Trump y son los provocadores, realmente. Este, no le tienen miedo a decir pendejadas. Y la izquierda, sí. Sí, le tienen miedo a cagarla. Cuando no se dan cuenta que lo que están haciendo ellos es provocar para mover, no? O sea, la gente sabe que es una exageración. Los votantes de Milei de Bukele y de Trump saben que dicen mucha, es un borracho, que está diciendo pendejadas, pero van y votan. Chris: Claro. Alf: La izquierda no está logrando subir el tono. Al revés. O sea, entre más, baja en el fondo y más banderitas de palestina, como que más bien portadas, somos. Y entonces, ah, "pues vamos a hablar de la cultura de palestina, que es muy importante. Es muy bonita. Pero yo te apuesto que se hubieran influencers diciendo vamos a tirarles bombas y vamos a matar sería más fuerte, no? O sea, le daría [00:31:00] miedo a ellos como ha pasar, si ha pasado la historia en los 70. Esto sí que pasó. Si le dábamos miedo a ellos. Ya no le damos miedo. Y yo creo que eso tiene todo que ver con como el imperialismo hoy, es un algoritmo. Antes era otra cosa, y es un imperialismo de la mente y de las emociones. Y es meramente como manejan la imagen. Osea, da igual lo que nos muestren, sino la manera en que se utiliza el discurso de Trump y la manera en que se utiliza la imagen del genocidio, no el genocidio. Eso a ellos no les importa, sino el uso, nos truenan, nos truenan todo el tiempo. Entonces no logramos articular. No logramos reconocernos. Empezamos a competir, nos peleamos y es porque ellos van ganando. Han habido otros momentos de la historia donde este lado de veras le daba miedo sin idealizarlo porque también puede ser muy machista. Este le daba miedo a Trump y a los Trumps. O sea, se [00:32:00] cagaban de me decían no, no. Entonces, bueno, van a matar, no? Y entonces, había algo positivo ahí. Había algo positivo ahí y eso se perdió, nuestra propia capacidad de dar miedo y defendernos. Se ha ido perdiendo. O sea, y es muy material, porque matan defensores del territorio cada semana, así como palestinos y libaneses con la misma pistola, la misma arma. Cada semana los matan. Entonces, pues, claro que da miedo de subir el tono. No porque siento que te van a matar. Hay un fantasma. Entonces, yo creo que las redes sociales se tienen toda la culpa y que están gestionadas maravillosas, perfectas, las redes sociales y y el internet porque permitió que el imperialismo, se vuelva. O sea que lo cargues a todos lados, que desees el fascismo. Y eso está en las pantallitas y en el celular. Lo manejaron muy bien. El que lo explica más bastante bien es, Adam Curtis, en Can't Get You Outta My Head. Y creo que eso hay que tomarlo [00:33:00] todavía más enserio, porque la gente nada más dice "ah, pinche Chumel Torres". No, wey. O sea, es el cáncer de esta sociedad. O sea, no se explicar. Es un verdadero enemigo y "ah x solo es un panista ahí raro." Lo que quiero decir es que no le damos la seriedad, como que no estamos leyendo el imperio en su nueva fase y cómo se maneja. Chris: Pero entonces, tú crees que las maneras que podemos socovar el algoritmo es de, quitarnos de la pantalla? O sea, pero cómo está también el algoritmo no solo internalizándose según yo en los movimientos, pero en las mentalidades de la gente y dentro de los movimientos? Alf: Claro que yo no tengo una respuesta, pero a mí se me ocurre que esto ya se intentado muchas veces como crear nuestros propios tecnologías. Lo que pasa es que nunca van a ser igual de atractivas y poderosas, como clase de quienes controlan la tierra, porque pues por algo [00:34:00] las controlan y van ganando no? Porque tienen todos los recursos y toda la inteligencia puesta ahí Entonces, si los movimientos ya les pueden tener redes sociales, pero pero sus posts no tienen ningún alcance y eso está gestionado desde arriba. Entonces este es un problema más profundo que tiene que ver con el problema de la imagen y su gestión. O sea, al controlar el algoritmo, el imperio, lo que está controlando son las imágenes y las narrativas. Las gestionan, a eso me refiero con imperialismo. O sea, vemos lo que el imperio quiere que veamos y se acabó. O sea, es una nueva fase porque no necesariamente tienes al gringo gobernando a tu país como lo fue antes de la revoluciones nacionales, por ejemplo, pero tienes el celular que sólo te va a mostrar lo que le conviene al gobierno gringo o mayoritariamente. Entonces quebrar el algoritmo es quebrar el imperio, o sea la verdad, o sea, no es otra cosa que eso . Y eso hace que lo [00:35:00] cool sea cool y lo no cool que suele ser más importante, no se vea y no tenga acceso recursos y no generar imágenes chidas. Y si logras de una imagen, no tiene ningún alcance. O sea, es muy notorio para mi trabajo. O sea, si yo subo mi gatito 500 views, si yo subo el tipo de cosas que estamos platicando 5. Sí, claro. Es super evidente, no el manejo de la imagen y la gestión. Entonces, pues hay que volver. Hay que volver a la auto publicación. Hay que volver a los medios libres como se estuvieron haciendo hasta si varias decadas. O sea, y rehacerlo recuperarlos, repensarlos. La gente que se está yendo a Mastodon en redes sociales. La gente que se está saliendo de los algoritmos, los más feos. Digo, no sé qué tanto lo vamos a lograr. O sea, por eso yo, mi parte política, la vivo más en presencial. O sea, yo voy. Trato de ir ahora que se cumplen 50 años de Lucio cada año, hacer pueblo, estar con el pueblo, ser pueblo. O sea, porque [00:36:00] claro que si yo no voy, nunca me voy a enterar. Y si no camino con, como te conté, la asamblea maya, aunque sea cinco minutos, yo no me entero de que el pedo principal de todo esto es simplemente un artículo de la constitución, no? Entonces, o sea, pon tú que ellos postan en internet. Quién lo escucha? Nadie muy poca gente, pero eso es por quien controla. Que la info no llegue no. Entonces, claro. Entonces a eso voy, o sea, hay un problema con la imagen. O sea, hay un gran problema con la imagen porque también lo que la ultra derecho y el fascismo ha logrado perfectamente bien en nuestra época. Es que la gente prefiere el reconocimiento y el like, el premio no que la reparación real. Y entonces las redes sociales están basadas en un nuevo modelo de contra insurgencia y de pacificación y neutralización política, que es, yo voy, te doy un premio, yo voy y te muestro, yo te doy un like, pero para que ya te calles, no. Y para que no digas las cosas, [00:37:00] estamos decían, es un solo artículo. Si echamos para atrás de artículo, pues vamos a parar buena parte de los capitales colonialistas y turísticos hoy, etc. O sea a lo que voy es que van y te premian, van y te likean para que te vayas pacificando. Y ahí hubo un cambio estrategia que también estamos muy lentas en sí, porque los setentas te mataban, a las clases medias organizadas políticamente. Hoy no. Hoy no es así. Hoy matan a la gente de abajo, a los defensores que viven y habitan las clases populares, el territo y a la clase media la premia pa que te calles. Entonces, cómo te premian haciendo que el algoritmo te vea mucho y hables mucho y produzcas mucho contenido, pero es un contenido. Te repito muy bien portado. Es un contenido suave, que omite las partes políticas que omite temas de imperialismo contra insurgencia, bla, bla, osea. Habla de todo lo demás, formas de vida, ternura radical, [00:38:00] consumo alternativo, sororidad solidaria, todo lo que tú quieras, excepto si no le cortamos la cabeza a Trump, esa condición no para. O sea, no sé si me explico. Menos lo más importante, digo, lo estoy caricaturizando. Cortando la cabeza de Trump no vamos a parar el periodismo, pero me estás entendiendo. Están manejando la censura y estamos ya hablan de tecno tecnofeudalismo. Estamos regalándole un contenido que soporta el imperialismo y no nos damos... estamos tan enajenadas en este momento con el algoritmo que trabajamos para el gratis. No? Y me incluye, o sea mis PDFs, son gratis. Mi radio es gratis. Yo soy una esclava del internet y se acabó, no? Y entonces, en la medida en que no lo sepamos, sentir la negatividad de ese despojo y de cómo todas trabajamos para el imperio. Nos gusta no poco mucho, este pues más nos enajenamos no? O sea, porque yo no cobro por mis ramas de radio. Yo no cobro por el PDF [00:39:00] literal. Me despoja y me precariza en un sentido duro, directo. El pedo es que decirlo es fuerte porque la gente, pues como escucha en tu programa o el mío, y nos va MXN $5. Bien, pues la gente se compra la amiga y dice que padre, el internet me ven. Cuando solo te está viendo la gente que piensa como tú. Y ya nadie más. O sea, ni un solo seguidor más. Gente que ya pensaba como tú, antes de llegar a tu contenido. Entonces, en realidad no estamos logrando hacer propaganda, no? Y yo creo que es super importante, porque porque en la medida siempre trabajamos con los que piensan como nosotras, no estamos empujando el ese 50 percent fascista, al reves, lo respetamos y decimos, bueno, yo trabajo con el 50%. Me quedo en el 40% de la propiedad social y nunca empujo la propiedad privada o el 50% fascista. Y ya ahí te quedas que es muy cómodo también hablar entre nosotras. Pues que nadie te también te madres que nadie te mande [00:40:00] bots. Porque a mí lo que hacen es que me atacan en internet, no? Entonces, cada vez que digo lo que hay que decir, pues me mandan bots y me asustan me, como mucha gente, no, te amenazan. Y todos eso esta perfectamente gestionado, en México desde Peña Nieto, del Peña bots. Se siente muy claramente esas tecnologías. Muchas veces israeles. Se siente muy clarito, no? Y funcionan perfectamente bien, porque pacifican y neutralizan maravillosamente. Ya la gente deja de lo que hay que decir porque tú sientes que... o sea, porque tú sientes lo general, el efecto contrario, las censuras se siente como premiO Chris: total. Muchas gracias. Alf. me gustaría provocar un poco ese idea que la algoritmo sólo nos este en suavece. En suaveza, dijiste? En suavece. Ajá. Ajá, porque pues, [00:41:00] también a mí parece que algoritmo está pidiendo, metiendo, reforzando la rabia. Y hace hace poco descubrí, descubrí un libro llamado Discard Studies en inglés, Estudios de Descarte, que intenta formular hipótesis no solo en torno a las historias sociales de la basura y contaminación, pero sino también del exilio y desplazamiento. Y la idea en los estudios del descarte es que todas estas cosas están muy relacionadas entre sí. Las redes sociales creen una plataforma para los también expulsiones sociales en forma de cancelaciones o escrachees, por ejemplo. Alf: Mm-hmm. Chris: Entonces, también que si el el algo ritmo está imponiendo, invitándonos a ser más pacíficos, siento que hay una manera que está imponiendo, impulsando, invitándonos a descartar, tirar, la [00:42:00] gente entre los movimientos sociales, o sea, entre movimientos sociales, también en la manera interpersonal. Y quería preguntarte sobre eso y las consecuencias a las luchas de largo plazo. Alf: Mm-hmm. Mira, yo siento que si se habló particularmente en el segundo capítulo de Alegria Emergente con un invitado que se llama Tomás Calles. Con él, se habló eso. Mira, yo siento que que es bien complicado este tema, porque para mí, el escrache pues que últimamente más sé hoy es el escrache que llegar con el género, con abuso sexual. Y a la vez, yo creo que hay que hacerle su genealogía completa el escrache porque el escrache cada vez... o sea, si lo sacamos de género y lo metemos a la política, clase, a raza, y a todo lo demás, este de si tú te das cuenta, todo el tiempo, volviendo al 50 facho y al no facho, el 50% facho ha estrechado al 50% no facho. Todo este es el tema del control de las narrativas y las imagenes. O sea, [00:43:00] si tú ves la imagen, por ejemplo y para mí, es una forma de escracheeo pre nuestra época. Si tú ves como Estados Unidos, creo la imagen de Cuba, es una forma de escrache, no? O sea, como, voy a hablar super mal de esos wey. Voy a decir. Voy a publicar todos los libros y todos los contenidos que hablen mal de Cuba, no? Y para mí, hay un escracheeo ahí, un pre escracheeo, por decir así. Entonces, en términos políticos, que te vuelvo a decir que siento que son los cabezas, nos faltan en toda esta discusión. Siempre ha existido y va a existir formas de manipular y de destruir cuando la gente está haciendo cosas más o menos chidas, pues te van a buscar dónde y ahí te van a chingar, no? Y el gobierno también participa eso con sus bots, no? Y su manejo de la información, de la distribución de la información en concreto. Entonces, yo siento que el escrache hay que verlo como también como parte de la contra insurgencia, no todos los escrachees, porque hay escrachees que, por ejemplo, no se vuelven públicos y se vuelven en procesos, por ejemplo, [00:44:00] de... o sea, no es la denuncia pública el punitivismo como ejercicio de castigo ejemplar público, hay escrachees o denuncias en concreto, que más bien se vuelven en ejercicios de justicia reparativa, puertas cerrada, que han sido efectivos. Y yo me he enterado de varios y me han invitado a varios procesos. Este y con varios movimientos. Yo me he dado cuenta de la justicia ejercía por nosotras mismas. Sí, llevada a cabo reparar cosas concretas con soluciones concretas sin hacer una imagen, sin darle al algoritmo lo que nos quita todo el tiempo - tiempo, energía, sin darle la fotita donde dice "para hacer tu eescrache chido habla..." o sea, simplemente resolver, es lo que muchas cosas en internet no hacen. Hablan pero no acciones, y tú puedes hablar lo que quieres siempre y cuando no actúes. Ese es el gran truco de la red social. No hablemos todo, mientras no cambiemos nada. Este entonces nada. Yo siento que el escrache pues hay que verlo así como, tiene una parte [00:45:00] chida para mí, sobre todo a puerta cerrada, como de procesos que yo llamaría, justicia reparativa, restaurativa, osea que no tienden a la imagen, puede crear una imagen, pero no es su fin su objetivo final, sino reparar daños específicos con soluciones específicas, no caso por caso, sin abstraer a ese, este versus un tipo de escrache liberal, blanqueado, espectacular, chafa, que lo único que ha hecho es contra insurgencia. Cada vez que hay liderazgos. "Ah, es un macho," no? Cada vez que hay movimiento sociales, "ah, trabajan para los rusos, trabajan para los chinos, este, reciben dinero, reciben dinero de tal, este." Ose y el escrache, si es una de las mejores herramientas, porque genera volvemos en el tema de narrativas y imágenes, no que contraponen lo que ha ganado. Osea, yo te voy a dar un fondo a ti como activista para que hables del turismo, todo lo que tú quieras, siempre y cuando no hables de esto y de esto, okey, [00:46:00] entonces tu envía a cobrar y te va a super bien. Y te voy el súper famoso y que chido. Pues esa es la lucha que nos vaya bien materialmente a todas. Pero a ti te censuraron. Te dijeron sólo hablas de, entonces, fíjate, volvimos al tema del escrache. O sea mucha de esa gente eescracheada. Voy a poner uno. Miguel Peralta. El caso de Miguel Peralta, para mí sería un caso de escrache, no este Miguel Peralta hoy está perseguido por el estado mexicano y mucha gente te va a decir que es un machista. Te va a decir muchas cosas, pero no te va a decir la otra parte, no? La parte política de su lucha, contra un gobierno que el gobierna, por no decir Samir Flores como un escrache, por no decir Hortensia Telesforo con un tipo de escrache. O sea, si me estás cachando? O sea, y entonces que pasa que que desde arriba, como controla la narrativa y controlan la imagen y la distribución de la información. Te dicen a ver, yo te voy a pagar por una cosa, pero cállate la otra. Entonces pon la banderita de colores. Y ya CDMX es gay y es trans, [00:47:00] pero nunca vuelves a hablar de clase social. Por favor que el pobre siga siendo pobre. Ella solo habla Alf de trans, no? Si te das cuenta, es como el escrache. O sea, el escrache dice vamos a destruir el liderazgo político de Miguel Peralta poniendo ultra énfasis en su lado machista, que que yo no dudo que haya tenido como muchos líderes y como mucha gente, o sea, yo no estoy diciendo que no, solo estoy diciendo la manera en que se utiliza ese tipo de denuncias es para destruir el lado político. Muchas veces no todas. Mm, pero para poner un solo caso, y hoy, por hoy te estoy hablando de un caso de criminalizacion actual, como podríamos hablar de Samir Flores o Hortensia Telesforo y toda la contrainsurgencia. La contrainsurgencia es un tipo de escrache. Es que eso ya cambió. También te repito, la gente más visible van y le dan premios y le dan atención. A la gente menos visible, la matan o la criminalizan como Miguel. Están a punto de meterlo a la cárcel 50 años si no le prestamos atención [00:48:00] a ese caso, no? Que es lo que quieren, que no le prestamos atención. Entonces a eso voy, o sea, casi que ni importa el crimen, casi que no importa la falta del daño, sino el manejo. Hay como una economía, fíjate, hasta te diría yo, una economía de las quejas y una economía de la imagen que no estamos siendo conscientes. Estamos tan alejanadas, que nos vamos, por lo primero que nos dan "Ah, ese ese wey era un macho." Listo. Todo quedó o ese wey trabajo para china y hasta todo el trabajo que haya hecho, como trabaja para china, o como hablan de, por ejemplo, piensan las narrativas sobre ve Venezuela y Nicaragua y Cuba. O sea, es impresionante. Es escrache, o sea. Quién te va a hablar bien de ese tipo de países? Está difícilisimo Chris: o o al menos decir como, "no sé, no sé"... Alf: o al menos decir, "no sé," pero lo que quiero decir es que el independientemente lo que han hecho Venezuela y los machismos de izquierda, [00:49:00] el manejo de ese error. O sea, supongo, sí, yo creo que comete errores como toda la gente cometemos. El manejo es la parte más como las redes sociales, la distribución de esa información, es la que a mí me preocupa más. O sea, como, solo vamos a hablar de lo mierda, déjate claro, porque a Estados Unidos le conviene, que Miguel Peralta está en la cárcel, que Venezuela solo se una mierda, que China solo se una... que yo no dudo que tiene un lado de mierda, pero es interesante los límites del discurso. No puedes hablar de lo hecho. En el momento en el que dice es algo bueno. Cancelada. A la cárcel. Se acabó el pedo. Entonces a mí eso me llama la atención, porque la gente cree que es un momento de libertad discursiva. El fascismo va ganando, no? O sea, y eso es Trump, pero y eso es el genocidio Palestino y Libanes. Pero pero pero hay un síntoma de eso en que no podemos, no podemos hablar. Yo siento que el [00:50:00] internet es mucho más facho que lo previo. O sea, yo me siento mucho más censurada que lo que yo veo que ha pasado en el siglo 20. Me explico? La verdad. O sea, yo veo los discursos del Che Guevara y digo no, pues en ese tiempo podías hablar. Habla así hoy, balazo en la frente. Así es fácil. No amaneciste. Te desapareceria. Entonces digo, ganamos o perdimos en términos discursivos? No, yo pienso que perdimos porque tu ves la tele el siglo 20 y está hablaba sin que le den un balazo. Hoy, ya no hoy. Samir habló, lo mató Morena. Ya. Listo. O sea, hoy hablaban los Palestinos todos muertos. O sea, entonces yo creo que perdimos con internet. No ganamos, pero yo pienso que el turismo te repito, o sea, y el colonialismo, entonces solo es como una partecita. Sinceramente, yo pienso que es como un pedazo chiquitito, de todo una cosa más grande. Claro que es una industria que ha [00:51:00] ido ganando mucha fuerza, pero para mí se habría un contra turismo y un peregrinaje. Yo siento que hago peregrinaje. Fíjate, qué es lo que destruyó el o el turismo está reedificando cuando trato de acercarme los movimientos sociales, desde mi clase, o sea, desde mi color piel y todos mis contradicciones. Pues yo sigo a veces caminando, con gente que me ha enseñado cosas que nunca van a salir en el celular. Adrede no sabemos la verdad. Aunque las posten, no me van a llegar. Y entonces yo creo que si hay un contraturismo y un yo pienso que tendríamos que ir a buscar en el tema del peregrinaje o la hospitalidad radical . Por qué? Porque había un tema sagrado, no? O sea, había algo sagrado en el peregrino. No era turismo nada más de placer, aunque tenía a su lado del compartir y ocioso, pero para mí se recuperáramos la capacidad de defendernos, varias cosas que nos han quitado, la capacidad de hablar que yo creo que nos la quitaran a base de premios y views, no a base de castigos, pues habría un [00:52:00] peregrinaje, por el lado político, no?. Por ejemplo, me cuentan que el año que viene va haber en Brasil. No, mucha gente va a estar yendo a Brasil de diferentes latitudes. Y ese para mí, eso es contra turismo y peregrinaje político sagrado. No. Entonces la gente va o el Anticop, vas, o sea, el ir es súper importante porque tiras el suelo de la basura y estás cuerpo a cuerpo con una realidad que que el algoritmo imperialista quiere que no nos llegue, tu salir. Claro. El problema es que te insista. Está tan de moda, "muerte al turismo," que no es fácil hablar de que hay contraturismos muy importantes. Siempre lo han habido no? O sea, cuando los zapatistas dicen vengan, pasan cosas que no pasan. O sea que hay que ir, no. A huevo, hay que ir. Entonces, y eso es un contraturismo. Y el zapatista está super consciente. No viene puro gringo aquí, puros güerito. Cuál es el pedo así se politizan. Sí, yo creo que es más de clase media no tratar de [00:53:00] buscarle la deriva y darle la vuelta a la industria. Mmm. Y simplemente decir merte a todo el turismo. Pues sí, en la teoría suena muy bien, pero en lo práctica va ganando. Chris: Mmm, claro, y así pues me gustaría preguntarte también de ese hospitalidad radical, pero siento que muchos caen intentar a definir lo que es. Pero entonces me gustaría nada más de preguntarte igual de peregrinaje, si quieres, de si has en tus viajes o en casa, o sea en tu colonia barrio, encontrado lo que llamarías tu hospitalidad radical, en el camino. Alf: Mira yo, esto es algo que aprendí. O sea lo que lo que llama hospitalidad radical es algo que yo hice en la práctica toda mi vida y solo después empecé a elaborar. Pues yo me moví toda mi vida y me sigo moviendo principalmente en el underground. Queda de contracultura. Y pero por ejemplo, yo en el punk, en las [00:54:00] patinetas, como en la izquierda radical en general, con todas sus ramas, toda la vida, he ido y han venido. Y mi casa siempre ha sido la casa de mucha gente y es una práctica que no me había sentado a pensar, no?. Ese no quedarse en el hotel, ese tú llevar a la gente a pasear y mostrarle los lugares ocultos de la ciudad, no los lugares como limpios y en inglés. O sea, es algo que en el Punk y en el anarquismo de esas cosas está muy metido, no? Y yo tengo casa en muchos lugares del mundo porque también he dado casa a mucha gente de muchos lugares del mundo, desde muy chavita, desde tours de skate cuando tenía 14 años, llegaba gente de todos lados y se quedaban en mi casa y yo no me daba cuenta de que es algo, que si tú te vas al peregrinaje, la hospitalidad radical o como queremos llamar, a lo previo a los boom's inmobiliarios, turísticos. Pues siempre existió no? Siempre he existido, no? Entonces nada. Para mí es raro hablarlo porque porque para mí, no se cuestiona, no? O sea, yo recibo gente todo el tiempo y me [00:55:00] recibe gente todo el tiempo de de mucho. Últimamente ya se hizo más internacional. Pero antes era más entre pues, las sociedades chiquitas, lo que sea. Entonces yo te podía contar toda mi historia, a partir de ese eje, si tú quieres. Pero pero mi punto es que es una práctica que yo tengo integrada. O sea, no, nunca me la cuestioné. O sea, y yo como mucho lo que queda en la contracultura, lo que queda underground o sea, mucha gente así lo vive este. Y cada vez que a mí me invita, por ejemplo, la última vez que me invitaron a un pueblo, fue Yasnaya, que ya habíamos quedado de ir. Porque el programa lo escuchan los Mixes y todo. Y yo le dije "claro que sí." O sea a mí en el momento en que me digas cuando voy, yo voy. Y para mí hay algo, o sea, tiene que venir de un pueblo como el Mixe, la invitación para que no sea turismo. Para mí, tiene que haber un receptor explícito y una invitación. O sea, es parte de la economía del regalo y esas cosas que, que en los sures siempre hemos hecho y en el abajo siempre hemos hecho consciente o inconscientemente. Creo que ahora hay que empezar [00:56:00] a elaborarla también. Ahora que empezar a teorizarlo y pensarlo porque conforme avanza, la propiedad privada de la colonización, pues se va perdiendo esos comunalismos, porque son prácticas que los pueblos tienen, que las clases populares tienen, que los undergrounds. La gente se mueve todo el tiempo, todo el tiempo. Solo no se mueve de maneras fancy y y cool. O sea, la foto no es la bonita del Instagram. Entonces, por lo tanto, esa práctica que a mí lo interesa es la práctica, no tanto la conceptualización o la imagen. Pues no la logramos reproducir y va ganando el turismo comercial. Por darte otro ejemplo, varios pueblos en el sureste también me hablaban de turismo alternativo. Y, por ejemplo, armaban varias cosas con los pueblos alrededor pidiéndole permiso, volviendo al al 40% de la propiedad social y esa parte la constitución que habría que pedir que nos regresen, le pedían permiso a todos los ejidos. Entonces ibas en bici o pajareando [00:57:00] las cosas que hacen turismo normal, pero hablaban con los dueños de los ejidos con el de la propiedad social que yo y los zapatistas y mucha gente defendemos y le decían bueno, "voy a traer gringos que que como quieren que le hagamos. Pues da tu caguama" o "cuánto les vas a cobrar?" Y para mí es contraturismo, fíjate, y caminando con ellos en esos territorios. Lo aprendes. O sea, escuchando programas de radio y leyendo libros va a estar cabrón. O sea, hay que ir, no este y fíjate que interesante, porque ese 40% de esa propiedad social, pues bien, que podría recibir la lana, que se le da el hotel? No? Porque mucha de esta gente está muy precarizada, entonces no simplemente decir "ah, a la verga, el dinero en el turismo," sino a quien se lo damos y por qué. Cuando fíjate, yo veo en los pueblos ya iniciativas muy chidas de redistribución para este lado. Hay un montón de cooperativas muy chidas que redistribuyen lo opuesto a lo que hay un hotel. Pero volvemos al tema, pues como "no [00:58:00] son cool" y no tienen el diseño más chido y y no son influencers." Pues nadie se entera que que hay prácticas comunalistas que incluyen la movilidad de entre pueblos y entre personas muy chidas. O sea, la verdad. Yo he visto muchas proyectos de cooperativismo contraturístico increíbles. Entonces, bueno, eso. La gente que hace caminantes informativas, como pedagogías de caminantes como contraturísticas. Hay un montón de gente y un montón de cosas, historiadores radicales, ahí que hacen sus sus contradiscursos y llevan a la gente. Osea, yo creo que hay muchas, para mi, hay mucha esperanza ahí. Lo que pasa es que no la conectamos. O sea justo el algoritmo hace que no la alcances a ver y que te quedes, o sea, esa información, pon tu que la postan, no te va a llegar, no? O sea, está diseñado pa que no te llegue. Entonces, pero hay un montón de cosas muy chidas. Yo no vivo esa [00:59:00] distopia triste, que mucha gente vive de "yo valio verga". "Hay que dejar de movernos." Yo no lo vivo. Tampoco hay que ultra movernos. Yo pienso que el nomadismo en la clase media ya es una forma de de despojo también. Hay como no forzado en las clases medias. No abajo. Pero bueno, yo no lo vivo con esta doom ccomo sea. Condena. O sea, como de, ah, todo movimiento está de la verga, que hay gente muy esencialista que tu dice. "Todo turismo es una mierda." Y diría, bueno, pues vives con mucha culpa. Wey está muy bien. Se llama catolicismo. Y y lo conozco muy bien. Hay otras formas. O sea sin tanta culpa, le puedes dar tu lana a gente chida y no va a solucionar el problema, pero vaya que está más chido que dárselo al hotel y al colonialista y al que rompió la propiedad social. O sea, estás si algo haces, no es mínimo, pero algo haces. Pues eso a mi me ha tocado ver cositas que digo bueno, aquí hay algo no, [01:00:00] aquí hay algo. Pasa que también muchas veces iniciativas como rechazan "lo cool" no quieren ser muy visibles y no quieren ser muy famosas, pues ahí es el problema del comercio justo y el comercio alternativo, que busca, busca hacer un poco invisible a veces. Eso es problemático, no? Porque entonces, como mandamos a la banda con la banda chida, si la banda chida no quiere que le manden banda siempre. O sea, no quiere hacer negocio, no quiere hacer negocio porque se vuelve capitalistas. En fin. Pero ese, ese es otro problema, no el problema del cooperativismo. Chris: Claro. Ya pues, sobrebordando con temas y plática hermosa, Alf, pero si puedo antes de de terminar, me gustaría preguntarte sobre tu nuevo libro. No Existe Dique Capaz de Contener al Océano Furioso. Nos podrías contar un poco de que trata y cómo tus trabajos anteriores han influido en [01:01:00] ese nuevo? Alf: Sí, Chris: has mencionado un poquito, pero Alf: ajá. Este es un libro que que pueden comprar en varias librerías Volcana, en Polilla y ahí donde estás con don Gregorio, pronto queremos tener en Jícara, en Utópicas, en casa Casa Tomada y conmigo en internet, y lo pueden descargar en el PDF. Envíos. Yo hago también a todo el mundo. Pero, bueno, es un libro que básicamente, para decirlo en una frase, es mi experiencia y mi elaboración sobre el anarquismo o la izquierda radical en general. Básicamente. O sea, te cuenta un poco mi historia de vida y como yo lo viví, lo recibí. Y qué es lo que yo he investigado y pensado sobre una práctica? Que en este momento la historia le podría unos ya anarquismo, pero en otro me momento se llama otras formas, pero sí, como antiautoritaria, etcétera. Entonces, el libro es eso. O sea, es un ensayo personal, pero también es un [01:02:00] ensayo político filosófico, no? Entonces van las dos. Te voy narrando mi vida, pero también te voy narrando la historia de estas ideas y cómo las hevisto, en la práctica y practicado hasta dónde he podido. Mmm. Chris: Pues este me voy a asegurar que esos lugares en al menos en Oaxaca y además en línea, van a estar listados en el sitio web del fin de turismo cuando lance el episodio y este, pues en nombre de nuestros oyentes Alf, me gustaría expresarte mi más sincero agradecimiento por tu disposición de acompañarnos hoy, hablar estos temas complejos y garantizar que esta disidencia tenga un lugar en el mundo. Muchísimas gracias. Y cómo podríamos este encontrar tu trabajo en línea? O sea por redes sociales o Alf: Si? Lamentablemente, me encantaría que no, no tuviera que ser por ahí. Pero no, no me [01:03:00] quedó de otra. Si, mi trabajo principalmente yo tengo dos libros afuera que se consiguen las librerías que mencioné. Lo que hago como locutora se encuentra gratis en todos lados, es Un Sueño Largo Ancho y Hondo. Es u arroba @1slaaahh en varias redes sociales. Y nada le ponen ahí en internet y les va a salir gratis y como lo platicaba antes, pues todo va muy junto. Mi parte de ficción y mi parte pedagógica y política va bastante unificada. Es más o menos la misma onda pero si, digamos lo más inmediato es escucharla lo que hago, llevo varios años haciendo, como locutora. Entonces nada más le da un click y ya está. Y les pido ahí que me den likecito que me den el porque hasta ahora no, no hay quien si, o sea, yo no trabajo para una [01:04:00] radio difusora que se encargue en mis redes y que yo nada más llegue a grabar y estaría bien a gusto, pero no, pues yo la autogestiono. Entonces, por ahora, si es necesario, el likecito y el compartir. Chris: Claro. Pues también esos van a estar en el sitio web de fin de turismo cuando lanza el episodio. Entonces, pues muchísimas gracias Alf. Alf: Gracias, Chris. English Transcription. Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome to the podcast The End of Tourism, Alf. Nice to talk to you today. Chris: I'd like to start this off by asking you where you are today and how the world looks through your eyes? Alf: Today I am in my kitchen. I work from there. In Mexico City, in a neighborhood called Iztaccihuatl. How does the world look? Well, look, I don't have a bad view. This is not a big building, but I have a nice view, right? I mean, my view is not blocked by another building or anything. You can see a lot of plants. And well, I guess you know that I am from the provinces. So I have always felt that where I live is like a little bit of a province in the capital, because there are no such big buildings. This one and well, from here you can see it, I forget that I'm in CDMX now, you know Chris: Thank you. Well, you are, among other things, the author of several [00:01:00] texts, including Pepitas de Calabaza and the very recent No Existe Dique Capaz de Contenedor al Océano Furioso. You also coordinated the translation into Spanish of the English text of Militancia Alegre: Let Resistance Bloom in Toxic Times. (or Joyful Militancy) That translation was followed by a companion podcast with Pamela Carmona titled Emerging Joy: Undoing Rigid Radicalism. So, to start, I’d like to ask you how you came across the book Joyful Militancy and what led you to translate it. Alf: I knew that book. I tell you a little bit about it in the prologue, but I knew that book, in the United States, because I had a band. I played drums in a hardcore punk band for many, many years. And so that's how I got to the United States and being [00:02:00] in the American underground, which was an important part of my life, being in California specifically. I found that book in a cafe and I fell in love with it. So I brought it and first I read it in English with some people and very slowly I started to work on that book, translating. That's a longer story that's right there in the prologue, but well, I've been campaigning for that book for years. There were also a series of coincidences with very kind people like Tumba a la Casa, like the Canadian authors, the rights were given to us. The people from Traficantes de Sueno got involved. I mean, there are actually a lot of people. It's like a network of networks, that book and a series of coincidences and favors and nice gestures from many people who made it come out the way it did, really. I mean, I think it's unrepeatable, that series of factors. Aha. Chris: Oh, cool. All right. Well, that book was originally [00:03:00] published in 2016. After reading, re-reading, and translating that text, I'm curious to know what you think has changed since then, or what major differences you've seen between the rigid radicalism described in the book in the Anglosphere or North America, Anglo-Saxon, and the Hispanic or Latin American sphere? Alf: Well, there are many things to say, right? The part that I confirmed was that I was working on that book, eh? Because let's say that I, this year I presented that book. I mean, and it did very well in Costa Rica. It was the last one. I ran out of copies. And let's say, I finished my work with Militancia in Costa Rica two, three months ago. It's not that much, right? I mean, after the radio show with Pamela, it was presented in Costa Rica and it went very well, eh? And it was [00:04:00] reprinted, yes. That book was a success in many ways, right? And look at me. One thing that, as the years went by, I didn't like is that I feel that it has a very liberal side, I mean, there's a side where it's too soft, right? I mean, when criticizing the rigid, I feel that it goes too far from flexible, so to speak. So, and that happens a bit like with certain radicalisms in the north, which have to do with the rhetoric of friendship and tenderness as being so focused on care. And so, I feel that without wanting to, as if to contradict the opposite, like machismo, rigidity, blah, blah, blah, they fall into something a bit... I mean, since that's the book or at least my reading of that book, at this point, I'm being too soft, because I think that the negative part of being a militant and organizing, well, it's important, right? It's important to talk, isn't it? So, it's true that in the book, it's a good vibe, so to speak . I think that's why it's a success because there's a "pop" side to that book, a soft, sweet side, that's easy to chew. And it's good for activism, but there's a part of me that says, well, we have to talk about resentment, we have to talk about hate. We need to talk about the importance of breaking up with each other, of fighting each other, without falling into punishment and blame and persecution. But I do think that the book doesn't quite achieve that with breaking up or negativity in general. We should go elsewhere and I think that for the past year, since the genocide has intensified, it is time to rethink anti-imperialism, to rethink things that cannot be so flexible, right? I mean, they are killing, bombs are falling and it is not a question of whether the 20th will fall on us or not, or when the 20th will fall on us. Well, there is an empire managing a genocide that has intensified very strongly over the last year. And that means that it is getting tougher, it is getting tougher. In other words, the political landscape has changed. And there are [00:06:00] processes where we can be very flexible and patient, but there are processes where we cannot, where we have to respond because the bomb falls on your head, that is, and that's it. So I remember a bit like the transition from the 60s to the 70s, or the transition to the 20s, right? I mean, historically this is what has happened. Hippism ends and the guerrillas arrive. Anarchism ends and the communist party begins. I mean, there are moments where history consumes you and becomes a little more, well, I'm not going to be harsh, but yes, even in the north, the anarchists who came from writing that book as very Ticunist are becoming more leftist, more revolutionary, much more Leninist. And I think that has to do with, well, a kind of Leninism, well, modern or cool. The Zapatista type in the Anglo version, but I think that has to do with the current conditions. I think that before the pandemic, after the pandemic, there are two planets, both because of the recognition of genocide, and because of what was done throughout the decade that for me ends in the pandemic. Well, there was a very cool side, but also a very valid side. The insurrection is already here. And now we say no, it is not here. We are not stopping the United States, this empire, we are not stopping it. At other times in history, we have been able to put certain limits on imperialism. Not completely, but some battles have been won. So, well, I think that book was of its time. I mean, 2016 and that anarchism of friendship and of connecting and flowing and all that side that is a bit hippie. I think it is very much of its time, of the last decade, but I think that time is no longer ours, because of the conditions. I mean, because we are reacting and responding and organizing ourselves against other problems. Chris: Sure, sure. And if you could update it in your own words, what would be the most important issues [00:08:00] to change or replace? Alf: I mean, look, I'm going to tell you about another book, but it's also from the north. So, I don't really like giving it to them so much, but a book that, for example, I would respond strongly to would be this one that Traficantes gave me, now that I work with them in Madrid, called Towards a New World Civil War, by Lazzarato, right? So I say, what happens is that he is a Leninist, right? So, he hits him hard, he hits him hard. I mean, but this has always happened, but there are several groups that are responding, right? I mean, for example, in the case of this book that Lazzarato just mentioned to you. Well, he says that in the last 50 years, including militancy, which would be at the end of 50 years, politics as such was not discussed? So, if you apply Lazzarato to Militancia Alegre, indeed, it is never talked about that, well, the US government controls the world and is winning. I mean, and there were struggles in the 60s, 70s, which more or less managed to stop [00:09:00] that imperialism, the national liberations, for example. The struggles began with Vietnam, Mahler and Cuba and ended with others. Were we able to more or less stop that imperialism of that time? But for example, Militancy never once talks about politics in a hard sense, right? That is, anti-Trump, for example, anti-global like global north or north and global. That is, in the sense that they govern the world, right? And that is not discussed, right? I mean, at no time is it said, well, we, as the North, have a debt with the South, not only economically, but politically, right? I mean, in terms of not allowing the autonomy of the South. And Palestine and Lebanon are the, well, the most extreme case, right? Although here it is the same, right? I mean, the fight, the war against the Zapatistas is the same genocide, with the same bullet. That is, the same investor, the same profits. It is the same genocide. So, but not talking about that, not talking about the merely political, [00:10:00] right? I mean, about how Morena works for the American government and kills the Zapatistas and the Central Americans. By not talking about these kinds of things as harshly political. I mean, how Trump controls the Mexican militia, la la la. Well, it is a hippie book, isn't it? I mean, in the sense that, there the Leninists have a point. In this case, Lazzarato but many other gangs, when answering the anarchist gang. Yeah, the friendship is very cool and the... Let's tune in. I mean, okay, but you're standing in a world that benefits from destroying this world that you and I are standing in, right? So, in many ways: the real, the symbolic, the economic. Tourism, for me, is just one chapter in that series of death industries. So no, by not talking about it. I think that it is a book that omits the main place of enunciation, which is the empire, if it speaks of the empire, but I feel that it lacked the political aspect. That is, how the North dominates and controls [00:11:00] the South, the government of the North in particular. By not speaking about that, he did give me a book that I don't know how it will age. I mean, I say, well, let's see how it goes, because it does serve the purpose that Tiqqun and those things served at the time, which was to respond to the vertical left, so to speak. But that moment, at least in the north, has already passed, right? And they themselves have already returned to verticality. I mean, those who attacked Leninism, we are in this other one. So it's funny because they have their own cycles and we have other cycles of struggle, right? And other genealogies and other rhetorics. I mean, it's very different. There's the translation. That's why that book is so militant because, we had to defend our own context, right? And to say, well, it's their genealogy, ours has other concepts. I mean, it has won wars and revolutions. There are many triumphs in our history in the south. In fact, in the north there are more defeats and instead, [00:12:00] the national liberations, well, practically all of them triumphed, if you think about it, against imperialism. Of course it is no longer fashionable to talk about this because colonialism is already somewhere else... it has already gone somewhere else. Right? The majority of anticolonialism no longer comes from its genealogy in the struggles for national liberation or violence? Violence is out of fashion and this book has something of that in it? How can we not talk about how in Mexico we had to shoot to recover a little of what we have? No! We have to talk about friendship, love, tenderness. That part is what I think no longer speaks much to our time and we'll see what will happen next, we'll see what will happen next. No, although you are useful, right? I mean, a lot of people who are involved in activism live with a lot of affection from that book and that's fine. I mean, I think it's fine. I think it lacks the political and negative part, but well, we couldn't ask for everything from just one book. No. That's what the Europeans did to us, bringing the Bible and [00:13:00] killing us under the pretext of a single book. So I think we shouldn't fall for it. That's right, it's colonial to want to ask everything from a single book. If that book gave what it had to give in its context and that context, for me, this is over. In other words, it was a useful tool that responded and now here's what follows. Chris: Well yes, I remember that there was a footnote in the book by Silvia Federici and I have it. The quote here said that "What matters most is to discover and recreate the collective memory of past struggles. In the United States, there is a systematic attempt to destroy this memory. And now this is spreading throughout the world. Reviving the memory of past struggles makes us feel part of something bigger than our individual lives and in this way gives a new meaning to what we are doing and gives us courage, because it makes us less afraid of what [00:14:00] can happen to us individually." And I feel like there is something there as well, I don't know if it's driven from above or if it's just a lack of memory, but yes, I feel that it is, it's very strong that there is a lack of lineage, in politics today, in contemporary social moments. But well, I wanted to ask you a little bit about your experiences with tourism as well. I would like to ask you about what kind of reactions you received, received as a result of the podcast and if those conversations changed your ideas about the topics discussed. Alf: I had to ask Pame directly because I think she experienced it in her own way too. But well, it was really cool. First of all, the beauty of that program. There were several things. First, that program was supported by the American Institute of Anarchist Studies, and that [00:15:00] was nice, to have the support. I mean, not making ourselves so precarious. And also not having to ask shitty people for money to do cool stuff, no, that always feels good. Like not betraying the content, meaning that the form goes hand in hand with the substance, no. So, to start with, that was very joyful. Secondly, great joy, I always work behind closed doors. I'm a little jealous of my work. So, I opened the door and worked with not only two people, they saw a podcast that there were four of us, five of us. That's very strange. I'd never done that. I don't usually do that. Yes, I work with people, but not with the microphone, not normally, eh? I always work with groups and movements and things, but let's say behind closed doors, so to speak, or in specific circumstances. So, first of all, the consistency that I feel that this program had, how to align ourselves with an internationalist anarchism, which I think we need to recover. Internationalism in general, eh? And I think that [00:16:00] Sometimes the fight against tourism unintentionally becomes very nationalistic and does not distinguish between migrant and tourist, these things, like in Mexico, are better than everything else. A little strange, but well, before I get lost, I think there was a nice internationalist gesture there. I mean, between anarchists from the north and those from the south first and second, well, opening the microphone because it's not something I usually do or used to do until this year, so to speak, I mean, I've been doing monologue as a presenter for several years because I do my social part face to face, so to speak. And I could tell you many things. But I was very excited about the program with Weaving the Revolutionary Organization, eh? I really loved it. I mean, it seems to me that they do important work. And it seems to me that our time is being thought of from the perspective of revolutionaries as well. Not necessarily like the last decade, the insurrectional and anything goes. This one, I think that [00:17:00] is changing those approaches a bit, and it's precisely those who have been around for more than 20 years and are about 50 people organized from below with a lot of clarity and a lot of strength. Well, we made a very cool bridge, I didn't go into anarchism and other parts of the radical left, which normally we don't shake hands and we don't talk. I mean, it's not common or easy. And when it happens, it's usually tense. And for me there wasn't any tension, on the contrary. There was a very cool complement to the outline. It's the last chapter of Emergente. Well, I mean, and I feel that it connects with Militancia Alegre. I mean, calling it militancy and not "joyful activism" was a provocation by the authors. And I think that movement is like?, among many others that are mentioned, they are just militants, not activists, right? In other words, the activist has a very northern genealogy and very much from the nineties onwards. And I think that they, like the "cool ones" read that Militancia Alegre is still the coolest book, they don't usually look at it, the cool people, they don't usually look at that type of militancy like Thor. [00:18:00] They were all very cool, but I have a special affection for that last one, because yes, I think that we have to think of unusual alliances, like all radical leftists, try to articulate. And for me, that was the closest thing. And I keep listening to it. And there are things that make me think, for example, what they say about the working class sectors, that there is an indigenous sector, so they fight among themselves and how they are sectorized, well, for me, there are several things that they make me think. They make me think a lot. And their work is very cool. It's just that, since it's not the coolest and nicest. It doesn't have this super design or anything. Well, a lot of people don't pay attention to them. So for me, it was important to give them the microphone and I really missed programs with them, to be honest. So, for me, that was very nice, with the excuse of the book, because the truth is, we hardly spoke or very little. I would have been able to interview, for example, Raquel Gutiérrez. If I could, I would have [00:19:00] interviewed John Holloway. I mean, I would have continued. The thing is that the job of an interviewer is very different from what I do as a presenter, I mean, it's another path. And well, the resource. Well, there isn't one. Of course. Of course. Because we were able to even pay a little bit of money to the people we interviewed. We were able to charge ourselves a little bit. Pay the designer. It was very different from everything I do. This is not that program. I insist on the internationalist support, whether small or large, well it was very nice to have, because normally you can't pay for interviews and things, which is funny with so much class struggle, with comrades who obviously have a hard time coming here. Chris: Not anymore, it's very difficult, but yes, it was a very nice episode. And I'm going to put it on the El Fin de Turismo website when we launched this podcast and also for those who want to know, it's the last episode of Alegría Emergente. Well, speaking of your works Alf [00:20:00] in Pepitas de Calabaza, you explore some peripheral themes of tourism, from the Merida where you grew up, the chiqui loteros or those who divide large lots into small lots to sell them at a usually higher price, sometimes to foreigners. It's one of those themes. How did your time in Merida influence your understanding of tourism? Alf: First, I would like to extend the invitation to read my work. This theme of property and tourism and colonialism basically runs through all of my work, but the specific extent to which you are interested in Pepitas is also something I mention in the new book. There is no Dam Capable of Counting and I speak specifically about how tourism, the tourism industry has been stealing from those of us who come from the working classes. We grew up at the bottom and so on, especially pleasure, leisure. Forget about the [00:21:00] land. If access to water, a series of things, no. So, there is a bit more elaborate work done there, but effectively, from Pepitas. Well, for me, it is a topic that is central to my work. The topic of colonialism, because for me, talking about tourism is talking about current colonialism, internal and external colonialism, but it is the current colorism. In other words, it is a displacement, part of a process of displacement . So, in Pepitas, well, that is indeed a protagonist, who, let's say, is the national bourgeois, to put it very theoretically, the small-timer, we call him regionally, who is the landowner. It is not Carlos Slim. In other words, he is not the richest, the richest, but he is, let's say, the medium-range landowner who can buy land and divide it up and sell it, speculate with the land, in the end. But in the south, he resists, last year, to raise the tone to the political again... Last year in the south [00:22:00] he resists, the National Indigenous Congress told us, that half of the land in Mexico is social property, right? And I talked about this when presenting No Existe Dique with Yasnaya Aguilar because Oaxaca is a different case and it causes a lot of envy. There is a third form of land, which is communal land, but we are not going to get into the legalities. The southeast of Mexico, as Paco represents and I talk about in my second book, tourism has come in because legally, since 1992 the constitution was changed and the communal property has been broken and private property has come in, right? So, to take it to a purely political level, fighting against tourism in Mexico today would be to demand that it cannot be sold, as in Oaxaca there is communal property, not in any other part of the country as far as I know, that land cannot be legally sold. So, not to abstract, or rather to be specific, tourism is advancing, by the first world, in collusion with [00:23:00] with the upper class third worlder, in this case, Paco, to break up social property and introduce individual or private property, right? If there were a mechanism that the Mexican revolution left us, that legal mechanism could not allow tourism to exist in Mexico , at least not legally . So, since 1992, what was left of the Mexican revolution fell apart and was fought with bullets. We have to recover that negative. In 1992, things changed, we lost what we had won in the revolution. And then tourism exploded. And that is very noticeable for people from the south. I mean, if I tell you how I went to Tulum for the first time, and when I returned to Tulum 10 or 20 years later, or how I went to Zipolite for the first time. And that's the result. I mean, I can write you 30 books, but all of that is the result of a specific little part of the constitution that I mention in my second legal book, which allowed us to destroy what we won in the Mexican revolution, [00:24:00] which is collective property, in some cases indigenous property, in other cases, simply social property of the working classes. And I have brought this up with many people and I learned about it by being with the people in the territory, for example, with the assembly of Maya Muuch Xiinbal territorial defenders. They taught me in practice this whole series of mechanisms and defenses by walking with the people, being there. I mean, because sometimes you have to be there to understand the magnitude. I mean, if you think about it, the many indigenous peoples and popular classes own hectares, 40% of the country, it is in their hands at the level of legal property, but private property is gaining, no, no. And for me, tourism is just a small piece of this current colonizing project, which is taking away from us the little that we gained in the Mexican revolution. Well, we gained several things: public education, public health, all of that is being privatized. But it is very crazy land and territory, because it is very specific. I mean 40 percent versus [00:25:00] 60 percent, an article of the constitution, we must not lose sight of it, I mean. There it is. But look at the belly button of the fart. Aha. Chris: Mm, thank you. I would like to propose some questions, some provocations. Perhaps in regard to how tourism and rather, more recently, the so-called invasions of tourists, digital nomads to Mexico since the pandemic and other places as well. I mean, it's not just Mexico, but obviously there are other places. And well, there are certain things that have come up in other podcast episodes, regarding rigid radicalism, and how I see it sometimes as cultures of disposability, which I feel is something fundamental and also unknown in how it works, well, modernity, the colony, that whole trajectory [00:26:00] of s**t. But we see it a lot. I feel it, I feel it on social media. So, I would like to ask you, what do you think about the effects of social media in the contexts of contemporary struggles, but also in this context of tourism, of the invasions in Mexico. So my question is, how do you think social media contributes to rigid radicalism? Alf: Eh? Well, look, I think that they don't only contribute rigid radicalism, that is, responding very quickly. I think that the algorithm is designed and that is known by the majority, I hope, I suppose this to generate these echo-chambers that they call it. So, I think that the minimum, that is, the most x is that it generates rigid radicalism. I think that in reality the [00:27:00] The far right is winning in the world through social media. And I'm not the one saying this. This has been proven. I mean, Milei , Trump and all the fascism in power, which unfortunately exists, I estimate half the planet, Bukele, etc., Bolsonaro, have a lot to do with what Chumel Torres would be here, with what Eduardo Verastegui would be here. It has everything to do with it, right? And I think that critical thinking, whatever we want to call this other anti-fascist side, we have not taken that seriously enough as an enemy, right? Because returning to negativity, resentment , well, that is a new enemy. For me, we must destroy it. I made room, that is, as I have to do. So, I also talked about this with Benja, Yasnaya's partner, the day of my presentation at Volcana. I mean, what happens is that a lot of leftists, a lot of critical thinking and everything, don't want to do pop. So the right is doing [00:28:00] pop and that's why Trump won, and that's why Milei is in power, because they make a kind of pop social networks. They are not afraid to reduce thought, to provoke. They are not afraid because they have the power, obviously, they control the world. Specifically, Trump, right? So, we, from fear and from a strange classicism, a strange machismo, as if we say that "pop" is bad because it reduces. Being an influencer is bad because it makes the abstract. It reduces it. It simplifies it. And that is a problem. It is a big problem that for me has to do with the problem of schooling. But to answer you, and I think that social networks support current fascism, more than anything else, I think more than anything else. And that is why we are governed by celebrities and we are in a new phase of politics as a spectacle. And we were not there, we return to militancy as a book that no longer responds to this era, I do not feel that Obama was that. I don't [00:29:00] feel that PRIism and PANism were like that. We are in another moment, then, as always the left or whatever you want to call it, the thought, the general antifascism, which I don't care about the concepts, as always we are slow, slow to react. Why? Well, because it scares us. Social media, I think they are bombarding us emotionally with genocide. I think that the way they are handling the image of genocide is destroying the mental health, finishing off, if not, it would have already destroyed the mental health of a good part of those of us who are against Trump and Milei , to say the love that I hope we are more than half of the Earth again, this is what I like to believe. So, I think we are slow because they want us to be, because they have ruined our mental health. And that makes us slow to respond with the same strength as them, that is, we lack influencers who are a little rougher, to say it as it is, that is, a little more as strong and provocative as them. I [00:30:00] feel that the influencers on this side do an important job, but very softly. I mean, it's very low-key. Very well behaved. When you listen to Bukele, you listen to Milei or Trump speak and they are the provocateurs, really. This one, they are not afraid to say stupid things. And the left, yes. Yes, they are afraid to screw up. When they don't realize that what they are doing is provoking in order to move, right? I mean, people know it's an exaggeration. Milei, Bukele and Trump's voters know that they say a lot, that he's a drunk, that he's saying stupid things, but they go and vote. Chris: Sure. Alf: The left is failing to raise the tone. On the contrary. I mean, the more it goes down in the background and the more little Palestinian flags, the more well-behaved we are. And then, ah, "well, let's talk about Palestinian culture, which is very important. It's very beautiful. But I bet that there would be influencers saying let's throw bombs at them and let's kill them, it would be stronger, right? I mean, it would scare them, as it would happen, if history happened in the 70s. This did happen. If we scared them, we don't scare them anymore. And I think that has everything to do with how imperialism today is an algorithm. Before it was something else, and it is an imperialism of the mind and of emotions. And it's just how they handle the image. I mean, it doesn't matter what they show us, but the way in which Trump's speech is used and the way in which the image of genocide is used, not the genocide. That doesn't matter to them, but the use , they blast us , they blast us all the time. So we can't articulate. We can't recognize each other. We start competing, we fight, and it's because they're winning. There have been other moments in history where this side really scared me without idealizing it because it can also be very sexist. This one scared Trump and the Trumps. I mean, they [00:32:00] s**t themselves and said no, no. So, well, they are going to kill, right? And so, there was something positive there. There was something positive there and that was lost, our own ability to be scary and to defend ourselves. It has been lost. I mean, and it is very material, because they kill defenders of the territory every week, as well as Palestinians and Lebanese with the same gun, the same weapon. Every week they kill them. So, of course it is scary to raise the tone. Not because I feel like they are going to kill you. There is a ghost. So, I think that social networks are entirely to blame and that they are managed wonderfully, perfectly, social networks and the Internet because it allowed imperialism to become... So you carry it everywhere, you want fascism. And that's on the little screens and on the cell phone. They handled it very well. The one who explains it most well is Adam Curtis, in Can't Get You Outta My Head. And I think that we have to take that [00:33:00] even more seriously, because people just say "ah, damn Chumel Torres." No, dude. I mean, he's the cancer of this society. I mean, I can't explain it. He's a real enemy and "ah, he's just some weird PAN member over there." What I mean is that we don't take it seriously, it's like we're not reading the empire in its new phase and how it's run. Chris: But then, do you think that the ways we can undermine the algorithm is by, getting off the screen? I mean, how is the algorithm also becoming not only internalized in the movements, according to me, but in the mindsets of people and within the movements? Alf: Of course I don't have an answer, but it occurs to me that this has already been tried many times, such as creating our own technologies. What happens is that they will never be as attractive and powerful, as a class of those who control the earth, because for some reason [00:34:00] they control it and they are winning, right? Because they have all the resources and all the intelligence placed there. So, if the movements can already have social media, but their posts have no reach and that is managed from above. So this is a deeper problem that has to do with the problem of the image and its management. That is, by controlling the algorithm, the empire, what it is controlling are the images and the narratives. They manage them, that is what I mean by imperialism. That is, we see what the empire wants us to see and that is the end of it. That is, it is a new phase because you do not necessarily have the gringo governing your country as it was before the national revolutions, for example, but you have the cell phone that will only show you what is convenient for the gringo government or the majority. So breaking the algorithm is breaking the empire, that is, the truth, that is, it is nothing else. And that makes it [00:35:00] cool is cool and uncool, which is usually more important, is not seen and does not have access to resources and does not generate cool images. And if you manage to get an image, it has no reach. In other words, it is very noticeable for my work. I mean, if I upload my kitty 500 views, if I upload the type of things we are talking about 5. Yes, of course. It is super obvious, not the handling of the image and management. So, well, we have to go back. We have to go back to self-publishing. We have to go back to free media as they have been doing for several decades. I mean, and redo it, recover it, rethink it. People who are going to Mastodon on social media. People who are getting out of the algorithms, the ugliest ones. I mean, I don't know how much we're going to achieve. I mean, that's why I, my political side, I live it more in person. I mean, I go. I try to go now that Lucio's 50th anniversary is celebrated every year, to make people, to be with the people, to be people. I mean, because [00:36:00] of course if I don't go, I'll never find out. And if I don't walk with, as I told you, the Mayan assembly, even for five minutes, I won't understand that the main problem of all this is simply an article of the constitution, right? So, I mean, let's say that they post it on the Internet. Who listens to it? Nobody, very few people, but that's because of who controls it. That the information doesn't arrive, no. So, of course. So that's what I'm getting at, that is, there is a problem with the image. I mean, there is a big problem with the image because of what the extreme right and fascism have achieved perfectly well in our time. It's that people prefer recognition and likes, not the prize, rather than real reparation. And so social media is based on a new model of counterinsurgency and political pacification and neutralization, which is, I'll go, I'll give you a prize, I'll go and show you, I'll give you a like, but so you'll shut up, no. And so you don't say things, [00:37:00] we are saying, it is a single article. If we go back to the article, we will stop a good part of the colonialist and tourist capitals today, etc. In other words, what I mean is that they go and reward you, they go and like you so that you become more peaceful. And there was a strategic change that we are also very slow in itself, because in the seventies they killed you, the politically organized middle classes. Not today. Today it is not like that. Today they kill the people from below, the defenders who live and inhabit the popular classes, the territory and the middle class are rewarded so that you keep quiet. So, how do they reward you by making the algorithm see you a lot and you talk a lot and produce a lot of content, but it is content. I repeat, very well behaved. It's a soft content, which omits the political parts, which omits topics of imperialism versus insurgency, blah, blah, I mean. It talks about everything else, ways of life, radical tenderness, [00:38:00] alternative consumption, solidarity sisterhood, everything you want, except if we don't cut off Trump's head, that condition doesn't stop. I mean, I don't know if I explain myself. Except for the most important thing, I mean, I'm caricaturing it. By cutting off Trump's head we're not going to stop journalism, but you get my drift. They're handling censorship and we're already talking about techno-techno-feudalism. We're giving away content that supports imperialism and we don't realize... we're so alienated right now with the algorithm that we work for it for free. No? And it includes me, that is, my PDFs are free. My radio is free. I am a slave to the Internet and that's it, right? And then, to the extent that we don't know it, we feel the negativity of that dispossession and how we all work for the empire. We like it a lot, so we alienate ourselves more, right? I mean, because I don't charge for my radio stations. I don't charge for the PDF [00:39:00] literally. It dispossesses me and makes me precarious in a harsh, direct sense. The problem is that saying it is strong because people, well, as they listen to your program or mine, and it costs us MXN $5. Well, people buy the friend and say, great, they see me on the internet. When only people who think like you are seeing you. And no one else. I mean, not a single follower anymore. People who already thought like you, before coming across your content. So, in reality we are not achieving propaganda, right? And I think it is super important, because to the extent that we always work with those who think like us, we are not pushing the fascist 50 percent, on the contrary, we respect it and we say, well, I work with the 50%. I stay with the 40% of social property and I never push private property or the fascist 50%. And there you are, it's very comfortable to talk to each other. Well, don't let anyone bother you, don't let anyone send you [00:40:00] bots. Because what they do to me is they attack me on the Internet, right? So, every time I say what needs to be said, they send me bots and they scare me, like many people, no, they threaten you. And all of this is perfectly managed, in Mexico since Peña Nieto, by Peña bots. These technologies are felt very clearly. Many times they are Israeli. It is felt very clearly, right? And they work perfectly well, because they pacify and neutralize wonderfully. People are already stopping what they have to say because you feel that... I mean, because you feel the opposite effect, censorship is felt as a reward. Chris: Totally. Thank you very much. Alf. I would like to provoke a little bit this idea that the algorithm is only softening us. In softening, you said? In softening. Yeah. Yeah, because well, [00:41:00] it also seems to me that the algorithm is asking for, putting in, reinforcing the anger. And I recently discovered, I discovered a book called Discard Studies, which attempts to formulate hypotheses not only around the social histories of waste and pollution, but also of exile and displacement. And the idea in discard studies is that all of these things are very closely related to each other. Social media also creates a platform for social expulsions in the form of cancellations or escrachees, for example. Alf: Mm-hmm. Chris: So, also if the rhythm is imposing, inviting us to be more peaceful, I feel that there is a way that is imposing, pushing, inviting us to discard, throw away, the [00:42:00] people among social movements, that is, among social movements, also in the interpersonal way. And I wanted to ask you about that and the consequences for long-term struggles. Alf: Mm-hmm. Look, I feel that it was discussed in particular in the second episode of Alegria Emergente with a guest named Tomás Calles. We talked about that with him. Look, I feel that this topic is very complicated, because for me, the escrache , well, what I know most today is the escrache that comes with gender, with sexual abuse. And at the same time, I think that we have to do a complete genealogy of the escrache because the escrache , every time... I mean, if we take it out of gender and put it in politics, class, race, and everything else, this one, if you notice, all the time, going back to the 50% fascist and the non-fascist, the 50 % fascist has narrowed to the 50% non-fascist. This is all about the control of narratives and images. I mean, [00:43:00] If you see the image, for example, and for me, it is a form of escrache , and for our time. If you see how the United States created the image of Cuba, it is a form of escrache , right? I mean, like, I'm going to speak really badly of those guys. I'm going to say, I'm going to publish all the books and all the content that speaks badly of Cuba, right? And for me, there is a kind of escrache there, a pre-escrache, so to speak. So, in political terms, I tell you again that I feel that the leaders are missing in this whole discussion. There have always been and will always be ways to manipulate and destroy when people are doing more or less cool things, well, they will look for you where and there they will screw you, right? And the government also participates in this with its bots, right? And its handling of information, the distribution of information in particular. So, I feel that escrache must be seen as part of the counterinsurgency, not all escrache is , because there are escraches that, for example, do not become public and become processes, for example, [00:44:00] of... that is, public denunciation is not punitivism as an exercise in public exemplary punishment, there are escraches or specific denunciations, which rather become exercises in restorative justice, behind closed doors, which have been effective. And I have learned about several and I have been invited to several processes. This one and with several movements. I have realized that justice was exercised by ourselves . Yes, carried out to repair specific things with specific solutions without making an image, without giving the algorithm what takes away all our time - time, energy, without giving it the photo where it says "to make your cool escrache speak..." I mean, just solve it , that's what a lot of things on the Internet don't do. They talk but don't act, and you can talk whatever you want as long as you don't act. That's the great trick of the social network. Let's not talk about everything, as long as we don't change anything. This then nothing. I feel that the escrache , well, has to be seen as such, it has a part [00:45:00] It's cool for me, especially behind closed doors, like processes that I would call restorative justice , that is, that don't tend towards image, they can create an image, but that is not their final objective, but rather to repair specific damages with specific solutions, not case by case, without abstracting this , this versus a type of liberal escrache , whitewashed, spectacular, cheap, that the only thing it has done is counterinsurgency. Every time there are leaders. "Oh, he's a macho," right? Every time there is a social movement, "ah, they work for the Russians, they work for the Chinese, this , they receive money, they receive money from this , this." And the escrache , yes, it is one of the best tools, because it generates narratives and images, not that they contrast what has been won. I mean, I'm going to give you a fund as an activist so you can talk about tourism, whatever you want, as long as you don't talk about this and that, okay, [00:46:00] then you send to collect and it will be great for you. And I'll make you super famous and that's cool. Well, that is the fight, so that we all do well materially. But they censored you. They told you that you only talk about, so, look, we returned to the subject of escrache. I mean, a lot of those people who were escrache. I'm going to put one. Miguel Peralta. The case of Miguel Peralta, for me it would be a case of escrache, not this Miguel Peralta today is persecuted by the Mexican state and many people are going to tell you that he is a sexist. They are going to tell you many things, but they are not going to tell you the other part, right? The political part of his fight, against a government that governs, not to say Samir Flores as a escrache, not to say Hortensia Telesforo with a type of escrache. I mean, are you catching on? I mean, what happens then is that from above, they control the narrative and control the image and the distribution of information. They tell you, look, I'm going to pay you for one thing, but keep quiet about the other. Then put up the colorful flag. And CDMX is already gay and trans, [00:47:00] but you never talk about social class again. Please let the poor remain poor. She only talks about trans, right? If you notice, it's like the escrache. I mean, the escrache says we're going to destroy Miguel Peralta's political leadership by putting ultra emphasis on his sexist side, which I don't doubt he has had like many leaders and like many people, I mean, I'm not saying no, I'm just saying that the way in which these types of accusations are used is to destroy the political side. Many times, not all. Mm, but to give just one example, and today, for today I'm talking to you about a case of current criminalization, like we could talk about Samir Flores or Hortensia Telesforo and the entire counterinsurgency. The counterinsurgency is a type of escrache. That's already changed. I repeat, the most visible people are given awards and attention. The less visible people are killed or criminalized like Miguel. They are about to put him in jail for 50 years if we don't pay attention [00:48:00] to that case, right? That's what they want, that we don't pay attention. So that's what I'm getting at, I mean, the crime almost doesn't matter, the lack of damage almost doesn't matter, but the handling of it. There is a kind of economy, I would even say, an economy of complaints and an economy of image that we are not aware of. We are so far removed that we go, based on the first thing that comes to mind: "Oh, that guy was a macho." That's it. Everything is left, either that guy worked for China and even all the work he has done, how he works for China, or how they talk about, for example, the narratives about Venezuela and Nicaragua and Cuba. I mean, it's impressive. It's a public escrache, I mean. Who's going to speak well of that kind of country? It's very difficult. Chris: Oh, at least say like, "I don't know, I don't know"... Alf: Or at least say, "I don't know," but what I mean is that regardless of what Venezuela and the left-wing machismo have done, [00:49:00] the handling of that error. I mean, I guess, yes, I think he makes mistakes like everyone else. The handling is the part that worries me the most, like social media, the distribution of that information. I mean, like, we're only going to talk about s**t , let 's be clear, because it suits the United States , that Miguel Peralta is in jail, that Venezuela only knows s**t, that China only knows... I don't doubt that there is a shitty side, but the limits of the discourse are interesting. You can't talk about what's already been done . The moment he says it's something good. Cancelled. To jail. That's it. So that draws my attention, because people think it's a moment of discursive freedom. Fascism is winning, right? I mean, that's Trump, but that's the Palestinian and Lebanese genocide. But but but there is a symptom of that in that we cannot, we cannot speak. I feel that the [00:50:00] The Internet is much more fascist than before. I mean, I feel much more censored than what I see happening in the 20th century. Do you understand? The truth. I mean, I see Che Guevara's speeches and I say no, because at that time you could talk. He speaks like that today, a bullet in the forehead. That's easy. You didn't wake up. You would disappear. So I say, did we win or lose in terms of discourse? No, I think we lost because you watch TV in the 20th century and he spoke without being shot. Today, not today anymore. Samir spoke, Morena killed him. That's it. That's it. In other words, today the Palestinians spoke, all dead. I mean, then I think we lost with the Internet. We didn't win, but I think that tourism, I repeat, and colonialism, then it's just like a little part. Honestly, I think it's like a little piece of everything that's a bigger thing. Of course it's an industry that has [00:51:00] been gaining a lot of strength, but for me there would be counter-tourism and a pilgrimage. I feel like I'm on a pilgrimage. Look, what tourism destroyed is being rebuilt when I try to approach social movements, from my class, that is, from my skin color and all my contradictions. Well, sometimes I keep walking, with people who have taught me things that will never appear on my cell phone. We deliberately don't know the truth. Even if they post them, they won't reach me. And so I think that if there is a counter-tourism and I think that we should go looking for it in the subject of pilgrimage or radical hospitality. Why? Because there was a sacred subject, right? I mean, there was something sacred in the pilgrim. It wasn't just pleasure tourism, although it had sharing and idleness at its side, but for me we would recover the ability to defend ourselves, various things that have been taken from us, the ability to speak that I think they took from us based on awards and views, not based on punishments, because there would be a [00:52:00] pilgrimage , from a political perspective, right ? For example, I'm told that next year there will be a pilgrimage in Brazil. No, many people are going to go to Brazil from different latitudes. And for me, that is counter-tourism and sacred political pilgrimage. No. So people go to Anticop, you go, I mean, going is super important because you clean up the ground with garbage and you are face to face with a reality that the imperialist algorithm wants us to not get, you go out. Of course. The problem is that it insists on you. It's so fashionable, "death to tourism," that it's not easy to talk about there being very important counter-tourism. There have always been, right? I mean, when the Zapatistas say come, things happen that don't happen. So you have to go, no. You have to go, of course. So, and that is counter-tourism. And the Zapatistas are super aware. Not only gringos come here, only güeritos. What's the problem with this way they become politicized? Yes, I think it is more middle class not to try to [00:53:00] find the cause and turn the industry around. Mmm. And simply say death to all tourism. Well, yes, in theory it sounds very good, but in practice it is gaining ground. Chris: Mmm, sure, and so I'd like to ask you about radical hospitality as well, but I feel like a lot of people fall into trying to define what it is. But then I would just like to ask you, just like on a pilgrimage, if you like, if you have found what you would call your radical hospitality on your travels or at home, that is, in your neighborhood. Alf: Look, this is something I learned. I mean, what is called radical hospitality is something I have practiced all my life and only later did I start to develop it. Well, I have been active all my life and I still am active mainly in the underground. It's counterculture. But for example, I've been in punk, in [00:54:00] skateboarding, as in the radical left in general, with all its branches, all my life, I've come and gone. And my house has always been the home of many people and it's a practice that I hadn't thought about, right? That of not staying in the hotel, that of taking people for a walk and showing them the hidden places in the city, not the places that are clean and in English. I mean, it's something that is very much in the punk and anarchism of those things, right? And I have a house in many places around the world because I have also given a home to many people from many places around the world, from a very young age, from skate tours when I was 14 years old, people came from everywhere and stayed at my house and I didn't realize that it is something, that if you go on a pilgrimage, radical hospitality or whatever we want to call it, before the real estate boom, tourism. Well, it always existed, right? I have always existed, right? So nothing. For me it is strange to talk about it because for me, it is not questioned, right? I mean, I receive people all the time and I receive people all the time from a lot of people. Lately it has become more international. But before it was more between , well, small societies, whatever. So I could tell you my whole story, based on that axis, if you want. But my point is that it is a practice that I have integrated. I mean, no, I never questioned it. I mean, and I eat a lot of what remains in the counterculture, what remains underground, I mean, a lot of people live it like this. And every time someone invites me, for example, the last time they invited me to a town, it was Yasnaya, which we had already agreed to go to. Because the Mixes listen to the program and everything. And I said, "Of course." So, for me, the moment you tell me when I'm going, I'm going. And for me there is something, I mean, it has to come from a town like the Mixe, the invitation so that it's not tourism. For me, there has to be an explicit recipient and an invitation . I mean, it's part of the gift economy and those things that we have always done in the south and in the south we have always done consciously or unconsciously. I think now we have to start [00:56:00] to elaborate it as well. Now we have to start theorizing and thinking about it because as it progresses, the private property of colonization, Well, these communalisms are being lost, because they are practices that the people have , that the popular classes have, that the undergrounds have. People move all the time, all the time. It doesn't move in fancy and cool ways. I mean, the photo isn't the pretty one on Instagram. So, therefore, the practice that interests me is the practice, not so much the conceptualization or the image. Well, we can't reproduce it and commercial tourism is winning. To give you another example, several towns in the southeast also spoke to me about alternative tourism. And, for example, they set up various things with the surrounding towns asking for permission, returning to 40% of the social property and that part of the constitution that we would have to ask for back to us, they asked permission from all the ejidos. So you went by bike or birdwatching [00:57:00] the things that normal tourism does, but they spoke with the owners of the ejidos with the one from the social property that I and the Zapatistas and many people defend and they told them well, "I'm going to bring gringos who want us to do it. Well, give us your beer" or "how much are you going to charge them?" And for me it's counter-tourism, you see, and walking with them in those territories. You learn it. I mean, listening to radio programs and reading books is going to be awesome. I mean, you have to go, not this one and look how interesting, because that 40% of that social property, well, who could get the money, who gets the hotel? No? Because many of these people are very precarious, so we don't just say "ah, f**k the money in tourism," but to whom do we give it and why. When you look at it, I see in the villages very cool initiatives of redistribution in this direction. There are a lot of very cool cooperatives that redistribute the opposite of what a hotel does. But we return to the subject, because "they are not [00:58:00] cool" and they do not have the coolest design and they are not influencers." Well, nobody knows that there are communal practices that include mobility between towns and between very cool people. I mean, the truth is. I have seen many incredible counter-tourist cooperative projects. So, well, that's it. People who do informative walks, like pedagogies for walkers, like counter-tourism. There are a lot of people and a lot of things, radical historians, there who make their counter-discourses and take people. I mean, I think there are a lot of them, for me, there is a lot of hope there. What happens is that we don't connect to it. In other words, the algorithm makes it so that you don't see it and you stay, I mean, that information, you say that they post it, it's not going to reach you, right? I mean, it's designed so that it doesn't reach you. So, but there are a lot of really cool things. I don't live in that [00:59:00] sad dystopia, that a lot of people live in, like "I'm worthless." "We have to stop moving." I don't live it. We don't have to move too much either. I think that nomadism in the middle class is already a form of dispossession as well. There is, as it were, forced dispossession in the middle classes. Not below. But well, I don't live it with this doom whatever. Condemnation. I mean, like, ah, all movement is fucked up, there are very essentialist people who say, "All tourism is s**t." And I would say, well, you live with a lot of guilt. Dude, that's great. It's called Catholicism. And I know it very well. There are other ways. I mean, without so much guilt, you can give your money to cool people and it's not going to solve the problem, but it's cooler than giving it to the hotel and the colonialist and the one who broke social property. I mean, if you do something, it's not minimal, but you do something. Well, I've seen things where I say, well, there's something here, no, [01:00:00] there's something here. It also happens that many times initiatives that reject "what's cool" don't want to be very visible and don't want to be very famous, so that's the problem with fair trade and alternative trade, which seeks to make people a little bit invisible sometimes. That's problematic, isn't it? Because then, how do we send the gang with the cool gang, if the cool gang doesn't want to be sent gang all the time. I mean, they don't want to do business, they don't want to do business because they become capitalists. Anyway. But that, that's another problem, not the problem of cooperativism. Chris: Sure. So, overflowing with topics and beautiful conversation, Alf, but if I can before we wrap up, I'd like to ask you about your new book. No Dam Can Hold Back the Raging Ocean. Can you tell us a little bit about what it's about and how your previous work has influenced [01:01:00] that new one? Alf: Yes, Chris: You've touched on it a little bit, but Alf: Yeah. This is a book that you can buy in several bookstores, Volcana, Polilla and there where you are with Don Gregorio. We soon want to have it in Jícara, in Utópicas, at Casa Tomada and with me on the Internet, and you can download it in PDF. I send them to everyone. But, well, it's a book that basically, to put it in a sentence, is my experience and my elaboration on anarchism or the radical left in general. Basically. That is, it tells you a bit about my life story and how I lived it, how I received it. And what have I researched and thought about a practice? At this moment, history might call it anarchism, but at another time it is called other forms, but yes, like anti-authoritarianism, etc. So, the book is that. I mean, it is a personal essay, but it is also a [01:02:00] political philosophical essay, right? So it's both. I'm telling you about my life, but I'm also telling you about the history of these ideas and how I have seen them, in practice and practiced them as far as I could. Hmm. Chris: Well, I'm going to make sure that those places, at least in Oaxaca and also online, are going to be listed on the tourism website when I launch the episode. And on behalf of our listeners, Alf, I'd like to express my sincere gratitude for your willingness to join us today, to talk about these complex issues and to ensure that this dissidence has a place in the world. Thank you very much. And how could we find your work online? Through social networks or Alf: Yes? Unfortunately, I wish it wasn't going to happen. But no, I [01:03:00] had no other choice. Yes, my main job is that I have two books abroad that can be found in the bookstores I mentioned. What I do as a broadcaster is free everywhere, it's Un Sueño Largo Ancho y Hondo. It's @1slaaahh on various social networks. And if you put it there on the internet it will be free and as I was saying before, everything goes together. My fiction part and my pedagogical and political part are pretty much united. It's more or less the same wave, but yes, let's say the most immediate thing is to listen to what I do, I've been doing it for several years, as a broadcaster. So you just click on it and that's it. And I ask them there to give me a like, to give me the reason why, until now, no, there's no one who can, I mean, I don't work for a [01:04:00] radio station that takes care of my networks and I just record and I would be fine, but no, well, I manage it myself. So for now, if necessary, the like and the share. Chris: Sure. Well, those are also going to be on the end-of-tourism website when the episode launches. So, thanks a lot, Alf. Alf: Thanks, Chris. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

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S6 #3 | La Peregrinacion Entre Mundos | Anny Puac & Jairo Lemus 1:09:04

11 weeks тому1:09:04

1:09:04

Mis entrevistados en este episodio son Anny Gabriela Ventura Puac y Jairo Chamalé Lemus. Anny es ajquij(guía espiritual), politóloga e investigadora, actual curadora en jefe de Espacio/C. Nacida en Chuwila, Chichicastenango, Quiché, Guatemala. Es mujer Maya Kiche con identidad diversa, sanadora y contadora del tiempo. Tiene estudios en Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, Relaciones Internacionales y una especialidad en ODS para Naciones Indígenas. Es confundadora de Espacio C, en dónde se ha desempeñado como gestora cultural desde 2013 y curadora en Jefe desde 2023.En Guatemala su trabajo está presente en diversos espacios sociales, políticos y culturales, como consultora independiente para organizaciones no gubernamentales, trabajando con niñas, mujeres y adolescentes mayas y no mayas a nivel nacional, en temas concretos como empoderamiento político, salud (diabetes / VIH) y sanación desde la Cosmovisión Maya. Jairo es persona disidente, del territorio Poqomam de Mixco, viajero e investigador se la religiosidad popular, las expresiones culturales y la espiritualidad de su contexto cercano. Es guía de turismo y estudiante de antropología. Notas del Episodio Anny y Jairo y el Cristo Negro El camino de peregrinacion entre Mixco y Oaxaca Quirio Catano y las origines del cristo negro Las diversas formas de sacrificar y bailar Las colonizaciones de Equipulas El base de cristo negro en el mundo maya/mexica El crisis climatico y la falta de ofrendas Las consecuencias de la perdida de hospitalidad La memoria vivida del intercambio intercultural antigua Tarea Abisaí Navarro María Jacinta Xón / Proyecto Tux Cocina Gourmet de Origen Hoja de Pacaya - Instagram Los Cofrades Chichicastenango - Instagram espacio/C arte+memoria - Instagram Transcripcion en espanol (English Below) S6 - Anny Puac & Jairo - Peregrinacion a Esquipulas Chris: [00:00:00] Bienvenida y bienvenido al podcast El Fin del Turismo Annie y Jairo. Gracias a ambos por acompañarme hoy. Me encantaría que pudieran contarles a nuestros oyentes desde dónde llaman y cómo aparece el mundo ahí para cada uno de ustedes. Anny: Muchas gracias, Chris y buenos días a quienes nos escuchen o buenas tardes o buenas noches, dependiendo su zona horaria. Mi nombre es Anny y yo le saludo desde el territorio maya K'iche' de Chuwila, K'iche' Guatemala específicamente. Jairo: Buenos días a ambos, para mi un gusto estar por acá. Sawe ta inteer winaq (Buenos días a todas y todos) mucho gusto desde el territorio pues Poqomam de Mixco y también desde las cercanías a la ciudad de Guatemala, pues gracias por esta [00:01:00] oportunidad para compartir conocimiento. Chris: Y gracias a ustedes dos. Yo estoy aquí en Oaxaca y el mundo parece obviamente un poco raro. Bueno, quizás no es obvio, pero parece más raro día por día. Estamos aquí hoy para hablar de Esquipulas en Guatemala. Y Esquipulas es el lugar de varias iglesias que han abergado al cristo negro de la ciudad, que es famosa por sus supuestos milagros durante los últimos cuatro siglos. De manera similar, la peregrinación al santuario es la más grande de América Central y la segunda más grande de las Américas, con lo que leí, 5 millones de personas que lo visitan cada año. Ahora, para empezar, ¿Estarían dispuestos a explicar que impulsó a cada uno [00:02:00] de sus intereses o relaciones con este lugar y la práctica de la peregrinación? Anny: Sí, por supuesto Chris. Pues, yo desde como mi relación, digamos personal o individual como familia, yo tengo, digamos, como clara la idea de cuando inician estas peregrinaciones, de pronto, cuando yo ya tenía unos siete u ocho años de edad, así, para decirte que yo tengo claridad, pero cuando yo retrocedo a los archivos de la familia, pues veo que el tema de peregrinar a Esquipulas, pues comienza con mis abuelas. Jairo: Entonces yo te podría decir que dentro de mi familia, la peregrinación a Esquipulas , así quizá llevará mínimamente unos 80 años presente en la familia, sobre todo del lado de [00:03:00] mi abuela materna. Que ella es de un territorio K'iche' de Quetzaltenango, en donde pues empezaban el viaje, en conjunto, allá fuera un viaje de barrio organizado por el barrio, o era un viaje familiar, entonces se iban uno o dos buses en aquel tiempo cuando no había tanto transporte, verdad? Era un lujo también irse por alguna ruta en donde hubiera paso para bus. Y pues, lo que no se pudiera transitar ya en bus, pues se hacía caminando, se hacían burros, pero, más o menos por ahí viene un poquito la historia de de cómo inician estas rutas de peregrinaje en mi familia, digamos. Con el caso de nosotros, yo no tengo conciencia de pequeño de haber, pues, llegado a Esquipulas. Bueno, hay un dato bien interesante, cuando yo cumplo 40 días de haber nacido, mi familia decide llevarme a [00:04:00] Esquipulas, eso pues está en el archivo fotográfico de la familia como agradecimiento, porque al final nací con... nací bien. Jairo: Y entonces la familia decide peregrinar es el dato más cercano que tengo de la personal de las idas a Esquipulas. Claro, esto siempre lo he tenido muy familiarizado dentro de mi contexto cercano, puesto que la gente pues de mi municipio suele ir justo organizada en excursiones de las diferentes organizaciones religiosas que hay en mi municipio. Estas, pues designan fechas y son buses llenos de aproximadamente 50 personas. Cada bus suelen llegar hasta tres, de acá de Mixco, pues que se van para para Esquipulas. Y ese es algo bien interesante porque es pues, parte de la modernidad, digámoslo ir en bus, pero hay muchas anécdotas de las personas de acá del pueblo que [00:05:00] cuentan cómo, pues iban de una forma más rústica, verdad? Que podía ser, pues en peregrinaje caminando, que no era la única peregrinación, de hecho la del cristo negro de Esquipulas. Hoy puntualmente, vamos a hablar de ella. Pero pues están también las peregrinaciones Antigua Guatemala que está aquí cerquita, aquí detrás de nosotros hay un cerro que es el cerro Alux. Este cerro se cruzaba, pues caminando, todavía lo hace la gente caminando porque detrás del cerro está, pues la bajada para llegar a la Antigua Guatemala. Chris: Gracias. Gracias a ustedes. Pues así, por conocer un poco más de sus historias, como de peregrinación, me gustaría saber un poco más si se podrían ofrecer algo de la larga historia de Esquipulas, del cristo negro y pues, ¿Cómo se originó la la peregrinación? ¿De donde viene esa historia?. Jairo: Bueno, como lo mencioné antes, diciendo algunas [00:06:00] palabras en el idioma poqomam. Es el idioma que se hablaba, pues en nuestro pueblo. Lo voy a decir nuevamente más despacio para, pues, describirles que es lo que dije, técnicamente es: Sawe’ ta inteer winaq, kiroo wilkee’ chipam ma’ q ’oriik taqee, reh ma’ ojeer winaq reh qatinimiit Mixko’ buenos días a todos. Qué gusto pues poder compartir estas palabras y también un poco de la historia de la gente antigua de nuestro pueblo. Porque pues, la verdad es que el peregrinaje a Esquipulas está muy relacionado e intrínseco con la gente de Mixco y justamente también con el territorio oaxaqueño. Mi nombre, pues es Jairo, Jairo Andrés Chamale Lemus. Yo pues pertenezco a este territorio, a la gente maya poqomam. De acá es la mitad de mi familia de mis antepasados. Y , pues me dedico al turismo. Yo soy guía [00:07:00] de turistas de hace aproximadamente ocho años ya desde que me gradué muy joven. Y, pues me he dedicado justo a peregrinar para que las personas conozcan también el contexto histórico de Guatemala y de las diferentes expresiones culturales, religiosas y también de resistencia de la gente en el territorio de lo que ahora conocemos como Guatemala. Pues también, soy estudiante de la carrera de antropología, de la licenciatura específicamente en antropología, y pues me he dedicado también a estudiar el caso del idioma maya poqomam en Mixco, que es una comunidad muy cercana a la ciudad de Guatemala, que hemos tenido pues un impacto, demográfico y social, pues bastante fuerte, pues debido al crecimiento del área metropolitana de la ciudad de Guatemala. Es algo a lo que me he dedicado a estudiar durante los últimos años. Y también, pues, a [00:08:00] documentarlo, porque tenemos muchas prácticas culturales y espirituales en nuestro pueblo, que han ido desapareciendo conforme este avance demográfico de la ciudad, muchísimas gracias. Rontyoox aq’oo ta Anny: Bueno Chris. En realidad hay un registro, digamos histórico, donde dice que el primer peregrinaje que se inicia a Esquipulas, fue en Marzo 1595, cuando la imagen sale del taller de este señor escultor Quirio Cataño, que sale hacia Esquipulas, hacia Chiquimula. Esto está al oriente de Guatemala. Nosotros lo conocemos como la zona caliente de de Guatemala. Pero es la zona, digamos, como caliente árida. Es un territorio en donde hay comunidad Xinca, Popti', si no estoy mal Chortí también. Y pues, la producción que se [00:09:00] tiene por las tierras de por allá, estamos hablando de frutas de algunas plantas, de algunos tubérculos más o menos, pero más que todos se dedican a la fruta, verdad. Esta primera peregrinación la documenta y la registra el cronista, que se llama Miguel Álvarez. Y él dice que, cuando cuando salióó del taller y se dirigió hacia Esquipulas la imagen iba haciendo diferentes milagros en todo el recorrido hasta llegar a la basílica. Entonces habían personas que le pedían justamente que, que por favor que la imagen pasara por lo menos una noche dentro de la casa de las personas para, bendecirlo. Y Y más o menos se calcula cada año, digamos en la actualidad, ahora en Guatemala y en alrededor de 300 mil personas de todo el mundo, más que todo entre México, Centroamérica, países del sur, por ejemplo de Perú [00:10:00] de Ecuador de Ecuador, Bolivia, si no estoy mal, es como mucha la cantidad de gente que llega, más o menos entre noviembre, que ahorita es como una fecha de noviembre y diciembre y todo enero, digamos, esas son como los tres meses de muchísima más afluencia de personas que llegan llegan a la basílica, verdad? Entonces se le puede llamar romerías, se le puede llamar una peregrinacion que peregrinación, usualmente, pues ahí si que las personas que visitan puede ser que hagan así como un día de visita nada más o puede ser que pueda prolongarse una visita hasta por 10, 15 días, verdad? De la ciudad de Guatemala, hasta Esquipulas hay una distancia más o menos como entre unos 220 a 250 kilómetros y se recorre, si vas como en romería, pasando por lugares como muy puntuales de toda la peregrinación, en promedio [00:11:00] cada día tú vas haciendo un tramo de 40 kilómetros, al día, digamos si tu intención es ir en peregrinaje así. Entonces eso es más o menos como más datos históricos y el relato, verdad? Chris: Y estoy un poco curioso, dentro de las estancias, al llegar a Esquipulas, si yo fuera peregrinando, por ejemplo, ¿ Qué haría? ¿Se van parando para hacer sus rezos? Me gustaría saber por alguien que nunca ha hecho una peregrinación, como aparecía esos días antes de venir. Anny: Bueno, yo te voy a contar un poquito el relato de de mi familia porque mi abuela materna, ella sí era una señora, pues muy católica, no? Entonces, pues ella, su peregrinaje, digamos para ella, era su sacrificio, verdad? En el año, decir bueno, por agradecimiento [00:12:00] a mi salud, a los milagros que me concedió, porque era como muy devota. Era el hecho de salir en ruta de peregrinaje. ¿Qué implicaba esto? Inclusive, preparar comida para no digamos como perder el tiempo, tú pensando en qué comer durante el camino, porque la idea para ellos y para ellas era, pues, ir en como en recogimiento, en rezo constante, en oración, digamos en petición, ir como parando cada cierto tiempo, verdad? Cada 40 kilómetros, porque que ya dentro de la comunidad, católica-cristiana, hay puntos que están como marcados dentro de la ruta en donde tú puedes ir parando con cada familia, porque puede ser que tengan una réplica de la imagen del cristo negro, porque de hecho, cuando fue la primera peregrinación, puede ser que esta familia haya sido una de las [00:13:00] familias que recibió por primera vez el cristo negro. Entonces se convierte como en ese punto de de parada, verdad? Entonces, cuando hacen ese punto de parada, pues ya bajan. Bajan a hacer oración, bajan a platicar y a convivir con las personas de pronto, a compartir un alimento. Ya sentir, pues, así que también como su fé, su devoción, pero al mismo tiempo su convivencia, su alegría en este, en este tramo de compartir no?. Entonces eso digamos, es lo que usualmente, pues se ve. Yo también he visto otras personas que, por ejemplo, ya cuando quedan unos, son los últimos 20 kilómetros de recorrido por ejemplo, descienden de sus vehículos y caminan de rodillas esos 20 kilómetros hasta llegar a la basílica. Entonces, pues, los ves, ya puede ser que sea solo el papá con con el hijo, o el papá y la mamá, o pues la diversidad de personas que puedan llegar, que van y que pues hacen su penitencia, y [00:14:00] entregan digamos, pues su sacrificio de esta forma. Así como hay personas que puede ser que, que durante toda su ruta de peregrinaje, hay un ejemplo de unos, de unas personas cercanas a nosotros que tienen un conjunto de marimba, de música, y pues lo que hacen es que van con un vehículo y van ejecutando música todo el trayecto hasta llegar a Esquipulas, y ya cuando llegan a la basílica, bajan con sus instrumentos y se dedican a cantar ya sea una canción, un tiempo, verdad? Ahí, entonces, pues yo creo que depende, varía mucho de lo que te puedas tú dedicar o el agradecimiento que tú quieras pues dar, o a lo que, pues, lo que tu corazón salga, no? En mi caso como muy puntual, pues nosotros hacemos el recorrido completo los 220 kilómetros en vehículo hasta llegar a Esquipulas. Y luego, pues ahí ya, o sea, nos establecemos [00:15:00] y como nuestras dinámicas son un tanto como diferentes porque yo no soy católica. Yo soy de la cosmovisión maya, y pues ahí he crecido buena parte de mi vida. Mi concepción como de ver esta ruta de peregrinaje es diferente, porque si bien es cierto el que el cristo negro, pues es una figura de un cristo crucificado cristiano, Jesús, nosotros aprendimos a ver cómo la historia del pueblo Poptí y Chorti y Chortí, en cuanto a que esta ruta de peregrinaje es bien interesante, porque durante toda tu ruta más, más o menos, me atrevería a decir que tal vez un 70 de la ruta, tú vas encontrando montañas de obsidiana, entonces es una ruta que en sí es una ruta de sanación y para nosotros, digamos dentro de la cosmovisión maya está muy relacionada con el Nahual Tijax, que es la obsidiana y para [00:16:00] quizá buena parte de Oaxaca o de su Istmo o de la cultura Náhuatl, por ejemplo, está relacionado con Tezcatlipoca que era justamente esta veneración de esta mujer que decían que era brillante y color de cobrizo y de nigriso verdad? Y por tanto, Y pues tú sabes que ambas piedras o estos relatos que nos cuentan, pues es justamente sanación y de ahí que nosotros creemos que por eso el cristo negro es tan milagroso cuando se trata de temas de salud. Jairo: Desde nuestro lado, por así decirlo, forma parte ya de un peregrinaje que no solamente se hace el 15 de enero. Claro, el 15 de enero es el día establecido para hacer el peregrinaje de cristo negro de Esquipulas. Pero pues, muchos de los grupos que les comentaba que son bastante diversos acá en Mixco, grupos religiosos principalmente católicos, o pues sincretizados de [00:17:00] alguna forma, establecen también estas visitas como parte de su organización dentro del grupo de personas que inciden. Y entonces si, justamente dentro del bus, también se suele, pues, ir rezando el rosario, que es esta práctica de ir rezando las novenas con un orden establecido con cantos y la gente, pues suele ir desde que salen de ciudad de Guatemala o desde que salen de acá desde Mixco, que hay que cruzar la ciudad y luego la ruta hacia el oriente de Guatemala, la gente va haciendo estas oraciones cada cierto tiempo, pero depende mucho del grupo y de qué tan católico sea de alguna forma, porque hay grupos que solamente lo hacen como una excursión claro. El fin principal es de la visita, pues a la basílica del cristo negro y la veneración de cristo negro como tal. Y, pues solamente llegan en en el bus hasta la basílica y algo que caracteriza mucho a la cultura de [00:18:00] Mixco, es el, la quema de pólvora. A nosotros nos fascina la pólvora y cuando llegamos a Esquipulas justamente esa es la premisa, no? Llegar a quemar bombas de sonido, de sonido estridente en aviso que la gente de Mixco ya llegó. Y también fuegos pirotécnicos de colores. Es bien curioso porque depende mucho del grupo y a lo que el grupo, pues aunque sea católico o sincretizado con lo maya, a lo que este grupo religiosamente se dedique, encaminado a eso va la actividad que se va a realizar allá. Tengo conocimiento de un grupo que, de hecho, ya se documentó a gracias al CECEG, al Centro de Estudios Culturales de la Universidad de San Carlos, de Guatemala, es el grupo El Baile de Moros de los Seis Toritos, que es básicamente un grupo de danza tradicional que nace en la aldea Lo De Bran que está acá en Mixco siempre dentro [00:19:00] del área metropolitana y ellos, pues se dedican a bailar El Torito. El Torito es básicamente la representación de una danza que se hace en alusión a dueños de una finca y el trato hacia los animales. Entonces los animales tienen una especie de de revelación contra este dueño de la finca, una historia bien, sutilmente contada desde lo maya también. Y entonces van a hacer esta representación de la danza a Esquipulas. Esto lo hacen justamente para la fiesta del cristo negro. Bailan todo el día, durante tres días seguidos frente al atrio de la iglesia de Esquipulas, mientras millones de personas visitan la basílica de cristo negro y en ese momento ellos están bailando ahí. Chris: Qué fascinante. Me encanta ese sentido, esa onda que, que hay tanta diversidad, en la forma, los caminos, las celebraciones que se niegue un poco [00:20:00] ese sentido occidental que es como de siempre asumir o buscar una sola respuesta, una sola historia, una sola manera, de actuar, de entender. Y así fue sorprendiente para mí por leer, por investigar las historias de Esquipulas y de las peregrinaciones porque encontré muchas historias diversas. Entonces voy a leer un poquito de lo que encontré y me gustaría escuchar de ustedes, si se podrían comentar un poco de si hay sentidos de "eso es como puro chisme o es un rumor" o si hay capas y capas dentro de las historias de Esquipulas y las peregrinaciones. Entonces, pues la primera va que "en la ciudad sagrada de Copán se celebraban grandes fiestas en honor [00:21:00] a dios maya Ek-Kampulá que significa: 'el que empuja las nubes', pues se le atribuía el poder de alejar las lluvias y permitir los días del sol necesarios para preparar la siembra. Ek-Kampulá que era de color negro, estaba rodeado con una antorcha en la mano izquierda. Su figura se puede apreciar en las graduadas de uno de los templos de Copán." Ahora, el segundo. "Algunos relatos dicen que la figura del cristo negro fue ordenada por los conquistadores españoles en Guatemala en ese momento para facilitar la conversión de los pueblos locales al cristianismo." Ahora, el próximo. "Las leyendas piadosas afirman que la imagen se oscureció debido a los misioneros españoles que deseaban convertir a los [00:22:00] nativos que adoraban a la deidad nebulosa pagana Ek-Kampulá en el área que también era representada como una figura oscura." Entonces, supongo que mi pregunta es como, ¿Cuántas de estas historias han escuchado Y ¿Cuáles historias son las meras meras verdaderas según ustedes? O si hay capas y capas y capas de historias en qué todas merecen su lugar. Jairo: Yo creería que, Copán tiene un papel bien importante dentro de lo que estamos hablando. Ahora es un sitio arqueológico del área residencial o el castillo, por así decirlo, y los templos de la gente maya de ese tiempo, recordemos que es el clásico. Y pues esta ciudad fue colonizada por otra ciudad que se llama Quiriguá, que está siempre en las riberas del Río Motagua, un río muy [00:23:00] importante que comunica toda la parte de las montañas de Guatemala con el Caribe. Y en Copán si hay muchas expresiones espirituales. Seguro, Anny nos va a ampliar un poco más de esto. Pero lo que yo he visto son muchas expresiones, rituales espirituales y también, un centro de peregrinaje como tal ya fungía Copán. O sea, ya era una capital política, religiosa y cultural muy importante que está muy cerca de Esquipulas. Es increíblemente como un sitio maya tan importante del clásico está tan cerca a una ciudad, que es tan importante para todo el área mesoamericana. Es decir, desde México hasta Costa Rica, conocen al cristo negro de Esquipulas. Y pues también algo que a mi me llama la atención relacionado a lo que acabas de decir es como, Esquipulas, pues si es un referente para la gente pues católica, la gente católica que no es maya va [00:24:00] también a Esquipulas como una forma de peregrinaje, pero, a mi me llama mucho la atención, la práctica también de la espiritualidad maya y otras espiritualidades que se llevan a cabo en Esquipulas, no? quizás no es tan directamente relacionado con la figura que acabas de mencionar, que yo he escuchado como Ek-Chuah, sino que es esta figura de la piedra de los compadres, que es una leyenda, no? Una leyenda de adulterio, por así decirlo, en el cual hay dos piedras que están pegadas en alusión a dos amigos que llegan al peregrinaje de cristo negro de Esquipulas y en un acto sexual, estos compadres se quedan pegados como castigo por haber cometido el adulterio. Esa es la leyenda. Y en esa piedra, pues se practica la espiritualidad maya, es decir a pocos ni siquiera un kilómetro de la de la basílica del cristo negro de Esquipulas, puedes ver esta piedra donde la gente coloca, [00:25:00] pues, sus candelas, su incienso y hay altares dedicados completamente a la espiritualidad maya dentro del mismo pueblo. Entonces esto va un poco aunado a lo que nos decía Anny no? Como la figura de cristo negro, también es muy representativa y es la reminiscencia de algo que se practicó muy fuertemente durante la época prehispánica. Yo no descartaría del todo, pues el valor de Ek-Chuah dentro de estas prácticas espirituales y que sí, definitivamente los españoles, trataron de tomar elementos de la de la espiritualidad maya que ya eran importantes para imponer la religión católica. Pero la gente maya, yo siempre lo digo, fue muy estratega y lo es hasta la fecha para continuar resistiendo, practicando, pues la espiritualidad tamizado con elementos católicos y con este significado profundo. Anny: Sí, yo también voy a coincidir un poquito en el [00:26:00] tema de no descartaría la relación que se tiene con Ek-Chuah, porque está asociado con la deidad Chortí. El otro punto que tú hablabas del tema, un tanto político, sí hay algunos historiadores, políticos que justamente, enuncian este uso de figuras que está asociada con el trabajo y sobretodo, digamos a la carga y explotación laboral de los campesinos, y cómo también estas zonas fueron como fuertemente impactadas durante el tiempo de la colonia. Entonces eso, yo tampoco lo, lo descartaría y tampoco diría que es un mito. Por ejemplo, yo, sé que la antigua población de Esquipulas, fue una de las ciudades en este punto incendiadas por los españoles durante la invasión aquí a Guatemala el 1525 verdad?[00:27:00] En el centro de la plaza de Esquipulas, según cómo lo relatan, decía que habían, cuatro árboles de de pochotl que es la ceiba, que la ceiba pues ahí si que para nosotros es un árbol sagrado, verdad? Porque bajo sus sombras, siempre se han realizado ceremonias vinculadas con prácticas agrícolas, que duraban desde el solsticio de invierno hasta el equinoccio de primavera. Entonces se iniciaban más o menos también en esta zona por el 21 de diciembre, pero tenían ritualidades más unciosas, por ejemplo, como el 15 de enero. Y de ahí que parte que una de las fechas propicias para visitar Esquipulas sea 15 de enero. Entonces, las otras fechas de celebración que iban entre el equinoccio y el solsticio. Del 15 de enero al 25 de febrero, más o menos 40 días. Porque en 40 días estábamos viendo que se operaba el paso del sol por el cenit en la otra banda del [00:28:00] trópico, en un punto en donde estaba hasta cierto punto equidistante del círculo máximo de la tierra, donde según la posición del sol, se tomaba la medida del tiempo en que se produciría el fenómeno de la tierra que ya fuera el fenómeno del niño o de la niña, como se le nombra, verdad? Exactamente, se hacía esto dentro de los días comprendidos del 20 al 31 de enero, que es cuando se operan como los fenómenos en los hemisferios, y de ahí es como de donde viene esta creencia de las cabañuelas, de cuando muy va iniciando el año más o menos por ahí, entonces hay como una relación también ciclo-agrícola y por eso es que a mí no se me hace como un mito el hecho que está asociado con Ek-Chuah porque Ek-Chuah de hecho está asociado con en este, no me gusta llamarlo Dios, pero con la energía del trabajo, verdad? Porque me parece que esa es como la expresión correcta. En cuanto a lo del señor de Esquipulas, la [00:29:00] relación de las ceremonias con la natividad de cristo, digamos, así como el establecimiento de la festividad del señor de Esquipulas el 15 de enero, pues si siguen teniendo continuidad con las formas religiosas prehispánicas en el área maya guatemalteca, los antiguos habitantes de Esquipulas, si hay un relato, de Castañeda que lo mencionan en lo en el 55 que se dice que , "adoraban a un Dios que era el protector de las siembras de la cosecha y del trabajo." Esto lo dice, este historiador "que seguramente él dice no pertenecía a las deidades mesoamericanas, especialmente al panteón mexica, universado en momentos previos a la llegada de los españoles. La representación antropomorfa de las deidades no era desconocida en Mesoamérica, por el contrario, era abundante y generalizada desde Sinaloa hasta Honduras. [00:30:00] Además, 'del Dios principal,' el comenta fray Diego Durán, 'él hace como una alusión, con Tezcatlipoca, que él dice era una piedra muy relumbrante y negra como azabache obsidiano. Piedra de la que ellos hacen navajas y cuchillos para cortar.' Además, ciudades era de palo entallada en una figura de un hombre todo negro de las sienes para abajo con la frente, narices y boca blanca, de color de indio bestia" dice él, "de algunos atavíos galanos a su indiano modo a lo primero que tenía era unos ojeras de oro y otras de plata. En el labio bajo tenía un bezote de laverde cristalino en el que está metida una pluma verde y otras veces es azul, que después de afuera parece esmeralda o rubí. Era este bezote como un geme de largo encima de coleta de caballos que tenían la cabeza. Entonces, lo que se puede apreciar en esta descripción [00:31:00] de Tezcatlipoca corresponde casi literalmente a lo que se pudo percibir como la primera figura del cristo negro, especialmente en la representación de las imágenes talladas en madera que se veneraban en las ciudades periféricas del imperio mexica. La diferencia en el atuendo de ambas deidades radican las connotaciones religiosas de cada una de las culturas, materias, simbologías, espirituales y atributos, pero en esencial es parecido e indescutible indiscutible. Recordemos que la celebración principal, digamos de la obsidiana de Tezcatlipoca y de lo que tú mencionabas relacionado con el tema de las lluvias, pues era justamente esto, la petición para que lloviera, sobre todo por ser tierras en este punto, muy áridas, muy secas . Y bueno, yo me quedo por aquí. Chris: Bueno, muchas gracias Anny y Jairo, para explicar un poco de eso. Entonces, [00:32:00] así, me gustaría preguntar cómo dar los cambios en los objetos de los mayas a los cristianos y la naturaleza de la peregrinación, hacia el turismo. Es una pregunta rara, pero, ¿Ustedes creen que los viejos alimentos, o energías, o antepasados todavía se alimentan? Es decir, para vivir en un lugar ya una década que tiene una sequía, que también saqueo, que va empeorando y empeorando, poco a poco me voy pensando si hay una falta de rezos de conocimiento, de recuerdo, de memoria, de ofrendas. Anny: Bueno, yo es en realidad esta sequía saqueo, esta crisis climática y toda la crisis alrededor de la tierra, a mí, en lo [00:33:00] personal y tanto en lo comunitario, a mí me parece que es una crisis a nivel comunitaria, nacional, mundial en donde todos los territorios, se han visto afectados. Por ejemplo, así como aquí en Guatemala, que tenemos zonas como muy áridas, muy secas, que por su propia condición geográfica en donde han estado, sin duda se ha intensificado en estos últimos años, derivado del saqueo del recurso natural, sobre todo en estas zonas del oriente de Guatemala que son montañas que están, pues ahí si que dedicadas a la explotación de material para la construcción. Hablemos de piedra, hablemos de arena, hablemos de cal, por ejemplo, y de otros elementos que son para la explotación minera. Así como hay otros aquí en Guatemala, donde pues la zona es bastante húmeda, pero sus montañas son [00:34:00] propicias para el oro, para la plata, para el cobre, para el zinc y para otros elementos. Entonces, yo si siento que aparte de que falte de repente un toj, un pagamento, o un Xukulem, como nosotros decimos, dar la gratitud a la tierra que sin duda, pues es evidente cuando, y eso es evidencia no solo en la explotación de la tierra, sino que es evidencia en el sentir de las personas, porque usualmente, se piensa que un peregrinaje únicamente es ir a ver una figura, verdad? O una persona, una deidad, un cristo, ir a esa energía y sentir la energía para yo recargarme, sin considerar que yo al momento que también me voy a recargar de esa energía, estoy siendo un tanto extractivista muchas veces con mi práctica. Pero mi práctica también va más allá de enajenarme de qué está pasando, porque si bien es cierto, tengo ahí al cristo negro frente a mí y soy muy devota, pero entender que el cristo negro también puede estar [00:35:00] presente en las montañas, en los ríos, en los valles, en los lagos, en las cuencas y en todo eso que a mí me da de comer, en todo eso que a mí me permite vivir. Entonces, yo creo que más allá de que falta un rezo, yo sí creo que falta mucha conciencia, mucho trabajo espiritual de hacerle ver a las personas, a los peregrinos, a las peregrinas que mi ruta de peregrinaje, o sea, por donde yo paso, existe porque hay un territorio, un territorio que es ajeno a mi territorio, pero que aun así yo paso porque voy a ver algo en específico, pero que eso también tiene un impacto y que eso también tiene una responsabilidad. Preocuparme por todo lo común que pasa alrededor de de mi territorio, de mi país, del mundo, por ejemplo. Entonces, Mas allá de yo decirte si mira, Chris, falta que la gente reze, falta que la gente ofrende para que ya no haya sequía, que si bien es cierto, tiene una parte súper importante, es muy espiritual y que nosotros que [00:36:00] hemos visto que es verdad. O sea, no es un mito, no es una mentira, sino que es verdad, pero tiene que ir de la mano la ritualidad con mi práctica, tiene que ir de la mano mi discurso con lo que yo estoy haciendo y con los enunciados y los postulados que yo tengo en mi compromiso con la tierra, verdad? Osea, para mí ese es como, como el punto focal, verdad? Jairo: Sí, Chris y Anny pues, también he de añadir que, mucho de la modernidad y la facilidad para poder llegar a establecer una ruta de peregrinaje, también, pues influye dentro de las prácticas sociales y culturales, y pues si de tal vez, una ofrenda o un rezo, también estoy de acuerdo con Anny en ese sentido, es la conciencia de las personas, no? Y no se trata en el caso de la gente, pues católica de ser anticuados y de decir, bueno, vamos a irnos callados todo el [00:37:00] camino, aunque eso es una práctica que hacía la gente antes, verdad? Lo nombro como la gente antigua de Mixco lo dice. Ya no se tiene el respeto, dice la gente, por llegar y ir en una ruta de oración y de pedir o de agradecer. Y pues, por tanto, llevar una actitud de respeto, sino que ya se toma como un viaje de excursión y puede llegar a pasar, cualquier cosa dentro de ese viaje a excepción que se visita a la basílica y se visita a cristo negro. Pero dentro de ese viaje también de muchas personas ya no toman en cuenta el significado, o siquiera la ruta en la que están atravesando, verdad? Creo que es parte de la influencia occidental, de alguna forma de los medios también, que no han difundido pues, esta historia, porque esto que estamos hablando no te lo cuentan en los medios de comunicación. Ni siquiera dentro de la iglesia católica. La iglesia católica te dice que está cristo negro de Esquipulas, que es un día reconocido [00:38:00] dentro de la espiritualidad, por así decirlo, guatemalteca, religiosidad popular, como querramos llamarlo, pero no te hacen este trasfondo histórico que hay dentro de él, verdad? Pues la iglesia católica se encarga de lo litúrgico si vamos a llamarlo de esa forma, se hace una misa, se participa dentro de las misas. Pues hay frailes franciscanos que están constantemente bendiciendo lo que se compra como souvenir dentro del lugar. Pero que más que una oración que haga falta, creo que si hace falta entender un poco más que es lo que estamos haciendo, pero pues es parte del cambio socio cultural influido, como digo por lo occidental de alguna forma, que está permeando pues esta memoria histórica en cuanto a la visita del cristo negro. No digo que deje de ser fuerte porque esto tiene muchísima fuerza todavía dentro del contexto mesoamericano. Chris: Claro, claro, [00:39:00] gracias a ustedes dos. Pues la mayoría de las pláticas en el podcast, son críticas, de lo que falta, lo que no hay, en en el mundo, en la cuestión del movimiento de viaje de devoción también, y agradecimiento. Bueno es obvio como las dinámicas transaccionales o capitalistas, etc afectan los movimientos de la gente. Cómo se proceden, como llegan, como piensen en sus movimientos, también queremos pensar en otros mundos, y parte de eso, tiene que ver con lo que algunos llaman la hospitalidad radical. Es decir, como lo más básico, según yo, la hospitalidad local, enraizado, para el extraño o extranjero o extranjera, etc. Entonces, tengo curiosidad por saber ¿Qué tipo de hospitalidad [00:40:00] radical ustedes han encontrado en Esquipulas o en la peregrinación, si es que han encontrado algo. Anny: Bueno, no te voy a hablar como mucho de esto, porque no tengo como una experiencia, porque no ha sido mi búsqueda también, como encontrar esto. Siento que es como un paso como más personal individual, quizá de de soledad, pero de de sentirte bien en el, así que solo, en el buen sentido. Te puedo decir que hay gente que tiene como muchas experiencias, verdad? De de encontrarse con las personas que abren las puertas de su casa para que estén, para que visiten, para que entren. Claro, ahorita pues mucha situación ha cambiado. Siento que la seguridad ya no es la misma. La situación que atraviesa Guatemala. La conflictividad que se ha ido acrecentando en estos últimos años con estas [00:41:00] miradas fascistas también, con la división entre iglesias, por ejemplo, entre protestantes fascistas, radicales, y protestantes neopentecostales. Y todavía medio que la iglesia evangélica presbiteriana, que es la que intenta mediar entre ambas y la iglesia católica. Todo esto, además que el oriente de Guatemala está catalogado como zonas de bastante menudeo de narco, corredores de narcotráfico también. Entonces, todas estas situaciones políticas y geopolíticas han ido modificando mucho el hecho de que tú busques tu propia protección y que la gente también, cuando no son épocas de de peregrinaje, no tiendan a abrir sus casas, sino que quizás las abren más como para cuando hay un poquito más de afluencia, pero ya es como muy poco ver este tipo de dinámicas. Lo otro es que mucha gente mayor, digamos de la zona ya ha [00:42:00] fallecido. Y pues ha quedado como gente joven, inclusive gente que no es ya de Esquipulas, sino que por tema laboral ha migrado ahí, entonces ya va perdiendo como un sentido de pertenencia, verdad? De como ese sentido de comunidad. Pero si algo yo puedo rescatar de hace como mucho tiempo y que nos queda de repente el bonito recuerdo y la historia que quizá Jairo quiere hablar ahí un poquito, es de cómo se fueron tejiendo ciertas rutas comerciales entre por ejemplo, Oaxaca, Mixco y la gente de que aprovechaba para ir a Esquipulas. Y también como pensar cómo fueron cambiando también los productos de consumo, porque ahora, pues, vemos una invasión de productos plásticos, verdad? Provenientes de China, de estas grandes pirámides de estafa que y de explotación de mano de obra en Malasia, que te viene producto chino también de por allá o de la india, por ejemplo. Vemos como la entrada de mucho de este, [00:43:00] de este producto, verdad? Entonces tampoco es que podamos estar hablando como de esta comunidad, o de encontrar como redes de comunidad en cuanto a la economía o en cuanto a la producción, porque es ahí si que tú sabes que el capitalismo es voraz y la globalización y todos estos factores que están pasando en este momento son muy crueles con las dinámicas y las formas de vida de acuerparnos, de querernos, de apapacharnos y que se intensifica cada vez más. Creo que ahí si que lo importante es, nombrarlo para que si alguien quizá no se había dado cuenta de cómo se han ido afectando las dinámicas. Pues ahora lo, se se pueda ver, verdad? Y que a veces también es un poco como egoísta de mi parte, porque ves ahí vamos al hecho de que, como yo solo lo voy una vez allá, pues no me importa al final, como si tejo o no tejo, verdad? Puede ser que sea el pensamiento de alguien, verdad? Bueno, yo [00:44:00] solo voy una vez, yo voy a lo que voy y no me importa pues si hay alguien ahí que me pueda acuerpar, recibir o lo que sea. Entonces también como estas dinámicas, estos pensamientos frívolos que también por la misma dinámica de la vida, de la economía y demás, se intensifican no? Entonces, pues yo pues yo, eso te podría decir. Jairo: Si, dentro de como el capitalismo, el sistema capitalista, ha influido también dentro de estas dinámicas. Yo puedo nombrar puntualmente durante las últimas veces que he ido a Esquipulas, justo desde acá de Mixco, como pues lo económico ha afectado, o sea, el nivel socioeconómico también determina lo que vas a llegar a hacer verdad? Porque muchas personas de que vienen de acá, ni siquiera pues ya piensan en hospedarse, sino que van en la noche, madrugada de un día, y se quedan en [00:45:00] el bus o solo van y peregrinan, rezan, dejan sus candelas, no se paga hotel y regresan, verdad? Eso ha sido en un par de ocasiones. Si bien, pues hay ahora opciones de hospedaje digámoslo de diferentes tipos, que se suelen reservar con anticipación. También está esta otra situación, que también deja un poco de lado a lo que se solía hacer de preparar comida, de llevar ya huevos duros, como le decimos nosotros, huevos cocidos con salsa de tomate, eso es muy de viajar en este contexto de Mixco, los tamales de viaje que les llamaban también que es básicamente pasta de maíz cocida con la tusa, que es la cáscara del maíz. Estos tamales, pues servían para eso, para poder mermar el hambre mientras se llegaba a Esquipulas y que ahora esto ha sido poco a poco reemplazado justo lo que nombraba Anny, por productos pre-elaborados, frituras, que no tienen ningún [00:46:00] sustento, ni siquiera enlazan, con la memoria de la cocina, sino que técnicamente es algo que se desecha. Y claro, la basura, también otro papel importante, porque tenemos poca educación o ninguna en cuanto al ambiente y las empresas que nos hacen responsables de sus paquetes, de sus sobrecitos, de sus botellas y todo esto, resulta en los caminos y, pues sí, es una ruta de peregrinaje, pero también hay basura plástica, verdad? Dentro de esa ruta de peregrinaje. Y, pues, nombrar también, este era un poquito la cereza del del pastel que yo quería dejar para esta conversación, porque, como las dinámicas económicas han afectado rutas comerciales y de peregrinaje que puede que lleven alrededor de 2 mil años de existir, verdad? Tu que te desenvuelves en Oaxaca, puedes preguntar sobre cristo negro de Esquipulas y vas a encontrar a mucha gente que es devota al cristo negro de Esquipulas [00:47:00] y que probablemente tengan una réplica, pues en varios lugares de Oaxaca. Sobre todo el área, pues de el Istmo, verdad? En el, en el área también, zapoteca, vas a encontrar mucha gente que es devota y producto, pues de ello eso, ya lo tenemos, pues registrado antropológicamente. Ya no se da, pero gracias a las abuelas de mi pueblo esto sobrevive y es como nosotros, como Mixco estamos en medio de una ruta comercial entre básicamente, el centro de México y el oriente de Guatemala que está hacia allá. Entonces, pues Esquipulas está casi, en un punto distinto a esta ruta, verdad? Pues hay una memoria de de cómo nuestra gente antigua de Mixco interactuaba comercialmente con gente que venía del centro de México. Y esto lo tenemos evidente en el uso de la indumentaria maya del Poqomam de Mixco, que tiene muchísima influencia de la indumentaria que viene del pueblo [00:48:00] zapoteca, y del pueblo mixteca, en Oaxaca y producto de ello, sé que en el audio no saldrá, pero lo voy a describir. Tenemos acá estas fajas, estas fajas vienen de santo Tomás Jalieza en Oaxaca. Las famosas fajas de Jalieza, que se utilizan en Oaxaca y que formaban parte de la indumentaria antigua de Mixco. Esto cambió más o menos a mediados de los años 60s. Hay memoria, yo escuché de boca de muchas de las señoras antiguas de acá de mi pueblo que decían, venían las mexicanas a vendernos ropa, técnicamente, pero no es la ruta de Tapachula moderna, ahora que se va por la costa, sino que se refieren a textiles. Y esto encontramos fotos, inclusive fotografías del siglo 19, de finales del siglo 19, principios del siglo 20 en el que vemos el uso de estas fajas, y las reconocemos técnicamente por esta figura que seguro, pues ya la, la verás más representada en en Oaxaca. [00:49:00] La gente acá en Mixco le dice a esto los bailadores, en Oaxaca les tienen un nombre, ahora específicamente, no lo recuerdo, pero es gracias a este danzante o bailador que reconocemos las fajas que vienen de ese lugar porque en Guatemala no encuentras ninguna otra faja que sea de este material, porque es lana, o bien puede ser bastante grueso el tejido en telar de cintura con estos diseños. Entonces, gracias a Abisaí Navarro, que ojalá pueda escuchar este material, es un amigo que es de Oaxaca, quien conocí por las redes sociales, en quien básicamente se ha dedicado a documentar las expresiones culturales también de Oaxaca y de la espiritualidad en los pueblos mixteca y zapoteca. Y él me envió estas fajas desde Oaxaca. Osea, yo ya no puedo decir las compré con señoras oaxaqueñas. Yo como mixqueño, no las compré con ellas porque ahora vienen en bus, la dinámica comercial cambió y además en Mixco ya no se usa la [00:50:00] indumentaria maya, de uso diario. Este es por un lado, y por el otro lado, también tenemos a este otro lugar que se llama Yalalag, que es gente zapoteca también, en el cual usan esta prenda sobre la cabeza, ellos le llaman tlacoyales o rodetes, que consiste pues en lana cruda, de de oveja teñida, colocado sobre la cabeza, que es la emulación, pues a una serpiente. Esto, pues, tampoco esto no lo traje de Oaxaca, esto lo conseguí pues gracias a una historiadora justamente de Chichicastenango que Anny conoce, María Jacinta Xón, ella pues su papá se dedicó muchísimo tiempo, y ella también se ha dedicado, pues a la elaboración de hilos y a la obtención de la seda, y el papá de ella que ya descansa, pues fue con quien pudimos investigar un poco de dónde venía esta lana. Esta lana ya no se produce ni siquiera en Chichicastenango, en el contexto de Anny, sino [00:51:00] que básicamente esta es la última que él tuvo la oportunidad de teñir, pero es exactamente la misma lana que inclusive él desconocía su procedencia sin pintar, de dónde venía. Y ahora esto ni siquiera aquí en Guatemala se consigue, entonces es la evidencia de cómo Mixco en medio de una ruta comercial entre básicamente todo el área de el Istmo y la costa sur hacia el oriente de Guatemala, que es otro mundo que, de no haber llegado la invasión española y de no haber este sistema que de alguna forma ha ladinizado decimos nosotros, o sea despojado de su identidad a la gente maya. Y, pues, tendríamos una gran diversidad también de personas en aquel territorio. Y pues es un poco de las dos prendas que acá en Mixco se utilizan todavía por las mujeres que participan en las cofradías, pero los nos hace pensar en las mujeres de Oaxaca también. Es bien curioso. Tengo un video que lo describe, si gustan lo pueden ver allá en mis redes sociales, [00:52:00] aparezco como "hoja de pacaya" y hay un video donde hablo de esto del tecoyal justamente. Anny: Si, Chris y algo que yo, quería como agregar nada más a la conversación. Es el hecho de que, en medio de esta forma de turismo que muchas veces es gentrificador y que también como que estas dinámicas de ir y venir hace que justamente todo alrededor de lo que sucede en Esquipulas pues cambie su dinámica Si bien es cierto, ahora cuando vas tú a Esquipulas, ya hay hoteles de repente, tal vez no de cadena, pero si de cinco estrellas. La gente ha intentado mantener hoteles que sean como de su familia. Pero eso no quita, por ejemplo, que ya haya más lugares de recreación, de consumo, de compra y de intercambio comercial. Porque pues tú sabes que al final, la situación económica, creo que a nivel mundial no es del todo buena para ninguno, [00:53:00] verdad? Entonces, pues siempre se busca la manera como de irte agenciando de ciertos fondos. Pero, ahora que lo pienso mejor, digamos en esta conversación, yo si puedo ver algo muy especial. Por ejemplo, aquí en Guatemala, hay dos lugares más en donde hay peregrinación a ver a cristo negro, que no tienes que ir a Esquipulas y que lo encuentras, aquí, de de donde yo vivo más o menos es a una hora, se llama Chinique de Las Flores. Y luego de Chinique de Las Flores a más o menos como unas tres horas, puedes llegar a Cunén. Cunén, también aquí en K'iche', que son estas, rutas de peregrinación para ir a ver también, réplicas del cristo negro de Esquipulas, pero que entonces ahí si te puedo decir que estamos encontrando aquello que una vez encontramos en Esquipulas [00:54:00] hace más de 400 años por así decirlo, 300 años. Entonces, lo estamos volviendo a encontrar ahí porque, claro, son zonas todavía de pronto un poco más pequeñas, en donde todavía el ambiente es más, comunal, comunitario, en donde, pues todavía es de pueblo, le decimos nosotros, todavía sí que está la esencia conservada de un pueblo. Entonces no se convierte en un lugar para ir a quedarte y pasar ahí una semana, que sé yo, sino que se convierte en un lugar de visita, de recogimiento de sí, ir a hacer tu tu peregrinaje, tu oración, tu penitencia. Entonces, a mí me parece que ahí todavía es en donde, donde se encuentra una esencia muy, muy rica. Chris: Pues, gracias a las energías, a los dioses y dioses que todavía hay lugares y gente que honran esas, esas tradiciones y las de también como Jairo [00:55:00] mencionó, que pues la memoria también está pegado dentro del textil, de tejido, justo tambien he visto como una una bebida chocolatosa tradicional aquí en Oaxaca que, según algunas personas tiene su origen en en el K'iche'. Aunque, se dice que ese proceso, esa receta no existe en el K'iche' ahora, pero todavía la memoria existe dentro de esas prácticas no? Entonces la cuestión de la hiper movilidad y el sentido de guerra constante en muchos sentidos en el el mundo contemporáneo, ¿Cómo piensan que, la peregrinación o las posibilidades de peregrinar pueden ofrecernos una manera, o maneras, o caminos a [00:56:00] socobar, la hiper movilidad, a la guerra, la comida chatarra como mencionaron, estas dinámicas y estructuras económicas que, pues nos están matando poco a poco? ¿Qué clave puede tener la peregrinación en un mundo donde queremos vivir? Anny: Pues yo creo que la responsabilidad de cada uno de nosotros que, que vamos con llevar también mensajes de esperanza, o sea, siempre hay rutas no? Está la ruta migratoria, está la ruta de la mariposa monarca. Está que esa peregrinación que hacen, van y vienen, y estas peregrinaciones que nosotros también hacemos como personas humanas, independientemente de si seamos cristianos o no, pero siempre hay una ruta que tú buscas de peregrinaje para sanar tus [00:57:00] dolores, tus enfermedades, tus traumas, tus miedos, así sea que tú vayas a peregrinar a una montaña, un volcán, un cerro, a una iglesia, a una basílica a donde sea. A mí lo importante, y lo que me parece a mi súper esperanzador es que tú tengas como también ese compromiso de compartir una luz con quienes tú te vayas encontrando en el camino. Puede ser que también tu peregrinaje entonces no parta desde el hecho de, ah voy a ir pensando solo en rezos, no, sino que, ¿Qué también puedo yo compartir en el camino? O sea que otras rutas también puedo ir yo dejando, mencionando, creo que esto lo hemos logrado con bastante efectividad cuando pensamos en las rutas migratorias y como podemos echarle una mano a les compas migrantes verdad?, Entonces a mí me parecería que una estrategia pues muy parecida, podría ayudar bastante, a ver esto con otros ojos y a ver esto, pues más allá de, [00:58:00] o sea, que que siempre podemos hacer varias cosas, cuando tenemos de repente solo una finalidad, pero al final podemos ir haciendo como mucho, entonces yo creo que como mensaje yo, eso te dejaría, o sea que, pues al final en medio de toda esta hiper movilidad, pues que la aprovechemos, no solo para quemar codos, sino para ir dejando otros mensajes a la gente, verdad? De cómo también nos vamos moviendo, movilizando, qué vamos pensando y qué está pasando alrededor del mundo. Jairo: Sí, bueno, entender que nuestras dinámicas han cambiado con el tiempo, que somos una generación que nos tocó ver cambios abismales dentro de las dinámicas de como nos hemos relacionado con otras personas, cómo aprendemos incluso porque ahora pues gracias a la hiper movilidad también, inclusive, pues a la tecnología conocemos nuevas cosas, pero no dejar de lado el en el caso, pues de la gente que peregrina, verdad? Las [00:59:00] reflexiones que hacíamos, el por qué se hace, un poquito, y también el que hacer de nosotros cuando vamos a un lugar y cuando nos movemos, verdad? El hecho de verdad estoy comprando con las personas que son de allí o me estoy yendo a meter un supermercado, de verdad esto beneficia la comunidad o esto beneficia a una empresa, pues que al final explota personas y que les compra super barato y regateado el producto, verdad? Creo que se ha mantenido, pues al menos en Esquipulas esa dinámica de consumir, pues lo que es de allí, la gente, pues esfuerza mucho porque saben que hay, personas de muchos contextos que vienen a ese lugar, por lo menos una vez al año. Entonces, entender estas dinámicas, creo que es un reto también dentro de nuestro contexto y entender también que el humano siempre se ha movido. Gracias a las personas [01:00:00] antiguas que se movieron hace 3 mil años hacia acá es que nosotros tenemos estas evidencias históricas y aprender de esas movilidades también, cómo nosotros generamos un buen impacto cuando nos estamos moviendo, pienso. Chris: Que vamos aprendiendo y recordando a la vez, cómo movernos con respeto y agradecimiento y devoción a lo que nos da vida. Vamos a asegurar que las imágenes de esos textiles hermosas, van a salir con el episodio, en el sitio web web de El Fin del Turismo. Y también los nombres y contactos si quieren de los compas que mencionaste Jairo. Y pues ha sido como un gran conversación, y me dan muchas ganas de seguir con esa [01:01:00] cuestión de peregrinación. Y en el nombre de de nuestros oyentes, me gustaría ofrecerles mis a agradecimientos más sinceros a ambos ustedes por acompañarnos hoy, y estar dispuestos a enfrentar y luchar con algunas de las contradicciones y pues también las colonizaciones que han afectado al acto y al arte de la peregrinación en nuestros tiempos. Si los oyentes tienen ganas a conocer más de lo que ustedes hacen en la vida, ¿Hay una manera de comunicar o conectar? Anny: Sí, por supuesto, en nuestras redes personales, yo soy la curadora en jefe actual de Espacio C, en Chichicastenango, entonces pues por ahí pueden , encontrarme en Instagram, o en Facebook, se escribe [01:02:00] ESPACIO/C ARTE+MEMORIA. Y luego en mis redes personales, por si alguien pues también desea buscar. Yo me encuentro en Instagram como "Anny Puac," así me pueden encontrar a mí también en Instagram para que pues vean, de pronto un poquito también de, de mi trabajo y, luego en nuestras redes comerciales como Los Cofrades Chichicastenango, así me pueden, nos pueden ir encontrando y pues ahora Jairo. Jairo: Gracias. Yo he tratado de crear contenido no de lleno, tampoco tan comercial. He hecho reflexiones en cuanto a estos elementos, ahí sí que de ambos lados, verdad? De la espiritualidad en Guatemala en general, tanto de lo católico como de lo maya, y cómo esto tiene un punto medular, es un poquito lo que ha sido mi [01:03:00] premisa durante los últimos años, evidenciar que no es netamente todo católico, cristiano y que hay elementos pues de la espiritualidad maya que prevalecen como lo que hablamos hoy. Me pueden encontrar pues, como Hoja de Pacaya en las redes sociales. La hoja de pacaya es la que se usa para decorar en las puertas de las fiestas acá en el contexto pues de Guatemala. La pacaya es una palma. También se come la flor durante los viajes, justo durante los peregrinajes. La flor de la pacaya se envuelve con huevo y se le pone salsa de tomate encima y es algo muy para viajar. Y pues, a la hoja de pacaya le dicen dentro del contexto guatemalteco a las personas que les gusta la fiesta y que no se pierden ninguna. Entonces es un poco la premisa de mi usuario, porque pues sí, me gusta documentar las fiestas, pues que se llevan a cabo en Guatemala con trasfondo, quizá de análisis [01:04:00] y de reflexión. Y pues, gracias por el espacio. Estoy muy agradecido por ello, a ambos. Chris: De nuevo, muchísimas gracias a ustedes dos por sus tiempos hoy, por sus reflexiones y sus compromisos en el mundo, en la vida. Anny: Qué gusto conocerte también. Y pues ahí estamos siempre en comunicación. Yo te de con un fuerte abrazo y no haber un fuerte abrazo a tierra que de Oaxaca también. English Transcription Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome to the podcast The End of Tourism Annie and Jairo. Thank you both for joining me today. I would love for you to tell our listeners where you are calling from and what the world looks like there for each of you. Anny: Thank you very much, Chris, and good morning to everyone listening, or good afternoon or good evening, depending on your time zone. My name is Anny and I greet you from the K'iche' Mayan territory of Chuwila, K'iche' Guatemala specifically. Jairo: Good morning to both of you, it's a pleasure to be here. Sawe ta inteer winaq (Good morning to all of you) a pleasure from the Poqomam territory of Mixco and also from the outskirts of Guatemala City, thank you for this [00:01:00] opportunity to share knowledge. Chris: And thank you both. I'm here in Oaxaca and the world seems obviously a little weird. Well, maybe not obviously, but it seems weirder by the day. We're here today to talk about Esquipulas in Guatemala. And Esquipulas is the site of several churches that have housed the Black Christ of the town, which is famous for its supposed miracles for the past four centuries. Similarly, the pilgrimage to the shrine is the largest in Central America and the second largest in the Americas, with, from what I read, 5 million people visiting it every year. Now, to start, would you be willing to explain what prompted each of [00:02:00] your interests or relationships with this place and the practice of pilgrimage? Anny: Yes, of course Chris. Well, from my personal or individual relationship as a family, I have, let's say, a clear idea of when these pilgrimages began, suddenly, when I was about seven or eight years old, so, to tell you that I have clarity, but when I go back to the family archives, well, I see that the issue of going on pilgrimage to Esquipulas, well, it begins with my grandmothers. Jairo: So I could tell you that within my family, the pilgrimage to Esquipulas, well, maybe it has been present in the family for at least 80 years, especially on my maternal grandmother's side . She is from a K'iche' territory in Quetzaltenango , where they would begin the trip, together, there was a neighborhood trip organized by the neighborhood, or it was a family trip, so one or two buses would go at that time when there wasn't much transportation, right? It was also a luxury to go by some route where there was a bus stop. And well, what couldn't be traveled by bus, well, it was done on foot, they used donkeys, but, more or less that's where the story of how these pilgrimage routes began in my family, let's say. In our case, I was not aware of having arrived in Esquipulas when I was little. Well, there is a very interesting fact, when I was 40 days old, my family decided to take me to [00:04:00] Esquipulas, so that is in the family's photo archive as a thank you, because in the end I was born with... I was born well. Jairo: And then the family decides to go on a pilgrimage. This is the closest information I have about the person going to Esquipulas. Of course, I have always been very familiar with this within my immediate context, since people from my municipality tend to go organized in excursions from the different religious organizations that exist in my municipality. These, well, designate dates and are buses filled with approximately 50 people. Each bus usually arrives up to three, from here in Mixco, well, they go to Esquipulas. And that is something very interesting because it is, well, part of modernity, let's say going by bus, but there are many anecdotes from people from here in town who [00:05:00] tell how, well, they went in a more rustic way, right? It could be, well, on a walking pilgrimage, which was not the only pilgrimage, in fact that of the black Christ of Esquipulas. Today, specifically, we are going to talk about it. But there are also the pilgrimages to Antigua Guatemala, which is very close by. Here behind us there is a hill called Alux Hill. This hill was crossed on foot, and people still do so on foot, because behind the hill is the descent to get to Antigua Guatemala. Chris: Thank you. Thank you all. So, to learn a little more about your stories, like the pilgrimage, I would like to know a little more if you could offer something about the long history of Esquipulas, of the black Christ and well, how did the pilgrimage originate? Where does that story come from? Jairo: Well, as I mentioned before, saying some [00:06:00] words in the Poqomam language. It is the language that was spoken, well, in our town. I'm going to say it again more slowly to, well, describe to you what I said, technically it is: closely related and intrinsic to the people of Mixco and also to the Oaxacan territory. My name is Jairo, Jairo Andrés Chamale Lemus. I belong to this territory, to the Poqomam Mayan people. Half of my family and my ancestors are from here. And, well, I am dedicated to tourism. I have been a tourist guide for approximately eight years , since I graduated very young. And, well, I have dedicated myself to pilgrimages so that people also learn about the historical context of Guatemala and the different cultural, religious and also resistance expressions of the people in the territory of what we now know as Guatemala. Well, I am also a student of anthropology, specifically a bachelor's degree in anthropology, and I have also dedicated myself to studying the case of the Poqomam Mayan language in Mixco, which is a community very close to Guatemala City, which has had a very strong demographic and social impact, due to the growth of the metropolitan area of Guatemala City. It is something that I have dedicated myself to studying during the last few years. And also, well, to [00:08:00] documenting it, because we have many cultural and spiritual practices in our town, which have been disappearing as the city's demographic advances, thank you very much. Rontyoox aq'oo ta Anny: Well Chris . In fact there is a record, let's say historical , which says that the first pilgrimage to Esquipulas was in March 1595 , when the image left the workshop of this sculptor Quirio Cataño, heading towards Esquipulas, towards Chiquimula. This is in the east of Guatemala. We know it as the hot zone of Guatemala. But it is the zone, let's say, like hot arid . It is a territory where there is a Xinca, Popti' community, if I'm not mistaken, Chortí as well . And so, the production that is [00:09:00] They have in the lands over there, we are talking about fruits from some plants, some tubers more or less, but most of them are dedicated to fruit, right ? This first pilgrimage is documented and recorded by the chronicler, who is called Miguel Álvarez. And he says that, when he left from the workshop and headed towards Esquipulas, the image was performing different miracles along the way until reaching the basilica . Then there were people who asked him precisely that, please, that the image spend at least one night inside the house of people to bless it. And more or less it is estimated every year, let's say currently, now in Guatemala and around 300 thousand people from all over the world, mostly between Mexico, Central America, southern countries, for example from Peru [00:10:00] from Ecuador from Ecuador, Bolivia, if I'm not mistaken, it is like a lot of people who arrive, more or less between November, which right now is like a date from November to December and all of January, let's say, those are like the three months with the greatest influx of people who arrive at the basilica, right? So you can call it a pilgrimage , you can call it a pilgrimage, what pilgrimage, usually, well there if the people who visit can do like a day's visit only or it can be that a visit can be extended for up to 10, 15 days, right? From Guatemala City to Esquipulas there is a distance of approximately 220 to 250 kilometers and if you go on a pilgrimage, you go through very specific places along the entire pilgrimage, on average [00:11:00] Every day you are doing a stretch of 40 kilometers, a day, let's say if your intention is to go on a pilgrimage like that . So that's more or less like more historical data and the story, right? Chris: And I'm a little curious, inside the estancias, when I arrive at Esquipulas, if I were on a pilgrimage, for example, what would I do? Do they stop to say their prayers? I would like to know from someone who has never made a pilgrimage, how it looked those days before coming. Anny: Well, I'm going to tell you a little bit about my family's story because My maternal grandmother, she was a lady, very Catholic, right? So, for her, her pilgrimage, let's say, was her sacrifice, right? In the year, to say well, out of gratitude [00:12:00] to my health, to the miracles that she granted me, because she was very devout. It was the fact of going on a pilgrimage route. What did this imply? Even preparing food so as to not say waste time, thinking about what to eat along the way, because the idea for them was, well, to go in a kind of contemplation, in constant prayer, in prayer, let's say in petition, to stop every so often, right? Every 40 kilometers, because within the Catholic-Christian community, there are points that are marked within the route where you can stop with each family, because they may have a replica of the image of the black Christ, because in fact, when the first pilgrimage was, this family may have been one of the [00:13:00] families who first received the black Christ. So it becomes like that stopping point, right? So, when they make that stopping point, they go down. They go down to pray, they go down to talk and to socialize with people, maybe, to share a meal. And to feel, well, like their faith, their devotion, but at the same time their coexistence, their joy in this, in this part of sharing, right? So that's what we usually see. I've also seen other people who, for example, when there are some left, for example, the last 20 kilometers of the journey, get out of their vehicles and walk on their knees for those 20 kilometers until they reach the basilica. So, you see them, it could be just the father with the son, or the father and the mother, or the diversity of people who can arrive, who go and do their penance, and [00:14:00] They offer their sacrifice in this way, let's say. Just like there are people who, during their entire pilgrimage route, there is an example of some, of some people close to us who have a marimba group, a music group, and what they do is they go with a vehicle and play music all the way until they get to Esquipulas, and when they get to the basilica, they get out with their instruments and they dedicate themselves to singing a song, a beat, right? So, I think it depends, it varies a lot on what you can dedicate yourself to or the gratitude you want to give, or what, well, what your heart says, right? In my case, I'm very specific, because we made the entire 220-kilometer journey by vehicle until we reached Esquipulas. And then, well, there, I mean, we establish ourselves [00:15:00] and as our dynamics are somewhat different because I am not Catholic. I am from the Mayan worldview, and well, that is where I have grown up a good part of my life. My conception of how to see this pilgrimage route is different, because while it is true that the black Christ, well, is a figure of a crucified Christian Christ, Jesus, we learned to see how the history of the Poptí and Chorti and Chortí people, in terms of this pilgrimage route is very interesting, because throughout your entire route more or less, I would dare to say that perhaps 70% of the route, you find mountains of obsidian, so it is a route that in itself is a route of healing and for us, let's say within the Mayan worldview it is closely related to the Nahual Tijax, which is obsidian and for [00:16:00] Perhaps a good part of Oaxaca or its Isthmus or the Nahuatl culture, for example, is related to Tezcatlipoca , who was precisely this veneration of this woman who they said was brilliant and copper-colored and black-colored, right? And so, you know that both stones or these stories that they tell us, are precisely healing and that is why we believe that is why the black Christ is so miraculous when it comes to health issues. Jairo: From our side, so to speak, it is already part of a pilgrimage that is not only done on January 15th. Of course, January 15th is the day established to do the Black Christ pilgrimage of Esquipulas. But well, many of the groups that I mentioned that are quite diverse here in Mixco, religious groups mainly Catholic, or well syncretized in some way, also establish these visits as part of their organization within the group of people who influence them. And then yes, right inside the bus, it is also usual to pray the rosary, which is this practice of praying the novenas in an established order with songs and the people, well, they usually go from when they leave Guatemala City or from when they leave here from Mixco, which you have to cross the city and then the route to the east of Guatemala, people say these prayers every so often, but it depends a lot on the group and how Catholic they are in some way, because there are groups that only do it as an excursion of course. The main purpose is the visit, well, to the Basilica of the Black Christ and the veneration of the Black Christ as such. And, well, they only get to the basilica by bus and something that characterizes the culture of [00:18:00] Mixco is the burning of gunpowder. We are fascinated by gunpowder and when we get to Esquipulas, that is precisely the premise, right? Burning sound bombs, with a shrill sound, as a warning that the people of Mixco have arrived. And also colored fireworks. It is quite curious because it depends a lot on the group and what the group, even if it is Catholic or syncretized with the Mayan, what this group is religiously dedicated to, the activity that is going to be carried out there is directed towards that. I know of a group that has actually been documented thanks to CECEG, the Center for Cultural Studies at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala. It is the group El Baile de Moros de los Seis Toritos, which is basically a traditional dance group that was born in the village of Lo De Bran, which is here in Mixco, always within [00:19:00] the metropolitan area, and they dedicate themselves to dancing El Torito. El Torito is basically a representation of a dance that is done in reference to the owners of a farm and the treatment of animals. So the animals have a kind of revelation against this owner of the farm, a story well, subtly told from the Mayan perspective as well. And so they go to do this representation of the dance in Esquipulas. They do this precisely for the feast of the Black Christ. They dance all day, for three days in a row in front of the atrium of the church in Esquipulas, while millions of people visit the Basilica of the Black Christ and at that moment they are dancing there. Chris: How fascinating. I love that sense, that vibe that there is so much diversity in the form, the paths, the celebrations that it kind of denies [00:20:00] that Western sense that is always assuming or looking for a single answer, a single story, a single way of acting, of understanding. And so it was surprising for me to read, to research the stories of Esquipulas and the pilgrimages because I found many different stories. So I'm going to read a little of what I found and I'd like to hear from you, if you could comment a little on whether there is a sense of "that's like pure gossip or a rumor" or if there are layers and layers within the stories of Esquipulas and the pilgrimages. So, the first one is that "in the sacred city of Copán, great festivals were held in honor [00:21:00] of the Mayan god Ek-Kampulá, which means 'he who pushes the clouds,' since he was credited with the power to keep away the rain and allow the days of sun necessary to prepare the planting. Ek-Kampulá, who was black in color, was surrounded by a torch in his left hand. His figure can be seen in the temples of one of the Copán temples." Now, the second one. "Some accounts say that the black Christ figure was ordered by the Spanish conquistadors in Guatemala at that time to facilitate the conversion of the local peoples to Christianity." Now, next. "Pious legends claim that the image was darkened by Spanish missionaries who wished to convert the [00:22:00] natives who worshipped the pagan nebulous deity Ek-Kampulá in the area who was also depicted as a dark figure." So, I guess my question is like, how many of these stories have you heard and which stories are the absolute true ones according to you? Or are there layers and layers and layers of stories that all deserve their place? Jairo: I think that Copán has a very important role in what we are talking about. Now it is an archaeological site of the residential area or the castle, so to speak, and the temples of the Mayan people of that time, let us remember that it is the classic one. And so this city was colonized by another city called Quiriguá, which is always on the banks of the Motagua River, a very [00:23:00] important river that connects the entire part of the mountains of Guatemala with the Caribbean. And in Copán there are many spiritual expressions. Sure, Anny will tell us a little more about this. But what I have seen are many expressions, spiritual rituals and also, Copán already served as a pilgrimage center as such. In other words, it was already a very important political, religious and cultural capital that is very close to Esquipulas . It is incredible how such an important Mayan site from the Classic period is so close to a city that is so important for the entire Mesoamerican area. That is to say, from Mexico to Costa Rica, they know the Black Christ of Esquipulas. And well, something that also draws my attention related to what you just said is how, Esquipulas, well, if it is a reference for Catholic people, Catholic people who are not Mayan also go [00:24:00] to Esquipulas as a form of pilgrimage, but, what draws my attention a lot is also the practice of Mayan spirituality and other spiritualities that take place in Esquipulas, right? Perhaps it is not so directly related to the figure you just mentioned, which I have heard as Ek-Chuah, but rather it is this figure of the stone of the compadres, which is a legend, right? A legend of adultery, so to speak, in which there are two stones that are stuck together in allusion to two friends who arrive at the pilgrimage of the Black Christ of Esquipulas and in a sexual act, these friends are stuck together as punishment for having committed adultery. That is the legend. And on that stone, well, Mayan spirituality is practiced, that is to say, a few kilometers from the Basilica of the Black Christ of Esquipulas, you can see this stone where people place, [00:25:00] Well, their candles, their incense and there are altars dedicated completely to Mayan spirituality within the same town. So this is a bit related to what Anny was telling us, right? Like the figure of the black Christ, it is also very representative and is reminiscent of something that was practiced very strongly during the pre-Hispanic era. I would not completely dismiss the value of Ek-Chuah within these spiritual practices and yes, definitely the Spanish tried to take elements of Mayan spirituality that were already important to impose the Catholic religion. But the Mayan people, I always say, were very strategic and are still so to this day in continuing to resist, practicing spirituality filtered with Catholic elements and with this deep meaning. Anny: Yes, I also agree a little on the [00:26:00] issue of not ruling out the relationship with Ek-Chuah, because it is associated with the Chortí deity. The other point that you spoke about on the subject, somewhat political, yes there are some historians, politicians who precisely, state this use of figures that is associated with work and above all, let's say the burden and labor exploitation of the peasants, and how these areas were also strongly impacted during colonial times. So that, I would not rule it out either and I would not say that it is a myth. For example, I know that the ancient town of Esquipulas was one of the cities at this point burned by the Spanish during the invasion here in Guatemala in 1525, right? [00:27:00] In the center of the Esquipulas plaza, according to how they tell it, there were four pochotl trees, which are called ceiba trees. The ceiba is a sacred tree for us, right? Because under their shadows, ceremonies linked to agricultural practices have always been performed, which lasted from the winter solstice to the spring equinox. So they started more or less in this area around December 21st, but they had more elaborate rituals, for example, on January 15th. And that is why one of the best dates to visit Esquipulas is January 15th. So, the other dates of celebration were between the equinox and the solstice. From January 15 to February 25, more or less 40 days. Because in 40 days we were seeing the sun passing through the zenith on the other side of the [00:28:00] tropics, at a point where it was to a certain extent equidistant from the great circle of the earth, where depending on the position of the sun, the measurement of time was taken in which the earth phenomenon would occur, whether it was the El Niño or La Niña phenomenon, as it is called, right? Exactly, this was done within the days from January 20th to 31st, which is when the phenomena in the hemispheres operate, and that is where this belief of the cabañuelas comes from, from when the year is beginning more or less around there, so there is also a cycle-agricultural relationship and that is why it does not seem like a myth to me that it is associated with Ek-Chuah because Ek-Chuah is in fact associated with this, I don't like to call it God, but with the energy of work, right? Because it seems to me that that is like the correct expression. As for the Lord of Esquipulas, the [00:29:00] relationship of the ceremonies with the nativity of Christ, let's say, as well as the establishment of the festival of the Lord of Esquipulas on January 15, well, if they continue to have continuity with the pre-Hispanic religious forms in the Guatemalan Mayan area, the ancient inhabitants of Esquipulas, if there is a story, by Castañeda that mentions it in what is said in 55 that, "they worshipped a God who was the protector of crops, harvest and work." This is what this historian says, "who surely he says did not belong to the Mesoamerican deities, especially to the Mexica pantheon, universalized in times prior to the arrival of the Spanish. The anthropomorphic representation of the deities was not unknown in Mesoamerica, on the contrary, it was abundant and widespread from Sinaloa to Honduras. [00:30:00] Furthermore, 'of the main God,' comments Friar Diego Durán, 'he makes an allusion, with Tezcatlipoca, who he says was a very shiny and black stone like obsidian jet. Stone from which they make razors and knives to cut.' In addition, cities were made of wood carved into a figure of a man all black from the temples down with a forehead, nose and white mouth, the color of an Indian beast" he says, "with some elegant attire in his Indian way. The first thing he had was some gold and sometimes silver eye rings. On the lower lip he had a crystalline green lip plug in which a green feather was inserted and sometimes it is blue, which after the outside looks like an emerald or ruby. This lip plug was like a long gem above the ponytail that had the head. Then, what can be seen in this description [00:31:00] Tezcatlipoca corresponds almost literally to what could be perceived as the first figure of the black Christ, especially in the representation of the images carved in wood that were venerated in the peripheral cities of the Mexica empire. The difference in the attire of both deities lies in the religious connotations of each of the cultures, materials, symbols, spiritualities and attributes, but in essence it is similar and undeniably indisputable. Let us remember that the main celebration, let us say of the obsidian of Tezcatlipoca and of what you mentioned related to the theme of rain, was precisely this, the request for rain, especially because the lands at this point are very arid, very dry. And well, I'll stop here. Chris: Well, thank you very much Anny and Jairo, for explaining a little bit of that. So, [00:32:00] so, I would like to ask how you give the changes in the objects from the Mayans to the Christians and the nature of the pilgrimage, towards tourism. It's a weird question, but, do you think that the old foods, or energies, or ancestors are still being fed? That is to say, living in a place that has been experiencing a drought for a decade, that also suffers from looting, that is getting worse and worse, little by little I am beginning to wonder if there is a lack of prayers, of knowledge, of remembrance, of memory, of offerings. Anny: Well, I think it's actually this drought, looting, this climate crisis and the whole crisis around the land, to me, on a personal level and both at the community level, it seems to me that it is a crisis at the community, national, and global level where all territories have been affected. For example, here in Guatemala, we have very arid, very dry areas, which due to their own geographical condition where they have been, have undoubtedly intensified in recent years, derived from the looting of natural resources, especially in these areas of eastern Guatemala that are mountains that are, well, there they are dedicated to the exploitation of materials for construction. Let's talk about stone, let's talk about sand, let's talk about lime, for example, and other elements that are for mining exploitation. Just as there are others here in Guatemala, where the area is quite humid, but its mountains are [00:34:00] conducive to gold, silver, copper, zinc and other elements. So, I do feel that apart from the sudden lack of a toj , a pagomento, or a Xukulem , as we say, giving gratitude to the land, which is undoubtedly evident when, and that is evident not only in the exploitation of the land, but it is evidence in the feelings of the people, because usually, it is thought that a pilgrimage is only going to see a figure, right? Or a person, a deity, a Christ, going to that energy and feeling the energy to recharge myself, without considering that at the moment that I am also going to recharge myself with that energy, I am being somewhat extractivist many times with my practice. But my practice also goes beyond alienating myself from what is happening, because while it is true, I have the black Christ there in front of me and I am very devout, but understanding that the black Christ can also be [00:35:00] present in the mountains, in the rivers, in the valleys, in the lakes, in the basins and in all that which gives me food, in all that which allows me to live. So, I believe that beyond the lack of prayer, I do believe that there is a lack of awareness, a lot of spiritual work to make people, pilgrims, men and women, see that my pilgrimage route, that is, where I pass through, exists because there is a territory, a territory that is foreign to my territory, but that I still pass through because I am going to see something specific, but that also has an impact and that also entails a responsibility. Worrying about all the common things that happen around my territory, my country, the world, for example. So, Mas Beyond me telling you, look, Chris, people need to pray, people need to make offerings so that there is no more drought, which, while it is true, has a super important part, it is very spiritual and we who [00:36:00] We have seen that it is true. I mean, it is not a myth, it is not a lie, it is true, but the ritual has to go hand in hand with my practice, my discourse has to go hand in hand with what I am doing and with the statements and postulates that I have in my commitment to the land, right? I mean, for me that is like, like the focal point, right? Jairo: Yes, Chris and Anny, well, I must also add that, much of modernity and the ease of being able to establish a pilgrimage route, also, influences social and cultural practices, and well, if perhaps, an offering or a prayer, I also agree with Anny in that sense, it is the conscience of the people, right? And it is not a question, in the case of Catholic people, of being old-fashioned and saying, well, let's keep quiet all the [00:37:00] Camino, although that is a practice that people did before, right? I name it as the old people of Mixco say it. There is no longer respect, people say, for arriving and going on a route of prayer and asking or giving thanks. And so, therefore, you have to have an attitude of respect, but rather it is taken as an excursion and anything can happen within that trip except visiting the basilica and visiting Cristo Negro. But within that trip, many people no longer take into account the meaning, or even the route they are going through, right? I think it is part of the Western influence, and in some ways the media as well, which has not spread this story, because what we are talking about is not told to you in the media. Not even within the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church tells you that there is a Black Christ of Esquipulas, which is a day recognized [00:38:00] within the spirituality, so to speak, of Guatemala, popular religiosity, whatever we want to call it, but they don't give you this historical background that exists within it, right? Well, the Catholic Church is in charge of the liturgical aspect, if we are going to call it that way. There is a mass, people participate in the masses. There are Franciscan friars who are constantly blessing what people buy as souvenirs inside the place. But more than a prayer, I think we need to understand a little more about what we are doing, but it is part of the sociocultural change influenced, as I say, by the West in some way, which is permeating this historical memory regarding the visit of the black Christ. I am not saying that it is not strong anymore, because this still has a lot of strength within the Mesoamerican context. Chris: Sure, sure, [00:39:00] thanks to both of you. Well, most of the conversations in the podcast are criticisms, about what is missing, what is not there, in the world, in the matter of the devotional journey movement as well, and gratitude. Well, it's obvious how transactional or capitalist dynamics, etc. affect people's movements. How they proceed, how they arrive, how they think about their movements, we also want to think about other worlds, and part of that has to do with what some call radical hospitality. That is, as the most basic, according to me, local, rooted hospitality, for the stranger or foreigner, etc. So, I'm curious to know what kind of radical hospitality [00:40:00] you have found in Esquipulas or on the pilgrimage, if you have found anything. Anny: Well, I'm not going to tell you much about this, because I don't have any experience, because it hasn't been my search either, to find this. I feel that it's like a more personal, individual step, perhaps of solitude, but of feeling good in it, so alone, in a good way. I can tell you that there are people who have had many experiences, right? Of meeting people who open the doors of their house for them to stay, for them to visit, for them to come in. Of course, right now a lot of the situation has changed. I feel that security is no longer the same. The situation that Guatemala is going through. The conflict that has been increasing in recent years with these [00:41:00] fascist views as well, with the division between churches, for example, between fascist, radical Protestants, and neo-Pentecostal Protestants. And still, to some extent, the Presbyterian Evangelical Church, which is the one that tries to mediate between both and the Catholic Church. All this, in addition to the fact that the east of Guatemala is classified as a high-trafficking area for drug trafficking, as well. So, all these political and geopolitical situations have been changing a lot the fact that you seek your own protection and that people also, when it is not a time of pilgrimage, do not tend to open their houses, but perhaps they open them more for when there is a little more influx, but it is already very little to see this type of dynamics. The other thing is that many older people, let's say from the area, have already [00:42:00] passed away. And so there are still young people, including people who are no longer from Esquipulas, but who have migrated there for work reasons, so they are losing a sense of belonging, right? A sense of community. But if there is something I can rescue from a long time ago and that suddenly leaves us with the nice memory and the history that perhaps Jairo wants to talk about a little bit there, it is how certain commercial routes were woven between, for example, Oaxaca, Mixco and the people who took advantage of it to go to Esquipulas. And also, how do we think about how consumer products have changed, because now, well, we see an invasion of plastic products, right? Coming from China, from these great pyramids of fraud and exploitation of labor in Malaysia, which also brings you Chinese products from there or from India, for example. We see the entry of a lot of this, [00:43:00] of this product, right? So it is not like we can talk about this community, or about finding community networks in terms of the economy or production, because that is where you know that capitalism is voracious and globalization and all these factors that are happening right now are very cruel to the dynamics and ways of life of supporting each other, of loving each other, of pampering each other, and that it is intensifying more and more. I think that the important thing is to name it so that if someone hadn't realized how the dynamics have been affected, well, now it can be seen, right? And sometimes it's also a bit selfish on my part, because you see, there we go to the fact that, since I only go there once, well, in the end it doesn't matter to me, like if I knit or not, right? It could be someone's thought, right? Well, I [00:44:00] only go once, I go to what I go to and I don't care if there's someone there who can support me, welcome me or whatever. So, how do these dynamics, these frivolous thoughts, also because of the dynamics of life, of the economy and so on, intensify? So, well, that's what I could tell you. Jairo: Yes, within How capitalism, the capitalist system , has also influenced these dynamics. I can specifically name during the last few times I have gone to Esquipulas, right from here in Mixco, how the economy has affected it, that is, the socioeconomic level also determines what you are going to do, right? Because many people who come from here, don't even think about staying, but rather they go at night, early in the morning, and they stay in [00:45:00] the bus or do they just go and make a pilgrimage , pray, leave their candles, don't pay for the hotel and return, right? That has happened on a couple of occasions. Well, now there are lodging options, let's say of different types, which are usually reserved in advance . There is also this other situation, which also leaves aside a bit of what used to be done of preparing food , of bringing already hard-boiled eggs, as we call them, boiled eggs with tomato sauce, that is very much a travel thing in this context of Mixco, the travel tamales that they were also called, which is basically corn paste cooked with the husk, which is the husk of the corn. These tamales, well, served for that , to be able to reduce hunger while arriving at Esquipulas and now this has been little by little replaced just what Anny mentioned, by pre-prepared products, fried foods, which do not have any [00:46:00] sustenance , they do not even link with the memory of the kitchen, but technically it is something that is thrown away . And of course, garbage also plays another important role, because we have little or no education regarding the environment and the companies that make us responsible for their packages, their little sachets, their bottles and all this , end up on the roads and, yes, it is a pilgrimage route, but there is also plastic garbage, right? Within that pilgrimage route. And, well, naming also, this was a little bit of the cherry on the cake that I wanted to leave for this conversation, because, as the economic dynamics have affected trade and pilgrimage routes that may have existed for around 2 thousand years, right? You who live in Oaxaca, you can ask about the Black Christ of Esquipulas and you will find many people who are devoted to the Black Christ of Esquipulas [00:47:00] and they probably have a replica, well, in various places in Oaxaca . Especially the area, well, of the Isthmus, right? In the, in the Zapotec area as well, you will find many people who are devotees and a product of that, we already have it, well, anthropologically registered . It no longer occurs , but thanks to the grandmothers of my town this survives and it is like We, as Mixco, are in the middle of a trade route between basically, central Mexico and eastern Guatemala, which is over there . So, Esquipulas is almost at a different point on this route, right? Well, there is a memory of how our ancient people from Mixco interacted commercially with people who came from central Mexico. And this is evident in the use of the Mayan clothing of the Poqomam of Mixco, which is greatly influenced by the clothing that comes from the town [00:48:00] Zapotec, and the Mixtec people, in Oaxaca and as a result of that, I know it won't come out in the audio, but I'm going to describe it. We have these sashes here, these sashes come from Santo Tomás Jalieza in Oaxaca . The famous sashes of Jalieza, which are used in Oaxaca and which were part of the ancient clothing of Mixco. This changed more or less in the mid- 60s . There is memory, I heard from the mouths of many of the old ladies from here in my town that they said, the Mexicans came to sell us clothes, technically, but it is not the modern Tapachula route , now that it goes along the coast, but they refer to textiles. And we find photos of this, including photographs from the 19th century, from the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century in which we see the use of these girdles, and we recognize them technically by this figure that surely, well, you will see it more represented in Oaxaca. [00:49:00] People here in Mixco call these "los bailadores" (dancers). In Oaxaca they have a name for them, specifically, I don't remember it, but it is thanks to this dancer that we recognize the sashes that come from that place because in Guatemala you can't find any other sash that is made of this material, because it is wool, or the weave on a backstrap loom with these designs can be quite thick. So, thanks to Abisaí Navarro, who I hope can listen to this material, he is a friend who is from Oaxaca, who I met through social networks, who has basically dedicated himself to documenting the cultural expressions of Oaxaca and the spirituality of the Mixtec and Zapotec peoples. And he sent me these belts from Oaxaca. I mean, I can no longer say that I bought them from Oaxacan ladies. As a Mixqueño, I did not buy them from them because now they come by bus, the commercial dynamic has changed and also in Mixco the [00:50:00] Mayan clothing for daily use is no longer used. This is on the one hand, and on the other hand, we also have this other place called Yalalag, which is also Zapotec people, in which they use this garment on their head, they call it tlacoyales or buns, which consists of raw wool, dyed sheep, placed on the head, which is the emulation of a snake. This, well, I didn't bring this from Oaxaca either, I got this thanks to a historian from Chichicastenango that Anny knows, María Jacinta Xón, her father dedicated a lot of time, and she has also dedicated herself, to the production of threads and the obtaining of silk, and her father who is now resting, well, was the one with whom we were able to investigate a little about where this wool came from. This wool is no longer produced even in Chichicastenango, in Anny's context, but [00:51:00] basically this is the last one that he had the opportunity to dye, but it is exactly the same wool that even he did not know its origin, undyed, where it came from. And now this is not even achieved here in Guatemala, so it is evidence of how Mixco is in the middle of a trade route between basically the entire area of the Isthmus and the southern coast towards the east of Guatemala, which is another world that, if the Spanish invasion had not arrived and if there had not been this system that has somehow ladinized, as we say, or stripped the Mayan people of their identity. And, well, we would also have a great diversity of people in that territory. And well, it is a bit of the two garments that here in Mixco are still used by the women who participate in the brotherhoods, but it makes us think of the women of Oaxaca as well. It is very curious. I have a video that describes it, if you want you can see it there on my social networks, [00:52:00] I appear as "pacaya leaf" and there is a video where I talk about this tecoyal . Anny: Yes , Chris, and something that I wanted to add to the conversation is the fact that, in the midst of this form of tourism that is often gentrifying and that also, like these dynamics of coming and going, everything around what happens in Esquipulas changes its dynamic. It is true that now when you go to Esquipulas, there are suddenly hotels, maybe not chain hotels, but five-star hotels . People have tried to maintain hotels that are like family hotels . But that does not mean, for example, that there are more places for recreation, consumption, shopping and commercial exchange. Because you know that in the end, the economic situation, I think that at a global level is not all that good for anyone, [00:53:00] Right? So, you always look for a way to get organized. from certain backgrounds. But, now that I think about it better, let's say in this conversation, I can see something very special . For example, here in Guatemala, there are two more places where there is a pilgrimage to see the Black Christ, you don't have to go to Esquipulas and you can find it here, where I live, it's about an hour away, it's called Chinique de Las Flores. And then from Chinique de Las Flores, about three hours away, you can get to Cunén . Cunén, also here in K'iche', which are these, pilgrimage routes to go see also, replicas of the Black Christ of Esquipulas, but then I can tell you that we are finding what we once found in Esquipulas [00:54:00] more than 400 years ago, so to speak, 300 years ago. So, we are finding it again there because, of course, these are areas that are still perhaps a little smaller, where the atmosphere is still more communal, where, well, it is still a village, as we call it, the essence of a village is still preserved. So it does not become a place to go and stay and spend a week there, or whatever, but rather it becomes a place to visit, to contemplate oneself, to go and make your pilgrimage, your prayer, your penance. So, it seems to me that this is where, where a very, very rich essence can still be found. Chris: Well, thanks to the energies, to the gods and deities that there are still places and people who honor those, those traditions and also as Jairo [00:55:00] mentioned, that well, the memory is also stuck within the textile, the weaving, I have also seen like a traditional chocolate drink here in Oaxaca that, according to some people, has its origin in the K'iche'. Although, it is said that that process, that recipe does not exist in the K'iche' now, but the memory still exists within those practices, right? So the question of hypermobility and the sense of constant war in many ways in the contemporary world, how do you think that pilgrimage or the possibilities of pilgrimage can offer us a way, or ways, or paths to [00:56:00] undermine hypermobility, war, junk food as you mentioned, these economic dynamics and structures that are killing us little by little? What key can pilgrimage have in a world where we want to live? Anny: Well, I think that the responsibility of each one of us is to carry messages of hope, I mean, there are always routes, right? There is the migratory route, there is the route of the monarch butterfly. There is that pilgrimage that they make, they come and go, and these pilgrimages that we also make as human beings, regardless of whether we are Christians or not, but there is always a route that you look for as a pilgrimage to heal your [00:57:00] pains, your illnesses, your traumas, your fears, whether you go on a pilgrimage to a mountain, a volcano, a hill, a church, a basilica, or wherever. What is important to me, and what I find extremely hopeful, is that you also have that commitment to share a light with those you meet along the way. It may also be that your pilgrimage then does not start from the fact that, oh, I am going to think only about prayers, no, but rather, what can I also share along the way? So I can also mention other routes, I think we have achieved this quite effectively when we think about migration routes and how we can lend a hand to our migrant comrades, right? So it seems to me that a very similar strategy could help a lot, to see this with different eyes and to see this, well, beyond, [00:58:00] I mean, we can always do several things, when suddenly we only have one goal, but in the end we can do a lot, so I think that as a message, that's what I would leave you with, so, in the end, in the middle of all this hyper mobility, let's take advantage of it, not only to burn elbows, but to leave other messages to people, right? About how we are also moving, mobilizing, what we are thinking and what is happening around the world. Jairo: Yes, well, understanding that our dynamics have changed over time, that we are a generation that has seen abysmal changes within the dynamics of how we have related to other people, how we learn even because now, thanks to hyper mobility, also, including technology, we know new things, but not leaving aside the case, well, of people who go on pilgrimage, right? The [00:59:00] reflections that we made, why it is done, a little bit, and also what to do with ourselves when we go to a place and when we move, right? The fact that I am really buying from people who are from there or am I going to open a supermarket, does this really benefit the community or does this benefit a company, because in the end it exploits people and buys the product from them super cheap and bargained for, right? I think that this dynamic of consuming what is from there has been maintained, at least in Esquipulas, the people, well, they make a great effort because they know that there are people from many contexts who come to that place, at least once a year. So, understanding these dynamics, I think it is a challenge also within our context and understanding that humans have always moved. Thanks to the ancient people [01:00:00] who moved here 3 thousand years ago, we have this historical evidence and we also learn from these mobilities, how we generate a good impact when we are moving, I think. Chris: We are learning and remembering at the same time, how to move with respect and gratitude and devotion to what gives us life. We are going to make sure that the images of those beautiful textiles will appear with the episode, on the El Fin del Turismo website. And also the names and contacts, if you want, of the compas that you mentioned, Jairo. And so it's been like a great conversation, and it makes me want to continue with that [01:01:00] question of pilgrimage. And on behalf of our listeners, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to both of you for joining us today, and for being willing to confront and wrestle with some of the contradictions and also the colonizations that have affected the act and the art of pilgrimage in our times. If listeners are eager to learn more about what you do in life, is there a way to communicate or connect? Anny: Yes, of course, on our personal networks, I am the current head curator of Espacio C, in Chichicastenango, so there you can find me on Instagram, or on Facebook, it is written [01:02:00] ESPACIO/C ARTE+MEMORIA. And then on my personal networks, in case anyone also wants to search. I am on Instagram as "Anny Puac," so you can find me also on Instagram so you can see, perhaps a little bit of my work, and then on our commercial networks as Los Cofrades Chichicastenango, that way you can find me, you can find us and now Jairo. Jairo: Thank you. I have tried to create content that is not entirely commercial, but not so commercial. I have made reflections on these elements, from both sides, right? On spirituality in Guatemala in general, both Catholic and Mayan, and how this has a central point, it is a little bit what has been my [01:03:00] premise during the last few years, to show that not everything is strictly Catholic, Christian and that there are elements of Mayan spirituality that prevail, as we are talking about today. You can find me as Hoja de Pacaya on social media. Pacaya leaves are used to decorate doors at parties here in the context of Guatemala. Pacaya is a palm tree. The flower is also eaten during trips, especially during pilgrimages. Pacaya flowers are wrapped in egg and tomato sauce is put on top, and it is very much a travel item. And in the Guatemalan context, pacaya leaves are used to refer to people who like parties and never miss a party. So it's a bit of my user's premise, because yes, I like to document the festivals that take place in Guatemala with a background, perhaps of analysis [01:04:00] and reflection. And well, thank you for the space. I am very grateful for that, to both of you. Chris: Again, thank you both so much for your time today, for your reflections and your commitments to the world, to life. Anny: Nice to meet you too. And we are always in touch. I give you a big hug and I also give you a big hug to the land of Oaxaca. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

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S6 #2 | Narco Airbnb | Sofia y Carlos Montoya (Proyecto NN) 1:07:57

13 weeks тому1:07:57

1:07:57

En este episodio, mis entrevistados son Laura Sofía Montoya Gómez y Carlos Alberto Montoya Correa. Carlos es arquitecto egresado de la Universidad Nacional sede Medellín. Experto en planificación, gestión y ejecución de proyectos de desarrollo urbano con énfasis en viviendas económicas en tratamientos de expansión urbana, consolidación, mejoramiento de barrios, renovación urbana y en zonas con restricciones geotécnicas. Ha participado como gestor en la ejecución de más de 50.000 viviendas económicas desde el sector público, en proyectos de cooperación internacional, de aplicación de políticas nacionales y de ejecución local en varias ciudades de Colombia (Bogotá, Medellín, Armenia, Bucaramanga, Rionegro y Bello). Ha sido docente en la Facultad de Arquitectura Universidad Nacional sede Medellín y ha participado de publicaciones colectivas de carácter técnico. Sofia es arquitecta egresada de la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. Magíster en Arquitectura, Crítica y Proyecto de la misma institución donde actualmente también es docente en el área de Taller de Proyectos. Ha participado durante más de 13 años de varias colectividades en la ciudad de Medellín, donde ha podido desarrollar proyectos de investigación en el área del patrimonio urbano-arquitectónico que han sido publicados mediante recursos financiados a través de los estímulos de la Secretaría de Cultura Ciudadana. Es cofundadora de la Corporación Proyecto NN, organización sin ánimo de lucro que acompaña procesos comunitarios y promueve la educación y la dignificación de los espacios de encuentro populares. Notas del Episodio Que esta pasando en Medellin El encaricimiento de la ciudad El turismo sexual y el pueblo moralista La gentrificacion de Pablo Escobar La construccion y venta de vivienda paisa Resentimiento y el dios dinero Las mascaras del gobierno “No se puede morir del exito” El derecho a la ciudad y vivienda Tarea Proyecto NN - Sitio Web - Instagram Transcripcion en Espanol (English Below) Chris: [00:00:00] Bienvenida Sofía, bienvenido Carlos al podcast El Fin del Turismo. Muchas gracias por estar conmigo hoy para platicar de este tema, pues si, tan complejo. Me gustaría preguntarles en dónde se encuentran hoy y como se ve el mundo para cada uno de ustedes allá. Sofia: Bueno, estamos aquí en la ciudad de Medellín. Estamos juntos en mi casa, Carlos es mi padre, y bueno, decidimos juntarnos para tener como una conversación más fluida, desde aquí, desde mi casa en el centro de la ciudad, que es un centro, pues además, bastante particular. Pues Medellín es una ciudad montañosa que queda en los Andes. Es un valle. Y digamos que el centro de la ciudad tiene, pues, unas dinámicas muy distintas a muchos centros de otras ciudades. Carlos: Es una ciudad muy estrecha [00:01:00] y tiene en el costado oriental y occidental un par de montañas llenas de barrios. Aquí mismo por la ventana se ve toda las montañas urbanizadas y en el centro está, digamos la metrópoli, lo que pudiéramos llamar una ciudad más tradicional, mientras arriba son barriadas o comunas populares. Hoy en día, muy populares para cierto turismo. ¿ Y usted dónde está? Chris: Pues yo llevando en Oaxaca, en la capital de Oaxaca, México también en un valle un poco mas amplio geográficamente que Medellín . Conozco Medellín porque andaba como turista hace 15 años quizás allá. Y pues empezando toda la [00:02:00] investigación para este episodio, encontre como muchos Entonces me gustaría leer unas citas de esos artículos para los oyentes que quizás no conocen Medellín, no saben qué está pasando allá, según los medios masivos. Entonces, primero este, Nomad List. "Nomad List es una plataforma que publica su ranking de los destinos más populares para trabajar de forma remota. Colocó a Medellín en segundo lugar, el año pasado entre 157 ciudades de Latinoamérica." El próximo dice que "en la colonia de Manila de Medellín hay alquileres a corto plazo cuyos propietarios ganan más de cinco millones de pesos colombianos por mes o alrededor de $1,000 estadounidenses." El próximo decía que "aunque no se llevó [00:03:00] a cabo, el presidente local dijo en ese momento 'que prohibiría los alquileres a corto plazo en la ciudad como medida para prevenir el abuso y la explotacion sexual infantil. En esa búsqueda por encontrar una solución a ese flagelo, Guitierrez, el presidente local se reunió con representantes de la plataforma de Airbnb para llegar a un acuerdo. Desde entonces se ha trabajado de común acuerdo con las partes en conjunto para evitar medidas extremas, pero si establecer acciones que permiten prevenir este delito en la ciudad" Siguiendo, "en tanto, el número de apartmentos anunciados en Airbnb, la popular empresa de alquiler de propiedades vacacionales, subió de 8 mil en octubre de 2022 a 14 mil a [00:04:00] finales de 2023, según datos recabados por AirDNA." Y finalmente, "los datos recientes dice que Medellín recibe 1.7 millones de visitantes extranjeros a una urbe de 2 millones y medio de habitantes." Entonces, me gustaría empezar preguntándoles a ustedes dos sobre la gentrificación en Medellín. Yo encontré otro artículo sobre el tema. Y quizás se se exhibe, expone un poco de lo que está pasando allá y dice que "Wilson y Felipe, ambos se reservaron sus nombres reales. Son dueños, cada uno, de un bar cafetería en Manila en El Poblado, una de las zonas más turísticas de mayor actividad económica. Los dos vecinos son de los pocos que quedan en su [00:05:00] cuadra, porque prácticamente todas las casas de la zona se transformaron en restaurantes, pequeños hoteles y hostales, escuelas de español o viviendas para alquileres cortas a través de aplicaciones como Airbnb, que toman los extranjeros y que en parte son la causa del sobrecosto en los precios de la vivienda para los habitantes tradicionales. Entre 2022 y 2023, los arriendos crecieron entre 50 y 100%. Este barrio cambió demasiado, dice Wilson, era familiar y vea, se volvió tierra de viciosos y jíbaros que atiende a domicilio. Toda esa 'gentrificación' como le dicen, es a raíz de los inversionistas extranjeros y se encareció todo. Carlos, tú has trabajado para empresas estatales en Medellín y Bogotá, la Empresa de Desarrollo Urbano. y [00:06:00] sofia, tú has trabajado en el Proyecto NN ahí en Medellín. Entonces quizás podrían ofrecernos una idea de lo que ha sucedido en Medellín en los últimos años y las últimas décadas en términos de gentrificación y qué papel tiene que desempeñar el turismo y los turistas en ello. Carlos: Pues yo, yo percibo esta situación como supremamente novedosa y reciente. Vale decir que Medellín en los 90 era una ciudad a donde no venía nadie. Es decir, la situación de violencia urbana. Toda esta crisis que desató el narcotráfico en la ciudad nos tenía marginados del resto del mundo. Era una ciudad bastante poco atractiva por lo violenta y de inversiones relativamente paralizadas.[00:07:00] Sofia: Fue la ciudad más violenta del mundo. Carlos: Sí Sofia: En cierto momento Carlos: Y necesitó de una estrategia de atención entre la presidencia de la república y la alcaldía local que ustedes en México le llaman "presedencia local" para encontrar alternativos de futuro. Se llamaban los seminarios de muchas conversaciones. Entonces, lo primero que quiero enseñar es que es un hecho muy nuevo, y muy reciente. Nosotros para ver un extranjero, era un futbolista que venían a los dos clubes. De resto aquí no venía a nadie. Ver rostros chinos o japoneses o alemanes eran, eso es muy sui géneris. Y el paisa, la cultura antioqueña es una cultura supremamente hospitalaria. La gente acá desborda de amabilidad. Es una cosa muy curiosa. El solo hecho de sentir a una persona de otra [00:08:00] región, no necesariamente extranjero, puede ser de otra región colombiana. El antioqueño desarrolla un, unas habilidades y unas formas de relación, muy amenas, muy atractivas. El antioqueño es una persona muy conversadora, muy dicharachero, y es muy abierto. Es muy tranquilo en las relaciones, diría eso en principio. Entonces sí, si sentimos, realmente se siente abrumadora la presencia de extranjeros, porque es notoria. Aquí mismo nosotros vivimos aquí. Yo vivo en un par de cuadritos donde los hoteles pequeños proliferan en dos cuadras han, se han desarrollado en los últimos tres años. cinco, seis, siete hoteles, y la presencia del extranjero, es notoria. Y como le digo en un principio, era muy bienvenida, porque el extranjero, pues trae monedas con un [00:09:00] cambio muy fuerte y también aquí, el país es de una mentalidad comercial y negociante extrema. Aquí el negocio se ve pa vender un hueco, pues hacemos otro hueco. Es decir, la gente aquí es supremamente ingeniosa en la forma de establecer negocios. Sofia: Si, y, y creo que la ciudad hizo un esfuerzo institucional por cambiar también la narrativa. Pues porque, como lo dice Carlos, estuvo muy estigmatizada, pues somos la ciudad de Pablo Escobar. Cierto. Eso es una carga como simbólica muy fuerte. Y entonces se ha hecho pues un un esfuerzo, por mostrar otras cosas que también somos. Creo que el reggaetón tiene mucho que ver como con la visibilidad de la ciudad también. Cierto, porque digamos que el reggaetón no solamente pues han salido grandes estrellas, grandes cantantes pues como de de aquí de Medellín, sino [00:10:00] que el reggaetón pues como muchas otras géneros musicales, pues como que en salsa o, o bueno enaltece, pues esas figuras como el narcotráfico de bueno, como cierta estética también. Y entonces es muy atractivo para muchos extranjeros venir a conocer la ciudad del reggaetón. Y esa era una cosa que estaba pasando, digamos, de una manera más orgánica y más lenta antes de la pandemia. Con la pandemia se corta y luego de la pandemia, si se desbordó. O sea, ocurre como un fenómeno desbordado. También me imagino, pues como por esas ansias de mucha gente de viajar y de pues, de haber estado como paralizada en sus lugares, y la ciudad realmente no estaba preparada. O sea, yo creo que todo ese esfuerzo institucional que se hizo, no se midió tampoco, como hasta, hasta dónde podía llegar, cierto? Porque, si bien es cierto que la ciudad es supremamente hospitalaria y acogedora, digamos que el clima es una de las cosas que también [00:11:00] a muchos extranjeros les llama la atención. Es un clima muy ideal, cierto? Un eterno verano. Pues, obviamente también hay unas estructuras, que ofrecen cosas. Hay mucha droga, hay mucha prostitución, cierto? Es una ciudad como también para un turismo que no deja tantas cosas buenas. Además, bueno, tú sabrás y tendrás del conocimiento, el turismo así no sea, pues, este turismo como de drogas y de prostitución y de fiesta desbordada. El turismo es un fenómeno que tiende como a arrasar, cierto? Es un fenómeno que encarece, entonces. Sí, creo que en en un principio, es una ciudad que un poco quería que esto sucediera, pero en este momento no sabe muy bien cómo manejar. Carlos: Si también hubo un momento en que cuando la ciudad empezó a despegar, hubo cierto turismo académico, porque la ciudad empezó a ser muy sonora en cuanto a ciertas transformaciones [00:12:00] urbanísticas. Esta es una ciudad que tiene una empresa de servicios públicos muy poderosa. Nosotros tenemos en Medellín, la alcaldía es la dueña de una especie de multinacional criolla que le vende servicios públicos y energía eléctrica. Le vende energía eléctrica a Panamá, a Ecuador y le brinda servicios públicos a unos 90 municipios en Colombia. Entonces, la ciudad tiene una capacidad de inversión social realmente notoria. Y entonces la ciudad empezó a hacer eventos académicos para mostrar. Por ejemplo, Bogotá, que es la capital de Colombia, tiene 8,000,000 de habitantes. No ha podido construir un metro. Chris: Wow. Carlos: Y el metro de Medellín está cumpliendo 30 años. Lo que quería señalar es que se desarrolló una forma de turismo muy curiosa. Y es que aquí vienen extranjeros a visitar barrios populares, a meterse en [00:13:00] Moravia o en lo que aquí llamamos Comuna 13, en un hecho muy curioso por lo menos porque pues ir a un barrio popular donde, donde no hay servicios cómodos, donde no hay locaciones, donde pues, a ver como el espectáculo popular. No sé, es una cosa muy, muy curiosa y es increíblemente desbordado. Es decir, hay lugares donde no cabe la gente físicamente y siguen yendo, o sea allá, son, todo eso es incómodo. Pero la gente sigue yendo, no se como a que, pero siguen llegando. Sofia: Es una pregunta que nos hacemos constantemente, pues, de hecho, varios amigos siempre me dicen como, es que, a qué vienen? A qué vienen aquí? Pues no entendemos a qué vienen, tal vez porque uno tiene naturalizado. No sé, pues todo lo que pasa aquí, pero uno sigue sin entender, Carlos: Pero, diría, el turismo está asociado como a los centros de negocios, a los centros [00:14:00] históricos, a los centros culturales, pero que los barrios populares se volviesen un objetivo turístico. Entonces, al principio, un turismo como institucional y académico. Aquí se hicieron eventos donde llegaron 2 mil estudiantes, de universidades de todo Colombia, de Ecuador, y de países vecinos, a ver lo que estaba pasando en Medellín. Pero de ese turismo muy institucional, académico de centros de estudio, de aulas, se transfirió, a un deseo de conocer los barrios populares y entonces el turista, el otro turista, perdóneme que hable así de, el que viene un poquitico maliciosamente a buscar como huellas del narcotráfico, o consumo, o redes de prostitución, se pega ahí y hay en estos momentos una acción entre Manila como sitio receptor de turismo y [00:15:00] Comuna 13, como sitio. Como Manila se controla, en ese acuerdo, en ese pacto entre empresarios del turismo y presidencia local, se hace unos pactos de control. Entonces el turista ya no trae las niñas al barrio Manila, sino que van a buscarlos en la Comuna 13. O sea, pero sigue siendo el barrio popular un centro de atracción de turismo inusitado de unas escalas tremendas y hay una avidez, nos hago mucho realmente de qué pues realmente pero, pero está mezclado el turismo tradicional, el turismo popular y el turismo como académico si pudiéramos decir se entremezclan. Están ahí todos mezclados. Desbordando, desbordando la ciudad, encareciendo mucho. Se siente verdaderamente. Sofia: Es que en este momento, Medellín es la ciudad más costosa de Colombia. O sea, por encima de Bogotá. Chris: [00:16:00] Mm. Sofia: Que eso nunca había pasado. Siempre, pues, para alguien de Medellín ir a Bogotá era más costoso. Carlos: No, y un empleo, por ejemplo, mira, yo tuve el mismo cargo, se puede decir el mismo cargo, en Medellín y en Bogotá. Y por el solo hecho de estar en Bogotá, la asignación salarial, es más del doble. Entonces, Bogotá pues es la capital, eso mismo ha de pasar en todos los países del mundo. Pero yo mencioné que es una ciudad estrecha, tiene mucha posibilidad de crecimiento y de oferta habitacional. Al llegar este turismo, prácticamente copó todo el interés de los empresarios y ya, construir viviendas económicas aquí no le interesa nadie. Chris: Y pues me gustaría llegar profundizando esa última noción o esta consecuencia del turismo, de la despojo, perdón en la ciudad, pero primero, me gustaría abrir un [00:17:00] poco de esos temas de la imagen de Medellín que quizás se da a los turistas extranjeros, como mencionaste Sofia, como mencionaste Carlos, de la prostitución y también el narcotráfico, una nota de la investigación que hice dice que recientemente el alcalde Guitierrez anunció que el ciere de 150 propiedades que en su mayoría están vinculados a la plataforma que habrían sido utilizadas para fines de turismo sexual y explotación de niños, niñas y adolescentes en la capital antioqueña. Ahora, en primer lugar, tiene a recapitular los imaginarios coloniales de violación o coerción. En segundo lugar, puede implicar a menores de edad. En tercer lugar, los servicios que prestan a las trabajadores sexuales en un lugar determinado pueden ocultar fácilmente la presencia de crimen [00:18:00] organizado, Dadas las complejidades y contradicciones presentes en el tema de turismo sexual, en un campo de trabajo en el que muchos están tratando de superar prejuicios y criminalizacion. ¿Cómo ven ustedes dos estos temas en en este momento? Sofia: Pues a ver, lo primero que yo quisiera decir es que las redes de prostitución pues, o de trabajo sexual o de trata, pues, como de personas no iniciaron por la movida turística. O sea, esta ciudad siempre ha sido un lugar donde el trabajo sexual ha sido, como uno de los rubros de la economía, incluso, pues, en la época del narcotráfico. O sea, siempre ha sido así. Pues, como que las paisas tienen fama de ser mujeres bonitas. De bueno, tanto dinero que se ha movido en esta ciudad también, digamos que viene amarrado, pues como con ese tipo de actividades. [00:19:00] Entonces simplemente yo creo que el boom del turismo simplemente encuentra una estructura vieja que está que funciona muy bien. Es una estructura que ya existía. Lo mismo pues que lo de las drogas. O sea, lo que pasa es que aquí las drogas, tal vez en los 90s, no se consumían tanto en la misma ciudad, porque todas se exportaban, pero la estructura está y pues simplemente el turismo se pega de esa estructura. Entonces, aquí la gente, pues es como también muy moralista y a todo el mundo le parece horrible que un gringo ande con una muchachita, pero esa muchachita ha andado con los mismos países de aquí toda la vida. Que les parece terrible, es que está sucediendo en los barrios tradicionalmente ricos de la ciudad. Y eso es lo que les molesta, porque prostitución, pues nosotros, que siempre hemos vive en el centro, siempre ha estado, siempre ha existido y esa dinámica no es nueva. Entonces, digamos que me parece que el paisa bueno, todo lo que hemos dicho, lindo del [00:20:00] paísa, pero también es muy moralista y se escandaliza, pues solamente cuando están al lado de su casa. Carlos: Claro, pero además de que eran estructuras de negocios ilícitos asociados entre sí, es decir, narcotráfico y todas estas otras patologías sociales. A ello, el turismo, lo que hizo fue darle una manifestación inmobiliaria porque antes, claro, pero en los barrios ricos no. Sofia: O muy, o muy puntualmente, pues, o muy, muy escondido. Carlos: Muy escondido, cierto? Pero, pero como se vio una fuente de negocio, como yo puedo arrendar y obtener, como dijiste, 2 mil doscientos dólares en arrendamientos, pues la visión de negocio y mercantilistas del paisa que la tiene por naturaleza, se embarca y entonces se asoció la droga y estos negocios, estas patologías sociales ilícitas a una versión [00:21:00] inmobiliaria. Y ahí sí, la versión inmobiliaria tiene efectos en la economía de los arrendamientos, en la economía de varios de prestigio. Y entonces ya eso se vuelve Sofia: Molesto. Carlos: Una problemática de otra índole. Sofia: Molesto y visible. Pero lo que yo quiero anotar es, por ejemplo, en la época los 90, en El Poblado, había fincas gigantes donde eran, pues como burdeles y pues los narcotraficantes iban allá y se encerraban, pero como estaba encerradito todo el mundo sabía que allí sucedían ese tipo de cosas. Llegaban, veían a las chicas llegar, o sea, como toda la dinámica, pero como sucedía ahí puntualmente. Pues, cierto, como en la época, no pasaba nada. Carlos: En esa época, los narcos trajeron a todos los artistas importantes, de habla hispana. Todos los artistas, no quiero decir ningún nombre, algunos ya están difuntos, pero los artistas más importantes estuvieron haciendo shows en esas casas campestres donde [00:22:00] obviamente en el entretenimiento del narco, pues están desafortunadamente, las niñas bonitas paisas que Sofia: Pero entonces, claro, esto era como puntualmente y era como una actividad que hacían los narcos, ya cuando sucede esto, pues es que ya es en tu mismo edificio, en el barrio que has habitado toda la vida. Y entonces ahí, si se vuelve como muy abierto, como muy escandaloso, pues para esta sociedad que es como tan moralista. Yo, por ejemplo, no creo que eso sea una patología social. O sea, yo creo que pues finalmente, así como hay hombres que entregan su cuerpo y se vuelven sicarios y pueden sufrir, pues su cuerpo está expuesto a que les pase cosas horribles. Pues hay mujeres que también encuentran en su cuerpo, pues una manera de sobrevivir y creo que, finalmente es una expresión como de la desigualdad, cierto?, y de la oportunidad. O sea, hay muchas mujeres y yo las conozco que que estudiaron una [00:23:00] carrera, o sea que no es que tengan tampoco necesidades, pues como vitales y deciden elegir ese camino porque es muy rentable, cierto? Y esta es una ciudad que lo permite. Entonces, por ejemplo, no, no lo veo desde ese punto de vista tan moralista. Lo que sí es cierto es que precisamente por esa moral, como tan católica que tenemos todavía en esta ciudad, no hay mecanismo de control porque el único mecanismo de control es, decir que está mal, criminalizarlo y no se pasa de ahí, y no creo que pronto vayamos a pasar de ahí. Entonces, pues yo no veo, que eso, primero ni vaya a seguir sucediendo, creo que va a seguir sucediendo. Ni tampoco veo que haya como una actitud desde la institucionalidad más inteligente. Carlos: Sí, las medidas del alcalde son más, más que todo anuncios para calmar el alboroto de la élite. Sofia: Es que eso no tiene efecto. Carlos: No tiene efecto de nada. Chris: Gracias. Gracias, Sofía [00:24:00] y Carlos por sacar esas contradicciones que están ahí dentro de las dinámicas en Medellín. Pues más allá del turismo sexual y a veces junto con ello, es el turismo de drogas o narcos. Y un artículo de mi investigación dice que. Un comerciante en Medellin cuenta que algunos habitantes de La Comuna la promocionan como la "cuna" de Escobar para atraer más clientes. Es más rentable, dice. Aquí compran camisetas de él, eh, ave María, todo lo alusivo a Pablo se vende mucho, dice el hombre que por seguridad, pide no ser citado. Y es que, pese a que la zona luce pacificada por el turismo, el control sigue en manos de los combos. El comerciante afirma que ahí operan bandas pequeñas [00:25:00] como Los del Uno, Los de Dos, Los Pirusos y Los Negros. Ellos cobran cuota por negocio chuzo al aire libre y hasta parqueadero. Aquí no se abre un local sin su permiso. Y también pasa con los cuentos Airbnb que están empezando a abrir. Ahora, una colega investigadora que trabaja junto a activistas en Colombia, me dijo hace un año aproximadamente que los carteles de narcotráfico en Medellin habían comenzado a utilizar Airbnb como una forma de lavar dinero. Seguramente esto ha sido así desde hace mucho tiempo en el sector de inmobiliario normal, pero este simbolizaría una conexión directa, entre el crimen organizado, el turismo y la crisis de la vivienda. Entonces, ¿Qué piensan ustedes sobre la posibilidad de que los narcos, ya sea en [00:26:00] Medellin o la Ciudad de México, sean en secreto propietarios de Airbnb? Sofia: Pues, bueno, frente a la primera pregunta o parte de la pregunta de lo de Pablo Escobar, pues es innegable, pues, que es una figura demasiado importante y no solamente, pues, como figura particular él, sino porque es un estereotipo de lo que somos. Yo no diría que los colombianos, pero no me siento pues como para hablar por todo el territorio nacional, pero si es un estereotipo de lo que es un paisa. Y por eso, pues muchas personas dirán horrible, no me quiero identificar con esta persona, pero así lo digan, pues tenemos mucho de él, pues así como él tiene mucho de nosotros, pues es que tenemos una cultura que es compartida. Y finalmente, pues uno tiene tíos, amigos, pues que parece que tienen algunas, características de Pablo Escobar. Es un es un personaje pues que es muy cercano, para [00:27:00] nosotros. Y así la ciudad intente, digamos, desde la élite, desde lo institucional, rechazarlo, es algo que es imposible, es imposible pues como negarlo. Carlos: Sí, por ejemplo, en Comuna 13, parte del show o del evento turístico, es hacer muchas alusiones a la figura de Pablo Escobar. Entonces, está el tipo que tiene una fisionomía igualitica, como si fuera un actor, un doble y una serie de eventos cuando Escobar no tiene nada que ver ni con la violencia urbana que tuvo Comuna 13, pero es una forma en que la mentaría popular ve que explotar la figura de Escobar, pues es muy rentable para cierto turismo extranjero que todavía quiere circular versiones, relatos, que ya son [00:28:00] completamente míticos o legendarios porque son totalmente inventos, para traer clientes. Sofia: Sí, y y además, uno se pone a pensar porque es que mucha gente se ofende. Osea, incluso pues me ha tocado presenciar momentos en que alguien se ofende porque un turista o un extranjero dice como "uy, yo vine porque es la ciudad de Pablo Escobar y me emociona y quiero una camiseta," cierto? Pero es como, no sé si uno va y visita la ciudad de Al Capone. Pues es como lo mismo, simplemente es como un mito. Es una figura, cierto? Pues los criminales también han sido igual de atractivos que los personajes que son buenos, incluso, pues yo creería que los personajes malvados son los que son más atractivos. Entonces, claro, aquí hay mucha, mucho resentimiento pues ante esa figura, pues porque todavía hay familiares de las víctimas, o sea, es una historia demasiado reciente, pero para el extranjero es simplemente una historia más, una historia de lo que ven en las películas. Y yo siento que muchas [00:29:00] personas que se, que se ven atraídas como por esa figura tienen como una noción del asunto muy infantil. Pues creen que realmente es un personaje de una película, cierto? No entienden que realmente pues que esta ciudad explotó en bombas. No lo conciben y pues yo que no estoy tan adulta a mí me tocó. O sea, es una cosa que es demasiado reciente y todavía esta sociedad está muy traumatizada por eso. Entonces, por eso es que hay tanto recelo, pero al mismo tiempo, es una oportunidad de negocio porque vende demasiado. Carlos: Mira, nosotros vivimos aquí, pues en el centro de la ciudad y mi señora y yo, estaban ellos muy chiquitos. En la noche, contábamos las bombas, una, dos, siete, ocho, porque yo no sé si conoces la canción de La Noche De Chicago... de Mirta Castellanos. Bueno, una canción que narra el enfrentamiento [00:30:00] de los gángsters en Estados Unidos contra la policía. Eso fue una masacre tremenda entre ambos bandos. Aquí vivimos eso, pero no era con ametralladoras, era con bombas. Pues, es decir, este tipo voló un edificio en Bogotá, el edificio del DAS. Voló un avión de pasaderos civiles en el aire, o sea, un un personaje real. Y eso suena como fantástico, que eso no es realidad, pero eso es realidad. Esta ciudad estuvo marcada por escombros de todas esas detonaciones, además de que las masacres juveniles solo para crear caos. Pues estar un grupo de muchachos departiendo en en una discoteca y llegar grupos de sicarios solo por el solo hecho de que al otro día en las noticias, haya pavor en toda la ciudadanía porque se pensaba ganar esa guerra de esa manera. Sofia: Terrorismo pues, [00:31:00] entonces, como cerrando un poco, pues para nosotros todavía es una historia dolorosa. Pero si uno también, como se pone en el papel de alguien que está en otro país y tiene otra realidad, pues claro que es una historia supremamente atractiva. Y fuera de eso, puedes ir a la ciudad que fue la ciudad más peligrosa del mundo, pero ya sabes que no te va a pasar nada. Pues, okey, digamos, hay cierta seguridad, porque realmente aquí los turistas están cuidados y no están cuidados por la policía. Están cuidados porque las estructuras criminales, como ya lo dijiste, enlazando con la segunda parte, las estructuras criminales ya dieron la orden que a los turistas no les puede pasar nada porque están vinculados directamente a su negocio. Entonces es por esto que tenemos un gringo, pues que pena decirlo así, pero, así le decimos nosotros, un gringo, en un barrio popular y es más fácil que le pase algo a uno que es de la misma ciudad que a ellos. No les va a pasar nada, por qué? Porque son fuente de dinero y porque si los matan o si les pasa algo malo, van a dejar de venir. Carlos: El negocio [00:32:00] se daña. Sofia: Exactamente, es como, no sé si sabes pues, pero aquí a la, a los expendios de droga se les dice plazas. Y no hay lugar en la ciudad más seguro que una plaza, porque es que en una plaza a ti nadie te va a robar. porque pues está totalmente controlado y no le vas a dañar el negocio a los que tienen el negocio. Entonces, obviamente es muy atractivo y aunque uno podría decir que gente tan boba o lo que sea o no entienden la historia, no están interesados en la historia, pues es que es una historia que realmente es muy atractiva. Pues porque aquí él contó un par de cosas, un par de titulares, pero todo lo que tiene que ver con los narcotraficantes de nuestra región es bastante fantástica. Pues es, y por eso es que le han hecho series a Pablo Escobar, porque es que realmente es un personaje, pues muy interesante, muy interesante y con unas historias, pues que, que son cinematográficas. Entonces, como no se va a sentir el mundo atraído hacia eso. Carlos: El tipo vivió una película en carne propia continua, pues [00:33:00] todo, la cárcel, las escapadas, los negocios que montó, la estrategia de llevar la coca en aviones. Sofia: Y entonces asociado a lo que decías, pues que esta estrategia, pues como inmobiliaria o está de vínculo con los Airbnbs, pues claro a mí no me parece extraño, es que estas estructuras son supremamente inteligentes. Van adelante, claro. Y donde vaya mucho dinero siempre va a estar detrás pues, bueno, ¿Cómo lavamos dinero? Es que nos entra tanto dinero que tenemos que lavarlo. No lo vamos a lavar vendiendo empanadas. Vamos a lavarlo con algo que genere mucho dinero. Entonces, siempre, pues es que aquí han lavado plata con todo lo que uno se imagine y siempre han tenido casas, negocios, las farmacias, por ejemplo. Carlos: Y y Chris, la actividad inmobiliaria. Ya cuando yo estudiaba, obviamente, yo tengo 68 años. O sea hace 35 años que estudiaba la zona de prestigio de El Poblado [00:34:00] era toda de casas campestres a las cuales se ingresaba por rieles, o sea. Sofia: Por un camino de piedra. Carlos: Si, sin una infraestructura urbana. Y en 30 años, el paisaje es lleno de torres, absolutamente lleno de torres, saturado. Lavado, aquí no hay una economía como para que mucha gente pudiente desarrollara no, no. Eso solamente se explica porque, pero era el negocio formal. Sí, y ese "negocio" entre comillas, no, no ocasionaba la molestia como ahora la, la gentrificación, antes , por el contrario, toda la élite valorizó sus fincas para en ella desarrollar torres, se llenaron de dinero, con dinero que era con seguridad absoluta en un porcentaje muy alto finanzas para lavar. Sofia: De negocios ilícitos. Y el crecimiento de esta ciudad y sí, porque es un crecimiento demasiado [00:35:00] rápido. Pues a ti te, te debió haber tocado El Poblado ya totalmente lleno de torres pues. Pero lo que quiero decir es que acá no hay una economía tan grande como para que eso sucediera tan rápido. Entonces, pues es obvio, o sea, ahora nos parece como "uy podrían ser dueños de Airbnb." y yo diría, quién más? Quién más va a ser dueño en esta ciudad de ese negocio? Quiénes son capaces de comprar edificios enteros? O sea, quiénes tienen el dinero para invertir? Carlos: Y para recuperarlo contra rentas cortas, es decir que me parece que es una inversión de mucho riesgo. Porque cualquier evento. Sofia: Pues la misma pandemia. Carlos: Lo lo puede tirar al suelo, cierto? Quién puede arriesgar eso? El narco. Sofia: Es que mira que aquí tradicionalmente en la ciudad, acá les llamamos "panaderías paracas." Pues y son panaderías que venden el peor pan. O sea, nadie compra. Pero funcionan 24 horas. Carlos: Y son super [00:36:00] lujosas, o sea lo que son muy bien establecidas. Sofia: Y son negocios que nunca tienen clientes y venden un pan horrible y nadie les compra, pero siempre están ahí en las mejores esquinas. Carlos: Abiertas todo el tiempo. Sofia: Y además, tienen ligado como que eso lo inauguró Pablo Escobar, pues como un sistema de vigilancia. Entonces, en la época de Pablo escobar, eran los taxistas, cierto? Había como una red de taxis asociados y todavía creo que eso funciona. Pues y quiénes van a esas panaderías? Es decir, o sea, siempre siempre el narcotráfico, claro, tiene que tener negocios legales, pa poder, pues, si pa [00:37:00] poder. Chris: Órale, pues qué fuerte y todo y supongo que debajo de todo, hay como más evidencia más capas de crimen organizado, no solo narcos, pero también el estado. Pienso como en una corporación de nivel mundial que se llama Blackstone, que ya ha pasado en lugares como Barcelona y otros ciudades en donde, [00:38:00] eh, se compran un edificio, se desplazan toda la gente, o sea, todos los residentes adentro y se convierte todo en Airbnb. O sea cada depa es un Airbnb ya, como 30, 50, 100, lo que sea, y se emplean, negocios tras negocios, tras negocios para, por ejemplo, los sistemas de organizar reservaciones, de la limpieza. Pero todos los trabajadores, todos los negocios no son parte de Blackstone. Son como empleado como freelance, no? Entonces ni hay ninguna cara vista en ese dinámica que está sacando, desplazando a la gente de sus edificios. Sofia: No, yo iba a decir que de pronto aquí no, no, no es tan visible aún eso como de comprar edificios ya habitados, pero sí de construirlos. O sea, ya si se están [00:39:00] construyendo muchos edificios totalmente de Airbnb con inversiones extranjeras o locales, porque hay un personaje, pues aquí que que está como abanderado de ese tema y que dice que va, va a llenar todo Airbnb y que le parece bien. Pues yo siento que está empezando a suceder. Está empezando a suceder. Chris: Gracias, Sofía. Y pues, los efectos de turismo [00:40:00] excesivo, el sobreturismo y la gentrificacion en Medellin parece que han llegado muy rápido y fuerte. Sin embargo, los últimos años han surgido cuentas en las redes sociales criticando al turista, al nómada digital o al gringo, por lo que está sucediendo. ¿Es eso lo que ustedes todos también ven allá y están de acuerdo con la evaluación? Sofia: Pues, a ver, resentimiento. Mm, no me parece que sea muy visible. O sea, me parece que hay como mucho escándalo, moralista. Pero pues, a a ver hubo como una pequeña marcha en el alrededor del Parque Lleras en contra pues del Airbnb, en contra de la explotación sexual infantil, pero no es muy masivo. O sea, ahí sí siento que culturalmente somos. O sea, aunque el paísa puede ser muy [00:41:00] beligerante como en sus palabras, como que parece muy bravo y furioso, realmente somos muy sumisos y sumisos ante el Dios Dinero. Entonces, mientras haya negocio, se acepta, se moverá, cierto? Y entonces, este efecto, pues como que de hecho, pues en en otras conversaciones hemos dicho bueno, yo no lo llamaría gentrificación. Pues lo llamaríamos turistificación porque es una cosa que se está generando desde el turismo específicamente porque la gentrificación habla más desde un desplazamiento de un grupo social a otro, pero no necesariamente se refiere al turista. Y claro que hay un efecto porque en este momento hay una burbuja inmobiliaria. Están muy costosos los arriendo en Medellín, el costo de la vida está altísimo. Y eso digamos que aunque se concentra en el sur, en El Poblado y en Laureles, pues en el occidente, eso tiene una onda expansiva, pues que afecta como el resto de la ciudad y realmente los arriendos se han encarecido, digamos de lo más costoso a lo que era pues como más barato. Y si nos afecta a todos, [00:42:00] pero yo no veo a nadie ni organizándose, no? Carlos: Ni siquiera la relación que estableciste en una pregunta anterior con la oferta de vivienda. Porque, digamos una cosa es que algunos edificios obsoletos o que se desarrollen nuevos edificaciones para atender turistas, pero supuestamente la oferta de vivienda tradicional de la ciudad debería continuar, pero no ha sido así. O sea, la situación se ha agravado porque ya te mencioné. Esta es una ciudad muy estrecha y es una ciudad que no tiene suelo de expansión. No tiene para dónde crecer. Entonces, cuando este tema llega al tema inmobiliario, uno pensaba que iba a haber una reacción, no necesariamente resentimiento, sino una reacción social. Sofia: Por lo menos de exigencia pues ante las autoridades, pues, que tomen conciencia en el asunto. Carlos: O institucionales, o de los gremios, pero no. Porque finalmente hay [00:43:00] negocio y el negocio opaca todo en la cultura y en la mentalidad nuestra. Yo creo que, que todavía una respuesta ante la crisis, yo creo que la crisis va a seguir acentuándose. Va a seguir manifestandose y acentuándose, y que una reacción o una respuesta empresarial, institucional. Sofia: O ciudadana... Carlos: Exactamente, todavía no, se ve muy clara. Sofia: Sí, porque si uno, si puede decir bueno, "hay gente que no le gustan los turistas," pero no es una cosa generalizada, porque de nuevo, si hay como un espíritu como hospitalario o si el turista te trata bien a ti, porque lo vas a tratar mal. O sea, yo no he visto, pues, que en un negocio alguien vaya a tratar mal a un turista que no le quiera vender. No, eso no sucede. Pues, entonces no creo que esté sucediendo algo así. Pues, creo que, la situación, digamos, económica y social, estaba muy densa, pues está como muy [00:44:00] fuerte aquí en la ciudad y la gente simplemente está intentando sobrevivir. Carlos: Y digamos, el malestar que se presentó en Manila y sus alrededores es porque ciertos eventos de drogadiccion y prostitución era muy visibles. Cuando se logra el pacto de ocultar, pues todos tranquilos, porque la gente aquí es muy mojigata. Esto es una una sociedad simplemente conservadora, "católica" entre comillas y con que la cosa no se vea, pues está bien. Sofia: Yo también quería anotar que, que claro que han habido como unas pequeñas manifestaciones en El Poblado, cierto?, de residentes que se han visto afectados. Pero eso no tiene eco en toda la ciudad porque es que eso finalmente gente rica que está molesta porque ya no puede vivir en el arrendamiento, en el barrio que vivió toda la vida, sino que le toca desplazarse a otro menos cómodo. Pero no es como que se vayan a quedar sin posibilidad de vivir en la ciudad, por ejemplo. Me parece que no es como algo tan crítico. Y eso no va a tener eco en la [00:45:00] ciudad porque un montón de niños ricos se quedaron sin poder pagar su apartamento, pues, o el apartamento que quieren o en el barrio que quieren. Simplemente claro está desplazando un poco, entonces hay nuevas zonas. Eso si se llama gentrificación, estos barrios más tradicionales, más populares están siendo ocupados por estas personas de clase alta de nuestra ciudad que han sido desplazadas por la gente de clase alta del mundo, cierto? Y entonces esta gente que habitaba en esos barrios tradicionales, pues le toca coger para la ladera, cierto? Para los barrios populares. Y bueno, y digamos que esa es la incomodidad. Pero yo no siento que sea algo generalizado. O sin mucha fuerza, o por lo menos no con una llamada clara a la [00:46:00] acción. Chris: Vale, vale, pues muchas gracias, Sofía, Carlos. Entonces, si no hay tanta resistencia en las calles, me gustaría preguntarles de las acciones del gobierno de Medellin. Entonces, en mi investigación para el episodio, yo leí algunos artículos que ofrecen los siguientes datos: Ahora, "Medellin tiene un déficit de más de 50,000 viviendas según Viva, según la empresa de vivienda de la gobernación de Antioquia." Ahora, "Juan Camilo Vargas, director de Asohost, el [00:47:00] gremio de esta actividad en Colombia dice que el 40% de sus operaciones se concentra en Medellín y que el negocio no es ilegal. Entonces un alcalde no puede pasar por encima de una norma nacional." Ahora "Y aunque no ha tomado medidas concretas, el alcalde Gutiérrez también ha enviado señales de posibles restricciones para el negocio de los hospedajes cortos. En la ciudad más de 1700 lugares operan sin licencia según el sistema de información turística." Y finalmente "No vamos a acabar con las plataformas, pero si habrá regulaciones, dijo el mandatorio ante el consejo el 4 de marzo." Dice "No puede ser que en tres años hayan aumentado tanto los arriendos [00:48:00] o que la vida de nuestras familias se vuelve imposible por las rentas cortas." Entonces, pues el gobierno local habla de adoptar una postura dura contra el tráfico sexual relacionado con el turismo y la crisis de vivienda. Y dadas las fallas en Barcelona para enfrentar las consecuencias del turismo, incluso después de que su alcalde fue elegido por hacer exactamente eso, ¿Qué esperanza cree que existe a nivel gubernamental en Medellin? Sofia: No, claro esto una, pues, qué pena decirlo. Pero Chris, es que nosotros tenemos un alcalde que se cree Batman. Pues que anda en un helicóptero diciendo que va a perseguir el mismo a los ladrones, pero es toda una fachada y digamos que nuestra sociedad compra eso. Pero pues se cerraron tres apartamentos, tres edificios, o sea, se cerraron unos cuantos negocios. Eso sale en la primera plana. [00:49:00] Pero pues yo, yo tengo gente cercana que ha invertido en Airbnb. Y no han tenido ningún problema. No les han hecho ningún requerimiento. Nunca les han visitado la policía. Claro, creo que depende mucho como del administrador de la propiedad, no admitir lo que se supone que en la plataforma no está admitido, cierto? Que tengamos esta persona cercana que que está, pues como inversionista de un Airbnb, si dice nosotros no admitimos nada de eso. Y las veces que hemos tenido intentos de que alguien entre a alguien, se llama la policía, y claramente de una se expulsa a la persona. Bueno, digamos que si hay un procedimiento, pero ni siquiera a esa persona, la policía se lo va a llevar. O sea, a mí me ocurrió una cosa una vez, y es que yo estaba en una portería de una unidad en El Poblado y entró un extranjero con dos niños pequeños, con dos niños de 10 años. Y yo pensé que eran [00:50:00] sus hijos, pues como yo pensé que eran sus sus hijos adoptivos pues, pues, como que, bueno, simplemente yo vi a entrar un un hombre con dos niños, pero sí me llamó la atención como estaban vestidos los niños. Y le pregunté el portero, como esos son los, pues como que estaba confundida si me llamó la atención en la manera en que estaban vestidos. Y el portero me dijo no es que estos gringos vienen a hacer eso en ese apartamento y yo, pero ¿Por qué no estamos llamando a la policía? Y él me decía "es que los tienen que coger con las manos en la masa." O sea, no hay, un procedimiento tampoco para hacerle frente a esto. Y es una cosa que muchas veces sucede, pero no hay herramientas institucionales para que deje de suceder porque finalmente ellos están protegidos porque están en el interior de un apartamento, porque el dueño del apartamento está de acuerdo. Bueno, digamos que es toda una cadena. Entonces realmente es difícil del desuno de vista legal. lo que creo es que nuestro alcalde y muchos otros que hemos tenido son maravillosos haciendo anuncios, [00:51:00] cierto? Siendo portadas de periódico. Carlos: Aunque, aunque hay anuncios en el aeropuerto ahí, pues tú te bajas de un vuelo internacional y en el pasillo vas a encontrar... Sofia: Si, que que no, que no se admite esto, pero igual siempre vas a poder acceder a ello. O sea claro, y son muy buenos haciendo anuncios, así como han hecho anuncios de muchas cosas. Pues como se va a acabar la criminalidad, o sea, van a pasar muchas cosas, pero en el cotidiano, pues uno ve que eso no es cierto. O sea, uno se va para el Lleras y uno sigue viendo pues, toda la dinámica cierto?. Qué era muy escandaloso, Chris, y que creo que ya dejó de pasar, que es que uno se iba para el para el Lleras. Pues que no sé si estás ubicado en El Poblado, como en el mejor dicho, es como el centro del turismo, en el barrio de El Poblado, y uno veía niñas indígenas que bailaban por monedas, cierto?. Y era como, ya ni siquiera era [00:52:00] necesariamente, es que ellas fueran prostitutas, sino no que estaban, digamos, haciendo algo que la gente consideraba muy indigno y que eran niñas y que eran indígenas. Al lado de todas las, cierto? Trabajadores sexuales que se estaban, digamos, ofreciendo sus servicios. Y eso fue lo que más, alarmó a la gente, como, porque tenemos estas niñas indígenas, y entonces, bueno, la actitud fue, se van de aquí, ya no pueden estar, le quitamos las niñas a los papás. Bueno, un montón de acciones que uno sabe desde adentro que no van a tener absolutamente ningún efecto y que es posible que esas niñas la vayan a pasar todavía peor de lo que ya la pasan, cierto?, bueno, como que yo la verdad no creo que vayan a cerrar Airbnb. No creo que vayan a prohibir el Airbnb en Medellín. Carlos: Pues yo veo muchas construcciones para adelante. Y tengo compañeros o amigos ex alumnos arquitectos que dicen que los negocios que les están entrando es diseñar y construir [00:53:00] Airbnb. Sofia: Si. Y fuera de eso, pues, porque es que esos anuncios son muy fáciles de decir. Pues incluso yo he visto que en otras ciudades han empezado a regular. Que hay zonas de la ciudad que no se admiten los Airbnbs o que, digamos tienen un tiempo, mínimo, o sea que son 30 días mínimo, entonces son estancias cortas, pero de un mínimo, o sea, no es, voy a pasar el fin de semana en Medellín y me voy a des cualquiera, sino vengo a trabajar. Pero eso ni siquiera ha sucedido. O sea, no hay una mínima regulación, entonces, pareciera de pronto, si se leen los titulares pareciera pero hasta ahora no ha pasado nada concreto. Carlos: Y hay muchos enterramientos, por ejemplo, de que el presidente local, fue financiado por todo este sector inmobiliario y pongámosle raya, relacionado con el turismo. Entonces él, él no tiene capacidad moral de controlarlos. Chris: Pues justo me encontré una cita del arquitecto Joseph Bohigas, [00:54:00] y el dice que "en la segunda ciudad de Colombia, aún hay tiempo para evitar las imágenes que se repiten hoy en Barcelona," que "Medellín no puede morir de éxito." Carlos: Pues él nos lanzó esa frase porque acordáte que te mencioné que hubo un turismo académico muy fuerte y una, pues pretendía cierta hermandad entre Medellín y Barcelona. Pues eso no tiene nada de hermanos, pero la academia va para todo. Entonces, toda esta oleada de arquitectos y urbanistas de Barcelona estuvieron aquí, asesorando a las alcaldías, a los gobernadores durante unos 10 años seguidos. Todos los arquitectos importantes de Barcelona tuvieron aquí y el vino. Y él nos dijo esa frase por ahí en el 2007. Estaba en alcaldía terminando Fajardo cuando el dijo ojo que una ciudad puede morir del éxito. Entonces desarrolle la idea y [00:55:00] más o menos decía pues la gentrificación, el encarecimiento, la turistificacion fueron cosas que no, que él anunció. Claro, esta es una ciudad sin mar. La gente viene a montañas y la vegetación. Tú sales de Medellín a dos horas y estás como en una selva. No es una selva, es un bosque tropical tremendo, muy atractivo. Yo creo que ese es un atractivo que la ciudad también ayuda a traer mucha gente, es decir, Santa Fe, Antioquia, Guatape, Jardín, son municipios relativamente cercanos, muy, muy atractivos para el que viene realmente a descansar, cierto? Entonces yo creo que esto podría ser una oportunidad. Esta situación de gentrificación, turistificación, encarecimiento, actividad inmobiliaria, que de, que está abandonando la vivienda, digamos para el, para el residente. Podría ser la oportunidad para que ese morir del éxito pudiera ser confrontado [00:56:00] mediante políticas. A eso requiere mucho liderazgo de la alcaldía, mucho. Actualmente yo no veo la alcaldía con comprensión estratégica de lo que puede estar pasando y de cómo esto pueda grabarse mucho. Sofia: Sí, sí, gracias, Carlos. Para terminar nuestra conversación, me gustaría preguntarte Sofía sobre el proyecto que nos pusimos en contacto. El Proyecto NN, me encantaría que pudieras explicarnos qué es el Proyecto NN y qué hacen ustedes ahí en Medellin? El Proyecto NN es una corporación sin ánimo de lucro, pues que está interesada por apoyar procesos como de organizaciones culturales o sociales, digamos en zonas periférica de la ciudad, aunque también hemos trabajado o nos interesa mucho también la parte, digamos pedagógica o la parte de [00:57:00] formación en temas relacionados con patrimonio, con urbanismo, cierto? Como con, cultura en general. Sofia: Somos varios arquitectos que hacemos parte, pues de la organización y todos somos profesores universitarios. Entonces, bueno, tenemos como ese interés por la pedagogía y digamos que ese cruce de la pedagogía y la dignidad espacial, y el interés por los espacios de encuentro, digamos comunitarios, pues nos ha llevado apoyar estos procesos, a encontrar mecanismos o idear proyectos para dignificar esos espacios donde la gente se encuentra, donde la gente se encuentra generalmente a compartir, pero también a aprender y a buscar como salidas para gestionar la propia vida, cierto?, digamos, para superar esa desigualdad que muchas veces también tiene que ver con la desigualdad en la oferta de oportunidades, precisamente, incluso desde la, desde la educación. Y pues, porque, aunque supuestamente en Colombia, la educación es un derecho, pues realmente no se [00:58:00] cumple cierto?. Y vinculado un poquito como a esta idea de la vivienda, pues también se supone que en Colombia, la vivienda digna es un derecho, y eso es algo que vemos que no se cumple. Y, pues, ahorita mencionábamos un poquito como la conformación de la ciudad, y podemos decir que, pues esos lugares en donde la vivienda digna no se cumple, pues se da sobre todo en las laderas, cierto? En la parte alta de la montaña. Y es allí donde estamos trabajando, donde vemos precisamente que hay un tipo de urbanización, pues como muy precaria, donde los servicios básicos no están cubiertos y donde un espacio comunitario, pues cubre realmente muchas de las necesidades de las personas, cierto? Incluso, pues , como espacio de socialización, cierto? Como espacio de encontrar pares, cierto? Para enfrentar, pues, esa situación. Entonces, bueno, eso es lo que hacemos desde el Proyecto NN y bueno, y digamos que intentamos [00:59:00] reflexionar teóricamente, pues, este asunto del derecho de la ciudad y el derecho de la vivienda, pero también estamos intentando, pues, como adelantar proyectos que tengan que ver transversalmente con este asunto. Ahora en compañía de Carlos, pues que Carlos ahorita les, te contará un poco. Pero Carlos, pues es un experto en mejoramiento integral de barrios, bueno, en todas estas intervenciones que se puedan hacer en estos, en estos lugares de la ciudad, estamos, liderando un proceso de formación, pero también un proceso constructivo, si puedes llamarse así, de prevención de riesgos y desastres. Pues, porque en estos barrios el derecho a la ciudad es eso cierto? Esta gente bueno, viven unas condiciones precarias, pero además, están arriesgando sus vidas, cierto?, porque, no tienen las condiciones urbanas, pues, para que su vivienda sea una vivienda segura. Y entonces estamos encontrando y a [01:00:00] mecanismos, pues, para transmitir algunos conocimientos técnicos y pues, para mejorar esas condiciones de vida. Entonces, digamos que, pues para nosotros el derecho a la ciudad tiene que ver también con esto, cierto? De, bueno, el estado no lo puede resolver. Pero entonces, como comunitariamente encontramos alternativas para mejorar estas condiciones. Carlos: Yo agregaría que para mí, por lo menos en la experiencia profesional que he tenido, literalmente el derecho de la ciudad es derecho a la vivienda. Yo no concibo ni siquiera la ciudad sin oferta de vivienda, sin vivienda. La ciudad es un lugar para vivir fundamentalmente y dentro de estas estrategias de gestionar la vivienda. Pues, pues, vos, sabes, Chris que Colombia y Medellín es una ciudad muy, muy determinada por por el desplazamiento desde las regiones. Es una ciudad que recibe población migrante expulsada por fenómenos [01:01:00] violentos, por buscar oportunidades, por la misma atractividad de la ciudad, porque es una ciudad que se mueve, que mueve la economía. Entonces, precisamente el sector inmobiliario, digamos entretenido con Airbnb, la alcaldía que no sabe para donde mirar y la gente llegando desde las regiones expulsada de muchas formas, se ubica en unas laderas muy, muy inhóspitas, de muy difícil adiestramiento, de muy difícil urbanización. Entonces vemos que allí, desde la formación, desde la capacitación, desde la pedagogía, de, pero siempre llevando a la práctica con la red de monitoreo de puntos críticos en un barrio, con la identificación del que es un punto crítico, con los factores de riesgo del barrio. Estamos tejiendo con ellos y el lugar de reunión, la sede de Somos Por [01:02:00] Naturaleza y el Proyecto NN, ahí nos encontramos construyendo con la gente conocimiento, oportunidades, posibilidades. En eso estamos. Chris: Orale, pues suena un proyecto increíble, necesario y muy hermoso. Entonces, gracias a ustedes dos y también en el nombre de nuestros oyentes, me gustaría agradecerles a ambos por estar dispuestos a hablar conmigo sobre estos temas hoy. Igual fue muy revelador para mí y espero que poco a poco se sigan construyendo la derecha a la ciudad, a la vivienda, y la solidaridad, con la gente ahí en Medellin. Entonces, ¿Cómo podrían nuestros oyentes seguir a sus trabajos, compañeros? Sofia: Ah, bueno, nos pueden seguir en en Instagram, @ProyectoNN. Ahí intentamos compartir, pues, como parte del proceso de los proyectos [01:03:00] que que tenemos en curso y bueno, próximamente también vamos a actualizar la página www.proyectonn.com Y bueno, por ahí pueden ver como, como las cosas que estamos haciendo y adelantando. Y pues también, muchas gracias a ti por la invitación. Siempre son temas muy bacanos como de conversar, reflexionar, chévere. Carlos: Así que a la gente de Oaxaca y a usted Chris que se interesaron en estas conversaciones, pues muchas gracias. Chris: Gracias, Sofía. Gracias Carlos. Bonito día. English Transcription Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome Sofia, welcome Carlos to the podcast The End of Tourism. Thank you very much for being with me today to talk about this very complex topic. I would like to ask you where you are today and what the world looks like for each of you there. Sofia: Well, we are here in the city of Medellin. We are together in my house, Carlos is my father, and well, we decided to get together to have a more fluid conversation, from here, from my house in the center of the city, which is a very particular center. Well, Medellin is a mountainous city that is in the Andes. It is a valley. And let's say that the center of the city has, well, very different dynamics to many centers of other cities. Carlos: It is a very narrow city [00:01:00] and on the eastern and western sides there are a couple of mountains full of neighborhoods. Right here, through the window, you can see all the urbanized mountains and in the center is, let's say, the metropolis, what we could call a more traditional city, while up there are neighborhoods or popular communes. Nowadays, they are very popular for certain types of tourism. And where are you? Chris: Well, I was in Oaxaca, the capital of Oaxaca, Mexico, also in a valley that is a bit larger geographically than Medellín. I know Medellín because I was there as a tourist maybe 15 years ago. And so, starting all the [00:02:00] research for this episode, I found how many... So I would like to read some quotes from those articles for the listeners who may not know Medellín, don't know what's going on there, according to the mass media. So, first up is Nomad List. "Nomad List is a platform that publishes its ranking of the most popular destinations for working remotely. It placed Medellin in second place last year out of 157 cities in Latin America." The next one says that "In the Manila neighborhood of Medellin, there are short-term rentals whose owners earn more than five million Colombian pesos per month or about $1,000 US." The next one said that "Although it was not carried out [00:03:00] , the local president said at the time 'that he would ban short-term rentals in the city as a measure to prevent child sexual abuse and exploitation. In that search to find a solution to this scourge, Guitierrez, the local president, met with representatives of the Airbnb platform to reach an agreement. Since then, the parties have worked together in agreement to avoid extreme measures, but to establish actions that allow preventing this crime in the city." Continuing, "Meanwhile, the number of apartments listed on Airbnb, the popular vacation rental company, rose from 8,000 in October 2022 to 14,000 at [00:04:00] the end of 2023, according to data collected by AirDNA." And finally, "recent data says that Medellín receives 1.7 million foreign visitors to a city of 2.5 million inhabitants." So, I'd like to start by asking you two about gentrification in Medellin. I found another article on the subject. And maybe if you show it, it exposes a little bit of what's going on there and says that "Wilson and Felipe, both of whom withheld their real names, each own a café-bar in Manila in El Poblado, one of the most touristic areas with the greatest economic activity. The two neighbors are among the few left on their [00:05:00] block, because practically all the houses in the area have been transformed into restaurants, small hotels and hostels, Spanish schools, or short-term rentals through apps like Airbnb, which are taken over by foreigners and are partly the cause of the high cost of housing for traditional residents. Between 2022 and 2023, rents grew between 50 and 100%. This neighborhood has changed a lot, says Wilson. It was a family-oriented neighborhood, and you see, it became a land of drug addicts and drug dealers who provide home delivery. All this 'gentrification', as they say, is due to foreign investors and everything became more expensive. Carlos, you have worked for state-owned companies in Medellín and Bogotá, the Urban Development Company. And [00:06:00] Sofia, you have worked on the NN Project there in Medellín. So perhaps you could give us an idea of what has happened in Medellín in recent years and decades in terms of gentrification and what role tourism and tourists have to play in it. Carlos: Well, I perceive this situation as extremely new and recent. It is worth saying that Medellin in the 90s was a city where nobody came. That is to say, the situation of urban violence. All this crisis that drug trafficking unleashed in the city had us marginalized from the rest of the world. It was a rather unattractive city due to its violence and relatively paralyzed investments. [00:07:00] Sofia: It was the most violent city in the world. Carlos: Yes Sofia: At some point Carlos: And it required a strategy of attention between the presidency of the republic and the local mayor's office, which you in Mexico call "local presidency" to find alternatives for the future. They were called the seminars of many conversations. So, the first thing I want to show is that it is a very new and recent fact. For us, to see a foreigner, it was a footballer who came to the two clubs. Otherwise, nobody came here. Seeing Chinese or Japanese or German faces was very unique. And the paisa, the Antioquian culture is a supremely hospitable culture. People here are overflowing with kindness. It's a very curious thing. The mere fact of feeling a person from another [00:08:00] region, not necessarily a foreigner, can be from another Colombian region. The Antioquian develops skills and ways of relating, very pleasant, very attractive. The Antioquian is a very talkative person, very talkative, and is very open. He is very calm in relationships, I would say that at first. So yes, we do feel, the presence of foreigners really feels overwhelming, because it is noticeable. We live here. I live in a couple of small blocks where small hotels have proliferated in two blocks, they have been developed in the last three years. Five, six, seven hotels, and the presence of foreigners is noticeable. And as I said at the beginning, it was very welcome, because foreigners bring coins with a very high exchange rate and here, the country has an extremely commercial and business mentality. Here, the business is seen to be selling a space, so we make another space. I mean, people here are extremely resourceful in the way they do business. Sofia: Yes, and I think the city made an institutional effort to change the narrative as well. Because, as Carlos says, it was very stigmatized, because we are the city of Pablo Escobar. True. That is a very strong symbolic burden. And so an effort has been made to show other things that we are as well. I think that reggaeton has a lot to do with the visibility of the city as well. True, because let's say that reggaeton has not only produced great stars, great singers, like from here in Medellin, but [00:10:00] that reggaeton, like many other musical genres, like in salsa or, well, it exalts, well, those figures like drug trafficking, well, like a certain aesthetic as well. And so it is very attractive for many foreigners to come and get to know the city of reggaeton. And that was something that was happening, let's say, in a more organic and slower way before the pandemic. With the pandemic, it was cut off and after the pandemic, it overflowed. In other words, it happens as an overflow phenomenon. I also imagine, well, because of the desire of many people to travel and, well, to have been paralyzed in their places, and the city really wasn't prepared. I mean, I think that all that institutional effort that was made was not measured either, as to how far it could go, right? Because, although it is true that the city is extremely hospitable and welcoming, let's say that the climate is one of the things that also [00:11:00] attracts the attention of many foreigners. It is a very ideal climate, right? An eternal summer. Well, obviously there are also some structures that offer things. There are a lot of drugs, there is a lot of prostitution, right? It is a city that is also for a tourism that does not leave many good things. Also, well, you will know and you will have the knowledge, tourism even if it is not, well, this tourism of drugs and prostitution and unbridled partying. Tourism is a phenomenon that tends to be devastating, right? It is a phenomenon that makes it more expensive, then. Yes, I think that at first, it is a city that kind of wanted this to happen, but at this moment it does not know very well how to handle it. Carlos: Yes, there was also a time when the city began to take off, there was some academic tourism, because the city began to be very loud in terms of certain urban transformations [00:12:00] . This is a city that has a very powerful public services company. In Medellin, the mayor's office is the owner of a kind of local multinational that sells public services and electricity. It sells electricity to Panama and Ecuador and provides public services to some 90 municipalities in Colombia. So, the city has a really notable capacity for social investment. And then the city started to hold academic events to show off. For example, Bogota, which is the capital of Colombia, has 8,000,000 inhabitants. It has not been able to build a subway. Chris: Wow. Carlos: And the Medellin metro is celebrating its 30th anniversary. What I wanted to point out is that a very curious form of tourism has developed. And that is that foreigners come here to visit popular neighborhoods, to get into [00:13:00] Moravia, or what we call Comuna 13 here, is a very curious fact, at least because you go to a popular neighborhood where there are no comfortable services, where there are no venues, where you can see the popular show. I don't know, it's a very, very curious thing and it's incredibly overwhelming. That is to say, there are places where there is no room for people physically and they keep going, that is, there, they are, all of that is uncomfortable. But people keep going , I don't know why, but they keep coming. Sofia: It's a question we ask ourselves constantly, in fact, several friends always ask me, like, what are you here for? Why do you come here? Well, we don't understand what they're coming for, maybe because one has become naturalized. I don't know, well, everything that happens here, but one still doesn't understand, Carlos: But, I would say, tourism is associated with business centers, historical centers , cultural centers, but popular neighborhoods become a tourist destination. So, at the beginning, it was an institutional and academic tourism. Events were held here where 2,000 students came from universities throughout Colombia, Ecuador, and neighboring countries to see what was happening in Medellín. But from that very institutional, academic tourism of study centers, of classrooms, it was transferred to a desire to get to know the popular neighborhoods and then the tourist, the other tourist, forgive me for speaking like this, the one who comes a little maliciously to look for traces of drug trafficking, or consumption, or prostitution networks, sticks there and there is currently an action between Manila as a site receiving tourism and [00:15:00] Comuna 13, as a site. Since Manila is controlled, in that agreement, in that pact between tourism entrepreneurs and the local presidency, control pacts are made. So tourists no longer bring their girls to the Manila neighborhood, but go to look for them in Comuna 13. In other words, the popular neighborhood continues to be a center of attraction for unusual tourism on a tremendous scale and there is a greed, we really wonder what it is really, but traditional tourism, popular tourism and academic tourism are mixed together, if we could say they are mixed together. They are all mixed together. Overflowing, overflowing the city, making it very expensive. You can really feel it. Sofia: Right now, Medellin is the most expensive city in Colombia. That is, above Bogota. Chris: [00:16:00] Mm. Sofia: That had never happened before. So, it was always more expensive for someone from Medellín to go to Bogotá. Carlos: No, and a job, for example, look, I had the same position, you could say the same position, in Medellin and in Bogota. And just by being in Bogota, the salary is more than double. So, Bogota is the capital, the same thing must happen in all countries of the world. But I mentioned that it is a narrow city, it has a lot of potential for growth and housing supply. When this tourism arrived, it practically took up all the interest of the businessmen and now, building cheap housing here is of no interest to anyone. Chris: And so I would like to go into more depth on that last notion or this consequence of tourism, of the dispossession, sorry, in the city, but first, I would like to open a little on those issues of the image of Medellín that perhaps is given to foreign tourists, as you mentioned Sofia, as you mentioned Carlos, of prostitution and also drug trafficking, a note from the research I did says that recently Mayor Guitierrez announced the closure of 150 properties that are mostly linked to the platform that would have been used for purposes of sexual tourism and exploitation of children and adolescents in the capital of Antioquia. Now, first of all, it has to recapitulate the colonial imaginings of rape or coercion. Secondly, it may involve minors. Thirdly, the services provided to sex workers in a given location can easily hide the presence of organized crime . Given the complexities and contradictions present in the issue of sex tourism, in a field of work in which many are trying to overcome prejudices and criminalization. How do you two view these issues at the moment? Sofia: Well, let's see, the first thing I would like to say is that the prostitution networks, or sexual work networks, or human trafficking networks, did not start because of the tourist movement. I mean, this city has always been a place where sex work has been one of the sectors of the economy, even during the drug trafficking era. I mean, it has always been like that. Well, the paisas have a reputation for being beautiful women. Well, so much money that has moved through this city also, let's say, is tied to that type of activity. [00:19:00] So I simply believe that the tourism boom is simply finding an old structure that is working very well. It is a structure that already existed. The same as with drugs. I mean, what happens is that here drugs, maybe in the 90s, were not consumed so much in the same city, because they were all exported, but the structure is there and tourism simply sticks to that structure. So, here people are also very moralistic and everyone thinks it's horrible that a gringo goes with a girl, but that girl has been with the same countries here all her life . What they find terrible is that it's happening in the traditionally rich neighborhoods of the city. And that's what bothers them, because prostitution, well, we, who have always lived in the center, it has always been there, it has always existed and that dynamic is not new. So, let's say that it seems to me that the country is good, everything we have said, beautiful [00:20:00] country, but he is also very moralistic and is only shocked when they are near his house. Carlos: Of course, but in addition to that, they were illicit business structures associated with each other, that is, drug trafficking and all these other social pathologies. Tourism gave it a real estate effect, because before, of course, but not in the rich neighborhoods. Sofia: Either very, very punctually, or very, very hidden. Carlos: Very hidden, right? But, but as a source of business was seen, as I can lease and obtain, as you said, 2 thousand two hundred dollars in leases, well the business and mercantilist vision of the paisa that has it by nature, embarks and then drugs and these businesses, these illicit social pathologies were associated with a real estate version [00:21:00] . And then, the real estate version has effects on the rental economy, on the economy of various prestigious companies. And then that becomes Sofia: Annoying. Carlos: A problem of a different nature. Sofia: Annoying and visible. But what I want to point out is, for example, in the 90s, in El Poblado, there were huge farms where they were, well, like brothels and drug dealers would go there and lock themselves up, but since it was so closed off, everyone knew that these kinds of things were happening there. They would arrive, they would see the girls arrive, I mean, the whole dynamic, but it happened there punctually. Well, right, like at that time, nothing happened. Carlos: At that time, the drug traffickers brought all the important Spanish-speaking artists . All the artists, I don't want to say any names, some are already deceased, but the most important artists were doing shows in those country houses where [00:22:00] obviously in the drug traffickers' entertainment, well, unfortunately, there are the pretty paisas girls who Sofia: But then, of course, this was like punctually and it was like an activity that the drug traffickers did, and when this happens, it is already in your own building, in the neighborhood where you have lived all your life. And then, it becomes very open, very scandalous, for this society that is so moralistic. I, for example, do not believe that this is a social pathology. I mean, I believe that, ultimately, just as there are men who give up their bodies and become hitmen and can suffer, their body is exposed to horrible things happening to them. Well, there are women who also find in their bodies a way to survive and I think that, ultimately, it is an expression of inequality, right?, and of opportunity. I mean, there are many women and I know them who studied a [00:23:00] career, so it's not that they have needs, like vital ones and they decide to choose that path because it is very profitable, right? And this is a city that allows it. So, for example, no, I don't see it from that moralistic point of view. What is true is that precisely because of that morality, as Catholic as it is that we still have in this city, there is no control mechanism because the only control mechanism is to say that it is wrong, to criminalize it and it doesn't go beyond that, and I don't think we're going to go beyond that soon. So, I don't see that, first of all, that it's not going to continue happening, I think it will continue happening. Nor do I see that there is a more intelligent attitude from the institutionality. Carlos: Yes, the mayor's measures are more, more than anything, announcements to calm the uproar of the elite. Sofia: That has no effect. Carlos: It has no effect at all. Chris: Thank you. Thank you, Sofia [00:24:00] and Carlos for bringing out those contradictions that are there within the dynamics in Medellin. Well, beyond sexual tourism and sometimes together with it, there is drug tourism. And an article from my research says that. A merchant in Medellin says that some inhabitants of La Comuna promote it as the "cradle" of Escobar to attract more clients. It's more profitable, he says. Here they buy his T-shirts, eh, Ave Maria, everything related to Pablo sells a lot, says the man who, for security reasons, asks not to be named. And the fact is that, despite the fact that the area seems pacified by tourism, control is still in the hands of the gangs. The merchant affirms that small gangs operate there [00:25:00] like Los del Uno, Los de Dos, Los Pirusos and Los Negros. They charge a fee for open-air businesses and even parking. Here, you cannot open a business without their permission. And the same thing happens with the Airbnbs that are just starting to open. Now, a fellow researcher who works with activists in Colombia told me about a year ago that drug cartels in Medellin had begun using Airbnb as a way to launder money. This has probably been the case for a long time in the regular real estate sector, but this would symbolize a direct connection between organized crime, tourism and the housing crisis. So what do you think about the possibility that drug traffickers, whether in [00:26:00] Medellin or Mexico City, are secretly owning Airbnb? Sofia: Well, in regards to the first question or part of the question about Pablo Escobar, it is undeniable that he is a very important figure and not only as a particular figure, but because he is a stereotype of what we are. I wouldn't say that we Colombians, but I don't feel like speaking for the entire national territory, but he is a stereotype of what a paisa is. And for that reason, many people will say, "Oh, I don't want to identify with this person," but they say it like that, because we have a lot of him, just as he has a lot of us, because we have a culture that is shared. And finally, one has uncles, friends, who seem to have some characteristics of Pablo Escobar. He is a character who is very close to us [00:27:00] . And so the city tries, let's say, from the elite, from the institutional, to reject it, it is something that is impossible, it is impossible, how can it be denied. Carlos: Yes, for example, in Comuna 13, part of the show or the tourist event is to make many allusions to the figure of Pablo Escobar. So, there is the guy who has the same physiognomy , as if he were an actor, a double and a series of events when Escobar has nothing to do with it. nor with the urban violence that Comuna 13 had, but it is a way in which the Popular thought sees exploiting Escobar's figure as very profitable For certain foreign tourists who still want to circulate versions, stories, which are already [00:28:00] completely mythical or legendary because they are totally invented, to attract clients. Sofia: Yes, and also, one starts to wonder why so many people get offended. I mean, I've even witnessed moments where someone gets offended because a tourist or a foreigner says something like, "Oh, I came because it's Pablo Escobar's city and it excites me and I want a t-shirt," right? But it's like, I don't know if you go and visit Al Capone's city. Well, it's like the same thing, it's just like a myth. He's a figure, right? Well, the criminals have also been just as attractive as the characters who are good, in fact, I would think that the evil characters are the ones who are more attractive. So, of course, there is a lot of resentment here towards that figure, because there are still relatives of the victims, that is, it is a very recent story, but for foreigners it is simply one more story , a story of what they see in the movies. And I feel that many [00:29:00] People who are attracted to this figure have a very childish notion of the matter. Well, you think that he is really a character from a movie, right? You don't understand that this city really exploded with bombs. You can't understand it, and I am not that old, but I had to deal with it. I mean, it's something that is too recent and this society is still very traumatized by it. So, that's why there is so much suspicion, but at the same time, it is a business opportunity because it sells too much. Carlos: Look, we live here, right in the center of the city, and my wife and I were very young. At night, we counted the bombs, one, two, seven, eight, because I don't know if you know the song La Noche De Chicago... by Mirta Castellanos. Well, a song that tells the story of the confrontation [00:30:00] between gangsters in the United States against the police. That was a tremendous massacre between both sides. We lived through that here, but it wasn't with machine guns, it was with bombs. Well, I mean, this guy blew up a building in Bogotá, the DAS building. A civilian passenger plane flew through the air, that is, a real person. And that sounds fantastic, that is not real, but that is real. This city was marked by debris from all those explosions, in addition to the youth massacres just to create chaos. Well, there were a group of kids partying in a discotheque and groups of hitmen arrived just for the sole reason that the next day on the news, there was fear in all the citizens because they thought they would win that war in that way. Sofia: Terrorism, well, [00:31:00] so, to wrap things up a bit, for us it is still a painful story. But if you also put yourself in the shoes of someone who is in another country and has another reality, well, of course it is a highly attractive story. And apart from that, you can go to the city that was the most dangerous city in the world, but you already know that nothing is going to happen to you. Well, okay, let's say, there is a certain security, because here the tourists are really taken care of and they are not taken care of by the police. They are taken care of because the criminal structures, as you already said, linking with the second part, the criminal structures have already given the order that nothing can happen to the tourists because they are directly linked to their business. So that is why we have a gringo , well it's a shame to say it like that , but that's what we call him , a gringo, in a popular neighborhood and it is easier for something to happen to someone who is from the same city as them . Nothing is going to happen to them, why ? Because they are a source of money and because if they are killed or if something bad happens to them, they will stop coming. Carlos: The business [00:32:00] is damaged. Sofia: Exactly, it's like, I don't know if you know, but here, drug stores are called plazas. And there is no safer place in the city than a plaza, because in a plaza no one is going to rob you, because it is totally controlled and you are not going to harm the business of those who own the business. So, obviously it's very attractive and even though one could say that people who are so stupid or whatever or don't understand the story, they're not interested in the story, because it's a story that's really very attractive. Because here he told a couple of things, a couple of headlines, but everything that has to do with the drug traffickers in our region is quite fantastic. Well, that's why they've made series about Pablo Escobar, because he really is a very interesting character, very interesting and with stories that are cinematic. So, how could the world not be attracted to that? Carlos: The guy lived through a continuous movie firsthand, because [00:33:00] everything, the prison, the escapes, the businesses he set up, the strategy of transporting the cocaine on airplanes. Sofia: And then, in relation to what you were saying, this strategy, as a real estate company or linked to Airbnbs, of course, doesn't seem strange to me, it's that these structures are extremely intelligent. They move forward, of course. And where a lot of money goes, there will always be something behind it, well, how do we launder money? We get so much money that we have to launder it. We're not going to launder it by selling empanadas. We're going to launder it with something that generates a lot of money. So, always, well, here they have laundered money with everything you can imagine and they have always had houses, businesses, pharmacies, for example. Carlos: And Chris, the real estate business. When I was studying, obviously, I'm 68 years old. I mean, 35 years ago I was studying the prestigious area of El Poblado [00:34:00] it was all country houses that were accessed by rails, that is. Sofia: Along a stone path. Carlos: Yes, without an urban infrastructure. And in 30 years, the landscape is full of towers, absolutely full of towers, saturated. Laundered, there is no economy here for many wealthy people to develop, no, no. That can only be explained because, but it was the formal business. Yes, and that "business" in quotation marks, no, it did not cause the inconvenience like now, gentrification, before, on the contrary, all the elite valued their properties to develop towers, they filled themselves with money, with money that was certainly in a very high percentage finances to launder. Sofia: Illegal businesses. And the growth of this city, and yes, because it is a very [00:35:00] fast growth. Well, you, you should have been the one who had El Poblado, already completely full of towers. But what I mean is that here there is not a big enough economy for that to happen so fast. So, well, it's obvious, I mean, now it seems to us like "oh, they could be the owners of Airbnb." And I would say, who else? Who else is going to be the owner of that business in this city? Who is capable of buying entire buildings? I mean, who has the money to invest? Carlos: And to recover it against short-term yields, that is to say, it seems to me that it is a very risky investment. Because any event... Sofia: Well, the same pandemic. Carlos: He can throw him to the ground, right? Who can risk that? The drug dealer. Sofia: Well, look, here in the city, traditionally, we call them "Paracas bakeries." Well, they are bakeries that sell the worst bread. I mean, nobody buys it. But they operate 24 hours. Carlos: And they are super [00:36:00] luxurious, meaning they are very well established. Sofia: And they are businesses that never have customers and sell horrible bread and no one buys from them, but they are always there on the best corners. Carlos: Open all the time. Sofia: And also, they have it tied as if that was the inauguration Pablo Escobar, well, like a surveillance system. So, in Pablo Escobar's time, it was the taxi drivers, right? There was like a network of associated taxis and I still think that works. Well, who goes to those bakeries? I mean, drug trafficking, of course, always has to have legal businesses, to be able to, well, yes, to be able to [00:37:00] be able to. Chris: Wow, that's strong and everything, and I suppose that underneath it all, there's more evidence of more layers of organized crime, not just drug traffickers, but also the state. I think of a world-class corporation called Blackstone, which has already happened in places like Barcelona and other cities where, [00:38:00] eh, they buy a building, they move all the people, that is, all the residents inside and everything becomes an Airbnb. In other words, each apartment is an Airbnb now, like 30, 50, 100, whatever, and they employ, business after business, after business for, for example, the reservation organization systems, the cleaning. But all the workers, all the businesses are not part of Blackstone. They are like employees or freelancers, right? So there is not even a single face in this dynamic that is being brought out, displacing people from their buildings. Sofia: No, I was going to say that suddenly here, no, it is not as visible yet as buying already inhabited buildings, but it is about building them. I mean, many buildings are already being built entirely by Airbnb with foreign or local investments, because there is a character here who is like a standard-bearer for this issue and who says that he is going to fill all of Airbnb and that he thinks that is fine. Well, I feel like it's starting to happen. It's starting to happen. Chris: Thank you, Sofia. And so, the effects of excessive [00:40:00] tourism , overtourism and gentrification in Medellin seem to have come very fast and strong. However, in recent years, social media accounts have emerged criticizing tourists, digital nomads or gringos for what is happening. Is that what you all see there as well and do you agree with the assessment? Sofia: Well, let's see, resentment. Mm, I don't think it's very visible. I mean, it seems to me that there's like a lot of scandal, moralism. But well, let's see, there was like a small march around Parque Lleras against Airbnb, against child sexual exploitation, but it's not very massive. I mean, there I do feel that culturally we are. I mean, although the country can be very [00:41:00] belligerent as in its words, as if it seems very angry and furious, we are really very submissive and submissive before the God of Money. So, as long as there is business, it is accepted, it will move, right? And so, this effect, well, in fact, in other conversations we have said well, I wouldn't call it gentrification. Well, we would call it touristification because it is something that is being generated from tourism specifically because gentrification speaks more about a displacement from one social group to another, but it does not necessarily refer to the tourist . And of course there is an effect because at this moment there is a real estate bubble. Rents are very expensive in Medellin, the cost of living is very high. And let's say that although it is concentrated in the south, in El Poblado and in Laureles, in the west, that has a ripple effect, since it affects the rest of the city and rents have really become more expensive, let's say from the most expensive to what was cheaper. And if it affects us all, [00:42:00] but I don't see anyone even organizing themselves, right? Carlos: Not even the relationship you established in a previous question with the housing supply. Because, let's say one thing is that some buildings are obsolete or that new buildings are developed to serve tourists, but supposedly the traditional housing supply of the city should continue, but that has not been the case. I mean, the situation has worsened because I already mentioned it. This is a very narrow city and it is a city that has no room for expansion. It has nowhere to grow. So, when this issue reaches the real estate issue, one thought there would be a reaction, not necessarily resentment, but a social reaction. Sofia: At least we should demand that the authorities become aware of the matter. Carlos: Or institutional, or from the unions, but no. Because in the end there is [00:43:00] business and business overshadows everything in our culture and mentality. I believe that there is still a response to the crisis, I believe that the crisis will continue to worsen. It will continue to manifest itself and become more pronounced, and there will be a reaction or a business, institutional response. Sofia: Oh citizen... Carlos: Exactly, not yet, it looks very clear. Sofia: Yes, because if you can say, well, "there are people who don't like tourists," but it's not a general thing, because again, if there is a kind of hospitable spirit or if the tourist treats you well, why are you going to treat him badly? I mean, I have not seen anyone in a business treat a tourist badly if they don't want to sell to them. No, that's not happening. Well, then I don't think that's happening. Well, I think that the situation, let's say, economic and social, was very dense, well, it's very [00:44:00] strong here in the city and people are simply trying to survive. Carlos: And let's say that the unrest that arose in Manila and its surroundings is because certain drug addiction and prostitution events were very visible. When the agreement to hide them is reached, then everyone is calm, because people here are very prudish. This is a simply conservative society, "Catholic" in quotation marks, and as long as the matter is not visible, then it is fine. Sofia: I also wanted to note that, of course, there have been some small protests in El Poblado, right?, by residents who have been affected. But that does not resonate throughout the city because in the end it is rich people who are upset because they can no longer live in the rented housing, in the neighborhood where they have lived all their lives, but have to move to another less comfortable one. But it's not like they're going to be left without the possibility of living in the city, for example. I don't think it's that critical. And that's not going to have an echo in the [00:45:00] city because a lot of rich kids are left without being able to pay for their apartment, well, or the apartment they want or in the neighborhood they want. It's just that there is a bit of displacement, so there are new areas. That's what you call gentrification, these more traditional, more popular neighborhoods are being occupied by these upper-class people from our city who have been displaced by the upper-class people of the world, right? And so these people who lived in these traditional neighborhoods, well, they have to go to the hillside, right? To the popular neighborhoods. And well, let's say that that is the inconvenience. But I don't feel that it is something widespread. Or without much force, or at least not with a clear call to [00:46:00] action. Chris: Okay, okay, well thank you very much, Sofia, Carlos. So, if there is not so much resistance in the streets, I would like to ask you about the actions of the government of Medellin. So, in my research for the episode, I read some articles that offer the following data: Now, "Medellin has a deficit of more than 50,000 homes according to Viva, the housing company of the government of Antioquia." Now, "Juan Camilo Vargas, director of Asohost, the [00:47:00] union of this activity in Colombia says that 40% of its operations are concentrated in Medellín and that the business is not illegal. So a mayor cannot override a national norm." Now "And although he has not taken any concrete measures, Mayor Gutierrez has also sent out signals of possible restrictions for the short-stay business. In the city, more than 1,700 places operate without a license, according to the tourist information system." And finally, "We are not going to do away with the platforms, but there will be regulations," the president told the council on March 4. He says, "It cannot be that in three years rents have increased so much [00:48:00] or that the lives of our families have become impossible because of short-term rentals." So, with the local government talking about taking a tough stance against tourism-related sex trafficking and the housing crisis, given Barcelona's failures to address the consequences of tourism, even after its mayor was elected for doing exactly that, what hope do you think exists at the governmental level in Medellin? Sofia: No, of course this is one thing, well, it's a shame to say it. But Chris, we have a mayor who thinks he's Batman. Well, he goes around in a helicopter saying that he's going to chase thieves himself, but it's all a facade and let's say that our society buys into it. But three apartments, three buildings, that is, a few businesses were closed. That's on the front page. [00:49:00] But I, I have people close to me who have invested in Airbnb. And they haven't had any problems. They haven't been asked for anything. The police have never visited them. Of course, I think it depends a lot on the property manager, not admitting what is supposed to be not allowed on the platform, right? That we have this person close to us who is, as an investor in an Airbnb, if he says we don't admit any of that. And the times that we have had attempts to get someone to enter, the police are called, and clearly the person is expelled immediately. Well, let's say that there is a procedure, but not even that person, the police are going to take him away. I mean, something happened to me once, and it was that I was at the gate of a unit in El Poblado and a foreigner came in with two small children, two 10-year-old children. And I thought they were [00:50:00] his children, because I thought they were his adopted children, well, well, I just saw a man come in with two children, but I was struck by how the children were dressed. And I asked the doorman, how are those guys? Well, I was confused, but I noticed the way they were dressed. And the doorman said to me, "It's not that these gringos come to do that in that apartment and I, but why aren't we calling the police?" And he said to me, "It's that they have to be caught red-handed." I mean, there is no procedure to deal with this either. And it is something that happens a lot, but there are no institutional tools to stop it from happening because ultimately they are protected because they are inside an apartment, because the owner of the apartment agrees. Well, let's say it's a whole chain. So it's really difficult from a legal standpoint. What I think is that our mayor and many others that we've had are wonderful at making announcements, [00:51:00] right? Being front page news. Carlos: Although, although there are advertisements at the airport there, you get off an international flight and in the hallway you will find... Sofia: Yes, no, this is not allowed, but you will always be able to access it. I mean, of course, and they are very good at making announcements, just like they have made announcements about many things. Well, like crime is going to end, I mean, many things are going to happen, but in everyday life, well, one sees that that is not true. I mean, one goes to Lleras and one continues to see, well, the whole dynamic, right? What was very scandalous, Chris, and what I think has stopped happening, which is that one went to Lleras. Well, I don't know if you are located in El Poblado, as in the best said, it is like the center of tourism, in the neighborhood of El Poblado, and one saw indigenous girls dancing for coins, right? And it was like, it was not even necessarily [00:52:00] that they were prostitutes, but that they were, let's say, doing something that people considered very undignified and that they were girls and that they were indigenous. Next to all the, right? Sex workers who were, let's say, offering their services. And that was what alarmed people the most, like, because we have these indigenous girls, and so, well, the attitude was, they're leaving here, they can't be here anymore, we're taking the girls away from their parents. Well, a lot of actions that one knows from within will have absolutely no effect and that it's possible that these girls will have an even worse time than they already have, right? Well, I honestly don't think they're going to close Airbnb. I don't think they're going to ban Airbnb in Medellín. Carlos: Well, I see a lot of construction going forward. And I have colleagues or friends who are former architect students who say that the business they are getting is designing and building [00:53:00] Airbnb. Sofia: Yes. And other than that, well, because those announcements are very easy to say. Well, I have even seen that in other cities they have started to regulate. That there are areas of the city where Airbnbs are not allowed or that, let's say they have a minimum time, that is, they are 30 days minimum, so they are short stays, but of a minimum, that is, it is not, I am going to spend the weekend in Medellín and I am going to go to anyone, otherwise I am coming to work. But that has not even happened. That is, there is no minimum regulation, so, suddenly it seems that if you read the headlines it seems that way, but until now nothing concrete has happened. Carlos: And there are many allegations, for example, that the local president was financed by the whole real estate sector and, let's put it bluntly, related to tourism. So he, he has no moral capacity to control them. Chris: Well, I just came across a quote from architect Joseph Bohigas, [00:54:00] and he says that "in Colombia's second city, there is still time to avoid the images that are repeated today in Barcelona," that "Medellín cannot die of success." Carlos: Well, he said that to us because remember that I mentioned to you that there was a very strong academic tourism and a certain brotherhood between Medellín and Barcelona. Well, that is not brotherly at all, but the academy is for everything. So, this whole wave of architects and urban planners from Barcelona were here, advising the mayors, the governors for about 10 years in a row. All the important architects of Barcelona lived here and he came here. And he told us that phrase around 2007. He was in the mayor's office finishing Fajardo when he said, "Be careful, a city can die from success." So I developed the idea and [00:55:00] more or less said, well, gentrification, rising prices, touristification were things that he announced. Of course, this is a city without sea. People come for the mountains and the vegetation. You leave Medellin two hours away and you are like in a jungle. It is not a jungle, it is a tremendous tropical forest, very attractive. I think that is an attraction that the city also helps to bring many people, that is, Santa Fe, Antioquia, Guatape, Garden, they are relatively close municipalities, very, very attractive for those who really come to rest, right? So I think this could be an opportunity. This situation of gentrification, touristification, rising prices, real estate activity, which is, which is abandoning housing, let's say for the, for the resident. It could be the opportunity for this death of success to be confronted [00:56:00] through policies. This requires a lot of leadership from the mayor's office, a lot. Currently, I don't see the mayor's office with a strategic understanding of what may be happening and how this could become a serious problem. Sofia: Yes, yes, thank you, Carlos. To finish our conversation, I would like to ask you, Sofia, about the project that we got in touch with. The NN Project. I would love for you to explain to us what the NN Project is and what you do there in Medellin? The NN Project is a non-profit corporation, which is interested in supporting processes such as cultural or social organizations, let's say in peripheral areas of the city, although we have also worked or are very interested in the, let's say, pedagogical part or the part of [00:57:00] training in topics related to heritage, with urban planning, right? As with, culture in general. Sofia: There are several architects who are part of the organization and we are all university professors. So, well, we have an interest in pedagogy and, let’s say, this intersection of pedagogy and spatial dignity, and the interest in spaces for meeting, let’s say community spaces, has led us to support these processes, to find mechanisms or devise projects to dignify those spaces where people meet, where people generally meet to share, but also to learn and to look for ways out to manage their own lives, right? Let’s say, to overcome that inequality that often also has to do with inequality in the offer of opportunities, precisely, even from, from education. And so, because, although education is supposedly a right in Colombia, it is not really [00:58:00] fulfilled, right? And linked a little to this idea of housing, it is also supposed that in Colombia, decent housing is a right, and that is something that we see is not fulfilled. And, well, just now we were mentioning a little bit about the makeup of the city, and we can say that, well, those places where decent housing is not available, well, it happens mostly on the slopes, right? In the upper part of the mountain. And that is where we are working, where we see precisely that there is a type of urbanization, well, very precarious, where basic services are not covered and where a community space, well, really covers many of the needs of the people, right? Even, well, as a space for socialization, right? As a space for finding peers, right? To confront, well, that situation. So, well, that is what we do from the NN Project and well, and let's say that we try [00:59:00] to theoretically reflect, well, on this issue of the right to the city and the right to housing, but we are also trying, well, to advance projects that have to do transversally with this issue. Now, in the company of Carlos, Carlos will tell you a little bit about it. But Carlos is an expert in comprehensive neighborhood improvement, well, in all these interventions that can be done in these, in these places of the city, we are leading a training process, but also a constructive process, if you can call it that, of risk and disaster prevention. Well, because in these neighborhoods the right to the city is true? These people live in precarious conditions, but in addition, they are risking their lives, right? Because they do not have the urban conditions for their home to be a safe home. And so we are already finding [01:00:00] mechanisms to transmit some technical knowledge and to improve these living conditions. So, let's say that, for us, the right to the city also has to do with this, right? Well, the state cannot solve it. But then, as a community, we find alternatives to improve these conditions. Carlos: I would add that for me, at least in my professional experience, the right to the city is literally the right to housing. I cannot even conceive of a city without housing supply, without housing. The city is fundamentally a place to live and within these strategies of managing housing. Well, you know, Chris, that Colombia and Medellín are cities that are very, very determined by displacement from the regions. It is a city that receives migrant population expelled by violent phenomena , seeking opportunities, by the very attractiveness of the city, because it is a city that moves, that moves the economy. So, the real estate sector, let's say, busy with Airbnb, the mayor's office that doesn't know where to look and people arriving from the regions expelled in many ways, is located on very, very inhospitable slopes, very difficult to train, very difficult to urbanize. So we see that there, from training, from education, from pedagogy, but always putting into practice with the network of monitoring critical points in a neighborhood, with the identification of what is a critical point, with the risk factors of the neighborhood. We are weaving with them and the meeting place, the headquarters of Somos Por [01:02:00] Naturaleza and the NN Project, there we are building knowledge, opportunities, possibilities with the people. That's what we're doing. Chris: Wow, that sounds like an incredible, necessary and very beautiful project. So, thank you both and also on behalf of our listeners, I would like to thank you both for being willing to talk to me about these issues today. It was also very revealing for me and I hope that little by little the right to the city, to housing, and solidarity with the people there in Medellin continues to be built. So, how can our listeners follow your work, comrades? Sofia: Ah, well, you can follow us on Instagram, @ProyectoNN. There we try to share, well, as part of the process of the projects [01:03:00] that we have in progress and well, soon we will also update the page www.proyectonn.com Well, you can see the things we are doing and moving forward. And also, thank you very much for the invitation. They are always very cool topics to talk about, reflect on, and it's cool. Carlos: So to the people of Oaxaca and to you Chris who were interested in these conversations, thank you very much. Chris: Thank you, Sofia. Thank you, Carlos. Have a nice day. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

1
S6 #1 | Ecologías del Despojo y Resistencia | César Pineda 1:07:29

15 weeks тому1:07:29

1:07:29

ENGLISH TRANSCRIPT BELOW En este episodio, mi entrevistado es Cesar Pineda, sociólogo por la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. Obtuvo el Doctorado en Ciencias Políticas y Sociales y la Maestría en Estudios Latinoamericanos, ambos con mención honorífica en la UNAM. Realizó estancias posdoctorales en el Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y en la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Azcapotzalco. Su investigación se centra en la contradicción del capital en la naturaleza, los movimientos sociales, la autonomía, el Estado y la comunidad. Investigador Nivel I en el Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, es profesor de asignatura en la Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales de la UNAM. A partir de 2024 es profesor-investigador de tiempo completo en el Instituto de Investigaciones José María Luis Mora. Es activista y acompañante en múltiples movimientos sociales. Notas del Episodio * La teoria y proceso del capital como metabolismo social * Biomercantilizacion * El problema de clase * Consecuencias escondidas del ecoturismo * Limites * Autoregulacion de las comunidades * Construyendo comunidad en la ciudad * Autonomia es la clave * Un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos Tarea Pagina profesional César Enrique Pineda (Ensayos, Libros, Proyectos) Twitter de Cesar Facebook de Cesar Transcripcion en Espanol Chris: [00:00:00] Bienvenido César, al podcast El Fin del Turismo. Muchas gracias por estar dispuesto a hablar conmigo hoy. Me gustaría comenzar preguntándote, ¿Dónde te encuentros hoy y cómo se ve el mundo para ti allá? Cesar: Yo habito en Ciudad de México. Desde hace tiempo estoy haciendo una investigación, de nuevo, la continuidad del proceso del proceso del aeropuerto. Entonces estoy yendo muchas veces hacia Texcoco hacia el oriente de la ciudad, hacia el viejo lago de Texcoco, entonces tengo una doble mirada, la mirada urbana tradicional donde vivo y donde doy clases, que es en la UNAM y en el Mora, y por el otro lado, los pueblos, la comunidad y el el sistema lacustre al que estoy yendo cotidianamente. Chris: Y cómo va eso en Texcoco, si te puedo preguntar? Cesar: Va bien, creo que el frente de pueblos en defensa de la tierra ha tenido un nuevo triunfo. Y creo que es un nuevo avance, es un movimiento un poco anómalo en México porque [00:01:00] prácticamente ha ganado todas sus batallas, ha detenido los dos aeropuertos, ha liberado a sus presos y ahora ha logrado proteger el territorio. Y hoy se encuentran frente a un nuevo reto que es ser gobierno local, no? Entonces, en todas ha triunfado al final, a pesar de los costos enormes, pues que ha sufrido por la represión, por la persecución, por la precariedad también por la que viven muchos de sus miembros. Pero creo que van muy bien. Chris: Claro, wow, pues, qué bueno, qué hermosa resultado no? Cesar, parece, que mucho de tu trabajo, se basa en lo que podemos llamar la conversión de la naturaleza en capital, o al menos así es como los teóricos lo han descrito tradicionalmente. Me gustaría preguntar, ¿Cómo ves que eso sucede en el mundo del turismo, la conversión de naturaleza en capital para, para empezar, para darnos un [00:02:00] base de seguir? Cesar: Sí, bueno, hay que decir que lo que he tratado de también estudiar o teorizar. Cuando teorizamos hacemos generalizaciones. La teoría es una generalización para poder dialogar en contextos distintos, en casos distintos, sino cada caso por supuesto, es totalmente distinto que el otro por su historicidad, por su localidad, por su particularidad. Cuando teorizamos tratamos de hacer una generalización válida para muchos casos. Entonces, y eso nos permite a dialogar y pensar a muchos con una misma forma de nombrar y conceptualizar. Entonces, ese trabajo de conceptualización y teorización lo he hecho en la idea de cómo intentar comprender, se despliega efectivamente el capital territorialmente. Generalmente pensamos al capital solo como relaciones dinerarias, como inversiones y como ganancias, de hecho, compensamos el capital como, la [00:03:00] cosa, el dinero, en todo caso, como riqueza material, mercancías, puede ser ropa, puede ser autos, pero en general, el capital es un proceso. Que es lo que plantea a Marx, y el proceso es cómo la gente se organiza, organiza el trabajo, unos trabajan para otros y cómo toman efectivamente de la naturaleza lo que necesitan para producir nuevas mercancías o nuevos valores de uso, que es lo que, la utilidad que es lo que le llama Marx. En ese sentido, producir muchos valores de uso requiere necesariamente, de algún vínculo con la naturaleza. Ese vínculo Marx le llama metabolismo social porque es un vínculo, no solo, porque tomas lo que necesitas, los materiales, por decir así, algunos les llaman recursos en la economía. Generalmente en la ecología política o en la agro ecología les llamamos bienes [00:04:00] naturales. Porque no son cosas para simplemente recursos que están ahí disponibles para gastarse. Y ese vínculo que hoy se ha desarrollado todavía más con algunos teóricos de que han seguido la idea de metabolismo social de Marx, plantean siguiendo también algunas ideas de Marx, que es la forma de organizarnos, de organizar el trabajo. El trabajo es el vínculo con la naturaleza y ese vínculo es a la vez un intercambio de materia y de energía con los ecosistemas locales. Ese intercambio este más le llama metabolismo. Entonces, digo todo esto porque es muy importante pensar como lo que le llamamos la economía, desarrolla ciertas formas de actividad, de trabajo material y no solo de intercambios dinerarios y monetarios, porque a veces parece que una actividad da muchas ganancias y podría estar, tomando, por ejemplo, de la naturaleza, [00:05:00] demasiados bienes naturales, aunque produzca en realidad muchas ganancias, monetarias. Y en ese sentido, lo que he estado estudiando es precisamente cómo se despliegue el capital, buscando por decir así, lo que necesita de los ecosistemas, pero de los ecosistemas no necesita todo a veces, en ocasiones, si necesita todo el ecosistema, que eso es lo que voy a explicar, rapidísimo ahorita. Pero en otras ocasiones, necesita solo uno de los bienes naturales, necesita tierra para cultivar y entonces acapara sea comprando, sea despojando, sea rentando la tierra. Por el otro lado, puede no necesitar el suelo para producir, no solo es la tierra para producir, sino que además necesita que esa tierra tenga climas. Esto parece, no tan de sentido común. Lo tienen mucho más claro todos los campesinos, pero es evidente que en ciertas zonas se dan ciertas, [00:06:00] especies y en otras, por ejemplo en lugares fríos, se dan más pues la producción boscosa y por tanto, la producción, se cultiva pino y eucalipto. Y en los trópicos se cultivan frutas. Entonces las inversiones económicas que le podríamos llamar el capital, pero ese capital es un proceso como he dicho, reorganiza los trabajadores, a las trabajadoras. Organiza también la relación con la naturaleza o la reorganiza. Entonces, doy estos ejemplos siempre porque son muy ilustrativos de lo que sucede, por ejemplo, si hay más inversiones para cultivar, para producción maderera. La producción, obviamente los quien invierte requiere su ganancia rápido. Entonces tienes que invertir y tener ganancias. Tienes que invertir y vender rápidamente la madera, por ejemplo. Por tanto, pues, se cultivan las especies que crezcan más [00:07:00] rápido. Y por como crecen más rápido, necesitan más agua. Si necesitan más agua, agotan los mantos acuíferos. Aquí tenemos una consecuencia directa de la organización humana en la naturaleza, en como reorganizarla porque va sustituyendo el bosque nativo y lo sustituyes por especies que solo son las que se pueden vender, en este caso, pino y eucalipto. Ahí está claro, como entonces, se reorganiza el tiempo, a los trabajadores, por ejemplo. Si hay todos los trabajadores de la industria forestal que les ofrecen un tipo de trabajo y la relación con el agua, con los ecosistemas locales y con las especies que cultivas, ahí está todo el circuito de lo que organiza. Entonces, cuando pensamos en inversiones, no estamos pensando generalmente en lo que hay detrás. Así podríamos seguir la producción de un auto, la producción de algodón para nuestra ropa, la producción de cristal, la producción de hierro, de plásticos, todo se puede, pensar así. Y también dentro [00:08:00] de las formas de despliegue de la naturaleza, he pensado que haya en ocasiones, hay otra forma que le llamo bio mercantilización turística, que es acaparar ecosistemas completos para ponerlos, por decir así, poner a las ballenas, poner a los caimanes a trabajar, que es una forma de decirlo en el sentido de la renta de la tierra, la renta de los ecosistemas y sobre todo, la gran industria que se construye alrededor de los enclaves turísticos. Todo esto constituye una nueva relación con la naturaleza que es, creo la que vamos a estar conversando en tu programa, porque no modifica o no solo se le ha visto generalmente al turismo como una industria benévola porque no tiene chimeneas. Es muy distinta, por ejemplo, de pues de la industria petrolera, que es la que generalmente pensamos que es la única sucia. Pero la industria turística es [00:09:00] una industria. Lo que pasa es que es una industria de servicios. Es una industria también global. También es monopólica. O sea que está concentrada en pocas corporaciones y cambia, por supuesto, la forma de organizarnos alrededor de los ecosistemas. Chris: Wow. Me ha dejado pensar mucho en como las cosas que parecen como tours o recorridos, quizás podrían estar promocionados como ecológicas o ecológicas, caminatas en el bosque o igual esos recorridos en el mar, en el Yucatán o aquí en Oaxaca para ir a solo ver las las ballenas o tortugas, etc. ¿Es un poco así de lo que estás hablando, no? Cesar: Sí. Ahora hay que decir que estos servicios que tú mencionas generalmente que a veces les ponen el nombre eco turístico, son las de menor [00:10:00] producción de valor o mejor dicho, no producen valor, sino solo hay intercambio dinerario. Pero las que tienen mayor producción de valor son la enorme infraestructura global, los hoteles y las aerolíneas. Y estos son controlados evidentemente por las grandes corporaciones y tienen un impacto gigantesco. Es decir, cuando nosotros pensamos que vamos a hacer una actividad también en Oaxaca, por ejemplo, como tú mismo dices, y que estamos viendo una actividad muy linda de reproducción de la vida de las tortugas. No estamos pensando en toda la cadena de mercancías que es una cadena de servicios que también no solo tiene nuestra huella ecológica, sino de cómo reordenan las inversiones los territorios. En México, por ejemplo, pasamos en alrededor de principios del siglo XXI, de 7 millones de turistas internacionales a 30 o 35 millones. Es decir, en 20 años, prácticamente se ha triplicado el [00:11:00] volumen de, turistas. Ahora, esos turistas no, además, siempre pensamos incluso los gobiernos, incluso el último gobierno ha promovido todavía más el turismo, porque se supone que eso es totalmente benéfico, porque obviamente traen una derrama económica para lugares generalmente también que son pobres. Pero el problema de esta percepción es que no estamos, quizá a veces teniendo una perspectiva crítica donde evidentemente se va formando también una división del trabajo social y una división de la naturaleza y quién accede a ella y para qué. Son las elites mundiales, es decir, también los trabajadores asalariados del norte, que tienen mayor recursos y mayor seguridad económica, los que tienen más tiempo libre y también más recursos para acceder al ocio y la diversión. Las clases bajas no. Entonces hay una división de entrada por el [00:12:00] dinero, por el acceso, quien puede acceder al primero, al tiempo libre. Pero no todo mundo que tenga tiempo libre tiene acceso a los servicios de ocio, diversión y turísticos. Entonces, aquí hay una doble división, una división de clase, ya viéndolo así, vamos viendo que entonces los ecosistemas no se usan simplemente, por todos, de manera igualitaria, sino que unos tienen más acceso y otros no. O unos más tienen acceso de manera paulatina y otros mucho más esporádicamente que es esa división de clase. Pero la otra división que es muy importante es el consumo, es decir, convertir, por eso le llamo bio mercantilización, en el sentido de convertir a los ecosistemas en una mercancía que vender, esa mercancía no te la puedes llevar como, como otras, que si se producen con la mano humana, sino ecosistemas que están puestos al [00:13:00] servicio de la renta, pero también a un nuevo control. Y esto es importante, un nuevo control, del ecosistema. Generalmente casi todos los ecosistemas del mundo tienen una gestión hasta hace muy poco tenían una gestión comunitaria. Esta gestión no es solo, que la gente comparta los bienes naturales, sino que hay reglas para compartir los bienes naturales. La premio Nobel de economía Ostrom descubrió curiosamente, se viene a descubrir en las ciencias sociales algo que en realidad los pueblos y las comunidades realizan desde hace cientos de años. O sea, para ellos no es un descubrimiento, es su forma de vida. Que es, que hay un sistema de autorregulación donde, por ejemplo, para no agotar los bienes naturales, hay sistemas de rotación. Hay sanciones para quien viole sistema de rotación, límites, por ejemplo, para [00:14:00] pescar, límites para hacer, para poner a pastar a las vacas, límites para, por ejemplo, en algunas especies que saben que si se recolecta demasiado, pueden provocar la caída de un banco, por ejemplo, de moluscos. En fin, hay muchísimos saberes de los pueblos, donde saben cómo no agotar los bienes naturales. No quiere decir que todos los pueblos tienen sistemas de autorregulación que les llaman comunes. Pero significa que muchos pueblos sí los tienen. Cuando llega un enclave turístico, cambia este tipo de relación y cambia la gestión de puede ser de un manglar, puede ser de una laguna, puede ser de un río, puede ser de un bosque. Y se orienta hacia la venta de servicios, cambiando a veces de manera armónica con esa regulación comunitaria, a veces desplazando por completo a esa regulación comunitaria y convirtiendolos en [00:15:00] trabajadores de los servicios turísticos. Estos dos cambios ya deberían hablarnos el tanto la perspectiva de clase como la perspectiva comunitaria, de dos formas muy violentas en realidad de desorganizar y volver a organizar, pero ya con la base de querer generar ganancias tanto a los trabajadores como a las comunidades. Y junto con las comunidades, los ecosistemas locales. Chris: Wow. Pues sí, inmediatamente hablando de la cuestión comunitaria. Y esos cambios me ha pensado en la milpa y también como, eso fue mucho parte de la vida cotidiana de la gente. Y también pensando en la milpa, o sea ese sistema de agricultura que hay en Mesoamérica. He pensado también en esa cosa de ciertas ciudades o pueblos antiguos mesoamericanos que, fueran [00:16:00] supuestamente abandonados, pero pensando en la milpa, la necesidad de poner límites en el uso del suelo que también quizás eso tenía un lugar en el contexto de una sociedad, o al menos ciudad, o al menos pueblo entero como ya es el tiempo para dejar este lugar a su tiempo. Pero esa cosa es algo que que ha surgido muchísimo en el podcast sobre los años, con esa cuestión de sacar límites, que el turismo es una industria que destruyen los límites. Y pues, mencionaste al principio de Marx y también mencionamos de un poco de la ecología y has escrito un poco de marxismo ecológico. Y quería preguntarte si marxismo ecológico es solo una manera de medir y definir lo que [00:17:00] está pasando o también como reaccionar, responder, evaluar quizás. Cesar: Yo diría que el marxismo ecológico es solo una de las tradiciones de los nuevos ambientalismos, y de las tradiciones teóricas. Porque, deberíamos separar los saberes bioculturales de los pueblos. Es decir, la forma efectivamente que son, saberes sobre la flora, la fauna, los suelos, el clima, la producción, el consumo y el desecho que las comunidades tienen. Otra vez, no todas las comunidades tienen un sistema auto regulado en torno de todo esto. Algunas si los mantienen. Otras se han, mantienen partes y otras más han perdido buena parte de su organización, y entonces empiezan a producir lo que yo llamo una perturbación metabólica. "Perturbación" viene de la teoría de sistemas, por ejemplo, nos explicaban los que se dedican a [00:18:00] eso, especialmente por ejemplo, en los ecosistemas acuíferos que, por ejemplo, cuando hay un cambio bioquímico en las aguas, por ejemplo un contaminante está entrando rápidamente, pues evidentemente, porque en una laguna muy grande, pues no se nota ese contaminante no? Es decir, pareciera que lo puede diluir. Es tanta la cantidad de agua que diluye los contaminantes, no? Pero si hay de pronto una derrama muy importante de un contaminante. Por ejemplo, puede cambiar de color o puede cambiar, repentinamente. Esa capacidad de ilusión o de resistencia, por ejemplo, para mantener su color o mantener ciertas formas, es lo que se le ha llamado resiliencia. Y, la transformación abrupta sería una perturbación en el sistema como tal. Entonces, pensando yo en Marx y pensando en esta teoría de sistemas, pensé [00:19:00] que la idea de que tenemos este vínculo, de la organización social con la naturaleza, pensé en la idea de que la perturbación metabólica podía ser un cambio abrupto de la relación con el ecosistema. Que no necesariamente es porque se le quita la tierra a la gente, por ejemplo, pienso en que los campesinos mismos para poder competir en el mercado, como el mercado está acaparado por grandes corporaciones que producen muy rápido, ellos tienen que empezar a comprar los paquetes tecnológicos, básicamente agrotóxicos, para producir más rápido. Entonces eso, aunque ellos tuvieran una relación más o menos, sostenible, más o menos armónica con su milpa al meter un agro tóxico, empiezan a cambiar su relación metabólica con el ecosistema, aunque no haya llegado la corporación a obligarlos, sino que ellos toman la decisión porque cada vez su producto en el mercado vale [00:20:00] menos. Entonces tienen que producir más. Esa perturbación, por ejemplo, y esos, están organizados alrededor también de ciertos saberes. Entonces, por un lado, tenemos los saberes de las comunidades que pueden perderse, que pueden desestabilizarse o que puede cambiar, como he dicho, y por eso me refería a la perturbación metabólica comunitaria, cambia abruptamente y puede ser muy dañino para sus ecosistemas. Y por el otro lado, tenemos una serie de saberes científicos de una, y de una serie de saberes teóricos, que podría reunirse en varias tendencias, y una de ellas es el marxismo ecológico. Hay una serie de autores, que han regresado a la lectura de Marx pensando que nos puede decir en términos ecológicos y en los textos publicados, los que Marx si quiso publicar, hay una enorme cantidad de referencias y una visión [00:21:00] que, al contrario de lo que se había pensado hasta hace poco, Marx siempre está pensando en la naturaleza. Pero también hay un paquete de notas y de cuadernos de investigación que son los que han dado, por decir así, nuevos descubrimientos. Hasta hoy no se ha publicado todo lo que Marx escribió. Aunque muchas de esas eran notas, no eran textos como los que se conocen como Los Grundrisse o como El Capital. Estas notas están siendo revisadas por muchos expertos, y uno de ellos, por ejemplo, dos de ellos, John Bellamy Foster, ya hace ya 20 años y Kohei Saito de Japón han encontrado en las notas de Marx que él estaba cada vez más preocupado por como la industria capitalista, la industria de la agricultura agotaba los suelos. Entonces, resulta que Marx estaba estudiando precisamente química, estaba estudiando todo la la geología de los suelos, la composición y estaba [00:22:00] muy interesado en lo que iba a producir el capital y estaba convencido al final de su vida, solo que ya no produjo un texto para publicar, estaba muy preocupado por el descubrimiento que el mismo había pensado de que el capital agota las bases de su propia renovación. Agota, es una forma de relación social, aunque pensamos que solo económica, pero es una relación económico-social que agota los bienes naturales. Aunque eso sí lo publicó, Marx dice literalmente, el capital socava a las dos fuentes de la riqueza. Dice, "el trabajo y la naturaleza." Y esa visión doble me parece muy importante al nombrarla en una serie de académicos que han mantenido esta investigación a partir de ciertas ideas marxistas y han seguido avanzando. Son una veintena de ecologistas marxistas que están discutiendo hoy el cambio climático [00:23:00] que están discutiendo hoy la crisis ambiental a partir de la crítica al capitalismo. Chris: wow.Ye wow. Entonces, mi próxima pregunta viene un poco de la capacidad de considerar esas crisis que mencionaste, dentro de otras aperturas de ecología. Entonces, pues, en la segunda temporada del podcast entrevisté a Pedro UC de Muuch Xiinbal en el Yucatán, sobre la situación el mal llamado tren maya y también con un grupo del pueblo Wixarika que hablaba sobre los invernaderos que estaban invadiendo a su región, así como sobre los cazadores furtivos de pepeyote, los turistas espirituales estaban también causando daño a sus tierras, a sus [00:24:00] relaciones, no solo económicas, pero también culturales. Quizás podemos decir espirituales. Entonces, en este contexto, a menudo se dan dos tipos de extractivismo a la vez, la transformación de la tierra en mercancía y el intento de adquisición de conocimiento o poder espiritual. Cesar: Entonces, tengo curiosidad por saber cómo ves que estos dos mundos interactúan tanto en México como en otras partes de Latinoamérica, en esta cuestión de que la ecología también incluye la cultura y la religióna de la gente. Sí, bueno, el capital, como relación social, tiende a mercantilizar todo. Hay que recordar, por ejemplo, yo también doy siempre como ejemplo que el maquillaje de las mujeres en realidad era, que está feminizado era el maquillaje de los pueblos. Era el embellecimiento. Todas las [00:25:00] culturas, todas, todas las civilizaciones tribales hasta grandes civilizaciones de agricultura, ya basadas en los ríos, las grandes culturas en todos los tiempos, solemos embellecer nuestros cuerpos. Solemos decorarles de muy distintas maneras, de muy distintas formas. Generalmente ligadas al proceso cultural local. El capital lo ha vuelto una mercancía. Cesar: Es decir, en vez, si lo pensamos, antes pues todas las culturas, las tribales podían embellecer sus cuerpos, sus pieles, de múltiples maneras, sabían la técnica para hacerlo, utilizar los materiales para hacerlo, o forjar sus propias joyas, y hacer su propio vestido. Todo lo que acabo de decir, el capital lo ha convertido en una mercancía y despojado, por decir así, de los saberes. No sabemos hoy la gente [00:26:00] que vivimos en las ciudades urbanas, modernas, totalmente capitalizadas. No sabemos hacer esas cosas. No sabemos embellecer nuestro cuerpo, o lo sabemos a partir de los materiales y las mercancías que nos vende una industria. Entonces el capital utiliza nuestras necesidades y la necesidad de embellecernos no es una frivolidad. Lo que pasa es que se convierte en una frivolidad cuando se produce en masa mercancías que efectivamente son para el embellecimiento y traen junto con ellas un marketing de embellecimiento de ciertas formas, además de belleza hegemónica. Entonces, por qué digo este ejemplo que parece muy lejano a nuestra conversación sobre la naturaleza, porque el capital puede convertir en servicio y por tanto, en un servicio que de ganancias prácticamente cualquier forma [00:27:00] etno cultural que le llaman, cualquier forma etno turística, cualquier forma eco turística, es decir, generar ganancias a partir de los servicios de conocer, de divertirse, del ocio, de incluso del contacto social que le llaman turismo de contacto social. Es decir que busca una experiencia alternativa que puede ser gran diversión, estas máquinas que te elevan con el agua en el mar con un técnico que te acompaña, o simplemente las motonetas que en lugar, en lugares boscosos, es decir, puede ser cualquier tipo de servicio turístico que esté acompañado, acompañando a vivir una experiencia en un ecosistema que generalmente está fuera de tu ciudad. Pero además, esta división, ciudad y lo rural o ciudad, enclave turístico o ciudad [00:28:00] también lugar del Edén, lugar paradisíaco. Esta división se ha producido, pues por la concentración de capital en las ciudades y por la concentración del trabajo en la ciudad. Entonces, lo que esta división internacional del trabajo que produce entonces ciudades que trabajan y lugares de descanso y, por tanto, trabajadores y trabajadoras que te tienen que atender para tu descanso, pues es lógico que es una división internacional que también hace que haya países productores de servicios turísticos y países consumidores o ciudades consumidoras de servicios turísticos también. ¿Porque también planteo esta enorme división? Porque, la extracción de bienes naturales es muy conocida del sur al norte y tiene que ver efectivamente también con los enclaves turísticos y la infraestructura turística que se construye.[00:29:00] Los gustos y las necesidades de la, el turista de élite de clase media y de clase alta, requiere ciertas comodidades que no necesariamente son producidas en el ecosistema local. Entonces hay que traer, por decir así, si el turista de élite quiere fresas y luego un pan con aguacate, bueno, hay que traer fresas desde el otro lado del país, incluso del mundo, y hay que traer aguacate que que es... ¿Por qué digo estas dos? Porque la primera se produce bajo ciertas formas de explotación de jornaleros, por ejemplo, en el norte de México. Y hay que llevarlos hasta la península. Si dijéramos en el tren maya en un lugar que aparentemente podría ser, eco friendly, es decir, podría producir, intentar producir orgánicamente, no gastar agua o gastar [00:30:00] menos, o tener ciertos servicios en su localidad. Bueno, hay que traer fresas desde el otro lado, hay que traer aguacate que tiene un gran consumo de agua. Esto es muy importante, hay ciertas especies, lo que tú decías, de no hay límites. No hay límites. Si el turista quiere aguacate hay que tener aguacate y, por tanto, hay que traerlo de Michoacán, que agota también los mantos acuíferos y se expande como monocultivo. Ahí está esta relación extractiva, no sólo del sur al norte, también de las ciudades, frente a lo rural y de los enclaves turísticos frente a los ecosistemas en general. Entonces este tipo de relaciones no son sostenibles. Este extractivismo, entonces no solo es, puede ser cultural, evidentemente, que volver mercancía, relaciones sociales, relaciones culturales que en general no eran, no entraban a la esfera de las mercancías. Por eso también llamo bio mercantilización, porque es incluir en [00:31:00] esferas de los bienes naturales, esferas de los ecosistemas al área de las mercancías, cuando antes no lo eran, generalmente es el agua lo que pensamos. Antes no era una mercancía. Ahora, cada vez más, hay un intento, porque lo sea. Entonces, en este doble sentido de extractivismo, me parece muy importante hacer la claridad de que los enclaves turísticos son también una forma de extracción y de descampesinización. Otra vez, hace una perturbación metabólica porque el campesino que no puede acceder con la propia venta de su producto, ve como una opción el trabajar en un hotel, ve como una opción abandonar la tierra. Y si se abandona la tierra, entonces se puede rentar para otras cosas, o se puede deforestar o se puede urbanizar esa tierra si el campesino... la mejor forma de cuidar la tierra es que el campesino la siga cultivando. Pero si [00:32:00] la abandona, le puede suceder cualquier cosa a la tierra. Y terminamos efectivamente con un enclave turístico que incluso puede tener, insisto, una perspectiva verde, decir que está produciendo, que tiene comida orgánica o que recicla las aguas o que hace este tipo de acciones que son evidentemente muy positivas, pero en comparación con el cambio metabólico que va a producir en los campesinos del ecosistema local, abandonando la tierra y considerando el enorme consumo que tiene que llevar de otras partes del país y del mundo para el consumo de élite, pues parece que es insuficiente reciclar el agua, no dar popotes o tener una dieta vegetariana en un hotel. Es decir, la perturbación del ecosistema y la extracción de bienes naturales de otros lugares y el más importante, el agua, [00:33:00] simplemente no son cambios mitigables, no son cambios que se pueden comparar con las pequeñas acciones de cuidado ecológico que, por supuesto, todos tenemos que hacer, y todos tenemos que educarnos en ellas, pero a nivel estructural, por supuesto, el enclave turístico es más destructor, enclave corporativa, enclave industrial, enclave de oligopolios, enclave de gran consumo. Que estas acciones que mencionan. Chris: Gracias César. Pues una cosa que solo pude entender cuando ya he empezado trabajando en la industria turística, era de como cada lugar que fui a visitar en el mundo antes, aunque si me quedé una semana, dos semanas, un mes o igual como tres, seis meses, [00:34:00] no me quedé suficientemente tiempo para entender la consecuencia de mis movimientos allá. Y entonces creo que eso se queda muy fuerte, que los turistas tienen una responsabilidad que está totalmente, no totalmente, pero casi totalmente alejado de su capacidad para saberlo, para entenderlo, y, pero cuando hablamos del poblador campesino, que no solo tiene como ciertas fuerzas económicas, pero también siento que deseos culturales, o sea, como ese sueño americano, que ahora es un sueño global y eso. Pero por ejemplo, me quedé pensando los pueblos de Oaxaca que hacen ecoturismo, y ecoturismo basado en el municipio, en la asamblea, como una manera de quedarse la gente en el pueblo, generar ingresos y quizás también entrarse [00:35:00] con un vínculo y relación de hospitalidad que va más allá de la industria turística, por ejemplo, pero también la mera presencia del extranjero, extranjera en un lugar así cambia, lo que existía en el pueblo antes . Y en muchos pueblos, si hay gente que dicen, pues no, "fue un error." Y hay otros que dicen "no, o sea, está alimentando, muy bien, el pueblo." Entonces quería preguntarte qué piensas de esas, no necesariamente contradicciones, pero distintas reflexiones y consideraciones. Cesar: Yo creo que es una alternativa, efectivamente, cuando viene como proyecto de los propios pueblos. Y cuando los pueblos tienen un proceso organizativo que les permite, afrontar el reto de una empresa comunitaria, de una cooperativa comunitaria [00:36:00] de servicios comunitarios y establecer efectivamente las reglas, y las formas de regulación de visitar, sea una comunidad, un ecosistema, en fin. Es decir, creo que cuando viene desde abajo, es una verdadera alternativa, aunque yo diría que es indispensable combinar con las formas de producción campesina que, insisto, se deterioran y se deteriora todos los ecosistemas. Entonces, creo que sería una forma desde abajo. El problema es cuando se impone desde arriba. Como en el tren en maya, donde se abren zonas hacia el turismo, donde formalmente se va a cuidar, discursivamente se va a cuidar estos elementos, pero hemos visto cómo la captura, por ejemplo, de las playas, cómo la captura y espacialización de los negocios con gran [00:37:00] inversión, acaparan por ejemplo, el comercio, acaparan el acceso a las playas, acaparan incluso la forma de urbanización. No son combinables, es que hay gente que piensa que lo comunitario puede combinarse armónicamente con las grandes inversiones del gran capital y con el gran capital corporativo turístico. Pero pues tienen lógicas distintas. No es que sea una buena y una mala no es una cuestión de moral, es una cuestión de organización social. Si el turista está de acuerdo, por ejemplo, en adecuarse a una dieta que localmente tenga una menor huella ecológica, y además se puede programar los límites como tú también destacabas de la capacidad de visita y la carga que puede tener la visita hacia el lugar en específico, puede ser perfectamente una alternativa, aunque [00:38:00] hay que decirlo, lo que pasa es que si cambiamos de escala, no es viable que mil millones de europeos y norteamericanos estén viajando todo el mundo. No no pueden producir tanto Co2, es decir, no pueden, entonces tenemos y hasta ahora no hay una discusión global sobre esto. Está en la discusión sobre los jets de los multimillonarios porque de por sí, un vuelo es muy contaminante, pero los jets son todavía más porque están dedicados al confort y para viajes que no son indispensables, sino de lujo. Entonces, si pensamos en la, en lo que habría que no solo regular, sino prohibir, los vuelos en jet, en la explosión gigantesca de las aerolíneas a nivel internacional, incluso en vuelos comerciales y no privados es insostenible. La industria de las aerolíneas dice que ellos solo producen el 1% [00:39:00] del Co2 mundial. Si, pero así cada industria dice no es que yo solo produzco el 2% o el 5%, o el 0.5%. Claro, entonces, al final, nadie es responsable de la producción de Co2, porque cada uno puede decir yo soy tan poco responsable que no me regulen, pero no es viable. Entonces, creo que tendríamos que pensar en turismo local, con acortar las cadenas de mercancías de producción de servicios turísticos. Es decir, pensando en que son los nacionales, los conacionales y los internacionales tienen que ser regulados. Bueno, incluso que tú conocerás más, yo conozco mucho más el turismo comunitario y los impactos comunitarios y menos el impacto del turismo barrial y urbano que viven varias ciudades europeas y que prácticamente está fuera de control en París, en Barcelona, está fuera de control y junto con Airbnb o otras [00:40:00] plataformas que permiten la llegada masiva de gente o incluso la visita permanente de extranjeros que no tiene que ver con su nacionalidad, no es una cosa xenofóbica, sino en el sentido del desplazamiento que no lo quieren los extranjeros, por ejemplo, en México, no es que sean malos, no es que sean, que sean extranjeros. Insisto, no es una cuestión ni racial ni xenofóbica, sino en el sentido de que los extranjeros en México, en la ciudad de México, no en una comunidad, no en un ecosistema todavía, protegido en un ecosistema, digamos más armónico que el de la ciudad, está siendo desplazada a la gente porque la capacidad dineraria, la capacidad de ingreso, la capacidad de clase desplaza la habitación en las colonias como Roma y Condesa. Entonces, por eso es muy importante que, cuando pensamos las alternativas, creo que tenemos que mirar todas estas [00:41:00] escalas, para la comunidad por supuesto, creo si, insisto si, si viene desde la comunidad como proyecto comunitario. Yo creo que es un proyecto que puede fortalecer el proceso, puede seguir manteniendo ciertos equilibrios ambientales y puede ser una alternativa económica de ingreso para las comunidades. Si lo vemos como estructura internacional, el turismo comunitario se queda muy corto para la capacidad de que, que los últimos 40 años de neoliberalismo han creado en infraestructura. Es decir, si hoy se puede viajar a cualquier lugar del mundo también a menor precio es porque hay más aerolíneas, es porque hay más infraestructura, porque hay más competencia, porque hay paquetes de crédito. Es decir, hay una mega industria, porque hay una enorme marketing para venderte vuelos, para ofrecerte, vuele ahora y pague después. Esa industria gigantesca mundial es insostenible, no puede viajar tanta gente al mundo, lo vamos [00:42:00] a reventar. Bueno, lo estamos reventando, estamos reventando al mundo con la movilidad turística internacional que cada vez es más incontrolable, y por el número. Otra vez, los turistas no son malos. El problema es la enorme cantidad de turistas que, efectivamente, por cantidad agotan el peyote en el norte, dejan sucia las playas, consumen más agua, requieren más energía eléctrica. Es decir, la industria en su forma corporativa e industrial internacional es insostenible. Creo que hay que pensar cómo se podría reducir los impactos hacia un turismo comunitario controlado por los propios pueblos. Y ahí, yo creo que esa es la alternativa. Chris: Mm. Mm. Gracias, César. Y pues, por lo que he leído, parece te metes mucho en la cuestión de autonomía y la emancipación de los pueblos. [00:43:00] Así como me gustaría preguntarte también, como crees que esos entendimientos puede ayudar a la gente urbana también para construir comunidad, comunalidad y solidaridad. Es algo que pensamos mucho como ah, pues ellos allá tienen la respuesta porque terreno y territorio, pero nosotros, como inquilinos, etcétera, que pues quizás jamás en nuestras vidas van a tener casa o territorio o terreno. Cesar: Bueno, primero mi interés es porque, en general, hasta 1989 hubo 200 años de una promesa, encabezada por la izquierda política. Y cuando me refiero a la izquierda política, no me refiero solo a los partidos, me refiero a un proyecto de superación de organización de la sociedad que prometió libertad, igualdad, fraternidad. El proceso por el cual, se [00:44:00] deterioraron los proyectos y los horizontes de transformación es muy grave, o sea, se ha pensado, hoy estamos, prácticamente resignados, resignadas, aunque hay millones que no, pero parece que si ese es el espíritu, el mood dirían los jóvenes, el mood de la época es que no hay una alternativa que, como han planteado Fredric Jameson o Žižek, es más fácil, pensar en el fin de la humanidad que en el fin del capitalismo, o en el fin del mundo que el fin del capitalismo. Entonces, estoy muy preocupado por pensar alternativas, y pensar efectivamente horizontes políticos, insisto político en un sentido amplio, no político partidario, sino político como la capacidad que tenemos, como incluso como especie para ponernos de acuerdo y tener horizontes de que queremos hacer, qué vida queremos, qué vida, qué proyecto de vida también deseamos y podemos [00:45:00] construir. De hecho, eso es lo que nos define como especie, que nos damos nuestra propia forma organizativa. Es la especie que puede tener una forma en China y otra forma en los Andes, y otra forma en Norteamérica, y otra forma en Sudáfrica. Cesar: Es decir, distintas formas de organización social que reproducen la vida y reproducir la vida, puede hacerse de manera muy despótica o de manera mucho más libre. Y en ese sentido, me he involucrado, si tengo muchísimo tiempo, quizá década y media o dos décadas, pensando entonces, cuáles han sido los elementos emancipatorios que ha habido en esos proyectos. Y en realidad lo que pensamos que fue el socialismo o el comunismo, que fueron en realidad experiencias autoritarias de partidos únicos y de élites, tenían en su germen otras ideas que era que el poder de los trabajadores, la autogestión de los trabajadores fuera la [00:46:00] nueva forma de organización social. Es decir, que los trabajadores tomaran las decisiones de la producción. Lo que yo veo en América Latina, donde hay un movimiento obrero menos importante, o menos grande, como lo fue el movimiento obrero en Europa, también en Estados Unidos, es que las formas originales no capitalistas permiten también reproducir la vida de otros modos, de modos comunitarios y de otros modos. Estos dos elementos en el norte de Europa, el poder de los trabajadores para controlar reproducción, los pueblos originarios controlando sus propios ecosistemas locales. Me parece que nos dan lecciones de otras formas de organización social. Acabo de publicar un texto, un libro, que habla de la producción de comunidad en las ciudades. Es una investigación en ciudad de México, donde un movimiento [00:47:00] masivo... es decir que generalmente también pensamos la comunidad como una cincuentena de personas, poquitas. Esas son miles de familias que han podido constituir, construir comunidades urbanas de la nada. No, no eran pueblos originarios que se desplazaron a la urbe, a la periferia como si ha sucedido, por ejemplo, en El Alto en Bolivia, sino clases populares, con muy bajos ingresos, que en la búsqueda de vivienda encontraron que no solo querían vivienda, sino también querían mejorar y dignificar su propia vida. Insisto de clases populares muy precarias. Y lo que han c onstruido, Raúl Zibechi, uno de los periodistas, intelectuales más conocidos de América Latina porque ha estado en prácticamente todos los movimientos sociales del continente. Desde el cono sur hasta México, desde la Araucanía de Chile hasta la Selva Lacandona en México. Lo llevamos [00:48:00] a que visitara esta experiencia aquí en Ciudad de México y dijo esta es la autonomía urbana más importante de América latina. Y concluyo diciendo en el tema de la autonomía. Entonces estoy muy interesado en no por estudiarlas desde la ciencia social como un objeto de estudio, sólo para saber cómo funcionan, sino porque al comprender cómo funcionan, nos dan alternativas a quienes no estamos en esas comunidades. Entonces, estoy muy interesado en conocer esas experiencias, rastrearlas históricamente, estudiarlas y entenderlas, y comprenderlas y aprender de ellas. Es decir, yo lo que quiero es que ese aprendizaje que han producido esas comunidades podamos comprenderlos otros que no vivimos en comunidad. Y, por último, un aprendizaje que de una noción que ha surgido después de la caída del muro de Berlín ha sido precisamente la autonomía, porque frente a las experiencias autoritarias de Europa del este, pues pareciera que [00:49:00] nadie queremos repetir una experiencia que, aunque rechazamos las formas capitalistas y liberales de la política, no queremos tampoco una experiencia autoritaria y centralizadora, y mucho menos totalitaria de un partido único que es el que decide todo. Lo que hemos encontrado a tanto teórica como en estos casos empíricos es que la autonomía, la capacidad de darse sus propias leyes, eso significa autonomía, pero más allá de las leyes, es gobernarse a sí mismo. En realidad es la emancipación. Emancipación significa quitarse de encima la mano del señor. ¿Qué señor? Era el señor feudal, así se creó más o menos la palabra desde, o del esclavo desde hace muchísimo tiempo. Quitarse de encima la mano del amo o del amo o del señor feudal, es decir que no te mande alguien más. Eso es vivir también en libertad, pero las comunidades viven en colectivo y para emanciparse requieren quitarse [00:50:00] ahora de una mano que es invisible, la mano del mercado, la mano del capital. Entonces, como nos emancipamos también en colectivo y la autonomía. Gobernarse a si mismo, significa también poner un freno a las decisiones de estados que generalmente en América Latina han tenido una perspectiva colonial en relación a los pueblos indígenas, o neocolonial, o también de colonialismo interno, como decía don Pablo González Casanova. Ahora, por último, la autonomía, entonces la considero, es el elemento central, incluso más allá del igualitarismo económico. Son dos proyectos distintos. Es decir, cuando la gente logra dignificar su vida, creo que es muy positivo, creo que todos quienes tenemos una perspectiva crítica emancipatoria o incluso de izquierda, queremos que la gente en general vivamos dignamente, no con grandes lujos, pero tampoco con una enorme precaridad donde a veces, pues si muchas comunidades viven en una enorme precaridad. [00:51:00] Pero lo que es más interesante es que sean los propios pueblos los que decidan como vivir y que decidan que es pobreza y que decidan que es dignificar, y que no se decida desde el estado, ni desde la academia, ni desde los estudiosos de el igualitarismo. Qué es lo que necesitan sus vidas, y cuando los pueblos logran controlar sus vidas, nos enseñan, otra forma de libertad. En ese sentido creo que estas experiencias también son reunidas para precisamente seguir la discusión de cómo sociedades que ya no tenemos organización comunitaria, que no tenemos una trama de organización tampoco en la fábrica, podríamos emular, replicar algunas de las prácticas, algunas de las formas organizativas para vivir efectivamente y regular la sociedad de una manera a otra, una manera más libre, una manera más igualitaria. Ese es un poco también el trabajo que he estado haciendo, que tiene que ver con [00:52:00] esta preocupación de, yo creo que hay mucho, muchísimas alternativas, pero ya no hay una alternativa que llame a todos, , que fue lo que movilizó en el siglo XX a muchísimos a muchísimas, a millones y millones de personas que incluso dieron su vida por hacer un cambio, un cambio que llamaban revolucionario. Y me parece que hoy, a pesar de que tenemos muchas más experiencias alternativas de base de los pueblos, de alternativas agroecológicas, de alternativas comunicacionales, de formas de regulación, de nuevas formas de establecer las relaciones de género, tenemos múltiples alternativas y múltiples teorías. Hoy pareciera que no, no los podemos, articular, digamos, en un proyecto común y a lo mejor necesitamos algunos elementos comunes, no para crear una sociedad que toda sea igual, sino al contrario, como decían, como dicen los zapatistas, un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos, muchas alternativas, pero [00:53:00] pensadas en muchas formas también de, de relación social comunal, igualitaria, libre y emancipadas. Chris: Mm. Sí, pues a través de ese comentario sobre la autonomía y la dignidad, y la diversidad que puede venir cuando tenemos esa libertad, quería preguntarte si podrías imaginar de un futuro sin turismo como lo estamos criticando el día de hoy, quizás un tipo de ocio, o viaje, o interculturalidad, que podrías imaginar, ¿Qué planteas en la conversación para la gente antes de terminamos aquí? Cesar: Si, primero, sobre esto del turismo, creo que deberíamos pensar que el mundo está terminando tal y como lo conocíamos. No hay ya condiciones, nos [00:54:00] dirigimos efectivamente, a un posible colapso sistémico si seguimos consumiendo energía y materia al ritmo que lo estamos haciendo. Y cuando digo al ritmo que lo estamos haciendo, reconociendo que los pobres consumen menos agua, por ejemplo, hay un estudio de familias del agua en ciudad de México donde algunas familias, las más pobres de la ciudad, consumen solo unos 50 litros, y en cambio, las más ricas o las más adineradas consumen más de 1000 litros al día, una sola familia. Entonces, me parece muy importante, entender estas diferencias de clase vinculadas a, la naturaleza y por el otro lado, pensar que todos, que hemos vivido, lo decía un empresario en un documental, dice, estamos volando un momento de la historia donde parece muy lindo porque hemos tenido una serie de comodidades que ninguna civilización pudo tener. Es decir, conocer el [00:55:00] planeta entero porque tenemos esa oportunidad cuando tenemos un poco de dinero, incluso aunque no seamos ricos, tenemos la capacidad, por la infraestructura, por las fuerzas productivas, porque efectivamente hay una red mundial que lo permite. Pero esto es insostenible, como son insostenibles muchos de los lujos. Es muy lamentable tener que pensar que ese lujo turístico debe terminar. Quizá en una sociedad donde pudiéramos decidir que preferiríamos. Pues, por supuesto, en mi caso, yo decidiría también conocer muchos lugares y reducir mi huella ecológica en muchísimas otras cosas que no son indispensables, pero eso solo sería posible, es decir, mantener el turismo. No bajo la forma corporativa que tenemos hoy. Si pudiéramos reducir nuestro consumo, por ejemplo, en el vestido, nuestro consumo eléctrico, nuestro consumo, por supuesto de carbono, entre muchos otros contaminantes y consumo de materia y energía. Entonces creo que [00:56:00] habría que pensar que en la nueva sociedad, que se tiene que construir, y a veces la gente lo ve a uno como loco, como diciendo, pero cómo, eso no va a suceder. El capitalismo está funcionando perfectamente. Pero estamos en un memento ya de transición, estamos, lo que sucedió con el huracán el año pasado aquí en México, en Acapulco, lo que sucedió en Valencia, son solo las primeras señales de muchísimas más que hay que no son conocidas. Estas fueron tragedias humanas y por tanto, se conocieron más. Pero ya vivimos una transición en términos del sistema tierra, que no sabemos qué va a suceder y debemos prepararnos para eso. Entonces, creo que debemos pensar más bien en cómo sería una sociedad alternativa donde el turismo comunitario y el turismo a baja escala, y el turismo controlado, o mejor dicho, regulado con bajo impacto de huella ecológica fuera posible, pensando en toda su cadena de mercancías, toda su cadena de servicios.[00:57:00] Creo que ese es el horizonte que deberíamos trazar en torno del turismo. Y mientras tanto, seguir apoyando las alternativas de los pueblos por controlar sus ecosistemas cuando deciden efectivamente, abrirlos al turismo, en cualquiera de sus formas. Y por el otro lado, y para cerrar efectivamente, hay decenas de aprendizajes de lo que donde yo me he acercado, y me he acercado también, precisamente porque he visto no solo esperanza, sino formas alternativas de relación social. Digo algunas, se puede crear comunidad urbana. Las clases populares tienen una capacidad política propia que se tiene que desarrollar, no es automática, no está ahí por su esencia popular, sino que puede generar sus propias formas políticas en un largo proceso de aprendizaje que permite entender que la comunidad es también una forma de ejercicio del [00:58:00] poder, una forma que regula también las posiciones, actitudes egoístas y las posiciones que se aprovechan de los otros, y las reprime, las suprime, pero también permite la producción de comunes, de beneficio común y la producción de nuevas relaciones sociales que satisfacen a todos y a todas, porque no son solo relaciones materiales, sino relaciones también emocionales, vínculos afectivos, satisfacción por servir a otros. Es decir, la comunidad si puede reproducirse en las ciudades, a diferencia de nuestra noción, de que solo en las comunidades rurales puede producirse, o en el ámbito rural puede producirse comunidad. Estos elementos son muy importantes. Por el otro lado, que la enorme riqueza biocultural de los pueblos, a pesar del deterioro ecosistémico, a pesar del avance de la urbanización, a pesar del deterioro de [00:59:00] los campesinos como clase social, a pesar del cambio climático, los pueblos siguen resistiendo. Ya han encontrado formas maravillosas para mantener cohesionadas sus comunidades, para reorganizarse, para tener sus propios horizontes político-comunitarios, sus autonomías y los saberes bio culturales que guardan, que ahora lo estoy precisamente investigando, como decía yo, en el caso de Texcoco, que es aprender de su relación con las otras especies, con las algas, las algas del lago de Texcoco, con las aves, con los suelos, suelos que no eran fértiles o que tienen una producción diferencial en en el maíz, en las otras especies que cultivan, sus propios saberes del cultivo, la combinación de cultivo, su relación con la tierra. Hablan de un, digamos de un cúmulo civilizatorio de ellos, pero de toda la humanidad. [01:00:00] Pues que nos da esperanza porque esos conocimientos, yo siempre les digo a mis estudiantes, imaginen en cuánto tiempo pasó para que pudiéramos aprender cuál hongo era comestible, cuál era alucinógeno y cuál no es comestible. Es un aprendizaje vital, no por, solo por los hongos, sino pero lo podemos reproducir en todos, el maíz, las frutas, las verduras, las hierbas medicinales. Es un conocimiento que no es de nadie. Es un común. Está abierto para todos y con ese podemos sobrevivir, los conocimientos sobre las semillas, sobre las aguas, sobre los ecosistemas locales. Y ese, los pueblos además están compartiendo esos saberes. Creo que con la idea de que la comunidad puede ser producida en la ciudad y que los saberes bio culturales no solo son de los pueblos locales, sino son los saberes de las grandes civilizaciones humanas, creo que tenemos dos herramientas para afrontar el enorme peligro que tenemos hoy frente al cambio [01:01:00] climático y los otros problemas ambientales que tenemos hoy, especialmente la sexta extinción masiva de las especies, la sedificación de los océanos, entre otros elementos. Pero tenemos dos grandes cúmulos de conocimiento humano que es milenario, y que ese nos puede permitir sobrevivir aquí y ahora, y hacia el futuro, que va a ser difícil, pero la organización de los pueblos, la organización de las clases populares, las alternativas que están ya instaladas en al menos las que yo conozco en toda América Latina, dan muestra que podemos tener alternativas viables, más libres, más horizontales, más democráticas, más emancipatorias. Chris: Mmm, vaya. Pues gracias, gracias César, por esos dos champiñones, lo comestible y de lo que está pasando en el día de hoy y también lo alucinógenico, lo que podemos imaginar en [01:02:00] otros mundos. Fue un gran gusto y honor para pasar este tiempo contigo. Entonces, me gustaría agradecerte, en el nombre de nuestros oyentes también. Y antes de terminar, solo me gustaría preguntarte si hay alguna manera de que los oyentes puedan seguir tu trabajo, ponerse en contacto contigo, leer tus libros, etcétera. Cesar: Sí, la forma más fácil es, utilizo X. . Que nombre tan horrible , pero es @cesarpinedar, con r al final, @cesarpinedar. Y también en mi página, enriquepineda.info, ahí en realidad están todos mis textos. Publico muchísimo en redes sociales, especialmente en X. Yo le sigo diciendo Twitter porque el verbo Twittear es mejor. ¿Cómo se dice ahora con X cuando publicas algo? Entonces, supongo, pero es más aburrido. En fin, les invito, agradecerte a ti mucho tus preguntas y esta conversación y esta [01:03:00] posibilidad de difundir un poquito de lo que sabemos y un poquito también de nuestro saber, que es un saber también entre muchos otros, muy diversos y legítimos y válidos todos. Entonces, agradecerte también por esta conversación Chris: Gracias, César. ENGLISH TRANSCRIPT - Ecological Marxism w/ Cesar Pineda Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome Cesar, to the podcast The End of Tourism. Thank you very much for being willing to talk to me today. I'd like to start by asking you, where are you today and what does the world look like for you there? Cesar: I live in Mexico City. For some time now I have been doing research, again, on the continuity of the airport process. So I often go to Texcoco, towards the east of the city, towards the old Texcoco lake, so I have a double view, the traditional urban view where I live and where I teach, which is at UNAM and Mora, and on the other hand, the towns, the community and the lake system that I visit daily. Chris: And how is that going in Texcoco, if I may ask? Cesar: It's going well, I think the people's front in defense of the land has had a new victory. And I think it's a new advance, it's a somewhat anomalous movement in Mexico because [00:01:00] it has practically won all its battles, it has stopped the two airports, it has freed its prisoners and now it has managed to protect the territory. And today they are faced with a new challenge, which is to be a local government, right? So, in all of them they have triumphed in the end, despite the enormous costs, because they have suffered from repression, from persecution, from the precariousness in which many of their members live. But I think they are doing very well. Chris: Yeah, wow, well, what a great, what a beautiful result, right? Cesar, it seems that a lot of your work is based on what we can call the conversion of nature into capital, or at least that's how theorists have traditionally described it. I'd like to ask, how do you see that happening in the world of tourism, the conversion of nature into capital to, to start with, to give us a [00:02:00] basis to follow? Cesar: Yes, well, I have to say that I have also tried to study or theorize. When we theorize, we make generalizations. Theory is a generalization in order to be able to dialogue in different contexts, in different cases, otherwise each case of course is totally different from the other due to its historicity, its locality, its particularity. When we theorize, we try to make a generalization that is valid for many cases. So, and that allows us to dialogue and think about many with the same way of naming and conceptualizing. So, I have done this work of conceptualization and theorization in the idea of how to try to understand how capital is effectively deployed territorially. Generally, we think of capital only as monetary relations, as investments and as profits, in fact, we compensate capital as, the [00:03:00] thing, money, in any case, as material wealth, merchandise, it can be clothes, it can be cars, but in general, capital is a process. That is what Marx proposes, and the process is how people organize themselves, organize work, some work for others and how they effectively take from nature what they need to produce new merchandise or new use values, which is what, utility is what Marx calls it. In this sense, producing many use values necessarily requires some connection with nature. Marx calls this connection social metabolism because it is a connection not only because you take what you need, the materials, so to speak, some call them resources in economics. Generally in political ecology or in agroecology we call them natural goods [00:04:00] . Because they are not things but simply resources that are there available to be spent. And this connection, which has been developed even further today by some theorists who have followed Marx's idea of social metabolism, propose, following also some ideas of Marx, that it is the way to organize ourselves, to organize work. Work is the link with nature and this link is at the same time an exchange of matter and energy with local ecosystems. This exchange is more commonly called metabolism. So, I say all this because it is very important to think about how what we call the economy develops certain forms of activity, of material work and not only of monetary and monetary exchanges, because sometimes it seems that an activity gives a lot of profits and it could be, taking, for example, from nature, [00:05:00] too many natural goods, even though it actually produces a lot of monetary profits. And in that sense, what I have been studying is precisely how capital is deployed, looking, so to speak, for what it needs from ecosystems, but sometimes it does not need everything from ecosystems, sometimes it does need the entire ecosystem, which is what I am going to explain very quickly now. But in other cases, he needs only one of the natural resources, he needs land to cultivate and then he monopolizes it either by buying, or by dispossessing, or by renting the land. On the other hand, he may not need the soil to produce, not only does he need the land to produce, but he also needs that land to have a climate. This seems to be not so common sense. All farmers are much clearer about it, but it is clear that in certain areas certain species are found and in others, for example in cold places, they are found more because forest production and therefore production, pine and eucalyptus are grown. And in the tropics, fruits are grown . So economic investments that we could call capital, but that capital is a process as I said, reorganizes the workers, the workers. It also organizes the relationship with nature or reorganizes it. So, I always give these examples because they are very illustrative of what happens, for example, if there are more investments to cultivate, for wood production. Production, obviously, those who invest require their profit quickly. So you have to invest and have profits. You have to invest and sell the wood quickly, for example. Therefore, the species that grow the fastest are cultivated . And because they grow faster, they need more water. If they need more water, they deplete the aquifers. Here we have a direct consequence of human organisation in nature, in how to reorganise it because it replaces the native forest and replaces it with species that can only be sold, in this case, pine and eucalyptus. It is clear that, as in the past, time is reorganized, for example, for workers. If there are all the workers in the forestry industry who are offered a type of work and the relationship with water, with local ecosystems and with the species that are cultivated, there is the whole circuit of what is organized. So when we think about investments, we are not generally thinking about what is behind them. So we could follow the production of a car, the production of cotton for our clothes, the production of glass, the production of iron, of plastics, everything can be thought of like that. And also within [00:08:00] Of the forms of deployment of nature, I have thought that there is sometimes, there is another form that I call tourist bio-commodification, which is monopolizing entire ecosystems to put them, so to speak, to put whales, to put alligators to work, which is a way of saying it in the sense of land rent, ecosystem rent and above all, the great industry that is built around tourist enclaves. All of this constitutes a new relationship with nature, which is, I think, what we are going to be discussing in your program, because it does not modify or not only has tourism been generally seen as a benevolent industry because it does not have chimneys. It is very different, for example, from the oil industry, which is the one we generally think is the only dirty one. But the tourism industry is [00:09:00] an industry. The thing is that it is a service industry. It is also a global industry. It is also monopolistic. In other words, it is concentrated in a few corporations and it changes, of course, the way we organize ourselves around ecosystems. Chris: Wow. It's gotten me thinking a lot about how things that seem like tours could perhaps be promoted as ecological or eco-friendly, like hikes in the forest or even those tours on the sea, in the Yucatan or here in Oaxaca to go just to see the whales or turtles, etc. Is that kind of what you're talking about? Cesar: Yes. Now it must be said that these services that you generally mention, which are sometimes called eco-tourism, are those with the lowest [00:10:00] production of value or rather, they do not produce value, but rather there is only monetary exchange. But the ones that have the greatest value production are the enormous global infrastructure, the hotels and the airlines. And these are obviously controlled by the big corporations and have a gigantic impact. That is, when we think that we are going to do an activity in Oaxaca, for example, as you say, and that we are seeing a very nice activity of reproduction of the life of turtles. We are not thinking about the whole chain of goods, which is a chain of services that also has not only our ecological footprint, but also how investments reorder the territories. In Mexico, for example, around the beginning of the 21st century, we went from 7 million international tourists to 30 or 35 million. That is, in 20 years, it has practically tripled [00:11:00] volume of tourists. Now, these tourists don't, in addition, we always think that even governments , even the last government, have promoted tourism even more, because it is supposed to be totally beneficial, because obviously they bring an economic spillover to places that are generally also poor. But the problem with this perception is that we are not, perhaps sometimes, having a critical perspective where a division of social labor and a division of nature and who has access to it and for what purpose is evidently also being formed. It is the global elites, that is, also the salaried workers of the north, who have greater resources and greater economic security , who have more free time and also more resources to access leisure and entertainment. The lower classes do not. So there is an entry division by the [00:12:00] money, for access, who can access the first, free time. But not everyone who has free time has access to leisure, entertainment and tourist services. So, there is a double division here, a class division, Now, looking at it this way, we see that ecosystems are not simply used by everyone in an equal way, but that some have more access and others do not. Or some have more access. gradually and others much more sporadically, which is that class division. But the other division that is very important is consumption, that is, converting , that is why I call it bio-commodification , in the sense of converting ecosystems into a commodity to sell, that commodity you cannot take with you like, like others , that are produced by human hand, but ecosystems that are put to [00:13:00] service, but also to a new control. And this is important, a new control, of the ecosystem. Generally, almost all ecosystems in the world have a management system that until very recently had a community management system . This management system is not just that people share natural resources, but that there are rules for sharing natural resources. The Nobel Prize winner in economics Ostrom curiously discovered, something that people and communities have actually been doing for hundreds of years. In other words, for them it is not a discovery, it is their way of life. That is, that there is a system of self-regulation where, for example, in order not to exhaust natural resources, there are rotation systems. There are sanctions for those who violate the rotation system, limits, for example, for [00:14:00] fishing, limits to make, to put cows to pasture, limits for, for example, in some species that know that if too much is collected, it can cause the collapse of a bank, for example, of mollusks. In short, there is a lot of knowledge from the people, where they know how not to exhaust natural resources. It does not mean that all the people have self-regulation systems that they call common. But it does mean that many people do have them. When a tourist enclave arrives, this type of relationship changes and the management of it changes, it may be a mangrove swamp , it may be a lagoon, it may be a river, it may be a forest . And it is oriented towards the sale of services, sometimes changing in a harmonious way with that community regulation, sometimes completely displacing that community regulation and turning them into [00:15:00] tourism services workers. These two changes should speak to us from both a class perspective and a community perspective, of two very violent ways of disorganizing and reorganizing, but with the basis of wanting to generate profits for both workers and communities. And along with the communities, the local ecosystems. Chris: Wow. Well, yes, immediately speaking of the community issue. And those changes have made me think of the milpa and also how, that was very much a part of people's daily life. And also thinking about the milpa, that is, that agricultural system that exists in Mesoamerica. I have also thought about that thing about certain ancient Mesoamerican cities or towns that, were [00:16:00] supposedly abandoned, but thinking about the milpa, the need to put limits on the use of the land that also perhaps had a place in the context of a society, or at least a city, or at least an entire town as it is time to leave this place in its time. But that is something that has come up a lot in the podcast over the years, with this question of removing boundaries, that tourism is an industry that destroys boundaries. And so, you mentioned Marx at the beginning and we also mentioned a little bit about ecology and you've written a little bit about ecological Marxism. And I wanted to ask you if ecological Marxism is just a way of measuring and defining what [00:17:00] is happening or also how to react, respond, evaluate perhaps. Cesar: I would say that ecological Marxism is just one of the traditions of the new environmentalisms, and of the theoretical traditions. Because, we should separate the biocultural knowledge of the peoples. That is, the way they actually are, knowledge about flora, fauna, soils, climate, production, consumption and waste that communities have. Again, not all communities have a self-regulated system around all this. Some do maintain them. Others have, maintain parts and others have lost a good part of their organization, and then they begin to produce what I call a metabolic disturbance. "Disturbance" comes from systems theory, for example, those who are dedicated to [00:18:00] that explained to us, especially for example, in aquifer ecosystems that, for example, when there is a biochemical change in the waters, for example a contaminant is entering quickly, well obviously, because in a very large lagoon, well, that contaminant is not noticeable, right? That is, it seems like it can dilute it. There is so much water that it dilutes the contaminants, right? But if there is suddenly a very important spill of a contaminant. For example, it can change color or it can change suddenly. That capacity for illusion or resistance, for example, to maintain its color or maintain certain shapes, is what has been called resilience. And, the abrupt transformation would be a disturbance in the system as such. So, thinking about Marx and thinking about this systems theory, I thought [00:19:00] that the idea that we have this link, of social organization with nature, I thought about the idea that metabolic disturbance could be an abrupt change in the relationship with the ecosystem. It is not necessarily because the land is taken from people, for example, I think that the farmers themselves, in order to compete in the market, since the market is monopolized by large corporations that produce very quickly, have to start buying technological packages, basically agrotoxins, to produce faster. So, even if they had a more or less sustainable, more or less harmonious relationship with their cornfield, by introducing agrotoxins, they begin to change their metabolic relationship with the ecosystem, although the corporation has not come to force them, but they make the decision because each time their product in the market is worth [00:20:00] less . So they have to produce more. That disturbance, for example, and those, are also organized around certain knowledge. So, on the one hand, we have the knowledge of the communities that can be lost, that can be destabilized or that can change, as I said, and that is why I was referring to the community metabolic disturbance, it changes abruptly and can be very damaging to their ecosystems. And on the other hand, we have a series of scientific knowledge and a series of theoretical knowledge that could be grouped into several trends, and one of them is ecological Marxism. There are a number of authors who have returned to reading Marx thinking that he can tell us in ecological terms and in the published texts, those that Marx did want to publish, there is an enormous number of references and a vision [00:21:00] that, contrary to what had been thought until recently, Marx is always thinking about nature. But there is also a package of notes and research notebooks that have yielded, so to speak, new discoveries. To date, not everything that Marx wrote has been published. Although many of these were notes, they were not texts like those known as The Grundrisse or Capital. These notes are being reviewed by many experts, and one of them, for example, two of them, John Bellamy Foster, 20 years ago, and Kohei Saito from Japan, found in Marx's notes that he was increasingly concerned about how capitalist industry, the agricultural industry, was depleting the soil. So, it turns out that Marx was studying precisely chemistry, he was studying all the geology of soils, the composition and he was [00:22:00] very interested in what capital was going to produce and he was convinced at the end of his life, only he no longer produced a text to publish, he was very concerned about the discovery that he himself had thought that capital exhausts the bases of its own renewal. It exhausts, it is a form of social relationship, although we think it is only economic, but it is an economic-social relationship that exhausts natural resources. Although he did publish this, Marx literally says, capital undermines the two sources of wealth. He says, "work and nature." And that double vision seems very important to me when naming it in a series of academics who have maintained this research based on certain Marxist ideas and have continued to advance. They are about twenty Marxist ecologists who are discussing climate change today [00:23:00] who are discussing the environmental crisis today based on criticism of capitalism. Chris: Wow. Ye wow. So my next question comes a little bit from the ability to consider those crises that you mentioned, within other openings of ecology. So, in the second season of the podcast I interviewed Pedro UC from Muuch Xiin bal in the Yucatan, about the situation of the so-called Mayan train and also with a group of the Wixarika people who talked about the greenhouses that were invading their region, as well as about pepeyote poachers, spiritual tourists were also causing damage to their lands, to their [00:24:00] relationships, not only economic, but also cultural. Maybe we can say spiritual. So, in this context, there are often two types of extractivism at the same time, the transformation of the land into a commodity and the attempt to acquire knowledge or spiritual power. Cesar: So, I'm curious to know how you see these two worlds interacting both in Mexico and in other parts of Latin America, in this question of ecology also including the culture and religion of the people. Yes, well, capital, as a social relationship, tends to commodify everything. We must remember, for example, I also always give as an example that women's makeup was actually, that it was feminized, the makeup of the people. It was beautification. All [00:25:00] cultures, all, all tribal civilizations up to great agricultural civilizations, already based on rivers, the great cultures in all times, we tend to beautify our bodies. We tend to decorate them in very different ways, in very different forms. Generally linked to the local cultural process. Capital has turned it into a commodity. Cesar: That is to say, instead, if we think about it, before, all cultures, the tribal ones, could beautify their bodies, their skin, in many ways, they knew the technique to do it, use the materials to do it, or forge their own jewelry, and make their own clothes. Everything I just said, capital has turned into a commodity and stripped, so to speak, of knowledge. We don't know today, people [00:26:00] who live in urban, modern, fully capitalized cities. We don't know how to do those things. We don't know how to beautify our bodies, or we know how to do it from the materials and goods that an industry sells us. So capital uses our needs and the need to beautify ourselves is not a frivolity. What happens is that it becomes a frivolity when goods are mass produced that are actually for beautification and bring with them a marketing of beautification of certain forms, in addition to hegemonic beauty. So why do I say this example that seems very far from our conversation about nature, because capital can turn into service and therefore into a service that generates profits in practically any way [00:27:00] ethno-cultural, as they call it, any form of ethno-tourism, any form of eco-tourism, that is, generating profits from services of getting to know each other, having fun, leisure, even social contact, which they call social contact tourism. That is to say, it seeks an alternative experience that can be great fun, these machines that lift you up with water in the sea with a technician who accompanies you, or simply scooters that take you to places in wooded areas, that is to say, it can be any type of tourist service that is accompanied, accompanying you to live an experience in an ecosystem that is generally outside your city. But also, this division, city and rural or city, tourist enclave or city [00:28:00] also a place of Eden, a paradise. This division has been produced, because of the concentration of capital in the cities and because of the concentration of work in the city. So, what this international division of labor that produces cities that work and places of rest and, therefore, workers who have to take care of you for your rest, well, it is logical that it is an international division that also makes there be countries that produce tourist services and countries that consume or cities that consume tourist services as well. Why do I also propose this enormous division? Because, the extraction of natural resources is very well known from the south to the north and it is effectively also related to tourist enclaves and the tourist infrastructure that is built. [00:29:00] The tastes and needs of the elite middle-class and upper-class tourist require certain comforts that are not necessarily produced in the local ecosystem. So you have to bring, so to speak, if the elite tourist wants strawberries and then a bread with avocado, well, you have to bring strawberries from the other side of the country, even the world, and you have to bring avocado, which is ... Why do I say these two? Because the first is produced under certain forms of exploitation of day laborers, for example, in northern Mexico. And they have to be taken to the peninsula. If we were to say on the Mayan train in a place that could apparently be eco-friendly, that is, it could produce, try to produce organically, not waste water or waste [00:30:00] less, or have certain services in their locality. Well, you have to bring strawberries from the other side, you have to bring avocados, which have a high water consumption. This is very important, there are certain species, as you said, there are no limits. There are no limits. If the tourist wants avocado, you have to have avocados and, therefore, you have to bring them from Michoacán, which also depletes the aquifers and expands as a monoculture. There is this extractive relationship, not only from the south to the north, but also from the cities, versus the rural and tourist enclaves versus ecosystems in general. So these types of relationships are not sustainable. This extractivism, then, is not only, it can be cultural, obviously, that turns into merchandise, social relations, cultural relations that in general were not, did not enter the sphere of merchandise. That is why I also call it bio-commodification, because it is to include in [00:31:00] spheres of natural goods, spheres of ecosystems to the area of commodities, when before they were not, it is generally water that we think of . Before it was not a commodity. Now, increasingly, there is an attempt to make it one. So, in this double sense of extractivism, it seems very important to me to clarify that tourist enclaves are also a form of extraction and depeasantization. Again, it creates a metabolic disturbance because the peasant who cannot access With the sale of his own product, he sees working in a hotel as an option, he sees abandoning the land as an option. And if the land is abandoned, then it can be rented for other things, or it can be deforested or urbanized if the farmer ... the best way to take care of the land is for the farmer to continue cultivating it. But if [00:32:00] If you abandon it, anything can happen to the land. And we end up with a tourist enclave that can even have, I insist, a green perspective, saying that it is producing, that it has organic food or that it recycles water or that it does this type of actions that are obviously very positive, but compared to the metabolic change that it will produce in the farmers of the local ecosystem, abandoning the land and considering the enormous consumption that it has to bring from other parts of the country and the world for elite consumption, it seems that recycling water, not giving out straws or having a vegetarian diet in a hotel is insufficient . That is, the disruption of the ecosystem and the extraction of natural resources from other places and the most important, water, [00:33:00] They are simply not mitigatable changes, they are not changes that can be compared with the small actions of ecological care that, of course, we all have to do, and we all have to educate ourselves in them, but at a structural level, of course, the tourist enclave is more destructive, a corporate enclave, an industrial enclave, an enclave of oligopolies, an enclave of mass consumption . Than these actions that you mention. Chris: Thanks Cesar. Well, one thing that I only understood when I started working in the tourism industry was that every place I visited in the world before, even if I stayed a week, two weeks, a month or maybe three, six months, [00:34:00] I didn't stay long enough to understand the consequences of my movements there. And so I think that this is very strong, that tourists have a responsibility that is totally, not totally, but almost totally removed from their ability to know it, to understand it, and, but when we talk about the rural population, who not only has certain economic forces, but I also feel that they have cultural desires, that is, like that American dream, which is now a global dream and that. But for example, I was thinking about the towns in Oaxaca that do ecotourism, and ecotourism based on the municipality, on the assembly, as a way for people to stay in the town, generate income and perhaps also enter [00:35:00] with a bond and relationship of hospitality that goes beyond the tourist industry, for example, but also the mere presence of the foreigner in a place like that changes what existed in the town before. And in many towns, if there are people who say, well no, "it was a mistake." And there are others who say "no, I mean, it's feeding the town very well." So I wanted to ask you what you think about these, not necessarily contradictions, but different reflections and considerations. Cesar: I think it is an alternative, indeed, when it comes as a project from the people themselves. And when the people have an organizational process that allows them to face the challenge of a community enterprise, of a community cooperative [00:36:00] community services and effectively establish the rules and forms of regulation for visiting, be it a community, an ecosystem, etc. That is to say, I believe that when it comes from below, it is a real alternative, although I would say that it is essential to combine it with peasant forms of production which, I insist, are deteriorating and all ecosystems are deteriorating. So, I think it would be a bottom-up approach. The problem is when it is imposed from above. Like in the Mayan train, where areas are opened up for tourism, where formally these elements are going to be taken care of, discursively these elements are going to be taken care of, but we have seen how the capture, for example, of the beaches, how the capture and spatialization of businesses with great [00:37:00] investment, for example, they monopolize trade, they monopolize access to beaches, they even monopolize the form of urbanization. They are not combinable, it's just that there are people who think that community can be harmoniously combined with large investments from big capital and with large corporate tourist capital. But they have different logics. It's not that one is good and one is bad, it's not a question of morality, it's a question of social organization . If the tourist agrees, for example, to adapt to a diet that locally has a smaller ecological footprint, and also the limits can be programmed, as you also pointed out, regarding the capacity of the visit and the load that the visit can have on the specific place, it can perfectly be an alternative, although [00:38:00] It must be said that if we change the scale, it is not viable for a billion Europeans and North Americans to travel all over the world. They cannot produce so much CO2, that is, they cannot, so we have and until now there is no global discussion about this. There is a discussion about jets owned by billionaires because a flight is very polluting, but jets are even more so because they are dedicated to comfort and to trips that are not essential, but luxury. So, if we think about the fact that jet flights should not only be regulated, but prohibited, and the gigantic explosion of airlines at an international level, even commercial flights and not private flights, it is unsustainable. The airline industry says they only produce 1% [00:39:00] of the world's CO2. Yes, but each industry says that it is not that I only produce 2% or 5%, or 0.5%. Of course, then, in the end, no one is responsible for the production of CO2, because everyone can say I am so irresponsible that I should not be regulated, but it is not viable. So, I think we should think about local tourism , shortening the commodity chains for producing tourist services. That is, thinking that national, co-national and international services have to be regulated . Well, even though you may know more, I know much more about community tourism and community impacts and less about the impact of neighborhood and urban tourism that several European cities are experiencing and that is practically out of control in Paris, in Barcelona, it is out of control and together with Airbnb or others [00:40:00] platforms that allow the mass arrival of people or even permanent visits of foreigners that has nothing to do with their nationality, is not a xenophobic thing, but in the sense of displacement that foreigners do not want, for example, in Mexico, it is not that they are bad, it is not that they are, that they are foreigners. I insist, it is not a racial or xenophobic issue, but in the sense that foreigners in Mexico, in Mexico City, not in a community, not in an ecosystem yet, protected in an ecosystem, let's say more harmonious than that of the city, people are being displaced because the monetary capacity, the ability to earn, the ability to class displaces housing in neighborhoods like Roma and Condesa. So, that's why it's very important that when we think about alternatives, I think we have to look at all of these [00:41:00] scales, for the community of course, I think yes, I insist yes, if it comes from the community as a community project. I think it is a project that can strengthen the process, can continue to maintain certain environmental balances and can be an alternative economic source of income for the communities. If we look at it as an international structure, community tourism falls far short of the capacity that the last 40 years of neoliberalism have created in infrastructure . That is to say, if today you can travel anywhere in the world at a lower price, it is because there are more airlines, it is because there is more infrastructure, because there is more competition, because there are credit packages. That is to say, there is a mega industry, because there is a huge marketing to sell you flights, to offer you, fly now and pay later. That gigantic global industry is unsustainable, so many people cannot travel around the world, we are going to [00:42:00] bursting at the seams. Well, we are bursting at the seams, we are bursting at the seams of the world with international tourist mobility that is becoming more and more uncontrollable, and because of the number. Again, tourists are not bad. The problem is the huge number of tourists who, in fact, by sheer numbers, exhaust the peyote in the north, leave the beaches dirty, consume more water, require more electricity. That is to say, the industry in its international corporate and industrial form is unsustainable. I think we need to think about how we could reduce the impacts towards community tourism controlled by the people themselves. And that is where I think that is the alternative. Chris: Mm. Mm. Thank you, Cesar. And so, from what I've read, it seems that you are very involved in the question of autonomy and the emancipation of peoples. [00:43:00] I would also like to ask you how you think that this understanding can help urban people to build community, communality and solidarity. It is something that we think a lot about, like, well, they have the answer over there because they have land and territory, but we, as tenants, etc., who perhaps will never in our lives have a house or territory or land. Cesar: Well, first of all, my interest is because, in general, until 1989 there were 200 years of a promise, led by the political left. And when I refer to the political left, I am not referring only to the parties, I am referring to a project of overcoming the organization of society that promised freedom, equality, fraternity. The process by which the projects and horizons of transformation have deteriorated is very serious, that is, it has been thought, today we are practically resigned, although there are millions who are not, but it seems that if that is the spirit, the mood, as young people would say, the mood of the times is that there is no alternative, as Fredric Jameson or Žižek have suggested, it is easier to think about the end of humanity than the end of capitalism, or the end of the world than the end of capitalism. So, I am very concerned about thinking about alternatives, and effectively thinking about political horizons, I insist political in a broad sense, not partisan political, but political as the capacity that we have, even as a species to agree and have horizons of what we want to do, what life we want, what life, what life project we also desire and can [00:45:00] to build. In fact, that is what defines us as a species, that we give ourselves our own organizational form. It is the species that can have one form in China and another form in the Andes, and another form in North America, and another form in South Africa. Cesar: That is to say, different forms of social organization that reproduce life, and reproducing life can be done in a very despotic way or in a much more free way. And in that sense, I have been involved, if I have a lot of time, maybe a decade and a half or two decades, thinking about what the emancipatory elements have been in those projects. And in reality, what we think was socialism or communism, which were actually authoritarian experiences of single parties and elites, had in their germ other ideas, which were that the power of the workers, the self-management of the workers was the [00:46:00] new form of social organization. That is to say, that the workers made the decisions about production. What I see in Latin America, where there is a less important or less large labor movement, as was the labor movement in Europe, also in the United States, is that the original non-capitalist forms also allow life to be reproduced in other ways, in community ways and in other ways. These two elements in Northern Europe, the power of workers to control reproduction, indigenous peoples controlling their own local ecosystems. I think they teach us lessons about other forms of social organization. I just published a text, a book, that talks about the production of community in cities. It is a research in Mexico City, where a massive movement … I mean, we generally also think of community as about fifty people, very few. These are thousands of families who have been able to form, build urban communities from nothing. No, they were not indigenous peoples who moved to the city, to the periphery as has happened, for example, in El Alto in Bolivia, but rather working classes, with very low incomes, who in their search for housing found that they not only wanted housing, but also wanted to improve and dignify their own lives. I insist, very precarious working classes. And what they have built, Raúl Zibechi, one of the best-known journalists and intellectuals in Latin America because he has been in practically all the social movements of the continent. From the southern cone to Mexico, from the Araucanía of Chile to the Lacandon Jungle in Mexico. We took him [00:48:00] to visit this experience here in Mexico City and he said this is the most important urban autonomy in Latin America. And I conclude by saying on the subject of autonomy. So I am very interested in not studying them from a social science perspective as an object of study, just to know how they work, but because by understanding how they work, they give alternatives to those of us who are not in those communities. So, I am very interested in learning about these experiences, tracing them historically, studying them and understanding them, and comprehending them and learning from them. In other words, what I want is for the learning that these communities have produced to be understood by others who do not live in a community. And, finally, a learning that comes from a notion that has emerged after the fall of the Berlin Wall has been precisely autonomy, because in the face of the authoritarian experiences of Eastern Europe, it seems that [00:49:00] no one wants to repeat an experience that, although we reject the capitalist and liberal forms of politics, we do not want an authoritarian and centralizing experience either, and much less a totalitarian one of a single party that decides everything. What we have found both theoretically and in these empirical cases is that autonomy, the ability to give oneself one's own laws, that means autonomy, but beyond the laws, it is governing oneself. In reality it is emancipation. Emancipation means getting rid of the hand of the lord. What lord? It was the feudal lord, that's more or less how the word was created from, or from the slave a very long time ago. Getting rid of the hand of the master or the feudal lord, that is to say that no one else should command you. That is also living in freedom, but communities live collectively and to emancipate themselves they need to remove themselves [00:50:00] from a hand that is invisible, the hand of the market, the hand of capital. So, how do we emancipate ourselves collectively and achieve autonomy? Governing ourselves also means putting a stop to the decisions of states that generally in Latin America have had a colonial perspective in relation to indigenous peoples, or neocolonial, or also internal colonialism, as Don Pablo González Casanova said. Now, finally, autonomy, then, I consider it, is the central element, even beyond economic egalitarianism. They are two different projects. That is to say, when people manage to dignify their lives, I think it is very positive, I think that all of us who have an emancipatory critical perspective or even a leftist one, want people in general to live with dignity, not with great luxuries, but also not with enormous precariousness where sometimes, well, many communities live in enormous precariousness. [00:51:00] But what is more interesting is that it is the people themselves who decide how to live and decide what poverty is and what dignity is, and that it is not decided by the state, nor by the academy, nor by scholars of egalitarianism. What do their lives need, and when people manage to control their lives, they teach us another form of freedom. In that sense, I think that these experiences are also brought together precisely to continue the discussion of how societies that no longer have community organization, that do not have an organizational framework even in the factory, could emulate, replicate some of the practices, some of the organizational forms to live effectively and regulate society in one way or another, a freer way, a more egalitarian way. That is also a bit of the work that I have been doing, which has to do with [00:52:00] this concern of, I believe that there are many, many alternatives, but there is no longer an alternative that calls for everyone, which was what mobilized many, many, millions and millions of people in the 20th century who even gave their lives to make a change, a change that they called revolutionary. And it seems to me that today, despite the fact that we have many more alternative grassroots experiences of the people, of agroecological alternatives, of communicational alternatives, of forms of regulation, of new ways of establishing gender relations, we have multiple alternatives and multiple theories. Today it seems that no, we cannot, articulate them, let's say, in a common project, and perhaps we need some common elements, not to create a society in which everything is equal, but on the contrary, as they said, as the Zapatistas say, a world where many worlds fit, many alternatives, but [00:53:00] thought of in many forms also of communal, egalitarian, free and emancipated social relations. Chris: Mm. Yeah, so through that comment about autonomy and dignity, and the diversity that can come when we have that freedom, I wanted to ask you if you could imagine a future without tourism as we're criticizing today, maybe a type of leisure, or travel, or interculturality, that you could imagine. What do you put forward in the conversation for people before we end here? Cease: Yes, first, on this tourism issue, I think we should think that the world is ending as we knew it. There are no longer conditions, we [00:54:00] We are heading for a possible systemic collapse if we continue to consume energy and matter at the rate we are doing. And when I say at the rate we are doing it, I recognize that the poor consume less water, for example, there is a study of water families in Mexico City where some families, the poorest in the city, consume only about 50 liters, and instead, the richest or wealthiest consume more than 1000 liters a day, just one family. So, it seems very important to me to understand these class differences linked to nature and, on the other hand, to think that all of us who have lived, as a businessman said In a documentary, he says, we are flying to a moment in history where it seems very nice because we have had a series of comforts that no civilization could have. That is, knowing the [00:55:00] the entire planet because we have that opportunity when we have a little money, even if we are not rich, we have the capacity, due to the infrastructure, the productive forces, because there is indeed a global network that allows it. But this is unsustainable, as are many luxuries. It is very sad to have to think that this tourist luxury must end. Perhaps in a society where we could decide what we would prefer. Well, of course, in my case, I would also decide to visit many places and reduce my ecological footprint in many other things that are not essential, but that would only be possible, that is, to maintain tourism. Not in the corporate form that we have today. If we could reduce our consumption, for example, in clothing, our electricity consumption, our consumption, of course, of carbon, among others, many other pollutants and consumption of matter and energy. So I think that [00:56:00] We should think about the new society that needs to be built, and sometimes people see you as crazy, as if to say, but how, that's not going to happen. Capitalism is working perfectly. But we are already in a moment of transition, we are, what happened with the hurricane last year here in Mexico, in Acapulco, what happened in Valencia , are only the first signs of many more that are not known. These were human tragedies and therefore, they were known more. But we are already living a transition in terms of the earth system, we don't know what is going to happen and we must prepare for that. So, I think we should think more about what an alternative society would be like where community tourism and small-scale tourism, and controlled tourism, or rather, regulated with a low ecological footprint impact were possible, thinking about its entire chain of goods, its entire chain of services. [00:57:00] I think that is the horizon we should set for tourism. And in the meantime, we should continue to support people's alternatives to control their ecosystems when they effectively decide to open them to tourism, in any of its forms. And on the other hand, and to close effectively, there are dozens of lessons from what I have approached, and I have approached as well, precisely because I have seen not only hope, but alternative forms of social relationships. I say some, you can create an urban community. The popular classes have their own political capacity that has to be developed, it is not automatic, it is not there because of its popular essence, but it can generate its own political forms in a long learning process that allows us to understand that the community is also a way of exercising [00:58:00] power, a form that also regulates selfish positions, attitudes and positions that take advantage of others, and represses them, suppresses them, but also allows the production of commons, of common benefit and the production of new social relations that satisfy everyone, because they are not only material relations, but also emotional relations, affective ties, satisfaction from serving others . That is to say, the community can be reproduced in cities, unlike our notion that it can only occur in rural communities, or that community can only be produced in rural areas. These elements are very important. On the other hand, the enormous biocultural wealth of the people, despite the ecosystem deterioration, despite the advance of urbanization, despite the deterioration of [00:59:00] peasants as a social class, despite climate change, the people continue to resist. They have already found wonderful ways to keep their communities cohesive, to reorganize, to have their own political-community horizons, their autonomy and the biocultural knowledge that they hold, which I am now precisely investigating, as I was saying, in the case of Texcoco, which is to learn from their relationship with other species, with algae, the algae of Lake Texcoco, with birds, with soils, soils that were not fertile or that have a differential production in corn, in the other species that they cultivate, their own knowledge of cultivation, the combination of cultivation, their relationship with the land. They talk about a, let's say, a civilizing cluster of them, but of all humanity. [01:00:00] Well, it gives us hope because that knowledge, I always tell my students, imagine how long it took for us to be able to learn which mushroom was edible, which was hallucinogenic and which was not edible. It is a vital learning, not only for mushrooms, but we can reproduce it in all of them, corn, fruits, vegetables, medicinal herbs. It is knowledge that belongs to no one. It is common. It is open to everyone and with it we can survive, knowledge about seeds, about water, about local ecosystems. And that, the people are also sharing that knowledge. I think that with the idea that community can be produced in the city and that biocultural knowledge is not only from local peoples, but is the knowledge of the great human civilizations, I think that we have two tools to confront the enormous danger that we have today in the face of climate change and other environmental problems that we have today, especially the sixth mass extinction of species, the sedification of the oceans, among other elements. But we have two large accumulations of human knowledge that is millennia old, and that can allow us to survive here and now, and into the future, which is going to be difficult, but the organization of the peoples, the organization of the popular classes, the alternatives that are already installed in at least those that I know of throughout Latin America, show that we can have viable alternatives, freer, more horizontal, more democratic, more emancipatory . Chris: Mmm, wow. Well thank you, thank you, Cesar, for those two mushrooms, the edible stuff and what's happening today and also the hallucinogenic stuff, what we can imagine in [01:02:00] other worlds. It was a great pleasure and honor to spend this time with you. So, I'd like to thank you, on behalf of our listeners as well. And before I finish, I just wanted to ask you if there is any way for listeners to follow your work, get in touch with you, read your books, etc. Cesar: Yes, the easiest way is, I use X. . What a horrible name, but it's @cesarpinedar, with an r at the end, @cesarpinedar. And also on my page, enriquepineda.info, that's actually where all my texts are. I post a lot on social media, especially on X. I still call it Twitter because the verb Tweet is better. How do you say now with X when you post something? So, I guess, but it's more boring. Anyway, I invite you to thank you very much for your questions and this conversation and this [01:03:00] possibility to spread a little bit of what we know and a little bit of our knowledge, which is also a knowledge among many others, all very diverse and legitimate and valid. So, thank you too for this conversation. Chris: Thanks, Cesar. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

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S5 #10 | The Samaritan and the Corruption w/ David Cayley (CBC Ideas) 1:09:36

34 weeks тому1:09:36

1:09:36

On this episode of the pod, my guest is David Cayley, a Toronto-based Canadian writer and broadcaster. For more than thirty years (1981-2012) he made radio documentaries for CBC Radio One’s program Ideas , which premiered in 1965 under the title The Best Ideas You’ll Hear Tonight . In 1966, at the age of twenty, Cayley joined the Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO), one of the many volunteer organizations that sprang up in the 1960’s to promote international development. Two years later, back in Canada, he began to associate with a group of returned volunteers whose experiences had made them, like himself, increasingly quizzical about the idea of development. In 1968 in Chicago, he heard a lecture given by Ivan Illich and in 1970 he and others brought Illich to Toronto for a teach-in called “Crisis in Development.” This was the beginning of their long relationship: eighteen years later Cayley invited Illich to do a series of interviews for CBC Radio’s Ideas. Cayley is the author of Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey (2022), Ideas on the Nature of Science (2009), The Rivers North of the Future: The Testament of Ivan Illich (2004), Puppet Uprising (2003) ,The Expanding Prison: The Crisis in Crime and Punishment and the Search for Alternatives (1998), George Grant in Conversation (1995), Northrop Frye in Conversation (1992), Ivan Illich in Conversation (1992), and The Age of Ecology (1990). Show Notes: The Early Years with Ivan Illich The Good Samaritan Story Falling out of a Homeworld The Corruption of the Best is the Worst (Corruptio Optimi Pessima) How Hospitality Becomes Hostility How to Live in Contradiction Rediscovering the Future The Pilgrimage of Surprise Friendship with the Other Homework: Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey (Penn State Press) - Paperback Now Available! David Cayley’s Website The Rivers North of the Future (House of Anansi Press) Ivan Illich | The Corruption of Christianity: Corruptio Optimi Pessima (2000) Charles Taylor: A Secular Age Transcript : Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome, David, to the End of Tourism Podcast. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. David: Likewise. Thank you. Chris: I'm very grateful to have you joining me today. And I'm curious if you could offer our listeners a little glimpse into where you find yourself today and what the world looks like for you through the lenses of David Cayley. David: Gray and wet. In Toronto, we've had a mild winter so far, although we did just have some real winter for a couple of weeks. So, I'm at my desk in my house in downtown Toronto. Hmm. Chris: Hmm. Thank you so much for joining us, David. You know, I came to your work quite long ago. First through the book, The Rivers North of the Future, The Testament of Ivan Illich. And then through your long standing tenure as the host of CBC Ideas in Canada. I've also just finished reading your newest book, Ivan Illich, An Intellectual Journey. For me, which has been a clear and comprehensive homage [00:01:00] to that man's work. And so, from what I understand from the reading, you were a friend of Illich's as well as the late Gustavo Esteva, a mutual friend of ours, who I interviewed for the podcast shortly before his death in 2021. Now, since friendship is one of the themes I'd like to approach with you today, I'm wondering if you could tell us about how you met these men and what led you to writing a biography of the former, of Ivan. David: Well, let me answer about Ivan first. I met him as a very young man. I had spent two years living in northern Borneo, eastern Malaysia, the Malaysian state of Sarawak. As part of an organization called the Canadian University Service Overseas, which many people recognize only when it's identified with the Peace Corps. It was a similar initiative or the VSO, very much of the time. And When I returned to [00:02:00] Toronto in 1968, one of the first things I saw was an essay of Ivan's. It usually circulates under the name he never gave it, which is, "To Hell With Good Intentions." A talk he had given in Chicago to some young volunteers in a Catholic organization bound for Mexico. And it made sense to me in a radical and surprising way. So, I would say it began there. I went to CDOC the following year. The year after that we brought Ivan to Toronto for a teach in, in the fashion of the time, and he was then an immense celebrity, so we turned people away from a 600 seat theater that night when he lectured in Toronto. I kept in touch subsequently through reading mainly and we didn't meet again until the later 1980s when he came to Toronto.[00:03:00] He was then working on, in the history of literacy, had just published a book called ABC: the Alphabetization of the Western Mind. And that's where we became more closely connected. I went later that year to State College, Pennsylvania, where he was teaching at Penn State, and recorded a long interview, radically long. And made a five-hour Ideas series, but by a happy chance, I had not thought of this, his friend Lee Hoinacki asked for the raw tapes, transcribed them, and eventually that became a published book. And marked an epoch in Ivan's reception, as well as in my life because a lot of people responded to the spoken or transcribed Illich in a way that they didn't seem to be able to respond to his writing, which was scholastically condensed, let's [00:04:00] say. I always found it extremely congenial and I would even say witty in the deep sense of wit. But I think a lot of people, you know, found it hard and so the spoken Illich... people came to him, even old friends and said, you know, "we understand you better now." So, the following year he came to Toronto and stayed with us and, you know, a friendship blossomed and also a funny relationship where I kept trying to get him to express himself more on the theme of the book you mentioned, The Rivers North of the Future, which is his feeling that modernity, in the big sense of modernity can be best understood as perversionism. A word that he used, because he liked strong words, but it can be a frightening word. "Corruption" also has its difficulties, [00:05:00] but sometimes he said "a turning inside out," which I like very much, or "a turning upside down" of the gospel. So, when the world has its way with the life, death and resurrection and teaching of Jesus Christ which inevitably becomes an institution when the world has its way with that. The way leads to where we are. That was his radical thought. And a novel thought, according to the philosopher Charles Taylor, a Canadian philosopher, who was kind enough to write a preface to that book when it was published, and I think very much aided its reception, because people knew who Charles Taylor was, and by then, they had kind of forgotten who Ivan Illich was. To give an example of that, when he died, the New York [00:06:00] Times obituary was headlined "Priest turned philosopher appealed to baby boomers in the 60s." This is yesterday's man, in other words, right? This is somebody who used to be important. So, I just kept at him about it, and eventually it became clear he was never going to write that book for a whole variety of reasons, which I won't go into now. But he did allow me to come to Cuernavaca, where he was living, and to do another very long set of interviews, which produced that book, The Rivers North of the Future. So that's the history in brief. The very last part of that story is that The Rivers North of the Future and the radio series that it was based on identifies themes that I find to be quite explosive. And so, in a certain way, the book you mentioned, Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey, [00:07:00] was destined from the moment that I recorded those conversations. Chris: Hmm, yeah, thank you, David. So much of what you said right there ends up being the basis for most of my questions today, especially around the corruption or the perversion what perhaps iatrogenesis also termed as iatrogenesis But much of what I've also come to ask today, stems and revolves around Illich's reading of the Good Samaritan story, so I'd like to start there, if that's alright. And you know, for our listeners who aren't familiar either with the story or Illich's take on it, I've gathered some small excerpts from An Intellectual Journey so that they might be on the same page, so to speak. So, from Ivan Illich, An Intellectual Journey: "jesus tells the story after he has been asked how to, quote, 'inherit eternal life,' end quote, and has replied that one must love God and one's neighbor, [00:08:00] quote, 'as oneself,' but, quote, who is my neighbor? His interlocutor wants to know. Jesus answers with his tale of a man on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho, who is beset by robbers, beaten, and left, quote, 'half dead' by the side of the road. Two men happen along, but, quote, 'pass by on the other side.' One is a priest and the other a Levite, a group that assisted the priests at the Great Temple, which, at that time, dominated the landscape of Jerusalem from the Temple Mount. Then, a Samaritan comes along. The Samaritans belonged to the estranged northern kingdom of Israel, and did not worship at the Temple. Tension between the Samaritans and the Judeans in the Second Temple period gives the name a significance somewhere between 'foreigner' and 'enemy.' [00:09:00] In contemporary terms, he was, as Illich liked to say, 'a Palestinian.' The Samaritan has, quote, 'compassion' on the wounded one. He stops, binds his wounds, takes him to an inn where he can convalesce and promises the innkeeper that he will return to pay the bill.' And so Jesus concludes by asking, 'Which of the three passers by was the neighbor?' Illich claimed that this parable had been persistently misunderstood as a story about how one ought to act. He had surveyed sermons from the 3rd through 19th centuries, he said, 'and found a broad consensus that what was being proposed was a, quote, rule of conduct.' But this interpretation was, in fact, quote, 'the opposite of what Jesus wanted to point out.' He had not been asked how to act toward a neighbor, but rather, 'who is my neighbor?' And he had replied, [00:10:00] scandalously, that it could be anyone at all. The choice of the Samaritan as the hero of the tale said, 'in effect, it is impossible to categorize who your neighbor might be.' The sense of being called to help the other is experienced intermittently and not as an unvarying obligation. A quote, 'new kind of ought has been established,' Illich says, which is not related to a norm. It has a telos, it aims at somebody, some body, but not according to a rule. And finally, The Master told them that who your neighbor is is not determined by your birth, by your condition, by the language which you speak, but by you. You can recognize the other man who is out of bounds culturally, who is foreign linguistically, who, you can [00:11:00] say by providence or pure chance, is the one who lies somewhere along your road in the grass and create the supreme form of relatedness, which is not given by creation, but created by you. Any attempt to explain this 'ought,' as correspond, as, as corresponding to a norm, takes out the mysterious greatness from this free act. And so, I think there are at least, at the very least, a few major points to take away from this little summary I've extracted. One, that the ability to choose one's neighbor, breaks the boundaries of ethnicity at the time, which were the bases for understanding one's identity and people and place in the world. And two, that it creates a new foundation for hospitality and interculturality. And so I'm [00:12:00] curious, David, if you'd be willing to elaborate on these points as you understand them. David: Well if you went a little farther on in that part of the book, you'd find an exposition of a German teacher and writer and professor, Claus Held, that I found very helpful in understanding what Ivan was saying. Held is a phenomenologist and a follower of Husserl, but he uses Husserl's term of the home world, right, that each of us has a home world. Mm-Hmm. Which is our ethnos within which our ethics apply. It's a world in which we can be at home and in which we can somehow manage, right? There are a manageable number of people to whom we are obliged. We're not universally obliged. So, what was interesting about Held's analysis is then the condition in which the wounded [00:13:00] man lies is, he's fallen outside of any reference or any home world, right? Nobody has to care for him. The priest and the Levite evidently don't care for him. They have more important things to do. The story doesn't tell you why. Is he ritually impure as one apparently dead is? What? You don't know. But they're on their way. They have other things to do. So the Samaritan is radically out of line, right? He dares to enter this no man's land, this exceptional state in which the wounded man lies, and he does it on the strength of a feeling, right? A stirring inside him. A call. It's definitely a bodily experience. In Ivan's language of norms, it's not a norm. It's not a duty. It's [00:14:00] not an obligation. It's not a thought. He's stirred. He is moved to do what he does and he cares for him and takes him to the inn and so on. So, the important thing in it for me is to understand the complementarity that's involved. Held says that if you try and develop a set of norms and ethics, however you want to say it, out of the Samaritan's Act, it ends up being radically corrosive, it ends up being radically corrosive damaging, destructive, disintegrating of the home world, right? If everybody's caring for everybody all the time universally, you're pretty soon in the maddening world, not pretty soon, but in a couple of millennia, in the maddening world we live in, right? Where people Can tell you with a straight face that their actions are intended to [00:15:00] save the planet and not experience a sense of grandiosity in saying that, right? Not experiencing seemingly a madness, a sense of things on a scale that is not proper to any human being, and is bound, I think, to be destructive of their capacity to be related to what is at hand. So, I think what Ivan is saying in saying this is a new kind of ought, right, it's the whole thing of the corruption of the best is the worst in a nutshell because as soon as you think you can operationalize that, you can turn everyone into a Samaritan and You, you begin to destroy the home world, right? You begin to destroy ethics. You begin to, or you transform ethics into something which is a contradiction of ethics. [00:16:00] So, there isn't an answer in it, in what he says. There's a complementarity, right? Hmm. There's the freedom to go outside, but if the freedom to go outside destroys any inside, then, what have you done? Right? Hmm. You've created an unlivable world. A world of such unending, such unimaginable obligation, as one now lives in Toronto, you know, where I pass homeless people all the time. I can't care for all of them. So, I think it's also a way of understanding for those who contemplate it that you really have to pay attention. What are you called to, right? What can you do? What is within your amplitude? What is urgent for you? Do that thing, right? Do not make yourself mad with [00:17:00] impossible charity. A charity you don't feel, you can't feel, you couldn't feel. Right? Take care of what's at hand, what you can take care of. What calls you. Chris: I think this comes up quite a bit these days. Especially, in light of international conflicts, conflicts that arise far from people's homes and yet the demand of that 'ought' perhaps of having to be aware and having to have or having to feel some kind of responsibility for these things that are happening in other places that maybe, It's not that they don't have anything to do with us but that our ability to have any kind of recourse for what happens in those places is perhaps flippant, fleeting, and even that we're stretched to the point that we can't even tend and attend to what's happening in front of us in our neighborhoods. And so, I'm curious as to how this came to be. You mentioned "the corruption" [00:18:00] and maybe we could just define that, if possible for our listeners this notion of "the corruption of the best is the worst." Would you be willing to do that? Do you think that that's an easy thing to do? David: I've been trying for 30 years. I can keep on trying. I really, I mean, that was the seed of everything. At the end of the interview we did in 1988, Ivan dropped that little bomb on me. And I was a diligent man, and I had prepared very carefully. I'd read everything he'd written and then at the very end of the interview, he says the whole history of the West can be summed up in the phrase, Corruptio Optimi Pessima. He was quite fluent in Latin. The corruption of the best is the worst. And I thought, wait a minute, the whole history of the West? This is staggering. So, yes, I've been reflecting on it for a long time, but I think there are many ways to speak [00:19:00] about the incarnation, the idea that God is present and visible in the form of a human being, that God indeed is a human being in the person of Jesus Christ. One way is to think of it as a kind of nuclear explosion of religion. Religion had always been the placation of a god. Right? A sacrifice of some kind made to placate a god. Now the god is present. It could be you. Jesus is explicit about it, and I think that is the most important thing for Iman in reading the gospel, is that God appears to us as one another. Hmm. If you can put it, one another in the most general sense of that formula. So, that's explosive, right? I mean, religion, in a certain way, up to that moment, is society. It's the [00:20:00] integument of every society. It's the nature of the beast to be religious in the sense of having an understanding of how you're situated and in what order and with what foundation that order exists. It's not an intellectual thing. It's just what people do. Karl Barth says religion is a yoke. So, it has in a certain way exploded or been exploded at that moment but it will of course be re instituted as a religion. What else could happen? And so Ivan says, and this probably slim New Testament warrant for this, but this was his story, that in the very earliest apostolic church. They were aware of this danger, right? That Christ must be shadowed by "Antichrist," a term that Ivan was brave enough to use. The word just has a [00:21:00] terrible, terrible history. I mean, the Protestants abused the Catholics with the name of Antichrist. Luther rages against the Pope as antichrist. Hmm. And the word persists now as a kind of either as a sign of evangelical dogmatism, or maybe as a joke, right. When I was researching it, I came across a book called "How to Tell If Your Boyfriend Is The Antichrist." Mm-Hmm. It's kind of a jokey thing in a way, in so far as people know, but he dared to use it as to say the antichrist is simply the instituted Christ. Right. It's not anything exotic. It's not anything theological. It's the inevitable worldly shadow of there being a Christ at all. And so that's, that's the beginning of the story. He, he claims that the church loses sight of this understanding, loses sight of the basic [00:22:00] complementarity or contradiction that's involved in the incarnation in the first place. That this is something that can never be owned, something that can never be instituted, something that can only happen again and again and again within each one. So, but heaven can never finally come to earth except perhaps in a story about the end, right? The new heaven and the new earth, the new Jerusalem come down from heaven. Fine. That's at the end, not now. So that's the gist of what he, what he said. He has a detailed analysis of the stages of that journey, right? So, within your theme of hospitality the beginnings of the church becoming a social worker in the decaying Roman Empire. And beginning to develop institutions of hospitality, [00:23:00] places for all the flotsam and jetsam of the decaying empire. And then in a major way from the 11th through the 13th century, when the church institutes itself as a mini or proto state, right? With a new conception of law. Every element of our modernity prefigured in the medieval church and what it undertook, according to Ivan. This was all news to me when he first said it to me. So yeah, the story goes on into our own time when I think one of the primary paradoxes or confusions that we face is that most of the people one meets and deals with believe themselves to be living after Christianity and indeed to great opponents of Christianity. I mean, nothing is more important in Canada now than to denounce residential schools, let's say, right? Which were [00:24:00] the schools for indigenous children, boarding schools, which were mainly staffed by the church, right? So, the gothic figure of the nun, the sort of vulpine, sinister. That's the image of the church, right? So you have so many reasons to believe that you're after that. You've woken up, you're woke. And, and you see that now, right? So you don't In any way, see yourself as involved in this inversion of the gospel which has actually created your world and which is still, in so many ways, you. So, leftists today, if I'm using the term leftists very, very broadly, "progressives," people sometimes say, "woke," people say. These are all in a certain way super Christians or hyper Christians, but absolutely unaware of themselves as Christians and any day you can read an analysis [00:25:00] which traces everything back to the Enlightenment. Right? We need to re institute the Enlightenment. We've forgotten the Enlightenment. We have to get back to the, right? There's nothing before the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is the over, that's an earlier overcoming of Christianity, right? So modernity is constantly overcoming Christianity. And constantly forgetting that it's Christian. That these are the ways in which the Incarnation is working itself out. And one daren't say that it's bound to work itself out that way. Ivan will go as far as to say it's seemingly the will of God that it should work itself out that way. Right? Wow. So, that the Gospel will be preached to all nations as predicted at the end of the Gospels. " Go therefore and preach to all nations," but it will not be preached in its explicit form. It will enter, as it were, through the [00:26:00] back door. So that's a very big thought. But it's a saving thought in certain ways, because it does suggest a way of unwinding, or winding up, this string of finding out how this happened. What is the nature of the misunderstanding that is being played out here? So. Chris: Wow. Yeah, I mean, I, I feel like what you just said was a kind of nuclear bomb unto its own. I remember reading, for example, James Hillman in The Terrible Love of War, and at the very end he essentially listed all, not all, but many of the major characteristics of modern people and said if you act this way, you are Christian. If you act this way, you are Christian. Essentially revealing that so much of modernity has these Christian roots. And, you know, you said in terms of this message and [00:27:00] corruption of the message going in through the back door. And I think that's what happens in terms of at least when we see institutions in the modern time, schools, hospitals, roads essentially modern institutions and lifestyles making their way into non modern places. And I'm very fascinated in this in terms of hospitality. You said that the church, and I think you're quoting Illich there, but " the church is a social worker." But also how this hospitality shows up in the early church and maybe even how they feared about what could happen as a result to this question of the incarnation. In your book it was just fascinating to read this that you said, or that you wrote, that "in the early years of Christianity it was customary in a Christian household to have an extra mattress, a bit of candle, and some dry bread in case the Lord Jesus should knock at the door in the form of a stranger without a roof, a form of behavior that was utterly [00:28:00] foreign to the cultures of the Roman Empire." In which many Christians lived. And you write, "you took in your own, but not someone lost on the street." And then later "When the emperor Constantine recognized the church, Christian bishops gained the power to establish social corporations." And this is, I think, the idea of the social worker. The church is a social worker. And you write that the first corporations they started were Samaritan corporations, which designated certain categories of people as preferred neighbors. For example, the bishops created special houses financed by the community that were charged with taking care of people without a home. Such care was no longer the free choice of the householder, it was the task of an institution. The appearance of these xenodocheia? Literally, quote, 'houses for foreigners' signified the beginning of a change in the nature of the church." And then of course you write and you mentioned this but "a gratuitous and truly [00:29:00] free choice of assisting the stranger has become an ideology and an idealism." Right. And so, this seems to be how the corruption of the Samaritan story, the corruption of breaking that threshold, or at least being able to cross it, comes to produce this incredible 'ought,' as you just kind of elaborated for us. And then this notion of, that we can't see it anymore. That it becomes this thing in the past, as you said. In other words, history. Right? And so my next question is a question that comes to some degree from our late mutual friend Gustavo, Gustavo Esteva. And I'd just like to preface it by a small sentence from An Intellectual Journey where he wrote that, "I think that limit, in Illich, is always linked to nemesis, or to what Jung calls [00:30:00] enantiodromia, his Greek word for the way in which any tendency, when pushed too far, can turn into its opposite. And so, a long time ago, Illich once asked Gustavo if he could identify a word that could describe the era after development, or perhaps after development's death. And Gustavo said, "hospitality." And so, much later, in a private conversation with Gustavo, in the context of tourism and gentrification, the kind that was beginning to sweep across Oaxaca at the time, some years ago, he told me that he considered "the sale of one's people's radical or local hospitality as a kind of invitation to hostility in the place and within the ethnos that one lives in." Another way of saying it might be that the subversion and absence of hospitality in a place breeds or can breed hostility.[00:31:00] I'm curious what you make of his comment in the light of limits, enantiodromia and the corruption that Illich talks about. David: Well I'd like to say one thing which is the thought I was having while you, while you were speaking because at the very beginning I mentioned a reservation a discomfort with words like perversion and corruption. And the thought is that it's easy to understand Illich as doing critique, right? And it's easy then to moralize that critique, right? And I think it's important that he's showing something that happens, right? And that I daren't say bound to happen, but is likely to happen because of who and what we are, that we will institutionalize, that we will make rules, that we will, right? So, I think it's important to rescue Ivan from being read [00:32:00] moralistically, or that you're reading a scold here, right? Hmm. Right. I mean, and many social critics are or are read as scolds, right? And contemporary people are so used to being scolded that they, and scold themselves very regularly. So, I just wanted to say that to rescue Ivan from a certain kind of reading. You're quoting Gustavo on the way in which the opening up of a culture touristically can lead to hostility, right? Right. And I think also commenting on the roots of the words are the same, right? "hostile," "hospice." They're drawing on the same, right? That's right. It's how one treats the enemy, I think. Hmm. It's the hinge. Hmm. In all those words. What's the difference between hospitality and hostility?[00:33:00] So, I think that thought is profound and profoundly fruitful. So, I think Gustavo had many resources in expressing it. I couldn't possibly express it any better. And I never answered you at the beginning how I met Gustavo, but on that occasion in 1988 when I was interviewing Illich, they were all gathered, a bunch of friends to write what was called The Development Dictionary, a series of essays trying to write an epilogue to the era of development. So, Gustavo, as you know, was a charming man who spoke a peculiarly beautiful English in which he was fluent, but somehow, you could hear the cadence of Spanish through it without it even being strongly accented. So I rejoiced always in interviewing Gustavo, which I did several times because he was such a pleasure to listen to. But anyway, I've digressed. Maybe I'm ducking your question. Do you want to re ask it or? Chris: Sure. [00:34:00] Yeah, I suppose. You know although there were a number of essays that Gustavo wrote about hospitality that I don't believe have been published they focused quite a bit on this notion of individual people, but especially communities putting limits on their hospitality. And of course, much of this hospitality today comes in the form of, or at least in the context of tourism, of international visitors. And that's kind of the infrastructure that's placed around it. And yet he was arguing essentially for limits on hospitality. And I think what he was seeing, although it hadn't quite come to fruition yet in Oaxaca, was that the commodification, the commercialization of one's local indigenous hospitality, once it's sold, or once it's only existing for the value or money of the foreigner, in a kind of customer service worldview, that it invites this deep [00:35:00] hostility. And so do these limits show up as well in Illich's work in terms of the stranger? Right? Because so much of the Christian tradition is based in a universal fraternity, universal brotherhood. David: I said that Ivan made sense to me in my youth, as a 22 year old man. So I've lived under his influence. I took him as a master, let's say and as a young person. And I would say that probably it's true that I've never gone anywhere that I haven't been invited to go. So I, I could experience that, that I was called to be there. And he was quite the jet setter, so I was often called by him to come to Mexico or to go to Germany or whatever it was. But we live in a world that is so far away from the world that might have been, let's say, the world that [00:36:00] might be. So John Milbank, a British theologian who's Inspiring to me and a friend and somebody who I found surprisingly parallel to Illich in a lot of ways after Ivan died and died I think feeling that he was pretty much alone in some of his understandings. But John Milbank speaks of the, of recovering the future that we've lost, which is obviously have to be based on some sort of historical reconstruction. You have to find the place to go back to, where the wrong turning was, in a certain way. But meanwhile, we live in this world, right? Where even where you are, many people are dependent on tourism. Right? And to that extent they live from it and couldn't instantly do without. To do without it would be, would be catastrophic. Right? So [00:37:00] it's it's not easy to live in both worlds. Right? To live with the understanding that this is, as Gustavo says, it's bound to be a source of hostility, right? Because we can't sell what is ours as an experience for others without changing its character, right, without commodifying it. It's impossible to do. So it must be true and yet, at a certain moment, people feel that it has to be done, right? And so you have to live in in both realities. And in a certain way, the skill of living in both realities is what's there at the beginning, right? That, if you take the formula of the incarnation as a nuclear explosion, well you're still going to have religion, right? So, that's inevitable. The [00:38:00] world has changed and it hasn't changed at the same time. And that's true at every moment. And so you learn to walk, right? You learn to distinguish the gospel from its surroundings. And a story about Ivan that made a big impression on me was that when he was sent to Puerto Rico when he was still active as a priest in 1956 and became vice rector of the Catholic University at Ponce and a member of the school board. A position that he regarded as entirely political. So he said, "I will not in any way operate as a priest while I'm performing a political function because I don't want these two things to get mixed up." And he made a little exception and he bought a little shack in a remote fishing village. Just for the happiness of it, he would go there and say mass for the fishermen who didn't know anything about this other world. So, but that was[00:39:00] a radical conviction and put him at odds with many of the tendencies of his time, as for example, what came to be called liberation theology, right? That there could be a politicized theology. His view was different. His view was that the church as "She," as he said, rather than "it," had to be always distinguished, right? So it was the capacity to distinguish that was so crucial for him. And I would think even in situations where tourism exists and has the effect Gustavo supposed, the beginning of resistance to that and the beginning of a way out of it, is always to distinguish, right? To know the difference, which is a slim read, but, but faith is always a slim read and Ivan's first book, his first collection of published essays was [00:40:00] called Celebration of Awareness which is a way of saying that, what I call know the difference. Chris: So I'm going to, if I can offer you this, this next question, which comes from James, a friend in Guelph, Canada. And James is curious about the missionary mandate of Christianity emphasizing a fellowship in Christ over ethnicity and whether or not this can be reconciled with Illich's perhaps emphatic defense of local or vernacular culture. David: Well, yeah. He illustrates it. I mean, he was a worldwide guy. He was very far from his roots, which were arguably caught. He didn't deracinate himself. Hmm. He was with his mother and brothers exiled from Split in Dalmatia as a boy in the crazy atmosphere of the Thirties. But he was a tumbleweed after [00:41:00] that. Mm-Hmm. . And so, so I think we all live in that world now and this is confuses people about him. So, a historian called Todd Hart wrote a book still really the only book published in English on the history of CIDOC and Cuernavaca, in which he says Illich is anti-missionary. And he rebukes him for that and I would say that Ivan, on his assumptions cannot possibly be anti missionary. He says clearly in his early work that a Christian is a missionary or is not a Christian at all, in the sense that if one has heard the good news, one is going to share it, or one hasn't heard it. Now, what kind of sharing is that? It isn't necessarily, "you have to join my religion," "you have to subscribe to the following ten..." it isn't necessarily a catechism, it may be [00:42:00] an action. It may be a it may be an act of friendship. It may be an act of renunciation. It can be any number of things, but it has to be an outgoing expression of what one has been given, and I think he was, in that sense, always a missionary, and in many places, seeded communities that are seeds of the new church. Right? He spent well, from the time he arrived in the United States in 51, 52, till the time that he withdrew from church service in 68, he was constantly preaching and talking about a new church. And a new church, for him, involved a new relation between innovation and tradition. New, but not new. Since, when he looked back, he saw the gospel was constantly undergoing translation into new milieu, into new places, into new languages, into new forms.[00:43:00] But he encountered it in the United States as pretty much in one of its more hardened or congealed phases, right? And it was the export of that particular brand of cultural and imperialistic, because American, and America happened to be the hegemon of the moment. That's what he opposed. The translation of that into Latin America and people like to write each other into consistent positions, right? So, he must then be anti missionary across the board, right? But so I think you can be local and universal. I mean, one doesn't even want to recall that slogan of, you know, "act locally, think globally," because it got pretty hackneyed, right? And it was abused. But, it's true in a certain way that that's the only way one can be a Christian. The neighbor, you said it, I wrote it, Ivan said it, " the neighbor [00:44:00] can be anyone." Right? But here I am here now, right? So both have to apply. Both have to be true. It's again a complementary relation. And it's a banal thought in a certain way, but it seems to be the thought that I think most often, right, is that what creates a great deal of the trouble in the world is inability to think in a complementary fashion. To think within, to take contradiction as constituting the world. The world is constituted of contradiction and couldn't be constituted in any other way as far as we know. Right? You can't walk without two legs. You can't manipulate without two arms, two hands. We know the structure of our brains. Are also bilateral and everything about our language is constructed on opposition. Everything is oppositional and yet [00:45:00] when we enter the world of politics, it seems we're going to have it all one way. The church is going to be really Christian, and it's going to make everybody really Christian, or communist, what have you, right? The contradiction is set aside. Philosophy defines truth as the absence of contradiction. Hmm. Basically. Hmm. So, be in both worlds. Know the difference. Walk on two feet. That's Ivan. Chris: I love that. And I'm, I'm curious about you know, one of the themes of the podcast is exile. And of course that can mean a lot of things. In the introduction to An Intellectual Journey, you wrote that that Illich, "once he had left Split in the 30s, that he began an experience of exile that would characterize his entire life." You wrote that he had lost "not just the home, but the very possibility [00:46:00] of home." And so it's a theme that characterizes as well the podcast and a lot of these conversations around travel, migration, tourism, what does it mean to be at home and so, this, This notion of exile also shows up quite a bit in the Christian faith. And maybe this is me trying to escape the complementarity of the reality of things. But I tend to see exile as inherently I'll say damaging or consequential in a kind of negative light. And so I've been wondering about this, this exilic condition, right? It's like in the Abrahamic faith, as you write "Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all begin in exile. And eventually this pattern culminates. Jesus is executed outside the gates of the city, nailed to a cross that excludes him even from his native earth." And you write that "exile is in many ways the [00:47:00] Christian condition." And so, you know, I've read that in the past, Christian monks often consider themselves to be homeless, removed from the sort of daily life of the local community in the monasteries and abbeys and yet still of a universal brotherhood. And so I'd like to ask you if you feel this exilic condition, which seems to be also a hallmark of modernity, this kind of constant uprooting this kind of as I would call it, cultural and spiritual homelessness of our time, if you think that is part of the corruption that Illich based his work around? David: Well, one can barely imagine the world in which Abram, who became Abraham said to God, no, I'm staying in Ur. Not going, I'm not going. Right? I mean, if you go back to Genesis and you re read that passage, when God shows [00:48:00] Abraham the land that he will inherit, it says already there, "there were people at that time living in the land," right? Inconvenient people, as it turns out. Palestinians. So, there's a profound contradiction here, I think. And the only way I think you can escape it is to understand the Gospel the way Ivan understood it, which is as something super added to existing local cultures, right? A leaven, right? Hmm. Not everything about a local culture or a local tradition is necessarily good. Mm hmm. And so it can be changed, right? And I would say that Illich insists that Christians are and must be missionaries. They've received something that they it's inherent in what they've [00:49:00] received that they pass it on. So the world will change, right? But Ivan says, this is in Rivers North of the Future, that it's his conviction that the Gospel could have been preached without destroying local proportions, the sense of proportion, and he put a great weight on the idea of proportionality as not just, a pleasing building or a pleasing face, but the very essence of, of how a culture holds together, right, that things are proportioned within it to one another that the gospel could have been preached without the destruction of proportions, but evidently it wasn't, because the Christians felt they had the truth and they were going to share it. They were going to indeed impose it for the good of the other. So, I think a sense of exile and a sense of home are as [00:50:00] necessary to one another as in Ivan's vision of a new church, innovation, and tradition, or almost any other constitutive couplet you can think of, right? You can't expunge exile from the tradition. But you also can't allow it to overcome the possibility of home. I mean, Ivan spoke of his own fate as a peculiar fate, right? He really anticipated the destruction of the Western culture or civilization. I mean, in the sense that now this is a lament on the political right, mainly, right? The destruction of Western civilization is something one constantly hears about. But, he, in a way, in the chaos and catastrophe of the 30s, already felt the death of old Europe. And even as a boy, I think, semi consciously at least, took the roots inside himself, took them with him [00:51:00] and for many people like me, he opened that tradition. He opened it to me. He allowed me to re inhabit it in a certain way, right? So to find intimations of home because he wasn't the only one who lost his home. Even as a man of 78, the world in which I grew up here is gone, forgotten, and to some extent scorned by younger people who are just not interested in it. And so it's through Ivan that I, in a way, recovered the tradition, right? And if the tradition is related to the sense of home, of belonging to something for good or ill, then that has to be carried into the future as best we can, right? I think Ivan was searching for a new church. He didn't think. He had found it. He didn't think he knew what it was. I don't think he [00:52:00] described certain attributes of it. Right. But above all, he wanted to show that the church had taken many forms in the past. Right. And it's worldly existence did not have to be conceived on the model of a monarchy or a parish, right, another form that he described in some early essays, right. We have to find the new form, right? It may be radically non theological if I can put it like that. It may not necessarily involve the buildings that we call churches but he believed deeply in the celebrating community. As the center, the root the essence of social existence, right? The creation of home in the absence of home, or the constant recreation of home, right? Since I mean, we will likely never again live in pure [00:53:00] communities, right? Yeah. I don't know if pure is a dangerous word, but you know what I mean? Consistent, right? Closed. We're all of one kind, right? Right. I mean, this is now a reactionary position, right? Hmm. You're a German and you think, well, Germany should be for the Germans. I mean, it can't be for the Germans, seemingly. We can't put the world back together again, right? We can't go back and that's a huge misreading of Illich, right? That he's a man who wants to go back, right? No. He was radically a man who wanted to rediscover the future. And rescue it. Also a man who once said to hell with the future because he wanted to denounce the future that's a computer model, right? All futures that are projections from the present, he wanted to denounce in order to rediscover the future. But it has to be ahead of us. It's not. And it has to recover the deposit that is behind us. So [00:54:00] both, the whole relation between past and future and indeed the whole understanding of time is out of whack. I think modern consciousness is so entirely spatialized that the dimension of time is nearly absent from it, right? The dimension of time as duration as the integument by which past, present and future are connected. I don't mean that people can't look at their watch and say, you know, "I gotta go now, I've got a twelve o'clock." you know. So, I don't know if that's an answer to James. Chris: I don't know, but it's food for thought and certainly a feast, if I may say so. David, I have two final questions for you, if that's all right, if you have time. Okay, wonderful. So, speaking of this notion of home and and exile and the complementarity of the two and you know you wrote and [00:55:00] spoke to this notion of Illich wanting to rediscover the future and he says that "we've opened a horizon on which new paradigms for thought can appear," which I think speaks to what you were saying and At some point Illich compares the opening of horizons to leaving home on a pilgrimage, as you write in your book. "And not the pilgrimage of the West, which leads over a traveled road to a famed sanctuary, but rather the pilgrimage of the Christian East, which does not know where the road might lead and the journey end." And so my question is, What do you make of that distinction between these types of pilgrimages and what kind of pilgrimage do you imagine might be needed in our time? David: Well, I, I mean, I think Ivan honored the old style of pilgrimage whether it was to [00:56:00] Canterbury or Santiago or wherever it was to. But I think ivan's way of expressing the messianic was in the word surprise, right? One of the things that I think he did and which was imposed on him by his situation and by his times was to learn to speak to people in a way that did not draw on any theological resource, so he spoke of his love of surprises, right? Well, a surprise by definition is what you don't suspect, what you don't expect. Or it couldn't be a surprise. So, the The cathedral in Santiago de Compostela is very beautiful, I think. I've only ever seen pictures of it, but you must expect to see it at the end of your road. You must hope to see it at the end of your road. Well the surprise is going to be something else. Something that isn't known.[00:57:00] And it was one of his Great gifts to me that within the structure of habit and local existence, since I'm pretty rooted where I am. And my great grandfather was born within walking distance of where I am right now. He helped me to look for surprises and to accept them also, right? That you're going to show up or someone else is going to show up, right? But there's going to be someone coming and you want to look out for the one who's coming and not, but not be at all sure that you know who or what it is or which direction it's coming from. So, that was a way of life in a certain way that I think he helped others within their limitations, within their abilities, within their local situations, to see the world that way, right. That was part of what he did. Chris: Yeah, it's really beautiful and I can [00:58:00] see how in our time, in a time of increasing division and despondency and neglect, fear even, resentment of the other, that how that kind of surprise and the lack of expectation, the undermining, the subversion of expectation can find a place into perhaps the mission of our times. And so my final question comes back to friendship. and interculturality. And I have one final quote here from An Intellectual Journey, which I highly recommend everyone pick up, because it's just fascinating and blows open so many doors. David: We need to sell a few more books, because I want that book in paperback. Because I want it to be able to live on in a cheaper edition. So, yes. Chris: Of course. Thank you. Yeah. Please, please pick it up. It's worth every penny. So in An Intellectual Journey, it is written[00:59:00] by Illich that "when I submit my heart, my mind, my body, I come to be below the other. When I listen unconditionally, respectfully, courageously, with the readiness to take in the other as a radical surprise, I do something else. I bow, bend over toward the total otherness of someone. But I renounce searching for bridges between the other and me, recognizing that a gulf separates us. Leaning into this chasm makes me aware of the depth of my loneliness, and able to bear it in the light of the substantial likeness between the Other and myself. All that reaches me is the Other in His Word, which I accept on faith." And so, David at another point in the biography you quote Illich describing faith as foolish. Now assuming that faith elicits a degree of danger or [01:00:00] betrayal or that it could elicit that through a kind of total trust, is that nonetheless necessary to accept the stranger or other as they are? Or at least meet the stranger or other as they are? David: I would think so, yeah. I mean the passage you've quoted, I think to understand it, it's one of the most profound of his sayings to me and one I constantly revert to, but to accept the other in his word, or on his word, or her word, is, I think you need to know that he takes the image of the word as the name of the Lord, very, very seriously, and its primary way of referring to the Christ, is "as the Word." Sometimes explicitly, sometimes not explicitly, you have to interpret. So, when he says that he renounces looking for bridges, I think he's mainly referring [01:01:00] to ideological intermediations, right, ways in which I, in understanding you exceed my capacity. I try to change my name for you, or my category for you, changes you, right? It doesn't allow your word. And, I mean, he wasn't a man who suffered fools gladly. He had a high regard for himself and used his time in a fairly disciplined way, right? He wasn't waiting around for others in their world. So by word, what does he mean? What is the other's word? Right? It's something more fundamental than the chatter of a person. So, I think what that means is that we can be linked to one another by Christ. So that's [01:02:00] the third, right? That yes, we're alone. Right? We haven't the capacity to reach each other, except via Christ. And that's made explicit for him in the opening of Aylred of Riveau's Treatise on Friendship, which was peculiarly important to him. Aylred was an abbot at a Cistercian monastery in present day Yorkshire, which is a ruin now. But he wrote a treatise on friendship in the 12th century and he begins by addressing his brother monk, Ivo, and says, you know, " here we are, you and I, and I hope a third Christ." So, Christ is always the third, right? So, in that image of the gulf, the distance, experiencing myself and my loneliness and yet renouncing any bridge, there is still a word, the word, [01:03:00] capital W, in which a word, your word, my word, participates, or might participate. So, we are building, according to him, the body of Christ but we have to renounce our designs on one another, let's say, in order to do that. So I mean, that's a very radical saying, the, the other in his word and in another place in The Rivers North of the Future, he says how hard that is after a century of Marxism or Freudianism, he mentions. But, either way he's speaking about my pretension to know you better than you know yourself, which almost any agency in our world that identifies needs, implicitly does. I know what's best for you. So Yeah, his waiting, his ability to wait for the other one is, is absolutely [01:04:00] foundational and it's how a new world comes into existence. And it comes into existence at every moment, not at some unimaginable future when we all wait at the same time, right? My friend used to say that peace would come when everybody got a good night's sleep on the same night. It's not very likely, is it? Right, right, right. So, anyway, there we are. Chris: Wow. Well, I'm definitely looking forward to listening to this interview again, because I feel like just like An Intellectual Journey, just like your most recent book my mind has been, perhaps exploded, another nuclear bomb dropped. David: Chris, nice to meet you. Chris: Yeah, I'll make sure that that book and, of course, links to yours are available on the end of the website. David: Alright, thank you. Chris: Yeah, deep bow, David. Thank you for your time today. David: All the best. And thank you for those questions. Yeah. That was that was very interesting. You know, I spent my life as an interviewer. A good part of my [01:05:00] life. And interviewing is very hard work. It's much harder than talking. Listening is harder than talking. And rarer. So, it's quite a pleasure for me, late in life, to be able to just let her rip, and let somebody else worry about is this going in the right direction? So, thank you. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

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S5 #9 | We Will Dance With Stillness w/ Craig Slee 1:00:31

39 weeks тому1:00:31

1:00:31

On this episode, my guest is Craig Slee, a disabled writer, consultant and theorist dealing with mythology, folklore, magic and culture, exploring life through the lens of landscape, disability and fugitive embodiments. He has contributed essays and poetry focusing on the numinous and disability to various anthologies including The Dark Mountain Journal. Craig has also co-facilitated multiple seminar series at the Dresden Academy for Fine Arts, regarding ableism in the arts, as well as how ableism affects our relationship to space. In 2023 he was one of the speakers at the World Futures Studies Federation 50th Anniversary Conference, introducing the concept of (Dis)abling Futures. Craig resides in the northwest of England. Show Notes Cornwall and the Seasons Who Gets to Decide What it Means to Know a Place? The Folding in of Identity to Tourism A Question of Productive vs Generative Ability Ableism and Attention Finger Bending and the Freedom of Movement Redefining and Remembering Other Forms of Movement What is Stillness? The Dance of Mountains Obeying Limits Homework Cold Albion (Craig’s Blog) Goetic Atavisms (Hadean Press) Craig’s Blue Sky Page | Facebook Page Transcript Chris: Welcome to the End of Tourism, Craig. Craig: Thank you for having me. Chris: Yes, it's great to be able to speak with you today. I've been ruminating for a couple of years now as to the themes that we might speak of. And I was introduced to you via a mutual friend and have come closer to your work via the Emergence Network's online gathering, We Will Dance With Mountains, in the last quarter of 2023. And so, to begin, I'd like to ask you first where you find yourself today and what the world looks like for you, where you are. Craig: Where I find myself today is by the canal in my flat, looking out the window, just as evenings coming in, in the northwest of England, in Lancaster, and it's chilly here which is actually a good thing, I guess, these days. Chris: Perhaps I could ask you to elaborate a little bit on what Lancaster looks like, but I know that, you know, from our conversations previous that you grew up [00:01:00] in Cornwall, a place that was previously, a town, an area devoted to fishing and mining, and from what you've told me, it's also become a massive tourist trap that you know, from the little that I've seen online, that the area receives around 5 million visitors a year, and tourism makes up about a quarter of the local economy. So I'm curious what you've seen change there and what do you think has happened to Cornwall and its people as a result and maybe there's something in there as well regarding Lancaster. Craig: Yeah, so I should emphasize this. I was born in Cornwall. My family has been lived down there for many many generations anyway and my father's side of the family actually, at various points, worked in the tourist trade as well before they went on to other things. And, [00:02:00] yeah, I mean, I left because, frankly, there was no jobs that weren't tourism. I came to Lancaster to study because one, I have a physical disability which means that Cornwall is a very rural area, so you need to drive everywhere, and that's fine, I drove at that point, but for good or ill, a more urban center was better for me later in life as I left. But the way that it shifted, even in the years when I was growing up, was that, you know, essentially was a rural area where nothing really happened socially or culturally that much until the summer seasons. So, you were very, very aware of the seasons in terms of, you'd have visitors [00:03:00] starting, and that was when the town would wake up, and then it was kind of dead for the rest of the year, so it was very much one of those things where the tourist trade has actually made me more aware of human rhythms in the natural world than perhaps I would have been, because it's so based on seasonal stuff. And just looking at the way the infrastructure because a lot of the towns and areas, they boomed a little bit well, quite a lot in certain areas with the tin mining of the 19th century. But a lot of the architecture and things like that was 19th century. So you had small villages and slightly larger towns, and they have very, well, I guess some people, if they were tourists, would call "quaint, narrow streets." And when you have that many visitors, in the summer, you can't get down the streets. [00:04:00] You can't drive it because it's full of people walking. You know, there's an interesting anecdote I'd like to recount of when my father, he was a vicar, he was a priest, moved to a new area he would go to the local pub and all the locals would greet him as the priest and be like, very polite. And then when it would come out that my dad was actually a local, that he was born down there and part of the family, everybody would relax. And there was this real sort of strange thing where people came and stayed because it was a lovely area, but there was still that whole issue with second homes and certainly keeping an eye on things from a distance here during the pandemic when people left cities during the pandemic, they went down there amongst places in Britain. And that meant that, [00:05:00] literally, there were no houses for newly starting teachers, you know, teachers who had got jobs and were moving down there, couldn't find places to live because during the 2020 and sort of 2022 period, everything was just opening up either as Airbnb because there was this influx from the cities to the more rural areas because it was supposedly safer. You know, and I feel like that's a reflex that is really interesting because most people think of it as, oh, "a tourist area," people go there for leisure, they go there to relax and get away from their lives, which is true, but under a stressful situation like a pandemic, people also flee to beautiful quotes isolated areas, so there's that real sense of pressure, I think and this idea that we weren't entirely sure, growing up, [00:06:00] whether we would have a place to live because a lot of the housing was taken up by people with second homes. And plenty of people I went to school with because it's a surfing area took the knowledge that they learned in the tourism trade, and actually left and went to Australia. And they live on the Gold Coast now. So it's this self perpetuating thing, you know? Chris: Well, that leads me to my next question, which kind of centers around belonging and being rooted and learning to root, maybe even becoming a neighbor or some might say a citizen of a place. And with tourism or a touristic worldview, we seem to be largely stunted in our ability to know a place, to become part of that place in any significant or enduring sense of the word. And so, I'm curious what your thoughts are on what it means to know a place, [00:07:00] and perhaps on the often mad rush to say I know a place for the sake of social capital, you know, given the context of the kind of relative difficulties that one might incur, or in a place like Cornwall, and the relative degree of exile that forces people out. What do you think it means to know a place in the context of all of these economic pressures denying us that possibility, or at least making it really, really difficult. Craig: I think we have a real problem in modernity with the idea of knowing as a sense of capture, right? So if I know you, I have this boundary of this shape, this outline of Chris, right, that I can hold, that I can grasp. And I think sometimes when we say, "oh, I know a place," or, "oh, I know a person" there's no concept of the [00:08:00] ongoing relationality. You know, you capture the image and then you keep it. And it's a whole construct of extractive knowledge that really, I think, comes down to the idea that the humans are the ones who get to decide what a place is, right? So. I could say in the standard sense, "Oh, I know Cornwall because I, you know, I grew up there for nearly 20 years." My family has been there since about the 1500s. You know, "I know a place, it's in my bones." Yada yada yada. All the metaphors you want to use. But the fact of the matter is, the place itself influences me more than I influence it. So there's this strange sense of belonging in which modernity [00:09:00] says "I belong" or "it belongs to me" rather than perhaps the place has extended hospitality to me and allowed me to grow and I could live/work in a place for 30 years and never know it because we're not comfortable as a culture with the idea of going, "I don't know this place." And it's a variety. It's always changing. And I think about all the times I used to watch the sea and talk to folks whose parents were fishermen or lifeboatmen, and they'd be like, "Yeah, we know the waters, but the waters can change. We know roughly what they do under certain conditions, but we don't know them completely, because they can always surprise us." And So, when somebody says, "oh, you're from Cornwall, you're a Cornishman," and all that sense of identity, [00:10:00] I'm like, "yeah, but that's, that's both really fluid for me, because, you know, there's a lot of history." Is it the tourist world of the 20th and 21st century, or is it the farming and the mining that goes back to the Neolithic? How we relate to a place purely in a modern sense isn't, to my mind anyway, the only way to conceive of belonging because, even though I'm now 300 miles away from there, I have its isotopes, its minerals from drinking the water in my teeth, you know. So, on some level, the idea that you have to be in a place also to belong to a place is something that I'm curious about because, there's this whole notion, [00:11:00] "you're only in the place and you've been in a place for this long and that means you know it and you're local." Whereas growing up, there was this sort of weird thing where it was like, "yeah, you might have been here 30 years and everybody knows you, but you're not a local." Right? You still belong, but there was this other category of " you're not local or something like that." And so it's complicated, but I really do, for my personal take, tend to look at it as a, the landscape, or wherever it is, influences my sense of belonging in a non human context, or more than human context, if that makes sense. Chris: Hmm. Yeah, there's so much there. Yeah. I mean, I'm also, in the context of identity, also wondering in what ways, not only has the tourism industry shaped one's identity of being local, which [00:12:00] is, I think, a huge issue in over touristed places in the last, you know, 10 or 20 years, as identity politics rises into the mainstream, and but then also not just the industry and the interaction with foreigners or, or guests, or tourists, but the way in which the image of that place is crafted through, often, ministries of culture or heritage, you know, so you could grow up in a place that isn't necessarily overly touristed or anything like that. But then have your identity crafted by these ideas of culture or heritage that the government's, federal and otherwise, have placed on people. Craig: And especially because where I come from, Cornwall, actually had its own language, which died out, which was on the verge of dying out in the 19th century. And slowly there are more speakers of it now. And you go back there now and you'll find, [00:13:00] even when I was growing up it wasn't so prevalent, but you'll find a lot of the signs for the street signs will have the English and the Cornish. So that's where the government has embraced this identity and enhanced it after people have been saying, you know, "this is a language we've rebuilt it. It's cousin to Welsh and Breton. We should use it. It's part of our identity and it's got folded into that." And so the infrastructure itself is now been part of that. You know, those very same streets have a name that wasn't known for like, 50, 60, maybe to 80 years, and suddenly people are now deliberately using the old names in non English languages because of that. And it's very strange because, especially in the UK, what with all [00:14:00] of Brexit and all that, there is a very weird sense wherein the rest of England, i. e. North and London and those sort of areas don't understand because Cornwall was a peripheral area and much like Wales, there's a lot of distrust of central government. Hmm. So, you've got this whole construction of a personal identity of nobody actually really understands what goes on outside. Either they're incomers, either they're emmets. You know, which "emmets" is the old English for "ants." Referring to tourists as ants in a kind of, yeah, they get everywhere. And the whole notion of who we are is always constructed. But in that case, going away and coming back to visit, I'm going, "Well that street didn't [00:15:00] have that label on it when I left. But it does now. And so in a certain sense it's the same place, but it's got this overlay of somewhere different that really enhances that sense of layers for me of "which Cornwall?" "Which of any of these places are we talking about?" Like you say, is it the one you see on a picture postcard or an Instagram or is it the ones who sat there as kids going, right, 'there's nothing to do, let's go and drink in a field?' You know and all of these things can co exist. Chris: Hmm, right. Yeah, I just interviewed a friend of mine, Christos Galanis, who did his PhD on hillwalkers, as well as homecomers in the Scottish Highlands, so people who spend their weekends climbing, summiting the Highland Mountains, and also the Canadian or Americans who travel to Scotland on heritage trips or ancestral [00:16:00] journeys. And he mentioned how in the Highlands that the governments have placed the original Gaelic place names on all of the the signs there, whether you're entering a village or perhaps on the street signs as well. And that he said that something like "only three percent of the of the people in Scotland actually speak, speak Gaelic," so they see the sign, they see the name, the vast majority of people, and they have no idea what it means. And I also remember the last time I was in Toronto, which is where I'm from originally, or where I grew up. And my family grew up in the east end of town, and the main thoroughfare in the east end of town is largely referred to as "Greek Town." You know, when I was a kid it was certainly Greek Town. The Greek letters, the Greek alphabet names as well as the English names of the street signs in that area. But it's much, much, much less Greek than it was 25 years ago, right? So again, [00:17:00] this question of like, is that to some extent trying to solidify the kind of cultural geography of a place. That people come to that street and that neighborhood because they want to experience Greekness in its diasporic kind of context. And yet, so many of those people, so many of those families have moved on or moved along or become more Canadian in their own sense of the word, so. Craig: Yeah. It's very strange as well because things like that attract... there's a loop obviously, because you'll get people coming to experience the greekness or the cornishes, and people will be like, oh, we should open a business that will enhance the greekness or the Cornish of the place, and that will draw, and it just becomes this thing and, yeah. Yeah, it's very strange. And I would totally agree with you on that one. Chris: Yeah. [00:18:00] Yeah. Until like a Greek person from Greece or a Cornish grandmother comes into town and says like, what? No, that's not Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I'd like to shift the conversation, Craig, a little bit towards ableism, and begin with this question that comes from our dear mutual friend Aerin and who admits that she's happily robbed it directly from Fiona Kumari Campbell. Yes. So, you might have heard this question before but she she felt the need to kind of pose it anew and and so the question is this. How does disability productively color our lives and Aerin wanted to ask it, to modify it slightly and ask, how does disability generatively or creatively color our lives? Craig: I can't speak to anybody's life other than my own really. But I would say that for me disability has, [00:19:00] one, given me a real sort of ability to look at the world and go, "you guys think this is how everything works and it clearly doesn't." You know, it has given me a generative gift of going, "hold on, what people think of the default really isn't the default, because I was never born as the default, and so I've had to find my own way of relating to the world" and that means that anybody goes anytime anybody goes "Oh, well, everybody knows..." or "the only way to do it is this?" I am always going "are you absolutely sure about that?" You know, "are you absolutely sure that what you're looking at or experiencing or noticing is only perceivable in one way, it's only ever [00:20:00] frameable, in one context?" But also this idea for me that disability is simply a fact. It's not good or bad. It is a thing that exists in the world and ableism is essentially the urge to measure against the vast field of disability and impairment and go, "We don't want that. That's the worst thing to be. So, we will strive to not be that." As Fiona Kumari Campbell would say, " It sets up a ranking and notification and prioritization of sentient life." So, this is why we, to a certain extent, we have such a obsession with youth culture. Young, healthy, fit folks are in some way better than the elderly. Oh god, nobody wants [00:21:00] to get old cause, if you're of white extraction, "oh, they'll probably stick you in a home." Nobody wants to conceive of the idea that actually you can have a generative and intimate relationship with somebody, not necessarily a romantic one, but a deep, deep friendship that also involves, frankly to put it crudely, perhaps wiping somebody's arse, right? There's this whole notion of messiness and failure and why Aerin reworded it from "productive" to "generative" is that whole idea of being productive, of having capitalist use, to produce, to make for purposes. And for me, disability and the field of disability in which I exist says "I exist and I don't have to be productive." it really [00:22:00] challenges the capitalist framework for me. And also, ableism, because it's set up to rank things like speed, mobility, all kinds of things like that, having a disability where you're sitting there going, but there are other ways to do this. There are other ways to exist. To notice the way our bodies move that are mostly ignored in the sense of "yeah, we don't pay attention to our posture or our muscle structure or what our guts are doing because we're all already forced along to the next thing. You know, we're already touring from, "okay, I've got up in the morning. Next thing I've got to do is have breakfast," right? And if you can easily shift between those stages, so you get up in the morning, start your breakfast, put your clothes on easily. [00:23:00] You don't think about it as much, but if it takes you 10, 20 minutes to even get out of bed and you have to do specific things, maybe exercises, maybe things like that, the whole process thickens. And in a sense, for me, it's an antithesis to escapism because there are things you cannot escape. There are things you have to deal with. And because there are things you have to deal with, you have to pay attention to them more. And that means the most ordinary mundane thing becomes or can become, if you're willing to gently sense it, a lot richer. So, this is one of those interesting things where if people want to go places to experience new things, Okay, that's a whole issue that you've obviously talked about throughout the podcast, but there is a certain sense in [00:24:00] which we don't even know where we started from. We've not explored our own bodies. I mean, I wrote a piece in 2020 when all the lockdowns hit that got shared around various bits of the internet and I think even in the newspaper at one point in, but I got a request to syndicate it, of how to exist when you're stuck in your house. You know, what do you do to "keep," in inverted commas, "sane," which, of course, is an ableist framework, but what do you do to stop yourself from losing mental health? How do you function? And I broke it down and I sort of made practical suggestions of, this is how I, as somebody that doesn't actually have a, quotes, "normal life," and spends a lot of his time unable to travel or go out much, stops myself from feeling isolated, [00:25:00] because I've ended up having to learn to explore what some might regard as a limited domain. But to me, that limited area, that limited domain has given me this sense of vastness that's, you know, I can't remember which philosopher it is, but there is a philosopher who basically says, I think it is a Camus, who says "you just need to reopen when you're in your room and the whole world will reveal itself to you." And when you don't have a choice, when you're stuck in chronic pain, or sickness, or something like that and you have to work out what to do with your limited energy, to embrace life, there becomes a sort of challenge, to go, "okay, how can I feel like things are enriching? How can I, almost metabolize the things that other people would reject. ⌘ Chris Christou ⌘ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. You know, [00:26:00] because disability is so "Oh, it's so sad he's disabled. Or we've got the cure for this and that. And we've got to cure it." And it's not really about ameliorating suffering. Which is a good thing. It's an analoid good to ameliorate any form of suffering. But there is this sense that the only way to perceive the world is through a so called "non disabled" abled body. The only way to experience a rich world, and again, I'm not knocking people who do a lot of travelling per se, but the only way to experience the world is to go on long journeys, and backpack and explore you know, new ways of thinking. That's great. And I'm not saying you can do exactly the same at home, but you can also become radically hospitable to yourself and to the environment in which you find [00:27:00] yourself. And that opens a whole lot of doors that I think I would regard as generatively colouring life and revealing life. In a way that was possibly occluded before. Chris: Yeah, I mean, so much of what I've come to in the research around tourism and hypermobility is this question of limits. And that certainly comes up in other themes, in other contexts. But not just the limits to one's place. Like, where does your place end? But also the limits of the human body. And, when we talk about freedom generally in the West, or in, in the context of modernity, it's so often pinned or underpinned via the freedom of movement, in part, because I know you're coming from the other side of the Atlantic, but certainly in, in this part of the [00:28:00] world, in the Americas and especially North America, freedom is understood as freedom of movement because that's in part how, the states and, and the nation's existences are justified. And so, I would just ask you what you think of that in the context of freedom being, of course a synonym for liberation. And how so many of our western notions of freedom are attached to movement and have. To a large degree become glorified in the hyper mobility of our times. Craig: I would agree with you. I think it was always there because of the colonial urge, but I think North American notions of freedom have, through a certain cultural hegemony, filtered back. You get it in the media, even Star Trek, you know, the final frontier, you know. Things like that. Or wide open spaces. There's still this notion of, freedom to move, room to live. It has its own European context and [00:29:00] horrors, unfortunately. But also, I think the notion of freedom as freedom to move. There is a question there for me, because I'm not sure we know what we're doing when we move. Right? And one of the questions that always was raised for me is, if I raise my finger, as I'm doing now, and I bend it so it's 90 degrees, how did I do that? What did I do? Well, science would say, okay, you used all your tendons and so on and so forth, and I'm like, yeah, "okay, those are nice descriptors. But what did I actually do?" Where's the connection between the impulse and the urge to bend my finger? Right. I don't know what I did there. I just thought I'm gonna bend my finger and the [00:30:00] finger bent But there's a whole bunch of stuff going on. So when I'm thinking about freedom of movement First the question is, "freedom to move in what way?" Right? So the the classic example is, in perhaps North America and and English speaking countries is "to go where I want, when I want, with none to to gainsay me, none to say you can't go there," which has been problematized thanks to the history of enclosure of land and capture by state and political actors, but also this notion that if you get into a city and you can go and people go, "Oh, I'm free to go wherever I want." I always sit there and I'm going, "yes, but you can go wherever you want, but if a place has stairs and no lift..." right? I [00:31:00] can't go there. So do I have less freedom? Well, according to the traditional notions of freedom, yes. I am less free. When I grew up, as an example in the UK I went to America when I was about four or five, and I was absolutely stunned by the amount of public toilets that had a disabled toilet. Right? Because virtually nowhere where I grew up at that point had a disabled toilet. This was due to the fact that the U. S. has a disability rights movement that was slightly ahead of the U. K. 's. So I was freer to go about my holiday in the U. S. than I was technically at home. I couldn't go certain places because there weren't toilets, or there weren't ramps, because that had not been legalized. You know, there'd been no legislation. In the UK, there was [00:32:00] no disability legislation until 1995. You know, so technically, I was born in 1981. I had no specific extra legal rights that I needed for 14 years. Now some would say, "oh, that, you've got freedom there... the law has given you freedom. It's giving you the ability to move, but it's only given me the ability to move in approved ways, right? And so every single time somebody talks about room to move, my query is always, okay. "One, as I said, move in what way? And two, who taught you what method of movement is approved or disproved?" So, particularly in Europe, we have folks like the Romani, the Irish travellers, [00:33:00] even the so called New Age travellers, right, who are nomadic folks. And despite this obsession with freedom, the idea that people are nomadic, are shiftless and rootless, still exists. Yes, a degree. The degree of privilege, the degree that I could be, quote, "more confident going into public spaces." And you'll see this in American history and throughout European history as well. And when I was talking about the nomadic folks, I was saying, you know, there are only certain people who are allowed to move in certain ways, to travel in certain ways that are approved. In similar ways with disability there were only certain kinds of people who were allowed into public spaces. They might not have been legislated against in the mid twentieth century. They might have struck those off the books, but at [00:34:00] various points, at least in the US, if you look up the Chicago Ugly Laws, people who were regarded as vagrants or unsightly, were not allowed in public spaces. They could be jailed for that. It's not just loitering. It was very much anything that could give offense because they were physically disabled. Or, the idea that the physically disabled are more likely to be begging or doing things like that. That was all folded in. So, this notion of freedom as the ability to move and move in space. Despite the North American urge to be like, "well, nobody can tell me what to do." There's still a certain level of certain forms of movement are privileged or regarded as normal versus others. So, you know it's weird if you don't stay [00:35:00] in one place or perhaps, it's weird if you don't have a reason for your seasonal job, right? When I was a kid and a teenager... like I said, where I grew up was kind of known for surfing, right? And I met folks who would come from places like Australia and live in Volkswagen transporter vans and work in the seasonal hotels and then go surfing. And then sometimes in the winter they disappear off to Morocco. And you wouldn't see them for six months and they'd come back and there's all this kind of idea of Differing rhythms, which has really influenced my entire life because those folks, they were there there were hundreds of them you could see them parked on every road and I knew several of them very very well, but the fact of those seasonal rhythms, which weren't [00:36:00] approved. It wasn't approved that they didn't stay in one place and pay taxes. To some that might be, you know, "Oh, that's freedom! That's telling the government, I don't have to pay your taxes or I don't have to stay in one place and be a registered visible citizen. I can be a free spirit and go to Morocco whenever I want. But, the fact of it is, if you walked on the, on the roads, people would look at you funny, right? If you look at people who do long distance walking in areas that are drivable, I mean, especially I guess in North America, that's looked at as very, very, very strange, because you guys don't have the infrastructure. So, for me, it's this really strange notion that we're fixated on particular kinds of movement to do with agency and power, right? And we, we will say, "oh, [00:37:00] that's mobile, that's fast, that's quick, that's agile." And I'm always curious about what criteria we're using to say, "oh, that's fast, that's agile, that's nimble," when you look at the so called natural world, and you've got plants that are seemingly immobile, but they actually turn to the sun. You just don't notice it until you stick it on a stop motion camera. And then you're like, "wow, they move." But you could go past that plant every single day and be like, "yeah, it doesn't move. It's a plant. It just stays there." Right? Because our perception of what movement is and what is approved is based around one, what we're taught and two, what we see every day. But also three. What we can't notice unless we're forced to look at the same thing over and over again, right? [00:38:00] Because our tendency is to see one thing, think, "Oh, I know it. I've spotted it. I know what it is. I've identified it. It's fitted into my matrix of identity. I can move on now. It's all sorted." But the whole ethos, I guess, that I'm coming at is what if you don't know? What if you don't know? What if that microphone that I'm speaking into and you're speaking into it looks like a particular thing and you think you could describe a microphone to somebody but go down to say the flows of the electrons and it's a context issue. You know? And, and So, I'm interested in thinking about what are the contexts are in the room with us right now that we're not even paying any attention to, and not even in the room, in our own bodies, in our own language. Chris: Wow. Yeah, again, there's so much there. My [00:39:00] my thoughts just flew off into a million different directions. And I feel like it would probably take me a while to to gather them in. Craig: No problem. You do what you need to do. I mean, that's, that's the whole point. Chris: Yeah. So I had a queer crip travel writer named Bani Amor on the podcast in season three. And we were talking about the fallout and the consequences of the COVID 19 pandemic. And she said something like, you know, "the settler can't stay still. That the pandemic showed us that we can't stay still." In the context of that time that so many people who had been engaged in and who glorify or who simply have been taught to live a hyper mobile life, that there was this opportunity to question [00:40:00] that, to bring it into a different context. And I know a lot of people, couldn't necessarily leave their houses in the quote unquote lockdowns. But I don't think that wouldn't necessarily stop people from tending to or allowing themselves to witness the more than human world in that way. And so, my question is, assuming we have the opportunity, in some manner, in any manner, how do you think we might have our understandings of movements subverted, or at least challenged, by virtue of looking at the movement in the more than human world. Craig: Great question. I think one of the biggest notions, and I just want to return to that phrase, "the settler can't stay still." And really, agree with that, and so add to secondary things of what actually is stillness, right? We have [00:41:00] this idea of stillness as immobility, as, as, as perhaps staying in one place. Not moving, but actually, if we look at what we're doing when we're actually apparently still, there's still movement going on, right? There's still movement going on in our bodies. There's still a different kind of mobility going. And we're not the only ones, right? The more than human does this exactly as well. If you look at a rock, oh, you think a rock doesn't move? I mean, it doesn't move, but then you have erosion, right? Then you have the rain, and the way that particles are shaved off it, and it shifts. So, when we're thinking about outside, when we're thinking about... and when I say "more than [00:42:00] human," I'm not saying "better than human," I'm saying "exceeding the human," I just want to make that clear, it exceeds the boundaries of the human. Disability as mutual friend Bayo would define it is, I believe he said "it's a failure of power to contain itself." So, that's Bayo Akomolafe. And this notion that the world and the modern human flows through and beyond any sort of boundary, right? So, any outline we form is not immune in the sense of there's no boardwalk, right? A wall is not an untouchable upright edifice. It's actually touched and permeated, right? So everything in the more than human context interrelates and is, to a certain extent, degrees of [00:43:00] permeable. So, yeah, our cells keep certain things out, and let certain things in, but even the things they keep out, they're in contact with. They're relating to. Right? Because in the same way, with COVID 19 vaccine, people think, "oh, it's a vaccine. It's immunity, right? It'll stop me getting COVID. Or it'll stop me getting this, or stop me getting that." What it actually does is it has an interaction with your, the vaccine has an interaction with your immune system. There's a dialogue, there's a discussion, a call and response, which then engenders further responses in your body, right? So, there's constant relation that is ongoing. So, nothing is one and done, right? To borrow from Stefano Hani and Fred Moten No motion is ever completed, right? Nothing's [00:44:00] ever finished. It's not like we're gonna get off this and, and you'll be like, "oh, I've finished recording the podcast." Sure, you've hit the stop recording button, but the recording of the podcast is still ongoing. And there's this fundamental ongoingness, which is a product of the world. The world is worlding, right? And that means the most ordinary, mundane thing you can think of is ongoing. The mug I have right in front of me right now with tea in it. It's ceramic. It's been painted, but it's still ongoing, right? It still has the relation to the machines that shaped it. And it also has this ongoingness with the human history of pottery. Right? And people go, Oh, that's ridiculous. That's not practical. You know, "it's a mug," but I always [00:45:00] think. Isn't that just commodification? Like, is that not just saying it's a commodity, it doesn't have a story? Like, I don't want to get all Marxist here, but there's that real alienation from ongoingness and the fact that we also are ongoing attempts at relation. We're not even fixed identities. Our movements cannot be technically circumscribed because I have a disability which means I can't dance. Right? I use a wheelchair. I can't dance. I can't do the tango. Right? Okay. But everybody uses dance in a context of bopping to the music and doing all this thing and it's a bit like freedom. You know, everybody assumes that dance is a particular thing. But as Bayo and We Will Dance with Mountains, the course, the whole point of it being [00:46:00] called We Will Dance with Mountains is the fact that mountains don't dance like humans. Mountains dance like mountains. And the only way we spot how mountains dance is to actually pay attention to them and attempt to relate to them. We can't get out of our framework completely, but we can be open to say, what does our framework for a mountain miss about those massive landforms? What are we missing when we say a mountain doesn't move? And that's where you have references to indigenous and local stories that actually talk about these landforms, these places, these folklore places, as the living, moving beings that they actually are. Hmm. You know. Yeah, "okay, that stone circle over there was because a bunch of women were dancing on a [00:47:00] Sunday and in a Christian country, that's bad, so they got turned to stone," or in Scandinavia, "that rock there, it's actually a troll that got caught out in the sun." that these are living, ongoing beings and events, which it's not woo, it's actual or intellectual, I think. If you look at anything for long enough, you start to notice what's ongoing with it, even something that's solid and fixed. And that, to me, the gripping is the bending of the perception, right? That is queering, but crip-queering is that point where you have the restriction involved. People will talk about queer liberation, and yeah, we want crip liberation. That's cool. But if you think about crip liberation as, it might actually be the limits that bring us liberation. And then, if you track back [00:48:00] into mythologies long enough. You've got figures like Dionysus or then poetic gods who say, they're the ones that fetter you. They can bind you, but they can also set you free. And that is really interesting to me that a lot of these liberational figures also have a side that they can tie you up. And I don't just mean in a bondage sense. It's this notion that the two things, the two complexes are part of a whole thing, and you can't divide it into restricted and free and you can't escape. You can't pull a Harry Houdini from existence, which, to a certain extent, some people, when they go on holiday, engage in tourism, they're trying to escape for a little while, their other lives. But we all know you can't escape them. Mm-Hmm. But the inescapability of it is not bad. Right. By default, it's not [00:49:00] bad. It can be, but the assumption something is inescapable, just like, oh, something is disabling. Mm-Hmm. the assumption of good and bad. If you can hold that in abeyance and actually look at it for a second and go, Okay, what's going on here? Maybe our conceptions of this need reevaluating. Now the reason we don't do this on the regular, even in modernity, is because it takes a lot of effort and time to focus. And that's another benefit that I get as a disabled person, right? Because I can't use my time for a whole bunch of things that non disabled folks can. So I've got more time, I've got a different relationship to time and space, which means that I can sit and look at things with that differing relation to time and space, and be like "Huh, I never noticed that." And then I get to talk [00:50:00] about this stuff to folks like you, and people get surprised. And they're like, "you think about this all the day." I'm like, "no, I don't think about this. This is my life. This is how I live. This is my embrace of life, right? And this is my freedom to literally, Be like, " well, okay, my restrictions. How do they actually open me to the world?" And I'm not offering a prescription here, because everybody's different. But it strikes me that even the most nomadic person always carry stuff with them, right? And to borrow from Ursula K. Le Guin with her "Carrier Bag Story of Fiction," which Bayo talked about in We Will Dance The Mountains, the idea of what we're carrying is really interesting, but how often do we rummage in our own bags? Hmm. [00:51:00] Right? How often do we take off our backpacks and rummage just for the sake of it? Often we just look in the backpacks for something specific. Hmm. Right? Oh, I need a map. Oh, I need a chocolate bar. Oh, I need my, you know my iPad. We rarely stick our hands in and notice the way our clothing might shift around our fingers or the way, you know, the waterproofing is possibly coming off and means that the fabric has these different textures because we don't take the time and there's nothing wrong with that, but it's the fact that we don't have that relationship to time and space. And babies, kids do. It's why kids put things in their mouth. All those things where you're like, "Oh no, don't put that in your mouth, it's bad for you." They don't know that. But the whole point of putting it in their mouth and feeling it is to try and not [00:52:00] understand it, not get it. There's nothing there in a baby in its early function that says, "I must understand what that is." The understanding comes upon you through experience. But there's no bit, at least as far as I can work out, that's like, "I must understand what it is that I'm putting in my mouth." It's more like, "hmm, that tastes interesting, it has some interesting textures," and then your brain does all the work or your brain and your body mind do all the work, but the personhood isn't also doing all the work, just like the "I" of my body, right, my relationship with the "I", as in my sense of self, I have to expand that to my entire body, You know, because there's so much going on right now in this conversation that I'm not aware of, right? There's stuff going on in my room that I'm [00:53:00] not aware of, but it's going on now. And so I have to expand and that expansiveness also means I sometimes have to venture into realms of pain, right? Because I have chronic pain. And in order to fully experience that, sometimes I have to encounter that pain. I have to slow down and focus and go, "Oh, the chronic pain that I was mostly ignoring because just in the background, it suddenly leaped to the fore because I'm paying attention." Now, modernity says you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't do stuff that causes you pain. Understandable in a certain context, but If I didn't understand that the pain was also part of the experience and changes how I move, if I didn't understand that chronic pain changes how time stretches, then I wouldn't be where I am. So the more than human permeates the human in ways [00:54:00] that the human is either deliberately trained to deny or doesn't even know is going on and the pandemic basically was, in my eyes, the more than human kind of knocking on the door going you are not this completely hermetically sealed box, right? Your society is not a hermetically sealed box. Chris: Amen. Amen. I mean, could have gone in a lot of different directions, but here we are, at least being able to reflect on it in a good way, and I'm reminded, this notion of abeyance and attention and, and the expansion of the I. I'm reminded of this, this line from Simone Weil who said that "absolutely unmixed attention is prayer." And so, I think that it, something like that is worthy of the times we, we wish to live in and perhaps sometimes do. Craig: [00:55:00] Definitely. Chris: And so, you know, I wish we had more time, Craig really getting into some beautiful black holes there. But hopefully we get the opportunity to speak again sometime. Craig: I'd be, be happy to. Be happy to. Chris: And so before we depart, I'd just like to ask the kind of token question that always comes at the end of interviews, which is where can our listeners find your work? And I'm pretty sure you had a book that came out last year entitled, Goetic Atavisms, if I'm not mistaken. Craig: Yes, I did. So you can find me on my mostly moribund, but strange little blog at cold-albion.net. And you can also pick up the book, which is, to be clear, more of an occult angle on this, but it also brings in the disability angle directly from the publisher Hadean Press or you could get it from, you know, the Bezos Behemoth, if you really [00:56:00] wanted. I am also not really on social media as a project, but I'm also on you know Blue Sky, so you can search me up there, or Mastodon, which you could always search me up there, and I occasionally post things on there. Chris: Wonderful. Well, I'll make sure that all those links and connections are available for our listeners once the episode launches. And I very much look forward to reading Goetic Activisms myself. So, thank you so much, Craig. Chris: Thank you, Chris. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

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S5 #8 | Unpacking the Last Tourist w/ Jesse Mann & Tyson Sadler (The Last Tourist) 52:56

44 weeks тому52:56

52:56

On this episode, my guests are Jesse Mann (editor-director) and Tyson Sadler (director), the brains behind the documentary The Last Tourist. Jesse is both a picture editor and director whose professional work has spanned commercial, tv and film projects. The Last Tourist is her second feature film as editor. Her first film, as both editor and director, Material Success, screened internationally and won the Audience Choice at the Canadian Film Festival and Best Film at the Canadian Film Festival (2012). Most recently, she both directed and edited the online horror mini-series “The Confinement” (2021). She is a member of the Directors Guild of Canada and an associate member of the Canadian Cinema Editors. Jesse has an B.F.A. from Ryerson University's School of Image Arts. Tyson Sadler is an explorer, traveller and award-winning filmmaker. He has directed video content and documentaries for The New York Times, Associated Press, and The Huffington Post. His films have been screened at festivals around the world including Tribeca Film Festival, South by Southwest, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the Toronto International Film Festival. An early pioneer i virtual reality documentary, he has worked tirelessly to use cutting edge technology to tell stories that build empathy around causes such as climate change, forced migration, and human rights. Show Notes: The Film’s Inception Industry Polarity Regulating Travel Addressing the Root Problems Greenwashing Animal and Child Welfare Tourism How the Wealth Gap Increased During COVID What was Left on the Cutting Room Floor Homework: WATCH THE FILM HERE The Last Tourist Film Website | Instagram | Facebook The Last Tourist Trailer Jesse Mann's Website | Instagram Tyson Sadler’s Website | Instagram Transcript: Chris: Welcome Jesse and Tyson to the End of Tourism Podcast. Jesse: Thanks Chris for having us. Tyson: Thanks for having us. Chris: Thank you so much for joining me today to talk about your documentary film, The Last Tourist. So, it was released in 2022 to great reception. And as you might imagine, many of my listeners have pointed me in its direction. And after watching the film, I found myself really grateful that people finally approached these themes in the medium of documentary filmmaking and with what seemed to be a budget to do justice to what those themes confront. And so first I'd like to ask you two how The Last Tourist got started and what the inspiration behind the film's creation was and how did you decide to write a treatment for it? Tyson: Ultimately, you know, I think the inspiration for The Last Tourist came from a combination of personal shared experience and a shared passion for travel and particularly responsible travel. You know, in early 2018, I was approached [00:01:00] by the executive producers to write a treatment, for a short film around responsible tourism in the country of Peru. And through, you know, some follow up conversations, we sort of quickly realized that we had an opportunity because, a large scale documentary, on the subject of responsible tourism just didn't exist yet. I mean, we have wonderful films out there which challenge our conversations with our relationship with climate change and our relationship with our food source like An Inconvenient Truth or like Food Inc., but we didn't at that time yet have a documentary which really challenged our perceptions of the global impact of the travel and tourism industry and so over conversations with with our team and the producers we quickly realized that we had a unique opportunity to make "An Inconvenient Truth" for the travel industry and in early 2018, we seized on that opportunity to explore the positive and negative impacts of tourism on destinations. Jesse: And I think just to add to what Tyson was saying, I think originally [00:02:00] it started off as a short project and yourself and the executive producers who brought us together kind of pushed for it to become the large scale project that had ended up being filmed in 15 different countries or 16 with 400 hours of footage. So, sometimes you don't know, especially myself as a co-writer and editor, when you come on to a project, in the initial stages, you think, "Oh, you know, this is wonderful. It sounds like a great project." I had been an avid traveler, lived in a few different countries over 20 years and I thought, yeah, this is a story that needs to be told, but I will say in no way in the beginning, did I ever think it was going to be, and I think Tyson didn't either, was it going to be such a huge project. And you comment, Chris, on the expansiveness of the subject and the different kind of facets of the tourism [00:03:00] industry we were able to look at. And really I have to say that I'm happy that we got to touch on all those points and to the chagrin of my personal sleep and Tyson's as well, but it started off small, I have to say that, and it grew into something tremendous that I think we're very proud of. Tyson: It really was a natural progression of our desire to raise awareness about responsible tourism and its consequences. We had our world premiere, honestly, I think it was about two years ago now at the Vancouver International Film Festival, two years ago. And a little over two years ago, a little over two years ago. And the film is still doing a festival run. Just last weekend, Jesse was at the the Innsbruck Film Festival and it's still been getting a wonderful response, great conversations around it. And we're streaming on platforms around the world, you know, Crave in Canada, Hulu in the U.S., Amazon Prime in other countries. I was just in French Polynesia and was able to find our film on Amazon Prime, which was really delightful [00:04:00] to see that. Jesse: Yeah, it makes us happy as filmmakers to know that the story that we spent a lot of time trying to create in a way that we thought would connect with audiences worldwide is actually getting out there. And so it's really nice to be speaking to you on your podcast as well and kind of extend that out to potentially more people who haven't seen the film or some who just want to talk more about the topics. Chris: And I wanted to ask you two, given the fact that the film was released, you know, still very much in a pandemic during the, the COVID 19 times what the reactions were given the fact that tourism had ground to a halt in that time you know, I received a lot of Mail regarding your film, like, ah, you have to check this out. You have to watch this, right? And so a lot of people really excited about the project, about the film. But then I guess I'm also curious about[00:05:00] if there was much of an industry backlash in regards to the degree of sincerity perhaps around which the film exhibited these kind of deep and sometimes dire consequences that visit themselves on places and people in the name of tourism. Tyson: Yeah. I think the reactions to the film have been in my experience, almost entirely positive. But people don't come to me with criticism, they come to me with congratulations, but I think there's a lot of individuals in the tourism industry and sponsors that have really welcomed our film, The Last Tourist, as a necessary and eye opening piece of work. It sparked a lot of interesting conversations and prompted the industry to, in many ways, I think, reevaluate some of their practices. You Jesse: If we back it up to when we were just when we were meeting with all of the different professionals that we interviewed across the different facets of the tourism industry, I mean, when you and I were writing the story, there were so [00:06:00] many different conflicting opinions on how to solve one issue that we still come across that sometimes when we meet those industry experts outside of, let's say, film audiences. Because When we were writing it, we had to kind of decide which side of the coin we were going to follow through our story with, and whether it's a topic of let's say regulation, that was a topic that Tyson and I had a lot of conversations about when we were making the film because the industry in itself is kind of very polarized in terms of regulation. There's some strong proponents within the tourism industry who want regulation. And then there's some who are very against it. And Tyson and I had a lot of conversations about that. And I think we still do when we meet certain industry professionals out there and I think that's a really important topic as well. [00:07:00] Now that you are bringing up, post covid and the pandemic where we saw kind of what happens when things are shut down. You know, we see both the positive and the negative. I mean we mentioned it in the film, but almost every single person that we interviewed in our film lost their means of income during that time. Gone. And at the same time, the world experienced kind of you know, a refuge from, you know, airplane emissions and damage to destinations. And, you know, these were calculable things like we could see that this was a definite impact. So, I think there's these kind of topics and these conversations are where we see a lot of polarity. And I think that we tried our best to focus on the people and the developing nations in our story. But, there are a lot [00:08:00] of stories that were left on the cutting room floor and so it is good to discuss them after in a podcast like this. I know that's kind of a long winded interjection, but I do believe that we do have some polarity for sure Tyson and I have come across, but just not in terms of what Tyson is talking about, in terms of not not so much with the audiences It is more a bit in the industry. Tyson: I'll share an observation. During the process of creating this film, we interviewed literally dozens of travel experts, you know from academics to tour operators across the industry. It's universally recognized that responsible tourism and sustainable tourism is a good thing. But then when we dive a little bit deeper I found a very fractured kind of industry because everybody believes that they know how to do responsible tourism, right. And everybody else, often, isn't executing responsible tourism correctly. And so, on a foundational level, sure, we all believe in responsible tourism, but I think, the approach at how we get there isn't universally accepted, throughout the industry, and I think [00:09:00] that that's, on a basic level, we kind of explore those themes in the film as well as we interview people who kind of take different approaches to how to engage responsibly with tourists and host communities. Jesse: And we had to make some hard decisions, obviously based on the research that was coming in on what side we wanted to promote in the story. But sometimes I think it's fair to say, Tyson, if you agree with me that we did try to leave it a bit more open for audiences to try to make their own decision based on what we had learned, because it's not always an easy answer for every situation. It's quite nuanced, I think. Tyson: Absolutely. Chris: And you mentioned Jesse, regulation. In terms of the people you interviewed and your research, generally speaking, what does that look like, or what might that look like in particular locales or within the industry? Jesse: Well, I think we've seen quite a bit of it post pandemic because where we thought there was going to be [00:10:00] an ease back into traveling that has not happened. All the reports are coming back in that tourism is back up in droves and a lot of the same problems, if not more are back with travel again. And so we've seen places like Machu Picchu has started regulating the amount of people that are able to visit annually. Worldwide, there's different popular tourist destinations who have decided to limit the amount of tourism and tourists that come to certain destinations. You know, I think when it comes to destinations, we just have to be really careful that it doesn't become a tax that is elitist because that happens a lot with regulation across the board. You've seen it with cigarettes, you've seen it with airfare as well. You're paying a higher price for travel. And although I do believe personally and Tyson, you [00:11:00] can speak to this as well, but because we haven't discussed this recently, but when you put a strong tariff or tax on travel, I think it is important, but I think it has to be calculated so that it's not elitist because if we only have people traveling in the world who can afford it, if it becomes so unaffordable, this is totally against the core value of travel, which is to unite all people of all different socioeconomic statuses and really connect with different cultures and people, and if it's just suddenly becomes for people who can afford a really overpriced flight, I think that will completely take away the value of the core value of travel. But I do strongly believe that, and this I think is a very controversial thing to say. I do believe that things have to be regulated and there has to be something done, especially about the amount of flights that are happening on this planet. Because, you know, for instance, I don't know the statistics for Canada, but I was looking at it the other day for[00:12:00] the UK. And I think something like 70 percent of all flights in the UK are taken by 15 percent of the population, and I don't doubt that that's very similar for a lot of the Western world without knowing all the statistics specifically, so I think that that has to be really taken into consideration when putting out regulation in terms of flights or destinations and such. Chris: Yeah, I've thought about it quite a bit as well, and the elitization of travel, and this understanding that, well, we remove subsidies, for example, for air travel or other things, that we'll just have rich people flying around the world, which is more often than not the case already. Most flights are undertaken for business travel and that's a huge thing that I think most people don't know about, but instead of getting people with corporate backed funds or just rich people flying around the world, we're obviously looking for people with strong principles and good behavior to be the ones [00:13:00] traveling. But then how do you measure that? How do you quantify that in a way that honors the kinds of worlds we want to live in? And it's not just this like, oh, it's impossible. Sure. And we could take that understanding that to quantify such a thing would be next to impossible, but then it could also open up these kind of doors of imagination where in like what kind of infrastructures would we want to put in place that were not maybe Government sanctioned or not maybe top down, but actually from the bottom up, creating these kind of international or intercultural bonds and practices between people that would allow not just for the kinds of people who locals in quote unquote "destinations" want to receive to be able to travel, but then also to create the conditions whereby that kind of, for lack of a better word, behavior or principles could be deepened in the world. I mean, it'd be extremely difficult to, [00:14:00] to manage, but How would you quantify that? How would you measure that? Jesse: Yeah, and I think that's such a, such a complicated issue and I love what you're saying though. I think it's absolutely wonderful. And I do think it's possible to move in that direction. I'm not sure I have the answer for that and maybe Tyson wants to speak to it, but I also want to say that something that I think could be part of the solution is also promoting train travel as well. And I know that that kind of that stops at domestic. But at the same time, you know, I think governments should be allocating a lot of funds to push train travel to create and develop train travel and to also subsidize train travel more because it's just a wonderful way to reduce emissions and to actually continue allowing people to travel. Tyson: Yeah. There are some countries here in Europe, Jesse, and I think Europe is just far beyond a lot of the rest of the world. Canada, I think we're still living in the dark ages, you know, when it comes to long [00:15:00] distance train travel. Jesse: That's a shame. It hasn't been made a priority. Tyson: It just doesn't exist. Chris: Well, I'm curious also for you two how your own travels in your lives might have come to bear on your production or pre production and research in the film. Maybe you could tell us a little bit of how you've seen the world over the course of your life and your travels and if that came to bear at all in the making of the film. Tyson: Personally for me, I traveled extensively, for 20 years prior to embarking on this film. I worked in the travel industry. I worked for an airline for many years. I was also a journalist and I've done work for several large publications, which allowed me to travel to very, some very remote and exotic destinations around the world. This travel really exposed me to the beauty and the wonder of the world. But also the environmental and the cultural challenges that a lot of these destinations face. You know, the experiences, with travel for both work and for pleasure, I think they served as a [00:16:00] catalyst, for me just to delve deeper into this topic. And so when I was approached about directing and writing a film on this topic, I don't think there could have been a better fit. Like it just, everything just kind of fell into place and I just felt like I was really well poised because prior to that I had traveled to 70 different countries in a number of different capacities. I had personally engaged in a number of behaviors that we are critical of in the film in terms of animal interaction, you know, interaction with other cultures. And my travel through two decades was really an eye opening and learning experience for me. And what this film really is, I think for me and in many points in the film is a reflection of my past travels and things that have been illuminated in my mind in terms of what are some important aspects that we really need to address if we want to be more conscious and responsible travelers. Jesse: And I think from my end I surely [00:17:00] had not traveled to as many destinations as Tyson. But I did indulge my wanderlust in my twenties and thirties. I lived in a few different countries, Holland, South Africa, Germany, Canada. And I think that the absolute best aspect for me personally of travel is meeting the people. I absolutely love meeting people in different cultures and seeing the differences and the similarities and learning the wisdom as much as I possibly can in such a moment of my life, when I'm in a destination, if it grants me such a gift. And I think from that, I still do have such a deep, deep gratitude to my privilege and being able to travel in and meet such people. I've made such beautiful friendships over the course of 20 years and many I still keep in touch with across the various places I've lived. And I think that when you come back, [00:18:00] perhaps from living in different cultures in different countries and you come back to your home, the place you were raised in and where you were born and where you were raised culturally, and you can note the vast differences, and it's not a negative thing, but you start to pick up on the ways in which many people can see different cultures or different countries in a way that is completely disconnected from the actual truth and and this knowledge often comes with privilege. I was privileged enough to be able to travel to these destinations to meet certain people and to dissuade certain prejudices, but not everyone can. And so part of this film, I have to say, ironically, is that if you can't travel, this film is also a wonderful film to watch because it's something that you can meet these people [00:19:00] in these destinations. You know, there's so many places that I've been to also that are so many places I have not been to that were featured in the film as well. And with documentary filmmaking and making, and especially as an editor, I really do feel like I get to know these people so well, and I don't think that's just exclusive to myself. I think audiences, hopefully, if I've done it correctly, if Tyson and I have, have made the film correctly, that these people's hearts have come through in the film. And, this is something that Tyson and I really worked hard on. And I'm sorry if I'm deviating from the question a bit, but it does connect very deeply to my love of travel is is people and also my love of editing people and so it was something we worked really hard to focus on is how do we give these people a podium. They have their voice there. They're saying their truths. How do we give them a podium [00:20:00] and as the white filmmakers who are coming into different countries, how do we take a step back and really let them preach their wisdom? And so it was a balance for us really in finding the right voices, obviously speaking to the right professionals and speaking to professionals within different cultures that you see featured in the film and really making sure that their knowledge, their voice, their direction was giving us direction on how we edited and formulated the story and stories of everyone that we met in the travels of the production as well. Chris: And on that note, I'm curious for each of you, what was the most important topic or theme that came up in the film for you personally? Tyson: For me, maybe it's an echo of Jesse's sentiments there, but really it comes down to the impact on the communities that so graciously host us when we when we do travel. Travel you know has you know has an encyclopedia [00:21:00] of challenges that come with traveling responsibly unless we address the people. And I think we address this and the the film addresses this, but we can't begin to you know to start focusing on the environment unless we first focus on the communities who are there and helping them emerge from poverty. We can't begin to focus on how we can solve the problem of poaching in the African savannah unless we first address the root causes of why it's there and how it affects the host communities and how poverty affects people's decisions to be involved in this trade. Jesse: That was something that Jane Goodall was was really adamant about speaking in the film about as well Tyson: Yeah, and so to answer your question Chris, I mean ultimately it comes down to the communities and the people, the humanity of it all. First, we need to address the human aspect and then we can address the secondary aspects of what it means to be a responsible traveler.[00:22:00] Jesse: So for me, personally, the most incredible voices in the film that when they came in, I just thought, "oh, wow," were definitely Lek from Elephant Nature Park and one of our contacts in Kenya Judy Kefergona, who ended up being one of the main speakers and narrators throughout a huge portion of our film. These two women were just heroes. Like just with Judy, with the words that she was able to express for the people working in not just only the tourism industry in Kenya, but the people of Kenya who were vulnerable to unethical tourism, and then speaking to so many different subjects that were connected to so many different stories worldwide with such eloquence and such power and such knowledge [00:23:00] and encourage really, I think. She spoke about these topics. I was just enamored, just blown away and so grateful for her coming onto our film and Lek Chailart is just a modern day hero. She is the tiniest woman with the biggest heart who when I saw her story in our film against the backdrop of these beautiful giants, these elephants that she has rescued. And essentially she's an elephant whisperer in the truest sense of the word. And it's just such a magical thing to see. Listeners won't be able to understand this. I'm getting goosebumps when I just talk about her and this was the kind of thing that when Tyson and I were looking through footage and looking through stories that we were looking for, "Oh, that's the moment, ah! the moment. I got the goosebumps. That's it. It's there. And we found it in the stories, not just these two women, everyone you see featured in the story and some that were left on the cutting room floor, unfortunately there that gave us beautiful insight that we still used in crafting the story, that just wasn't able to [00:24:00] make it into the actual film for timing constraints. But really, I would have to say that these two, it's not specifically the stories, although both of them touch on really important stories, including child welfare and animal welfare, which to me, those two stories were really close to my heart. And we felt really strongly that they needed a really important part in the film. But it was really these two women who I just felt so grateful for in the film. Chris: I mean, the, the chapter on animal welfare was quite devastating for me in part because it had reminded me that in my early twenties, I had visited Thailand and I had gone to an elephant sanctuary. Not a zoo but a sanctuary, and had the opportunity to ride an elephant for a short time, and I felt really uncomfortable probably because I was on top of an elephant, just the kind of immediate awkwardness of such a thing, having never seen one in person, having never [00:25:00] experienced that before, but also kind of like, "what am I doing here?" And so, that part of the film really kind of opened up for me why I felt that perhaps existential discomfort, not just about being on top of an animal of that size, but in the context of the dynamic, you around how that was happening and why that was happening and not having the context for it so long ago. And of course, this is one of the things that we touch on in the episodes, in the interviews, in the podcast, is how can we come to understand these things when our visits are so short in these places, when we are only in a place for just a very brief time and there's really no context for the history and the culture and the political dynamics that surround these things. And then, most travelers, most tourists just end up leaving and the consequence of one's presence on the scene is kind of forgotten, at least by the tourist or traveler. Yeah, so thank you for [00:26:00] for that. Jesse: That question did come up actually at the recent screening of the film in Innsbruck at the Nature Film Festival, whereas someone in the audience asked very specifically, even though it would be great to stay at a destination for a long time, most people are, saving up for short travel when they have time off work. And they need to take this kind of tour because they can only afford this one. And what do you say to those people who want to travel better, but feel like they're kind of stuck or don't know where to go. But I would say in short, I think that touches on an issue that we have in the modern world with a lot of things. We are all overtired, overworked, and we don't have time to be ethical, we don't have time to do the research, we don't have time to investigate, if anything is against our core values, and we don't have time to and I get that, you know, it's not easy for everybody. And if you do have the [00:27:00] time and you are able to really do a deep dive then you're very privileged, because you have the time, which just means that you have the money. So we did try to give a lot of smaller tips at the end of the film in terms of how you can do smaller acts of, of kindness and of conscious traveling, to travel local, to put money into local economies to make sure that you're not requesting your sheets to be washed every day, making sure that you're traveling using reusable, to make sure that you're and I guess this goes into a little bit more of the extensive questioning is to ask the destination that you're traveling to what their policies are in connection with the locals, in connections with the environment. Unfortunately, there is a lot of greenwashing in tourism. And you know, that's in all industries right now worldwide. So it's not going to be so easy for someone who isn't an investigative [00:28:00] journalist to really find out the truth behind it all the time, but we can do our best. And there are quite a few links on the website thelasttouristfilm.com where you can see some of the different organizations that we spoke with that have lists upon lists of different collaborating companies that you can look to that can can show you places that are not greenwashing or that are working with locals, but back to the idea of taking the time and it is about taking the time, whether it's an hour even, just to take the time and do a bit of research and this especially comes back to the topic of child welfare and people who are still, en masse, volunteering worldwide to orphanages and orphanages where children have existing family members and that these orphanages have become of monetary value to developing nations [00:29:00] because they make money and it's really easy for us to pass judgment on places that do this, and it's definitely wrong, but if we as travelers are going there and saying with our travel dollars, this is something we want to invest in, then people in developing nations are going to say, this is how I make money. And it's the same with animal welfare. You pay for an animal sanctuary that you haven't done the research on. They're going to keep perpetuating that cycle. It's going to be the same with child welfare. So, if you do want to be ethical, you have to fit in a little bit of research in your travel time. And that's it. And I know it's not so easy for everybody. Tyson: Yeah, I'd like to expand a little bit on a theme that sort of both of you have talked about. Jessie, you had mentioned greenwashing. Chris, you had mentioned that you had been to an elephant sanctuary in Thailand. One of the most memorable takeaways that I had from this film is just the massive amount of greenwashing [00:30:00] and deception that exists within the industry. I came to know a lot of companies that appeared to just be normal travel companies doing the same thing that has been going on in the travel industry but marketing "green" although nothing really changes. It's just their marketing strategy that's changed. If we look at, for example, in Thailand, there are a number of places that call themselves an elephant sanctuary, an elephant retirement home, an elephant rescue center. And we can't rely on those names anymore to know that the service provider is giving us an ethical experience. We really need to ask deeper questions. It's the trend in the industry now to use this type of language, " sustainable," "responsible," "eco," all of these buzzwords. And I've just come to find these completely meaningless, in those terms. We really need to ask some deeper, more challenging questions of these experiences and the tour operators and the service providers to actually know whether what they're doing is ethical or not because it is very easy to call yourself a [00:31:00] sanctuary, when in fact, it's the complete opposite. If it truly was an elephant sanctuary, we wouldn't be able to ride the elephants, in that place and they would be providing them a life of dignity free from exploitation. And it's the same with children. Calling these places orphanages ,I think it's a misnomer. It's incorrect. You know, 70 percent of children who live in these quote unquote "orphanages" actually have at least one living parent. But it's all under the guise of trying to gain sympathy from the traveler. "Oh, come see an elephant at a retirement home. Come see a child at an orphanage." It's just a piece of marketing that doesn't reflect the truth. We have a lot of companies doing the same unethical practices they've been doing for decades. However, they've just really changed their marketing to appear more green. Chris: Yeah, it seems to be a never ending cycle where responsible isn't good enough, that now we got to be regenerative. So many of these words just end up becoming, marketing tools. Tyson: I'm hearing that word a [00:32:00] lot more these days as well. Chris: Yeah, so how do we proceed, not just with a degree of dedication towards research and, and and planning, but also deep discipline as to how these words are unfortunately, as you said, becoming kind of meaningless in their significance.. I want to take a little turn with you both to ask about what happened as the film was going through post production and its release because most of the footage that you have is quote unquote pre pandemic and the COVID 19 pandemic hit, obviously, in 2020 and from what I understand your team was entering into the post production process and, of course, tourism ground to a halt almost completely, worldwide. And throughout the film, there are people that you two interview that contend with the consequences and context of tourism and look [00:33:00] to a more honorable path that it might take. But I'm curious in regards to the people that you did interview who had found a degree of success and perhaps within a more small scale, a more honorable way of doing tourism that those flights, those trains, the reception of people in their villages went from a hundred to zero, basically overnight. So much of the dire consequences of tourism revolve around or end up as exile, local people can't afford to produce food anymore in their places. And the education systems kind of move them towards getting jobs in the next city or even in other countries, and I'm curious in the context of the film and I guess the treatment that you put forward, you know, never perhaps thinking that something like this could happen. What was the fallout among the people that you interviewed in regards to their understandings of tourism and if it was [00:34:00] still this kind of for lack of a better word, golden goose or calf or sacred cow that they could rely on for the rest of their lives. What did you hear kind of in the ether as you were doing that post production? Tyson: I think it substantially expanded the wealth gap. I think during COVID the people that were hit the hardest are the people in the tourism industry that often are paid the least. Depending on what their jobs were, they were the ones who were suffering layoffs and they were the ones whose businesses couldn't afford to sustain themselves. And so I think, for the most vulnerable populations, the pandemic was absolutely devastating. People couldn't afford to put food on the table and pay rents, not just, I think, in developing countries, but even in the developed world. Airlines were laying off massive amounts of employees. Hotels were cutting staff. This was a global challenge that affected everyone. However, at that same time, we did hear stories that, you know, CEOs of major airlines were taking million dollar bonuses[00:35:00] for cutting costs. And that was an observation of mine, through that experience, you know, that the people who needed tourism the most for daily sustenance and to put bread on the table were the ones who were absolutely the most affected and the people kind of at the top of the tourism industry were still fine and they were also taking bonuses, which really bothered me just because the wealth gap just seemed to get further and further apart through that. But we do know, with the stories, that were featured in our film... there's a wonderful lodge in Ecuador, a homestay that we look at and they lost their income during that time. The elephant sanctuary in Thailand, the one that does do great work, not one that greenwashes an elephant sanctuary but they lost a lot of revenue where it was very challenging to feed the elephants and to house the elephants because they didn't have that revenue coming in to support the project. Jesse: We were hearing in in Africa, right? Some of the rangers [00:36:00] were who were placed in defense of the elephants and animals and rhinos and such were just gone. They just weren't there anymore at that time because if they're not getting paid, they can't stay there. And so poaching also went up in those areas as well. But you know, I think that in terms of what the positive was, I think a lot of people were hoping that post COVID that there was going to be hope for change, for renewal for doing things differently. And I think this was in when we were in post that this was maybe, potential to show people how things can be different by showing kind of the polar opposite and the effect and also showing how intrinsically connected people's livelihoods are to this industry and how vulnerable they are to massive change like this. I mean, the Dominican Republic that has [00:37:00] almost 90 percent of their GDP related to tourism? Tyson: Island nations are the ones who are most affected by tourism. You know, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic. The Caribbean islands specifically. I don't know if it's as high as 90%, but the vast majority of their GDP from island nations comes from the travel and tourism industry, and they were certainly hit the hardest during the pandemic. Jesse: And so I think that we can see from that, I think the hope for us during post production was, okay, you know, this is a horrific blow to the people most vulnerable in this industry, but if we can get this message out after the pandemic, perhaps this could be something that could really change. And to be fair, change is slow sometimes and I mean, it's wishful thinking that post pandemic right after that suddenly everyone was going to become ethical travelers but I see so much potential just in the discussions online the people that we're [00:38:00] meeting at different screenings, the interest that we're getting worldwide, just to have these conversations and see that there is an interest in change. And when you talk about moving change, it does often come from the people, and I think, across the world over the past few decades, we've all been seeing again, I think our power as people, as citizens, as individuals, and the power that we have to come together over certain issues that we feel need radical change and even if it is slow change, I do see the inklings of that change happening within the tourism industry and I think it's really positive. Tyson: You still have a lot of work ahead of us. Chris: Amen. I think that's really, really important and, and perhaps fits properly inside of the context of the dominant culture, at least of North America or the quote unquote West, wherein, the pandemic also produced a deepening of the [00:39:00] culture of "everything now." Suddenly it was like, "okay, well, I can't go out here, so everything has to be deliverable, and at the tip of your fingers, right? And what might come with that is this notion that, we also expect social change to happen overnight. Right? And that it might be overshadowed by this kind of dominant culture of wanting everything now and also the unwillingness to do the necessary work, which is sometimes generational. Right? Not just a week or a month or a year, but generations. In that regard, the themes of the film are extremely broad and you go into a lot of detail and depth with each. So I'm very grateful for that, but I'm also curious what might've gotten left out. What might, one day end up on a director's cut of the film. Jesse: Oh, so much. Tyson: Ask the editor. Jesse: Oh. Well, I mean, you had so many stories that you brought [00:40:00] to the table that were beautiful, beautiful stories. Forgive me. I don't remember his name and you'll remember Tyson. But one of the. Tyson: I know who you're talking about. Jesse: Oh, do you? One of the men you interviewed at the UN had a really beautiful story to tell. And then we also had a really beautiful story from Costa Rica. An animal welfare and environmental story. Oh, my goodness. There were so many stories. Tyson: We had a wonderful story from Cusco Peru with an organization that was putting the first female porters on the Inca Trail and really fighting for gender equality on the Inca Trail. Jesse: What was that company's name again, Tyson? Well, the reason why I bring it up is because it's so unique that I just think, "oh, we should definitely highlight that to listeners" because they were taking female porters and they were reorganizing the whole industry based on their [00:41:00] precedent because they were treating porters with dignity, with safe conditions, with, valuable wages and this is something that's just not done across the industry on the Inca Trail with the male porters and there was some really, really horrific footage that we came across of the way these porters were living just not too far from where the tourists were sleeping comfortably in their tents. And this is a wide practice across the industry and Miguel from this company Evolution Treks and the gallon, do you remember his full name, tyson? Tyson: Miguel Angel Gongora Jesse: from Evolution Treks, yeah, a wonderful, wonderful man who was really, really passionate about changing the industry. And we spoke with many of the female porters, and yeah, that was a story that we were really, really sad to lose that [00:42:00] story. Tyson: Yeah. Yeah. With only 90 minutes, you know, we yeah, really had to make some challenging decisions on what to be included in the film and I really feel that a 90 minute film can scratch the surface, it can spark some interest in a number of these themes, but certainly, and maybe that's next steps for us, but I certainly think that what this the subject matter, deserves is a series, you know, cause we could dive much deeper. Jesse: Tyson and I have been talking about it. Tyson: Yeah, we, we can dive much deeper into each of these subjects and create a 90 minute doc on each of them. And so, at some point in the future, we'll be making some pitches and writing some additional treatments into how we can make a six part series and expand on the themes in this film, you know, from the environment to gender inequality to animal welfare and everything deserves a lot more time, but hopefully, what we've done with this film is just been able to spark a number of conversations and inspire people to go and do some additional research [00:43:00] into how these themes impact these communities. Chris: Yeah, well, thank you both so much for that. I have a lot more questions, but maybe that'll also be saved for a sequel. Jesse: Yeah, we'd love to speak to you again, Chris, if you'd like, in the future. Chris: That'd be great. Before we finish, I'd like to ask you what might be next for you two in your respective filmmaking and writing lives? Tyson: My world currently revolves around photographing wildlife particularly large wildlife. Yeah, I've been spending a lot of time traveling recently and in the ocean. I mentioned to you, I mean, tomorrow I'm hopping on a flight and I'm heading to Norway to go photograph large marine mammals in Norway. So that's that's where my life is taking me right now is in pursuit of wildlife filmmaking and photography. Jesse: Although I wish I could, I could say similarly, I right now my life is a little bit calmer. I had a baby 20 months ago. So, I've been on an extended maternity leave [00:44:00] and I'm currently just in development of projects for the future. I finished up this project in full right before my child was born. And I still have a few projects that were finished up recently, but as of the moment I'm completely in development and yeah, I really look forward to developing something with Tyson in the future in regards to what he was talking about a series on travel and on a lot of stories that we were so passionate and so blessed to come across, but that we just didn't have the ability to give the podium to in our film, but yeah, so I'm really excited for the future and just coming from this festival that I was at recently, I'm just so invigorated with the energy of the audiences and the passion to travel better and to demand better travel from the industry and from travelers as a whole. So this just really gives me a lot of hope. Chris: Well, congratulations on your [00:45:00] motherhood. Thank you. And having a little one in your life and this work and Tyson and the opportunity to be able to travel as you do, and to try to honor the lives of those beautiful four leggeds and no leggeds and the tailed and finned ones. So finally, how can our listeners watch The Last Tourist? Are there any screenings coming up? Jesse: Definitely on the website, thelasttouristfilm.com, right when you go to the webpage, there's a whole list of all the different avenues you can watch the film. But maybe Tyson could elaborate more. Tyson: Absolutely. Yeah, you can connect with us on Instagram at Last Tourist Film, as well. We're just kind of wrapping up the fall festival season before we do some additional screenings next spring. We just wrapped up in Germany and Iceland. I think streaming is the best way to find us, in Canada we're streaming on Crave. In the United States, we're streaming on Hulu. Delta Airlines, Emirates Airlines. In other countries around the world, you can also find us, I [00:46:00] know in France, in French Polynesia, Hong Kong on Amazon Prime. And there's a number of other markets that the film will be opening in very shortly which is really exciting. It's not available everywhere, unfortunately, around the world, but if you have a desire to see it, you know, please get in touch with us and we'll do our best to make sure that you have an opportunity to see the film. You can host a private screening. There's a number of ways that you can see this film, but please let's keep the conversation going. Let's get in touch. I'd love to hear from a number of the listeners, and let's find a way that we can allow everyone to see this film. Jesse: And what's been really exciting is we've got a lot of interest from schools. So, educational screenings have been happening all across the world, and that's just been amazing. Those are the best for us, I think. And I would just say, if any of the listeners have any further questions for us, we're always open to taking questions and chatting. Personally, Tyson and I can both be reached at our Instagram. So you can I think Tyson's is @TysonSadler, and mine is [00:47:00] @JesseMann, two S's, two N's. So if you want to leave that for your listeners, they're welcome to contact us. And anyone who's listening can contact us directly that way, who want to host a screening or find out ways to watch. Chris: Absolutely. Yeah, I'll make sure that all the websites and handles are available for our listeners at theendoftourism. com. And on behalf of them on behalf of myself, I'd like to thank you both for joining me today. Your film is incredibly inspirational, necessary, and deeply important for these times and I don't doubt that our listeners think the same. So, I wish you the most beautiful paths ahead on your travels with your families. And ...We get the opportunity to speak again sometime. Tyson: Thank you, Chris. This has really been a meaningful conversation. Thank you. Jesse: Yeah. Thank you so much for giving us this space and I wish you all the same. Chris: My pleasure. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

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S5 #7 | The Dreamwork of Instagram w/ Sean P. Smith 52:45

47 weeks тому52:45

52:45

On this episode, my guest is Sean P. Smith, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Culture Studies at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Much of his research has focused on the relationship between social media and tourism, and how colonial histories shape today’s ideologies and visual cultures of travel. The inequalities that result from many forms of tourism development, he argues, are intimately linked with how tourists create content for Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, and the ways tourists frame themselves in landscapes and alongside local residents often replay colonial hierarchies. Show Notes: Why Study Instagram? The Pre-tour Narrative (Edward Bruner, Raul Salazar) The Habitus of Tourism (or How We Got Here) The Promontory Witness (or that photo ) The Logic of Influence Emptying the Landscape (John Urry) The Techno-Generational Divide Media Ecology Other Horizons in Oman Homework: Sean P. Smith - Tilburg University Sean P. Smith: Twitter / X | Instagram | Google Scholar (Articles) Transcript: Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome, Sean, to the pod. Thank you so much for being willing to join us to speak about your work. Sean: Thanks very much for having me. Chris: My pleasure. I'm curious, Sean where you're speaking from today and, and how the world is, how the world might be housing you there. Sean: Well, it's very rainy and dark. I'm in the Southern Netherlands, an area called North Brebant, where I just moved less than a month ago. So, in many places of moving around, if so, getting used to this one. Chris: Sean, I found out about your work from one of the pod's listeners who sent in a link to one of your academic articles entitled, Instagram Abroad, Performance, Consumption, and Colonial Narrative in Tourism. Now, I've been ruminating on the effect that social media has on tourism, spectacle, surveillance, and cultures of disposability for a long time now. So I'm really excited to speak with you today. And [00:01:00] likewise parts of the podcast are shared via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, so there's always this sense of kind of feeding the machine. unaware and perhaps more aware each time. And so first then, I'm curious why focus on Instagram in the context of critical tourism studies? What makes it different from say Facebook or Twitter? Sean: Yeah, that's a really good question Chris. I think with Instagram, in many contexts around the world, certainly not universally, but it's the social media platform that is most readily identified with not just tourism, but the way that people represent themselves engaging in tourism. It's very image driven. Of course, people do write captions, they do engage in other forms of storytelling, but nowadays it's mostly pictures and especially reels, arguably in the last few years. And for a long time, this [00:02:00] has been could almost say the dream work of tourism going back 200, maybe longer years. So even though today, I think you can find forms of tourism well represented TikTok to varying degrees on Facebook. Instagram, at least in many of the places where I've conducted research, is the place that one goes to both learn about places to travel and also to show how oneself travels. Chris: And I'm kind of imagining that we're more or less in the same age range, but I'm curious if on your travels, you mentioned just briefly that you had also spent time backpacking as a younger person and I'm curious if Instagram existed at the time and also if this dream work was evident to you in your travels. Sean: It was. I think I was relatively young when I got my first [00:03:00] smartphone, but certainly not as young as people nowadays. I must have been maybe 22 or 23. So I did have some years of traveling before I think Instagram really reshaped the way that tourism is done, not just for people that actually use this app, but regardless of whether or not anyone's ever downloaded it on their phone, I think Instagram has had a significant impact on the way that tourism is done. So when I first got a smartphone, I was in a period of my life where I was able to travel quite frequently and that was something that I was really pursuing at the time. And Instagram was a way that I was able to engage in a long running interest in photography, but also kind of a diary of where I had been, but certainly one that was legible and sort of visible to other people. And it was through that, you could say "performance" of travel that began to think a bit more critically about this app and other social media [00:04:00] platforms as well. And the way that it was reshaping tourism destinations. Chris: Mm. Mm. Yeah, you mention in your work this notion of the pre tour narrative. And I'm wondering if we could unpack that a little bit for our listeners and what part Instagram plays in this pre tour narrative. Sean: Yeah, I'm very happy to point that out, because I think this is, this is an important way to think about tourism, and that particular phrase I'm drawing on the work of Edward Bruner, who was an American anthropologist. And that's also been picked up in other realms to be identified as what other people have called tourism imaginaries, such as in the work of Raúl Salazar. So what this concept of the pre-tour narrative describes is that before people travel to a particular destination, they are exposed to [00:05:00] various forms of representation. And oftentimes this is very image based or narrative based. So we would see this maybe thinking back in the era before social media, images encountered in magazines and films, perhaps novels, other forms of storytelling, such as just talking with people who have been to places that one wants to travel. However, in social media, as it's become more integral to the way that people conduct their everyday lives, let alone traveling. It's become the dominant engine for the way that the pre tour narrative is formed. Many people who use Instagram as a space to learn about places to travel, they will encounter images of these of these places on this app or and not just sort of the way that it's portrayed, but what people do in these spaces, the people that live [00:06:00] in the places they're going to visit. So, this process of the formation of a pre tour narrative has really always been a part of tourism. But I think it perhaps it's if not accelerated, then certainly taken a bit of a different form with the advent of social media. Chris: So on some level, it's not just the question of what you're going to go see, but also how you're going to see it, how you're going to stand in front of that tower or restaurant and see, experience, what's there. Sean: Yeah, that's a really good way to put it. Chris: And I know it's a little early in the interview, but I'd like to jump into the heart of the matter and your critiques, if we can. You know, you wrote this incredible article Landscapes for Likes, capitalizing on travel with Instagram. And, in that article, you wrote that, deep breath, "Instagram's networked architecture and affordances produce three [00:07:00] outcomes that circulate and magnify utterances about travel to a degree impossible in pre-networked media. One, a mediated travel habitus hegemonically informs prevailing aesthetic norms. Two, the scalability of embodied performances entrench the motif's narrative underpinnings. And three, the monetizable market of Instagram encourages neoliberal notions of the branded self." Now that's a beautiful mouthful. And so I'm wondering, if you might be willing and able to flesh out these three outcomes for our listeners. Sean: No, that's brilliant. And it's nice to talk about these things, perhaps when they're written that can be quite a bit denser. So maybe we can start with the first idea, this mediated travel habitus. And with the word habitus, I'm trying on the work of [00:08:00] the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who theorizes he's talking about class and culture and ways that people display their belonging within a particular class. And the reason that I'm looking to Bordeaux here is tourism and travel, really, it's important to look at this as a practice that has been connected to what Bordeaux might call the pursuit of distinction, to the search for an acquisition of cultural goods. You know, we might think of cultural goods as being a painting or a taste and a particular kind of music, clothes, certain way of speaking even. And when one amasses certain, certain cultural goods, and they're recognized as being part of the upper classes, being marks of somebody who is [00:09:00] sophisticated, somebody who is typically from a fairly privileged financial background, these cultural goods are desirable. So, this background I think is important because tourism from its modern beginnings in the 18th century has been obtaining these experiences and often physical artifacts that can be a way of claiming a certain social status. So, maybe you've discussed this in other podcasts already, but, when the Grand Tour began in the 1600s, but really took off in the 1700s there was this process in which the aristocratic men, young men, were sent on a tour around Europe, and they would go to capitals like Paris, later Vienna, and then especially places like Rome, and, where they could encounter the remnants of the Roman Empire and classical learning. [00:10:00] And this was meant to do a few things in the first sense. It was meant to introduce them other parts of the world, to certain historical understandings. They could refine their Latin. They could get better at French and then they could go home and be recognized as a sophisticated member of the aristocracy. And this practice really became quite popular up until about the turn of the 19th century, when it stopped briefly because of wars on the European continent, and then after the Napoleonic Wars ended, it basically exploded. So when we think about over tourism now in 2023, this was, you know, 1815, 1820s, and this was a period where all of a sudden there were more tourists than ever before. And what that meant is this practice, which had only been done [00:11:00] by the wealthiest classes, was now something that the middle classes could engage in and that produced a kind of anxiety, where how was one able to become a distinguished or sophisticated traveller. How was one able to obtain the cultural goods provided by travel if everyone was doing it? So, the habitus of tourism, the kind of implicitly learned practices and sensibilities that developed during the Grand Tour experienced this period of challenge where people had to look for a way to find distinction by other means. And I think this beginning led to this friction where now you see people who are trying to go places that no other tourists go, trying to take pictures that no other tourists have taken, trying to be the only person in a picture of a [00:12:00] famous place. So this way of understanding how to be a tourist has become enshrined in the kinds of images that we see in a space like, like Instagram to the extent where I think these images are circulating the ideologies of tourism. The scalability refers to, in social media studies, the way in which a single image can achieve a degree of circulation that is not really possible in pre-networked media. So, by networked media, we can think of platforms like Instagram. We can think of Twitter, anything where the possibility of likes and retweets or reposts achieves a degree of visibility what we might call going viral. So what I was writing about in that article was this particular composition called the "promontory witness" where you have typically one [00:13:00] person who's standing on a promontory or we can say the edge of a cliff the top of a building, in front of a waterfall and they're looking really, really small as compared to the vast scale of nature. And people see these images and they understand through the mediation, the widespread circulation of these images, that this means something important about travel. This is what I mean by the mediated habitus of travel, that taking an image like this and being a person in a promontory witness image has a particular value. It is a way of claiming distinction, again, in Rodrigo's terms. And by taking a promontory witness image, one is able to circulate that image on Instagram in a very different way than before the social media platform existed. So, you know, we think about images circulated in tourism before Instagram. It would either be, say, in a family photo album. That people used to have projectors. [00:14:00] People used to maybe send holiday pictures to family and friends, basically whoever they could, you know, show it to, but this is a really, really small circulation, unless somebody was able to get an image in a magazine or some sort of formal publication. But what really shifts with scalable social media is that somebody can take an image and there really is the potential to go viral. I think in Instagram, the potential to have an image seen by a really significant number of people is less than on a platform like Tik Tok. But there remains the possibility if I post a promontory witness image and I put a geo tag in a place that is particularly trendy at this, at this moment and I put the right hashtags that thousands of people can witness this image and because of that possibility, I think there's a degree of enlistment, a degree of interest in [00:15:00] participating in this trend because taking a promontory witness picture is going to have much more possibility of going viral of leveraging these architectures, these scalable architectures. Much more so than if it just take, if I take another image that isn't so popular on a platform like Instagram. Chris: Thank you. Thank you, Sean. Yeah. So there's, there's a lot in there I'm going to come back to in just a little bit. But I wanted to just finish off this one last part because you kind of, you know, mentioned it a little bit. The monetizable market of Instagram that encourages neoliberal notions of the brand itself. And, you know, I pulled this, this other sentence from one of your articles where you write that "as a banal mediator of travel and tourism, Instagram can encourage tourists to imagine themselves as a capital generating brand." Sean: It's really a comment on the attention economy structure of social media platforms, [00:16:00] where I want people to see my pictures and I want to get likes. And I say that very much as being somebody who continues to study social media and tourism from a critical angle. When I post something I'm always aware of how it's going to be received. Some part of me, even when I'm very aware of the issues with thinking this way potentially is I always want it to gain more visibility. If I post something and it has less likes than something I posted previously, this will likely incur some degree of thinking, what did I do wrong? What could I have done differently? You know, maybe I'm just produced such interesting content. And what I think is really taking place there is that we're constantly thinking about ways to achieve visibility in a way that is not dissimilar to the kind of negotiation that celebrities and [00:17:00] other public figures have to go through when managing their, what we might in today's terms, call their brand, where because there is always this metric of how popular one is or how visible one is in the form of likes or in the form of reposts or retweets or what have you it's means that we develop a way of always orienting towards this possible public. We're always thinking about the people that are going to see whatever kind of thing we say online, and we, I think much of the time, are hoping that it's going to be received. If not, you know, people are going to like it, if it is going to maybe change the way that people think about something, if it's going to influence them in some way. And Instagram, of course, is like other social media platforms, is monetizable in the sense that when one gets a lot of followers, you know, if I continually create fantastic travel content and I get tens of thousands or more followers, then [00:18:00] that means that I am able to start making money from it. I'm going to be paid by different companies to come and stay at a resort or go on some sort of guided tour and take an image or make a reel of this experience and post it on Instagram, talk about how great it was, and then tag the company. And that's a way of them bringing in business. This is how advertising works. So, people become advertisers. But even before that influencer level, I think those of us who are not influencers, and I am certainly not, there's a degree to which we are participating in this logic because even if we don't have any designs of becoming influencers, we still want our posts to be liked and this ultimately influences not just posts we make, but the kind of traveling we do and the kind of relationship we have with the places to which we travel. Hmm. Chris: Well [00:19:00] contentious at the very least. But thank you for that, Sean, for being able to flesh that out for us. And I'd like to return back to this notion of the promontory witness, and you know, because even before Instagram I remember seeing in my backpacking years, these same photos, right? The photo of the person, of their back to the camera facing the open horizon, you know, whether it be a cliff face or a desert or whatever it is, and spreading their hands or arms and, just this kind of emanating freedom, I guess. But you also mentioned that this kind of perspective, if you want to call it that, manufactures emptiness because there's nobody else in the photo, and this is so much a part of the kind of sometimes they're Instagram reels, or sometimes they're photos of people, what it looks like when people are at tourist destinations, actually taking the [00:20:00] photo in front of the Eiffel Tower, or the Great Wall, or the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or whatever, and there's actually hundreds. And thousands of people taking the same photo or trying to, and everyone wants to have that photo without anyone else in it. And so, just a little preamble to the question again, in Landscapes for Likes, you write that "this manufacturing of emptiness privileges tourists as the sole consumers of a landscape, and with its residents hidden from view, a landscape is voided of its human and temporal context. Thus abstracted, place is relevant as little but a visual commodity." And then just another quote that I think brings a little something else to the picture is that "the promontory witness motif scrubs the landscape of the tourist destination of any sign of human habitation, but that of the tourist, singularly pictured in a position of mastery that confers [00:21:00] possession over the destination." And so there seems to be a kind of shared understanding in critical tourism studies that modern and especially social media based travel photography emphasizes empty spaces, of course, minus the Instagram user, the person photographing question. And so I'm curious, why is identifying the emptying of the landscape so important for our understanding? What does it do to us as photo viewers? Sean: Yeah, that's an excellent question and I think I'm very, I'm very interested in this composition, which the lone tourist and the landscape, which, mean, other people before me have pointed to, and at least John Urry. And I think there are two things happening here. For one, it's the kind of picture that's due to the mediation of what we can think of as a travel habitus, due to the way that [00:22:00] people have learned about how to do tourism and to represent themselves doing tourism and the most sophisticated way or in the way that is the most likely to gain them social distinction. They take these images because they've seen these images before and they're attractive images as well. Maybe they're attractive because we have, through seeing so many pictures like them, we've been taught or sort of subconsciously imbibed the aesthetics as being something that we value and are attracted to. One degree of what's of what's taking place. And to another extent, when it comes to this notion of possessing something of being the only person that that goes there, this kind of image of the tourist being the only person in a landscape or in front of some sort of cultural monument is , a way of [00:23:00] claiming a symbolic status, which links back to this ideology of getting off the beaten track. So, I imagine if you're experience backpacking and my own there's a real interest in getting off the beaten path, of going to places that aren't touristy, of being a traveler and not a tourist. And part of the way that the success in getting off the beaten track is signified is being the only person in a photograph. You know, we as backpackers or tourists don't want to be associated with other tourists. And there's very little better way to represent not being another tourist than being the only person in a particular image. Chris: Yeah, it [00:24:00] makes you wonder. And putting together the research for this episode, I came to this, this kind of possibility, question, consternation, And it arose in this way. And so the, the next question, which kind of relates to the last one is, do you think there might be, or is a connection here between the emptying of the photo of humans or locals and the emptying of places of humans and locals, and that is in the context of the gentrification of local people and culture in tourist destinations. Sean: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's a very good point. I think especially because gentrification is aesthetically produced through a kind of emptiness or a kind of minimalism. And this gentrified neighborhood is not something that is crowded. It is not some place that there are a lot of wayward signs, [00:25:00] wayward, quote unquote. It is a space which is typically designed according to what might be understood as a globalized regime of clean lines and interesting fonts and a lot of white space. So thinking about the way that that works and everything from upmarket coffee shops to designing neighborhoods that are meant to attract capital on upper middle class consumers and residents. I think that does link quite persuasively with this desire to be the only person within this landscape. I mean, what ultimately is taking place in both processes is that, no matter where somebody is going and taking a promontory witness picture, there are people who live there. There's people who've always lived there and been a part, in many ways, of the land that is being made into a landscape. And by not including [00:26:00] them, within these pictures or in processes of gentrification, actually through state-sanctioned programs or other forms of state-sanctioned investment, local residents are being pushed out to make way for different people, the tourist in this case. There is a process of erasure and, and often what can be conceived as really a very colonial process of taking over, taking over a space and privileging the owners of capital, who in this case, typically are tourists. And of course, it's a little bit different when you're taking a picture versus when you're taking a picture in a place that is not considered part of the Global North. But tourists typically have a lot more privilege and financial resources than local residents. And when they're not in these images, but the places in which they are are included, then at least when we're seeing pictures of it, how [00:27:00] do we imagine who, who controls the space? How do we imagine who has a right to this space? It would be the person in the photograph, the tourist, rather than the people who actually live, work, and, and shape these landscapes. Okay. Chris: Since Instagram tends to be the go to medium for these images and for images in general, as far as social media is concerned, do you think that Instagram then is a tool and driver of gentrification? Could we say that with a sense of coherence? Sean: I think it's as much a tool as, as many other tools and it is very easily leveraged to that end by actors who are seeking to mobilize processes of gentrification. And then I think this is pretty well documented for instance, in Yoo Jung oh's article Instagaze, Aesthetic Representation and Contested Transformation of Woljeong, South Korea. Well, she was [00:28:00] writing about Jeju Island in South Korea, and how once tourists started to take particular forms of images often of being one person in a beach, then different interests were able to move in and realize the value of this image and find ways to capitalize on all of the tourists that wanted to come and take that same image. So what that led to was the beach front where, this is largely a fishing community and other sort of small scale, more artisanal economies, was remade into cafes and restaurants and guest houses in a process that. I think it can be widely recognized in tourism development around the world. But what the author, Yu Jung Oh, is saying, is showing there, is that this was largely motivated by the ability to take this image, that [00:29:00] a tourist could go and purchase a coffee or something, and they would be able to take that image for their Instagram. So there's a really clear linkage there and I think that linkage can be made in many other places as well. But I think in that sense, Instagram and social media is, is can be leveraged for gentrification as, as many other tools can be and are being. Chris: Thank you, Sean. And so, know, for the rest of our time together, I'd like to kind of lean on you a little bit for your personal opinion. I know that sometimes working in and living in academic worlds that's kind of something to be left the doorstep before you walk in. But you know, you mentioned this notion of networked media and pre networked media and kind of social media falling into this wider term of networked media and since these mediums have only come to exist, in terms of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, [00:30:00] we're talking 15 years at the most, and then the extension or prototypes of those existing in the previous 10. So about 25 years, maybe. And I'm curious in this regard you know, I imagine that you're about my age, maybe a little bit younger so I'm curious if you have a lived memory of how things were before social media and perhaps even before the internet, what do you think we might be losing by virtue of not being able to remember the world without social media Sean: yeah, great question. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, very good question. Very, of course, fraught. So I guess for context, I was born in 1988. And. So I, got a cell phone at 16, and again, I got a smartphone and Instagram and WhatsApp. So I'm really in two minds about this. And in the first sense, I think it's important to be aware of [00:31:00] how with any new technology there's a great deal of anxiety and resistance and what might be called panic. And this isn't just social media or it's not just television, but we can go all the way back to radio, to novels. People were worried about that, to the written word back in the ancient Greek era. People were concerned that when we start writing things down, this is going to make it very difficult to remember things, and we're going to be less successful orators and our reasoning will be diluted because we start writing things down. So there's always this kind of fear of new technology, and part of me wants to recognize that this is just another one of those periods in which some sort of transformative technology comes along and many of [00:32:00] the generation who can remember what it was like beforehand is going to feel varying degrees of nostalgia for that period. That said, it's also difficult to not, at the same time, say that something really significant has, has, has happened, to not feel, I mean, honestly, I do certainly feel nostalgia for periods before social media. Some of the things which I think have been changed is the interest in finding ways to represent oneself, traveling. And this isn't to say that whenever one goes somewhere, one is always sort of seeing it as if from the viewfinder or, well, it wouldn't really be a viewfinder of a camera so much as, you know, one's phone screen. But that leads to. In being very interested in taking images that would be successful within the attention economies of a platform like Instagram, it can be difficult to [00:33:00] not see the world as if from the perspective of what would make a good picture for Instagram. There's a lot of different people who've come up with critiques of this process. I mean, if you think about it in terms of spectacle, you know, like Guy DuBord's idea that we're no longer, and he was writing in the 60s, you know, that we are seeing relationships, not between people, but between people and images. And so some sort of fundamental human connection is being lost because all we're doing is just relating to images and using images to relate to other people. I'm not so sure about universalizing that idea, but the ubiquity of social media and the Challenges to not somehow be on one of these platforms, in some even practical way does mean, I think, that there are significant influences in tourism as much as anything. Chris: Yeah, my my phone died the other day, abruptly. [00:34:00] And you know, I still have this computer that thankfully allows me to have this interview with you. And I can still access Facebook and Twitter, but for whatever reason, I can't access Instagram. And you know, it's been a few days and I'm really loving it. And then this morning I realized that I had planned to upload a post for the podcast. And then I was just like, okay, well, my best recourse of action is to just stay calm and wait, right? Yeah, and it's a big question, and I think it's something that, I wonder if young people, say people born, you know, 2000 or after would be able to answer with, with any, without having lived in a time without social media, for example. And so this kind of like brings us a little bit towards the towards theme of media ecology, which, you know, we talked about just very briefly before we started our interview here and I had taken Andrew McLuhan's Understanding Media [00:35:00] Intensive last year. He was also on the pod in the, in season three and just generally speaking for our listeners media ecology, within media ecology, the focus is on the medium and not just the message. It's a way of taking to task the context of our technology and not just the content. And so this manufacturing of emptiness of people and places as brands and I'm curious, isn't this to a large extent, also contingent on our tools, on the limits and architecture of the camera, for example? You know, do we stop with Instagram or do we look at all social media and later all tools? Because these media exist within each other, right? Instagram is a medium within the internet, I suppose, and then the internet is a medium within the phone. Maybe you could make that argument. It's not to say, if we didn't have these things, if we didn't have Instagram, if we didn't have [00:36:00] social media, would the promontory witness just disappear? I don't think it's as easy as that. But Would it be as intensely magnified in our time? Sean: So yes, I think the question of magnification is really what sits at the heart of social media because if we're looking at the medium of Instagram, then we have to think about photography and which was invented in the 1840s. And then if we think about photography, we have to think about painting the way that landscape has been represented in many different cultures, both in painting in the Western, Chinese and many other traditions, but then also in poetry and literature. So with all of these things, there's a precedent. And I think if you look at something like the Promontory Witness, this composition and this the visual formation of having one person immersed within a landscape or standing at some edge of a cliff, that's been around for [00:37:00] 200 years at least. You can see some in the later 1700s that look like this, but then the desire to be the only person in a particular place to have gotten off of the beaten track and be the distinguished traveler, that's also been around for, for a very long time. So that's why I think I'm hesitant to sort of pin the blame on Instagram. And I think my thinking around this has taken a bit of it, not exactly a turn, but it's changed a bit. So I think there's a real tendency to look at platforms like Instagram as only being spaces in which processes of gentrification can gain momentum, or only be spaces where one is almost disciplined into being a neoliberal subject who, is working sort of subconsciously thinking about how to brand oneself all the time, specifically in places of tourism, you know, that it's a way that people [00:38:00] only think about the pictures. They only want to go take a picture in these places. They don't actually want to have any experiences in this place or relationships with the people there. And I think that really exists. That is absolutely one dimension of what takes place with social media platforms. But as many people I've spoken to say, social media is a double edged sword. And where that's really been driven home to me has been where I've been conducting research for the past almost two years now. Sometimes they're in person, other times digitally, in Oman, a country in the Arabian peninsula where I was interested initially because it was becoming more popular as an international tourism destination. So, I went there after the pandemic expecting to meet all these people who were experiencing the problematics of international tourism as we know well, I think from your podcast among other, among other spaces. And there's some of that, absolutely. But what I also found was that, in the past few [00:39:00] years, people who are living in Oman, and this is both Omanis, people who have citizenship and then also residents, so there's about 40 percent of the country is made up of people who don't have citizenship in Oman, like many other Gulf countries. And in the past few years, I mean, we're talking five years, maximum ten years, there's been this surge of interest in nature, or we can say is the non human or even the more than human environment and what's can be understood as domestic nature tourism, I think, like many places around the world, domestic nature tourism in Oman became was very popularized during the pandemic when people could not travel abroad. But what this meant is that people saw these images on Instagram and Instagram is really most popular app in Oman, next to WhatsApp, and that introduced them to parts of the country that they'd never [00:40:00] interacted with before. And Oman is this incredibly various and fascinating environment where there's mountains that are, you know, over 3, 000 meters higher, what is that 10, 000 feet you know, all of this coastline and with coral reefs and these waddies or slot canyons. And people began to engage with the environments in a very different way to go on hiking trips, to go on canyoning trips and social media was this massive part of that. You know, this is where people learned about this possibility, this is where people met people to introduce them, to take them safely into these spaces. They'd never been on a hike before. You know, Instagram is where they're going to meet somebody to go out into nature with. And it's not to say that this doesn't have problems associated with it, and everything I suppose related with tourism does, but I think it also represents a case where Instagram, in this sense, was a way that people are actively connecting to nature, and in a place [00:41:00] where, you know, Instagram existed and was widely used before nature tourism was a thing. And I think this kind of flips the narrative a bit where in Western Europe, where I'm sitting right now, for instance, there's been this long time practice of nature tourism, you know, going back to, again, the 1900s. You know, people started climbing Alps in the 1850s and so forth. And then Instagram comes along and everybody's saying, oh, people just want to climb the mountain to take a picture. you know, they don't actually care about nature. Well, in Oman, people weren't really, not that many people were climbing mountains, before the ability to take a picture existed. So, there's a bit of a different trajectory in which people began to relate to a particular space and to the kinds of experiences that one can have engaging in nature tourism. So in that sense to go back to your to your question about what do we essentially do with this platform? [00:42:00] And how do we address the problematics? I don't think that I mean, I think that Instagram will not be the most popular platform forever, certainly, but social media, or this kind of connected media, barring some kind of unforeseen complication. I mean, looking at you, AI. But this sort of communication is here to stay probably. So, can we find ways in which this space is can be generative of community could be generative of care and ethical forms of travel? What might that look like? And what kind of imagery might be associated with it? Chris: I'm curious in that regard, Oman to me is someone who's never been and probably, you know extremely ignorant to any of the nation's culture or history. I imagine modernity to be something of a recent arrival in that place, relatively speaking, correct me if I'm wrong, of course. And I guess what I'm curious about in the context of your research and most [00:43:00] recent research is if you've seen the conflicts that might arise in terms of traditional hospitality? What it means to be in a place, as opposed to a landscape, what it means to be a host, as opposed to, I guess a landlord, in the Airbnb sense of the word and perhaps also what it means to be a traveler as opposed to a tourist within the context of these new economic dynamics in Oman and if Instagram has anything to do with that? Sean: No, that's, that's a wonderful question. It's one I really appreciate as I continue to work there and spend time with people who've been incredibly generous showing me around and introducing me to what their life is like as people who participate in tourism. I mean, the first thing I would say is the Oman, the Arabian peninsula and really Arabic speaking cultures generally is hospitality is one of the most fundamentally [00:44:00] important things in social relationships. In what it means to be a part of this culture, one is hospitable to guests, to friends, to family members. It's almost difficult to understate how integral this is. I mean, it is, in many cultures, hospitality is big, but it's very big in this space. And so I think it's a particularly well suited question to, you know, how is tourism and how is social media impacting this code of conduct and, you know this really wonderful practice that I think, you know, the rest of the world can stand to learn a lot from. So, to your question about sort of where my mind sits in this span of development. Oil was discovered in the 1960s and kind of transformative effect as it has everywhere. And in this time, there was a great degree of urbanization. People could get services rather than relying on culture, trading, which comes from a pre oil economy.[00:45:00] Now, you see, I think, a couple things. For one thing, cultures of hospitality, I think, were already being disturbed by the way that neoliberal capitalism tends to work, not just in Oman, but anywhere around the world. It encourages people to find ways to profit themselves and to think as individual agents rather than as being part of a community, having responsibilities to the humans, but also nonhumans to the land as well as to one's family. So that process is already in it's already taking place before tourism began to take root. And I think there are some spaces in which tourism is developing in such a way that it's very profit oriented. And where people are incentivized to privilege [00:46:00] their own gains over those of others. However, there are other ways I think in which people who, say we're living in the city, are meeting people who live in fairly remote areas, under the auspices of tourism. Because they're engaging in tourism, they're meeting people who are living in these spaces and often chatting with them or sharing a meal or sharing coffee or something like this. Sometimes these people who are living in places that are becoming tourism destinations are part of the industry and sometimes people are not, but as it stands now, it seems as very much a preservation of hospitality within this, this particular context. As with anything, I think the question of tourism is to what extent this will become commodified or not, like how do we make money off of this culture of hospitality? How do we turn it into a tourist product? You know, we can sell Oman as being it's hospitable, come meet the locals. But in the way that people continue [00:47:00] to practice it, both people who are living in Oman and being domestic tourists and also people who are seeing tourists come to where they live in ways that they haven't before. To me, it still seems like it's very robustly in place. Chris: Good to hear. And I very much look forward to the publication of your research. Hopefully it'll see the light of day soon, perhaps. Sean: I hope so. Yeah. Things are in process for sure. Chris: Okay. Well, I'd like to thank you, Sean, on behalf of our listeners for joining us today. And you know, this leads me of course, to the question of how might they be able to get in touch with you or follow your work. And if that includes an Instagram handle. Sean: Yeah, that's, that's fine. So I I recently started another Instagram account. I had my own account and stopped posting about 2019. And then I got interested in it again. I opened a new account, which is sort of more research facing. So yeah, if people wanna check that [00:48:00] out, it's @SPSMITHS, so S-P-S-M-I-T-H-S or email spSmith@tilburguniversity.edu. So always pleased to hear ideas and of course things that I've missed because of course I have so much to learn in this space. So I would really look forward to feedback and ideas. Hmm. Chris: Well, I'll make sure all of that's on the End of Tourism website and the podcast page when the interview launches and as well as the other authors, researchers and works that you mentioned earlier on. So once again, it's been amazing, Sean, thank you so much for being able to really flesh these complex ideas out for us and we'll see what happens, right? Sean: Absolutely. Thanks very much for the invitation. And as always, I'll look forward to continue listening. This is such an excellent project. Chris: Thank you, Sean. This episode and others like it are created and made possible by the generosity of Substack subcribers like yourself. Similarly, I have subsidized the work of the pod with my own time and money. This is a labour of love and lineage that requires the support of others. Please consider offering a gift in return, whether that include upgrading to paid subscription, making a one-time donation, sharing the podcast among your people or being willing to reach out and assist in production (as others have). Thank you. Bless. Peace. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

1
S5 #6 | Relearning Home & Hospitality w/ Manish Jain (Ecoversities) 52:41

1 year тому52:41

52:41

On this episode, my guest is Manish Jain, a man deeply committed to regenerating our diverse local knowledge systems, cultural imaginations and inter-cultural dialogue. Inspired by MK Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Ivan Illich, his illiterate village grandmother, his unschooled daughter, indigenous communities and Jain spiritual philosophy, he is one of the leading planetary voices for deschooling our lives and reimagining education. He has served for the past 25 years as Chief Beaver (ecosystems builder) of Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development based in Udaipur, India and is co-founder of some of the most innovative educational experiments in the world - the Swaraj University, the Jail University, Complexity University, Tribal Farmversity, the Creativity Adda, the Learning Societies Unconference, the Walkouts-Walk-on network, Udaipur as a Learning City, the Families Learning Together network, Berkana Exchange. He co-launched the global Ecoversities Alliance with 500+ members in 50 countries. Show Notes: Kidnapped by the American Dream Grandma’s University Reclaiming our Cultural Imagination Cultural Imagination for the Culturally Homeless The Radical and Exponential Power of Trust Unlearning Cultural Appropriation in the Oral Tradition Jugard, or “playful improvisation” Being Reclaimed by Ancestors Swaraj University - Money, Love, and Death Alivelihoods and Deadlihoods Traditions of Hospitality in Rajasthan Ecoversities Homework: Swaraj University Website Ecoversities Website Jugaad (Wikipedia) Transcript: [00:00:00] Welcome, Manish, to the End of Tourism podcast. Thanks for joining me today. Thank you, Chris. Great to be here. Great to be with you. Speaking of here, I was wondering if you could share with our listeners where you find yourself today and maybe what the world looks like for you where you are. Yes, I live in a very magical place called Udaipur. It's in Rajasthan, India. I have been here for the last 25 years. Before that I was moving cities every year. I was living in the U. S. and Europe. And my village is about two hours from where I live, from the city. And I have lots of relatives here, lots of ancestors around. And this happens to be one of the major tourist destinations of India. So it's an interesting combination of very [00:01:00] cosmopolitan kind of global jet set coming in, but also lots of traditional culture, local knowledge, still alive. We were lucky to be called backwards and underdeveloped. And so many things have remained but again under, under continuous threat by kind of urbanization and global economy. But yeah, it's a very beautiful place, lots of palaces, lakes all kinds of animals on the street. On a good day you'll see an elephant walking down the street or a camel just in our neighborhoods and yeah, I love it here. So it's, I mean, it's found a place in my heart for sure. Hmm. What a gift. What a gift to, to live in a place that you love and, you know, it seems to be that question at the heart of the themes of the podcast and in that regard, I wanted to begin by asking you a little bit about your journey, Manish. So[00:02:00] from what I've read, from what I've heard, a lot of your work centers around de schooling and unlearning, specifically with Swaraj University and other educational endeavors, Ecoversities being one of them. And I'd like to return to those themes and projects in a little bit and start by asking you, among other things, about your earlier accolades as a Harvard graduate and someone with a degree from Brown University. One of your bios says that you worked for, among others the American multinational investment bank, Morgan Stanley, as well as UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank, and USAID in South Asia, Africa, and the former Soviet Union. And so I'm wondering if you'd be willing to share what led to your initial involvement in these rather prominent institutions, and then subsequently, what led to leaving them behind thereafter? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, hearing that [00:03:00] always gives me the shivers a little bit. It's like such a long time ago now. But so I kind of actually grew up with a deep sense of wanting to serve, serve the world. And when I was growing up I actually, I tell people I was kidnapped when I was three years old, born in India, but then taken to the U. S. Kidnapped by the American dream, which I over time realized was a nightmare for most of the planet. So this deep sense of service has always been, been with me, maybe from my mother, from my father, from my grandparents, many, many sources from, inspired by also Gandhi and, and Tagore and many other Indian freedom fighters. But I kind of grew up with this narrative, if you want to serve, you should go to the big places, the places of big power, those institutions, that's where you can influence, that's where you can make the most impact. And so that kind of was a trajectory that I, I kind of [00:04:00] got put on I kind of was very good. I never liked being in these institutions, but I was very good at faking it I faked it through school all the way to Harvard and, and so I was pretty good at faking it and eventually it caught up with me and I started feeling like I was becoming a fake. So, but going to those places I thought there were, you know, those were the centers of power and that when I got there, I started feeling that these places, each of these places, one by one, I started realizing that they were actually quite powerless in many ways, surrounded by a sense of scarcity and fear and very limited imagination. And so one by one, I became disillusioned with each of each of those places. I was expecting that, you know, these would be the places which could help serve humanity, but I realized that they were built on, you know, this continuous model of extraction and colonization and exploitation of [00:05:00] life. And so even with education, I felt like, okay education will be the solution and I started realizing that education was a huge part of the problem. And so that's what led me started me on the de schooling path to try to see how we can find other ways besides relying on these institutions and the logic of capitalism and commodification to solve our problems. You know, over time I started really developing a severe mistrust of experts. I was one of them, like, although I'm fake and so are the rest of these guys. So by the time I was 28, I hit the wall. And I was like I don't have anywhere else to go, I've been to all these big places, and I don't really see, see any hope from them. I don't think they can be repaired either or that they can actually take the kinds of initiatives that are needed to change the game. So that's what led me back to India then[00:06:00] to be with my illiterate village grandmother. And I thought I'll take care of her. And then I, my wife and I realized that we had inadvertently become part of our grandmother's university and she was our unlearning guru. To both Get beyond I would say a lot of our own fears and anxieties, get beyond a lot of the, let's say Western liberal do gooder frameworks, get beyond our attachment to institutions just to solve things for us and start to understand and remember, I think remembering is a word that I have discussed many times with old common friend of ours, Gustavo Esteva, but start to remember that we have much more richness and wealth and creativity, possibility within us and our, and within our communities. So that's been a little bit of the journey to re remember and reclaim and reimagine things. I [00:07:00] remember seeing in one of your talks that you said that your work or to you, what you understood your work to be is, is a way of reclaiming our cultural imagination. I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on that. Yeah, I think basically I think the deepest form of colonization has happened is to our imaginations. And there is a phrase from the eighties from Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher called TINA. "There Is No Alternative." So, as there was an uprising that started happening around the world questioning the dominant development paradigm, the global economy, it was quickly suppressed, repressed by this phrase, TINA. This is the best system that we have, and you know, there's, there's nothing beyond it, so you should just try to improve what's there. And so I think what then [00:08:00] people are forced into is to try to fix or let's say work with what is the existing frameworks and definitions that we have been fed about things like progress or development or success or happiness and then we are all in a very deep endless losing race to try to catch up with something. And we're not even sure what happens when you win. Maybe that's where it hit me. You know, there's a saying, if you, if you beat them at their own game, you lose everything. And so I kind of started realizing that personally, and also when I was looking at the development paradigm more different more closely. So I think, you know, what else is possible first of beyond the kind of logic of the rational mind, what's possible beyond the anthropocentric perspectives that we have on life, what's possible beyond global corporations and institutions deciding what's best for us, what's [00:09:00] possible beyond markets and technologies as the solutions for all of the planet's woes. I think that's what we're trying to explore when I talk about cultural imagination. And I, I think that the first step is to open up the definitions again. This is another thing I think many of my elders, Gustavo, and, Ivan Illich and a person here in India who was a friend of Gustavo's, Claude Alvarez, many were urging us that we need to open up the definitions of things. So that's what usually I think in a lot of the decolonial movements, what didn't happen that we accepted their definitions of development of the good life, all of those things. And then we started pursuing that, but actually it's a very exciting time that we can actually crack that open. And see, okay, what is it? Little Bhutan, a country of 700, 000. People asking, you know, what is happiness? And saying that[00:10:00] you know, the West, you guys have all the money, you guys have all the technology, you have all the armies, but are your people happy? So I think, you know, this is happening in obviously in Latin America, "buen vivir," in India, Swaraj, so many movements, which I think are challenging the given definitions and creating a space for us to dream differently, to tap into a different worldview which recognizes a sense of the sacred and recognizes that we are not just, you know, cogs in the machine in terms of our purpose on this earth. So I think those are, that's a little bit of what I mean by reclaiming the cultural imagination. Hmm. And you mentioned Swaraj and I'm really excited to dive into that and see where this notion of reclaiming cultural imagination fits there in a place and not just in philosophies. But I wanted to ask you this kind of this little follow up question in regards to the cultural imagination. Because we've [00:11:00] had the great honor to befriend and learn from people like Gustavo. But I think of my family and friends and compañeros, colleagues in Toronto, major North American metropolis. And I wonder how reclaiming the cultural imagination looks like or could be for people who would consider themselves either cultural orphans or culturally homeless. You know I mean, you and I have distinct ties, it seems, and a lived memory to the places our people moved or migrated from or still live in. And so there's a bridge of sorts that already exists that on some level can still be crossed. What about the people who have no lived memory of where their people come from or who would admit, or at least can offer up the idea that they have no culture? Yeah, so, oh, that's a great question. So, [00:12:00] I think maybe the first thing I would kind of offer in that situation is that one is a question of how to reconnect to the land and the territory you live in the place, the water, the rivers, the mountains, the forests. There's a tremendous amount of memory that, that lives in the place which can help us recover parts of ourselves that have been lost. The other is, I think, in terms of reconnecting to our bodies again, there's a tremendous amount of wisdom. We can recover again from our own bodies, from our breath also reconnecting to our breath in a very profound way and help us recover things. And also when I talk about culture, I think the essence of culture without being an essentialist, is is what I call gift culture. Mm-Hmm. So this culture of, of connection, of care, of kindness, of trust, of hospitality, of [00:13:00] forgiveness. There's so many traditions like that, wherever we are, and we can also create new traditions around these things. And so, a lot of times we confuse culture for the food or for the clothes or for the music of a place. But I think the deeper level of all culture is a gift culture, which is a reminder of the interconnectedness of life, the thread that is woven through all of us, connects us to something very sacred and even divine in some sense. So, I think that reconnecting to the spirit of kindness and care is a huge step. We've been doing a lot of experiments over the years around gift culture and reconnecting to a field of trust again. I call it the radical and exponential power of trust. Much of our work and I would almost say in the miracles that I see every day in our work are because of this field of trust that we have been able to reconnect to and this is what my [00:14:00] grandmother, I think, was helping me to reconnect to in terms of culture is because I remember growing up in the U. S. this continuous thing of don't trust anyone, don't trust your neighbors, don't trust anyone, somebody, anybody is being kind to you because they may have an angle. They may steal from you or cheat from you or whatever, and I think it took me a lot of healing to come out of that and that has been a phenomenal journey in terms of opening up possibilities for how I connect, and one other thing I would say is that. A lot of, I know this has been a major unlearning area because I used to be very critical of all of this cultural appropriation that we see in the West, people picking up things in here, here and there. But as I've been in India and I've become more connected to the oral traditions, very different kind of ethics and philosophy and ways of, of living and doing things that lives in an oral tradition. Like [00:15:00] I grew up with this strong fear of, you know, plagiarism. You know, that was the one thing Harvard and Brown hammer you is about plagiarizing. Cite every word. Chris said this, or Gustavo said this, right? And I found in the oral tradition, there's a different kind of trickster level playfulness that you can take anything, play with anything. You don't have to cite, you can modify, you can change, you can adapt. And I think I've been trying to bring that more into these conversations around cultural appropriation, because I think people get so afraid nowadays of being bashed for exploring a different culture for taking things. Obviously, there is a level of depth and engagement and commitment, dedication to understanding something that I would invite in that. But being able to pick up things, I think has been part of our culture. People take things and spread them and appropriate them in ways that keep them alive and moving so it's something I've been exploring a [00:16:00] lot is that it seems very much more controlling and part of the old paradigm to say that we need to protect and there are certain cultural gatekeepers and certain kinds of people who who will tell you you're right or wrong in the culture. So I also would want to open up that conversation, exploration with people. Thank you. You know what I mean? You know what I mean with that? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It definitely points towards a notion of cultures being static and that there being a degree of authenticity, a kind of original foundation or culture for a people which seems to be a relic of 19th century anthropology and things like that. And, and a restriction that we are just these bodies in this present time. You know, in India, obviously we talk about reincarnation and so there, there may be other, other cultures within us and that we've lived that [00:17:00] want to express themselves and want to be opened in this life as well, which maybe our body and our place doesn't necessarily give us that opportunity, but the possibility exists, or the the desire even if is there so. I would want to invite us to all of that as well. Mm hmm, and you've been speaking a lot about how your time in India has really been an opportunity for you to unlearn, maybe disassociate a little bit from the taught worldview that you had in the United States. And this next question comes from a friend of ours dear friend Erin, and She wanted to ask about your move to India or move back depending on how you choose to understand it and how that experience has been for you as someone who grew up on the other side of the world and what do you think it means in the context of [00:18:00] your migration to be claimed or reclaimed by a place. Beautiful. Yeah. I think it's been quite a powerful and even I would say magical journey because as you said, the place and the people reclaim me. Part of it is that, you know, my relatives are here, my ancestors are here. And so at times when I felt, you know, a little bit out of place they reminded me that I belong here and I'm welcome here. And I think what I've made a very strong effort to do is to reground myself in different ways and maybe those ways have been made the transition more smooth or beautiful in one way. So one is like, you know, a lot of the ideas, for example, or work that I'm doing I've tried to find cultural reference points and stories that makes sense because initially when I came, a lot of the things I was talking about, [00:19:00] people were like, oh, that's another Western idea. That's something you're just bringing. It's not Indian, blah, blah, whatever. So I started to look for stories in the past. So when I talk about my university, Swaraj University, I tell people it's 5, 000 years old. Our first chancellor was from the Mahabharata, Ekalavya, the story of Ekalavya, the first documented, self-designed learner and so that all of a sudden something clicks differently for people of how they hear it, how they connect it. When I talk about, for example, when we used to talk a lot, Erin, since you brought her up, we explored a lot of zero waste and upcycling together. There's a word in Hindi, jugard, which means playful improvisation. So, using our own words to describe it rather than trying to take everything from English and translate it. But also I'd say, you know, like people would say, again, zero waste. This is a Western sustainability thing. I said, no no, wait a second. Our grandmothers are all zero waste masters. So, you [00:20:00] know, let us understand that all of these ideas are actually connected to many things that we have in our own culture. So that's made it a very beautiful thing because it's not only being welcoming, it's actually unleashing a lot of energy that had been pent up with people like fear and you know, self -limiting, self-belief, self -suppression in a sense. So all of a sudden hearing that, Oh, this is actually has roots in who we are, has opened up a lot for ways we engage in people to accept me and some of the ideas and experiments we've been sharing. So that's been good. And I think the other thing is really a kind of regrounding. So when I moved back, I was good at PowerPoint and Excel. My worldview was through Microsoft products, right? So what I learned again was to reconnect to farming and our food systems. And I think Aerin and Yeyo's journey is also, we've been together on this for many years, but [00:21:00] also to local language again, and you know, making our own clothes, building our own buildings, you know our own healing techniques and plants here. So, just reconnecting to a lot of those things have helped the place to welcome me in different ways and also me to be able to build different relationships with a lot of diverse people here as well. And I think the third thing is really that just to add was like this, one of the deschooling ideas was to core is to shed these labels of failures of looking, you know, at only educated people as intelligent. So there's so much wisdom and creativity and beauty and love that is with people who don't have degrees. And so being able to see that because I was able to let go of these labels and these frameworks has really helped me again, beautifully connecting with many people and many energies here. Wonderful. And [00:22:00] do you think that those, those points that you just mentioned, that they were causes or consequences of you and your people there opening Swaraj University? Or did it evolve into that? It happened, you know, like I said, we have more than a thousand faculty in Swaraj University, and they are grandmothers and farmers and artisans and mountains and lakes and, and trees, the human, the more than human. The one other thing that's really been very powerful is, you know, the place I live in, I would say about 80 percent of the people living here talk to their ancestors. Like without a shaman, they can, you know, like my cousins or my aunt can channel ancestors and we would have all night prayer rituals to talk, connect with them, invite them. And it's like people, and for me with my western trained scientific mind, I [00:23:00] couldn't understand this initially and then it started to open up once I kind of allowed myself to breathe with it opened up a whole different set of possibilities also in engagement to the place where the ancestors were welcoming me. As well to this place. So, that has been beautiful. And another thing that happened was I met, again, a lot of traditional healers. So 25 years ago when I was meeting them was a huge amount of skepticism. My mother's a doctor in the U. S. and she doesn't trust anything Ayurvedic or folk medicines or anything. So when I met them, I was skeptical, but as I spent time with them, and started seeing that they're, they actually have some very deep power. And when I asked them, you know, how did you learn all of this stuff? Because you think of this plant with this, you know, the bark of this and the, you have to boil that with the roots of this and mix it with this. I'm like, so many combinations and permutations, right? And I'm like, they didn't have supercomputers. [00:24:00] So I asked them, how did you guys learn this? And they said, what do you think? And I very proudly used to say trial and error, you know, that must be the scientific method. And they would laugh like crazy. And I'm like, what, what was it like that? That's so primitive trial and error. It's so primitive. I'm like, what? And they would, I said, how did they do it? They said, Oh, we could, our ancestors could talk to the plants. And so once I kind of started to allow that worldview to permeate me, it started to create a different sense of connection to the place, I think. And so it's been a very beautiful journey to in a sense, one can say rewild myself here. And are those, are those themes incorporated into swarajs, and I don't want to say curriculum, because we all know that's a four letter word for a lot of people, but but in terms of de schooling, in terms of unlearning, in terms of, these kinds of old time [00:25:00] learnings, what does a student maybe encounter at Swaraj? Yeah. So there's no curriculum per se, but we have, you know, a few different elements to it. It's all derived from living together, right? So, one is obviously, we call it learning from the gift of conflict. So as you're living together, there's conflicts that start to emerge all the time. So those conflicts are very beautiful entry points into kind of reflecting, if you, once you move beyond the blame narrative to reflect on yourself, what's triggering you, why do you feel disturbed about it? So very, very powerful opportunities to reflect on oneself. We have also what we call a lot of unlearning challenges. So those are optional, but we've created different challenges because we felt there's a lot of conditioning that people come into. Swaraj with and they're around many different areas, but I would say three of the common ones are around most [00:26:00] common around money unlearning our free fear, anxiety scarcity that's related to the money system. Even our self worth gets tied so much to the money system. So, we have a lot of different experiments around that. The second is around love. Both starting with self love, but then how we understand love, how we relate, notions of jealousy, inferiority, all kinds of things which are tied to love. And the third is then death. Death. And so are so these are places that we explore a bit. We have different experiments where people can, you know, for example, and imagine your death would be an invitation that we would invite people into a process. So there's a lot of unlearning experiments. And then the third is that people actually then have a lot of space to design their own personal programs of what they want to explore. And in that process, because you're living in a community, lots of informal learning is happening. Peer to peer, your friend is doing [00:27:00] something. Maybe you start, like, I'm not interested, but after a month of seeing your friend, or a few months, you start, it's just something starts, you know, entering into your system and you realize, Oh, maybe I do like this or this is interesting. And your friend leaves it. I've seen cases, a friend leaves it and the other person picks it up and you know, takes it forward also. So, all of this kind of cross pollination is happening all the time, which is very beautiful. So those are some of the things that happen in Swaraj. And I think where we would invite this is we are becoming more, I think we've become more and more bold over the years, like with this idea of ritual and the sacred. So, in India, there was a lot of, you know first from the left, a lot of bashing of ritual and sacred as these were Brahmanical tools to suppress and these are superstitious. And these tools are, you know, the Marxist idea that these are to [00:28:00] control the masses. And then also, it was bashed because these are ways to cement a kind of fascist Hindu paradigm which is against minorities and things. So, there was a lot of, lot of stories running in our heads around ritual. And then our own personal experiences that oftentimes meaningless, they become fractured, they become rigid and so what we've tried to do is really reclaim the space of ritual in Swaraj. And part of that is with our ancestors or with the more than human. And so inviting people to look at ritual in a very different way has been very interesting. And sometimes I'm involved in rituals and I'm like, what are you doing? The inner voice says, dude, what are you doing? You know, like, who are you at this? And, you know, so all of that old stuff that we kind of grew up with in terms of the scientific analytical mind, which sees everything that it can't understand as [00:29:00] superstition sometimes reappears in certain ways, but I think it's been part of the journey to really create a space at least to engage with this, and so in Swaraj very much it's, it's there as well, and, and maybe the, the way we explain it is there's a need to go beyond the kind of the rational, there's a, there's limits to the rational, logical fragmented mind of how it can see or what it can make sense of. We often even talk about, you know, the way we're trained to think about the crisis is part of the crisis. So, you know, so this space of entering into kind of a liminal energy, a different frequency together is maybe very powerful. And those can be through many different ways, right? Through music, through dance, through food, through fasting. In India, it's really through silence, you know, so it doesn't always have to be plant medicines, which you find more in Latin America and Africa, but in India, meditation and silence and fasting were and [00:30:00] breathing were really different ways that have been experimented over the centuries for people to enter into a different kind of consciousness together. Well, it sounds like an incredible place and an incredible project. I hope if the winds allow me to travel again in a way that maybe they once did that I'd be able to experience that myself. Yes, we have a long, we Udaipur and Oaxaca. So the chances for those winds appearing are pretty good. Amen. Amen. And speaking of Oaxaca our mutual friend, Yeyo had wanted me to ask you about this formulation of yours and all he wrote was livelihoods as opposed to deadlihoods. Oh yes, a alivelihoods, alivelihoods. We made a distinction because a lot of people are wondering what can I do today [00:31:00] in the world. And so the first thing is to help them see that most of what the university, the conventional university is preparing us for are what I call deadlihoods. The work, whether you're in law or in finance or in psychology or I.T., somehow or other, they're tied to a deadlihoods economy that is extractive, military, violent. So, how can we start to understand how we ourselves are implicated in that kind of economy. And so that's one part of it. But then to also think about, you know, the work that's needed today in the world is what I call alivelihoods. And that starts with, you know, what makes my spirit come alive? Because we've we've heard this, "lots of work is soul sucking." So, what is the work that actually nourishes our soul? And gives us meaning and purpose, you know? Lets us reconnect that, you know meaning, purpose, spirituality is not something you [00:32:00] just do on a Sunday or you do in a class, but it's actually tied to the work you're doing in the world and how do we integrate that? What is the kind of work that is helping my community come alive? That is actually shifting power from global corporations back into communities, which are kind of, what is the work that's building, weaving the bonds of trust? And care, kindness, compassion back into community life. And what is the work that is regenerating our ecosystems? So what I call our real wealth. So how do we compost the money system? And start to regenerate real wealth with it. Our health, our forests, our soils, our waters, which are all over the world are in massive, massive degradation stages right now. And how do we regenerate the social bonds again? The trust networks again, that can give us a sense of security, of care, of belonging, of respect, of [00:33:00] dignity. So that's kind of the loose framework we have for that. And I think one other element is that what is the work that will help us shift the worldviews that we have? So the worldview of the planet is being a dead entity and human beings being the only intelligent beings on this planet and the kind of fear that is driving much of the decision making. How do we start to shift to a different worldview that many indigenous communities had a sense of, much better sense of. So, what is the work that can help us shift the narratives of who we are? Why are we on this earth together? Why are we, you know, perpetuating these ideas of ownership or of borders of you know, so many things that we have kind of internalized, which are fundamental to the modernist project. Is there a way to start to unravel these or shift these? So what is the work that allows us that? So I call all of that, all of that a livelihoods, really, and the invitation is to help [00:34:00] people think about how they can be doing that. And I think the other element in that, which is really important is, how do we move beyond this like individual self help kind of narrative we've been fed. You know, like the problem is in you. You have to fix yourself. Whereas how, how do we shift it more to how do we want to understand the systems and the institutions and how they're operating, but also, you how do we focus more of our care and our energy and our healing around healthy community, rebuilding healthy community, because that's what will give us a different sense of power, a different sense of possibility and things. So that's a little bit about it. There's much more, many layers, but just to give you a sense. Yeah, thank you for that. You know, I'm reminded in this, in this context of deadlihoods and the kind of modern condition and the economies that prevail as a result. There is and has been, especially in the last two centuries, this kind of not only degradation of community, but of course, the dissolution[00:35:00] of community and in the sense of people moving to the big city or other countries for better lives. And sometimes necessarily. So like sometimes it's simply their only option, right? And, this is very, very much evident to me in the work that I do here in Oaxaca. And you know, I had come across this declaration from 2009 in a, a very rural village in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, where a group of peasant families from different villages alongside their migrant kin or family spoke for days about the consequences of their movements, and at the end of that three day assembly, declared alongside the right to migrate, the right to stay home and the right to not migrate, and so I'm kind of curious what kind of dynamics you've seen in India In terms of that economic impulse to [00:36:00] move, to leave the village, to migrate and maybe what part Swaraj and endeavors like it might play in those dynamics. Yeah. So I think, part of it is you're saying is physically forced displacement due to development projects, massive development projects or war. But a lot of the displacement has been sold to people package as to people that the urban lifestyle or the American lifestyle is the lifestyle and what you're leading is impoverished, is insignificant, is backwards. You know, there's all kinds of ways. And so much of what education role was is to convince us that somehow the urban lifestyle is what is to be aspired for. So a lot of people move because of that. I have my experience with rural people and working with rural people is that a lot of them, they're like, "we're quite happy where we're at. But what happens is when our cousin comes from the city, they bring [00:37:00] fancy phones and motorcycles and money and they show off and that's what really makes us feel really bad." And then we have to, what we've tried to do is to counter that with, you know reminding people of what a shitty life urban life is. Most people are living in slums. Most people are, if you're not, you're living under continuous stress and tension to make ends meet in polluted environments these days and lots of traffic. And so I at least, you know, try to remind people that in their villages, they may not have that many material things but they're the Kings of the village. They have fresh air. They have clean places, good water to drink still. They have good food, fresh food they're eating. So that's been an interesting journey. Sometimes people understand, particularly the older people understand. This is the other thing that schooling played a major role is to try to kill the voices of wisdom. So, like my grandmother or other elders would be [00:38:00] told, "Oh, you're uneducated. What do you know about what is a good life or what is, you know, the way forward? And so those voices still are silenced quite a bit because young people go to school for some years and then they think they are much more knowledgeable about what life is all about or what's important in life. So, I think what's interesting is that what we're saying about the breakdown of what the urban success story was or the urban model, it's becoming more and more clear to people, like they're seeing that so there are people I know who are moving back. Udaipur is a very small city and a lot of people who have been connected with us have decided to stay in Udaipur rather than moving to Delhi or Bombay, which has been the trend. And so I think it's a very important thing to keep looking at. I think if people see if they have a good life in smaller places, a lot of people are ready to come [00:39:00] back. Because the stress, the continuous stress and speed of big city life is I feel is taking a toll on people and also the whole promise is there's jobs and everything. And so you see more and more unemployment also happening in big cities. So, I think there's an interesting question right now in people's minds of what, what to do and where to go. So you know, it very much seems that one of the ways that what I'll call, I guess, well, either modern people or cultural Americans seem impoverished by is in the realm of hospitality. The lack of hospitality towards not only their neighbors at home, but, but abroad among hosts, you know, most people stay in hotels or Airbnbs. Most tourists anyways, they eat at chain restaurants. They're taught a transactional worldview and all exchange tends to end up in a customer service evaluation. And I feel that this is very much what [00:40:00] tourism has done to that part of the culture, that we would otherwise refer to as hospitality. And so I'm curious in your opinion how would you define radical hospitality? And how have you seen it perhaps as an antidote for the industrial hospitality modern people so often encounter. Yeah. I would that's a great question. So I think I've had the experience in being in Rajasthan of many traditions of hospitality and I would even say radical in the sense that all over India we say that " treat our guests like gods." So that's probably as radical as you could get with hospitality, if I treat you like a god, right? And what it means to me is, not to God in the sense of the pedestal of God or somebody remote, but actually God in the sense of this is my way [00:41:00] to find another connection to the divine in all of us, the divine that connects all of us. And so when I am able to receive somebody with that spirit, I'm able to touch into something very deep within myself also. And we have so many traditions here which again, in our work, we're trying to recover and remind people, remember in different ways. I would just share a couple of things around that. So one is like, in the desert, when it gets really hot up to 50 degrees Celsius, probably the most hospitable and sacred thing you can do is offer somebody water. So with the industrial consumer tourism, we have a parallel underground system happening. So you can go to stores and you'll see bottled water, for example, where people are paying and they buy it. But if you kind of look closely, you'll see on almost every corner of the old city where, where [00:42:00] most of the tourists come, there are clay pots, which people fill up every day for which are called piaos. So the tradition was that to offer any passerby, any stranger, water, is one of the highest gifts you can honor with them because it's so hot and so I've seen women fill water and carry it from even very far away to offer it to strangers, which is so humbling and so powerful that people would actually be able to offer this. So you can see these pots, people are sitting there sometimes, sometimes the pots are just filled and left with a glass for people to fill themselves and drink. But this is a very powerful way to remind us that there is a different way to relate both to resources like water and how we see it, which is non commodified. And so my grandmother would never think of charging money for water. If I ever told her, she'd be like, what is wrong with those [00:43:00] people? There must be some real deep sickness in them. "Let's go charge money for water." And so I think that, you know, that's an example of an entry to a different understanding of what is water, what is our relationship with each other and I wouldn't say what is water, almost you could say who is water. That question gets opened up as well through this act. And so the other thing around radical hospitality and I care, I would say there's some traditions that are called guptan here, which is kind of the invisible giving tradition. So a lot of what do you find, hospitality these days, is around showing off or people should know who's serving you and who's giving you. And here, there's another sense of care that is given where nobody knows who is the giver and to try to remove that arrogance of the giver when care is offered. And so it's offered with a deep sense of service, but to try to remove the ego element that I am the giver, I'm the one who's [00:44:00] helping somebody or being hospitable to them in some way. So I think that's also been quite inspiring to me, how to enter into that real space of humility as part of a radical hospitality tradition. And I think that these things do have a very essential role to play in challenging what's happening in the world and, and building different kinds of models and systems, because if care and connection is not part of that I don't know what the, what the new models, what they would stand on. And so these are this has to be the foundation of something that can grow. And every time, you know, if you ask me every few years, it deepens and changes because of experiences here. When I first I heard about it from Gustavo. I was like, "Oh, this is so beautiful." But I had relatively little ideas of how it would actually look every day. I see more and more examples of it in living practice here where I live. So yeah, it gives me a lot of hope that [00:45:00] maybe that's one of the keys to finding our way forward. Well, thank you, Manish, for your time today and this wonderful, wonderful conversation. Before I let you go to sleep and probably tend to family, I'd like to ask, how might our listeners find out more about your work, about Swaraj University, and I know we didn't have time to speak about it, but the Ecoversities project. Yeah, it's been wonderful to, to talk with you, Chris. I do hope that we can welcome you someday to Udaipur as well. The one thing I would say is that Swaraj University is part of this alliance, translocal alliance around the world called Ecoversities, so a network of like 500 plus alternative universities in 50 countries. And the idea [00:46:00] was that, you know, these are, in a sense, kind of part of an underground railroad, if you would say for people who are walking out of the system or trying to figure out how they can live differently on the planet together. And the beautiful thing is that, you know, anyone can declare themselves an ecoversity, their community. And there's a huge diversity of things, ranging from the farmversities and the forestversities and the riverversities to, you know, like deathversities and travelersversities grandmothers' universities and jail universities and all kinds of spaces. So, this is really to reclaim different kinds of knowledge systems and different learning processes that have never been valued by conventional universities. And to maybe start to create a space, as I said, to live together, to reclaim our hands and our hearts and our bodies and [00:47:00] our homes as well as our holistic heads And to try to dream, to dream something together. So we have a website, we have gatherings, I would invite people to, to come and and visit us and connect with different eco overseas around the world. I have a 21 year old daughter. She's been unschooled. She never looked at a textbook or an exam or a classroom really in her life, except, you know, like we took her to see children in a classroom, like you take kids to see animals in the zoo so she could see what it was like for a couple of days. But so, you know, really wanted to create a model, not only, I mean, for myself, for her, for other young people to be able to learn and be in different kinds of communities and experiments around the world. So, we invite you all to help create the new models that the world needs with us. I'll make sure that all of those links and [00:48:00] resources that you mentioned, Manish, are there on the End of Tourism website when the episode launches. And on behalf of our listeners, blessings on your day, your path, your tongue, and thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks, Chris. Thanks for your wonderful work and good luck with the new projects that are emerging in your life. Thank you, Manish. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

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#0.6 | Spectacle, The Senses and Surveillance w/ Chris Christou 11:17

1 year тому11:17

11:17

Show Notes John Urry’s The Tourist Gaze Photography The Senses Surveillance and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Spectacle Homework Transcript Welcome friends to Season Zero of the End of Tourism podcast. In these mini-episodes, you'll hear short transmissions speaking to the principles of the pod. We'll introduce you, our listeners, to the themes and questions that will be woven into our conversations, a kind of primer on our politics. This episode is entitled "Spectacle, the Senses and Surveillance." [00:00:31] So we can't talk about tourism without talking about the senses without talking about spectacle and without talking about surveillance. How do people come to perceive new worlds, sensually? How do we smell, taste, touch, hear, and see in foreign lands? And how did tourism become such a spectacle, driven incessantly by cameras, vision, and consumption? How is it that our movements feed surveillance states and surveillance societies? [00:01:09] The English sociologist, John Urry coined the phrase, "the tourist gaze." His work dove into the worlds and ways in which tourists see in foreign lands, the way they look, observe, and watch local people, the way they watch local places themselves, and even each other. [00:01:32]Modern people move with their eyes. We have become intensely visual beings. Some would even say that we are hypnotized by the eyes. On average, the other senses amount for a combined 15% of our perception. But not every culture carries this sensorial imbalance like we do. In other words, this way of perceiving the world is not natural, but cultural. [00:02:03]This is not only what tourists bring to other worlds, but how they arrive in them, how they understand or more often misunderstand other cultures, people and places, through this hypnosis. Western worldviews reflect the images that Western people have their travels. None of this is new. Since the Renaissance, travel writing, manufactured the image of the world for those back home. Before photography, travel writing was the only way to explain to the masses how far off lands appeared. [00:02:43] Each traveling author, each trip reflected the histories and power dynamics and prejudices of the time. Today, the same thing happens with photography and with social media. On the podcast, we will look deeply into the stereoscope of media, both past and present to understand these unseen consequences. [00:03:08] Today, it seems that Urry's "tourist gaze" is intimately hitched to the camera and to photography. Photography has been a part of travel and tourism since the first cameras in the mid-19th century. Today, however, with the inundation of smartphones and wifi worldwide, the amount of photos taken is astronomical. The total number of photos ever taken has doubled in the span of just a few years. [00:03:36] Of course, this has its consequence in the world and especially in the places, tourists, visit. The smartphone with the capacity to connect to the internet almost anywhere is the most dangerous and effective Trojan horse of globalization. If there was ever a way to attack or subvert traditional culture and culture itself, the smartphone, the handset of modernity, is it. It bypasses barriers that might otherwise shield people from the consequences of foreign entitlement. As soon as it has a foothold, it converts local people faster than any missionary would. [00:04:19]The relationships that exist in could exist between our human sensing and the natural or more-than-human world is a kind of birthright. We might even call it a birth-responsibility, but today they are often ignored and neglected in favor of technology. The senses themselves are dulled to the point where we require more technology simply in order to get by in our day-to-day lives. [00:04:47] As the senses whither, so does the wonder and wisdom and the kinship with the local world that our ancestors apprenticed and entrusted to us. In turn, our senses are outsourced to higher resolutions and more megapixels. They are outsourced to the cloud. We must ask, then, what are the consequences for having neglected those relationships, for having forgotten that wisdom? What happens to the more-than-human worlds in our midst as a result? [00:05:23] What do they imagine us to be doing as we abandon them and the ancestors among us who might've honored, such senses, such sensing, deepening our ancient inheritance. [00:05:35]You see, this is what tourism does. Sometimes, people travel only to take photos that have already been taken millions of times. Tourists desire to carve out the meaningless notches on their belt, drawing more and more attention to the slow destruction of the very thing they photograph, now reduced to nothing more than a photo or a photo op. [00:06:03]Each photo, each location, each reaction, like, in commentary is recorded and funneled into an artificial intelligence underground, where it is converted into ways of both reducing and controlling our attention. This is what sends thousands, if not millions of people to foreign destinations as hunters of experience and pseudo-status. [00:06:30]The attention economy feeds tourism and tourism undoes everything that makes a place itself. Overtouristed cities are already implementing Machiavellian panopticons, the all seeing eyes of local governments. They are using over tourism itself as a pretext to install surveillance programs that track every movement in and out of these places. Entire cities and entire populations. This is already well underway in places like Venice, Italy. [00:07:07] Likewise, governments and industry are already launching digital travel passports that will not only contain all government-related documents, but act as "surveillance by design" tracking devices. The data can then be evaluated in order to privilege certain travelers over others, not unlike what is being done in China right now with the social credit and rating system there. In every way, shape, and form tourism feeds the dream-slash-nightmare of a totalitarian world. [00:07:43] It seems to me that in the west almost no one is not a tourist. Let me say that again. It seems to me that in the west, almost everyone is a tourist. Almost everyone is a tourist, which is to say that we have become amateurs and strangers in our own neighborhoods, in part, because the spectacle of modern life and its media has ennobled a way of being in the world and in the neighborhood that is both temporary and seemingly inconsequential. [00:08:17] The way we see in foreign lands comes from the way we see at home. We don't arrive in destinations as tourists. We leave home as tourists. This comes from home being understood and known, in our time, as an option, as a feeling, and even as a photo op. When home is no longer a place, when home becomes a choice or a potential "base," the responsibility of place is left in the hands of governments, usually to be sold off to the highest bidder. [00:08:58] Home is hit with a wave of consequences, not unlike the places tourists go to visit and often for the same reasons. For our listeners, this might sound dreary, lamentable, and even over the top, but consider that if this arises for you in these ways, it might do so as a result of these things arriving mostly unconsidered. [00:09:25] These are dangerous times and to be properly in them to find ourselves as faithful witnesses to the times, will likely ask more than we're willing and to give. That's okay too, and probably expected. [00:09:40] This is both strange and mandatory because the times we're living in have been abandoned by a touristic mindset. For many, the old, week-long vacation has now become a lifelong lifestyle choice. Wanderlust, in other words. Not just escape, but socially legislated abandonment. [00:10:03]Spectacle that conceals the wilting of the senses. Spectacle that conceals the rise of surveillance societies. Spectacle, that we will approach these conversations in a way that, all willing, subverts spectacle. Finding worthy resistance strategies, staying home and standing in solidarity with touristed places and peoples so that we may find a worthy way to bury spectacle. Welcome to the end of tourism. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

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S5 #5 | Fortress Conservation in the Congo w/ Martin Lena & Linda Poppe (Survival International) 50:51

1 year тому50:51

50:51

On this episode, my guests are Martin Lena and Linda Poppe of Survival International. They join me to discuss “fortress conservation” in the Congo, the issues facing Kahuzi-Biega National Park, and the recent victories of Survival International there. Linda is a political scientist and director of the Berlin office of Survival International, the global movement for Indigenous peoples' rights. She is also part of Survival’s campaign to Decolonize Conservation, which supports Indigenous peoples, who continue to suffer land theft and human rights abuses in the name of conservation. Martin is an advocacy officer for Survival International. He primarily works on Survival’s campaign to Decolonize Conservation and has collected testimonies directly from communities facing violations of their rights in the name of conservation. Show Notes: What Conservation Looks like in the Democratic Republic of the Congo The Evictions of the Batwa Safari Tourism in DRC Conflict The Militarization of Conservation in Kahuzi-Biega National Park Land Guards vs Land Guardians Organizing Victory! Scrapping French Involvement in Kahuze-Biega The German Government Continues to Fund the Park Solidarity: How to Respond / Act in Concert Homework: Survival International: French government scraps funding plan for Kahuzi-Biega National Park, citing human rights concerns Survival International Decolonize Conservation Campaign Balancing Act: The Imperative of Social and Ecological Justice in Kahuzi-Biega Transcript: Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome to the End of Tourism Podcast, Martin and Linda. I'd love it if I could start by asking you two to explain to our listeners where you two find yourselves today and what the world looks like there for you. Linda: Well, hi everyone. My name is Linda. I work for Survival International and I'm in Berlin. I'm at home, actually, and I look forward to talking to you and chatting with you. It's dark outside already, but, well, that's, I guess, the time of the year. Martin: And I'm based in Paris, also at home, but I work at Survival's French office. And how does the world feel right now? It feels a bit too warm for October, but other than that. Chris: Well, thank you both for for joining me today. I'd like to begin by reminiscing on the season three interview that I had with your colleague Fiore Longo, entitled "Decolonizing Conservation in Africa and Beyond." And in that interview, we discussed the history [00:01:00] of conservation as colonization in the context of Tanzania and the national parks that were built there and the indigenous lands that were stolen in order to do so. I'm curious if you two could offer a bit of background for our listeners in terms of the history of conservation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and especially in regards to the Batwa people and the Kahuzi Biega National Park. Linda: We were quite you know, astonished of the colonial history that, we find in the park where we're here to discuss today. Well, the Congo, obviously, you know, was a colony. And I think in this context, we also need to look at the conservation that is happening in the DRC today. And a lot of the things that you have discussed with our colleague, feel very true for the DRC as well. And the, the park that we're going to look at today, I think it's probably [00:02:00] also the best example to start to explain a little bit what conservation looks like in DRC. It's an older park, so it was created a longer time ago, and it was always regarded as something that is there to protect precious nature for people to look at and not for people to go and live in. And this is exactly what the problem is today, which we see continues, that the people that used to live on this land are being pushed outside violently, separated from the land which they call home, which is everything for them, the supermarket, the church, the school, just in the name of conserving supposed nature. And unfortunately, this is something that we see all over the DRC and different protected areas that exist there, that we still follow this colonial idea of mostly European [00:03:00] conservationists in history and also currently that claim that they're protecting nature, often in tandem with international conservation NGOs. In the park we look at today, it's the Wildlife Conservation Society, and they're, yeah, trying to get rid of the original inhabitants that have guarded these spaces for such a long time. Martin: To build on that, in our campaign to decolonize conservation and survival, we often say that fortress conservation has deep colonial roots and you can definitely see that with the the actual history of the of Kahuzi Biega National Park because it started as a reserve that was created by the Belgian colonial government in 1937 and It was transformed into a national park after independence. So in the 70s, but it was still designated as such following the lobbying of a Belgian conservationist. So it's really the continuation the Western and the European will to keep controlling the, [00:04:00] the independent territories. And that in Africa oftentimes was done through conservation. Linda: And it also has this idea of, I think a lot of the conservation projects that we see, Martin just said it, there was also this post independence push on creating national parks, which was obviously related to the idea that Europeans might lose hold of control in certain areas, so they were pushing for the creation of national parks like the Kahuzi Biega National Park. And that is the setting that we're talking about, basically, something that has very colonial roots and has been pushed into the post colonial era, but in a way which is actually very colonial. Chris: Thank you both for that brief, brief history and introduction into what we'll be speaking about today, Linda, you mentioned that so many of the circumstances around the creation of these national parks includes the exclusion and [00:05:00] displacement of the original inhabitants. And in this case, among others, this includes the Batwa people. And so I'd like to just give our listeners a little bit of a context for what's happened to the Batwa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And so the statistics tell us that "over 90 percent of the 87, 000 indigenous Batwa people in the park have lost legal access to their native territory, turned into conservation areas, and who are desperately poor," according to a 2009 United Nations report. Now, in a recent Reuters article, it's written that, quote, "Local human rights and environmental experts say that the authorities failure to fulfill promises to the Batwa has undermined efforts to protect the forest and its endangered species, including some of the last populations of eastern lowland gorilla. Some of the Batwa around the [00:06:00] park participate in the illegal poaching, mining, and logging that are destroying the gorilla's globally significant habitat. As a result, the conservation outlook for the park is critical, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature." The article goes further and says that "the Batwa have no choice because they are poverty stricken, according to Josue Aruna, president of the province's environmental civil society group, who does community outreach for the Batwa." It seems in this way that the land rights and traditional lifestyles of the Batwa are intimately tied to the health and survival of the ecosystems within the national park, which they've been excluded from, and that their poverty is a consequence of their displacement. Do you think that the issue is as simple as that? Martin: It's always interesting to read these reports from the conservationists, whether it's the IUCN or the NGOs, because the problem is always "the local people. So they are poor and they [00:07:00] have no choice. They participate in poaching." and it's always their fault. Like you were saying, if they end up being poor it's because they were evicted from the land. And as Linda was saying earlier, the forest and the land more generally is everything to them or was everything to them. So it's not only the place where they get food, it's also the whole basis of their identity and their way of life. So once they lose that, they end up in our world, capitalist system, but at the lowest possible level. So, that's why they end up in poverty. But it's a problem that was created by the conservationists themselves. And even when you read Their discourse or their position about trying to improve the situation for the Batwa, it's always about generating revenue ,lifting them out of poverty, developing alternative livelihoods. But what we are campaigning for is not some alternative to the loss of their rights. It's Their land rights themselves. And to go to your other question [00:08:00] about the fact that the loss of their land rights has led to a degrading in the health of the ecosystem. I think, yes, for sure. That has been the case, and it's what we're seeing all around the world in these protected areas that are supposed to protect nature. But actually, once you evict the best conservationists and the people that were taking care of the land for decades, then there is room for all kinds of exploitation whether it be mass tourism or luxury safaris or even mining and logging concessions. So it's not a coincidence if 80 percent of the biodiversity on the planet is located in indigenous territories. It's because they have lived in the land. It's not wild nature. They have lived there for generations. They have protected it and they have shaped it through their practices. So, to us, the best way to protect this ecosystem is to ensure that their land rights are respected and blaming them for poaching or putting that on the fact that they are poor, it's just [00:09:00] dishonest and ignoring the basis of the problem. Linda: Yeah. I agree. And when you just read out these sentences, I noted down like the way it was formulated, as a result, the park is threatened. It's again, just focusing on the local people as being the problem. Like the protected areas, they are to protect an area from the local people, which I think becomes very clear in the way you explained it. And also, like, Martin, I'm quite struck by the idea that they talk about poor people, but ignoring that, you know, their actions that of the Batwa have also caused this poverty. So it's, in a way, you know, first you make people poor and then you kind of insult them almost for being poor and then, you know, acting accordingly. I think that is quite, you know, ignoring what has happened. And I think it's the same with [00:10:00] the general model of conservation. Like the sentences you read, I mean, there is some sympathy in it, you know, it sounds like, "oh, these poor people," you know, "in a way we regret what has happened and that they were evicted." But it's like "those poor people," they don't really look at, you know, why were they evicted and what are the consequences for our kind of conservation today? Like the consequence could be that the Batwa can return to their land because they are the best guardians and because it would give them a base to, to live, not in poverty. So that consequence, they don't see it's because they ignore all the things that have caused the supposed poverty and have caused this kind of conservation that we see. So, don't think about what we've done in the past, we'll just go on, but that is a problem because they don't learn any lessons from what has happened and that land rights should be so important. Chris: Yeah, I think that it definitely points towards this notion that I think a lot of people are becoming apt to in our [00:11:00] times in these days, which is the general kind of approach to the dilemmas in these contexts are to look at the symptoms of the dilemma and not the causes. And in the context of the eviction and exile, displacement of the Batwa people, one of the articles mentions that "one of the consequences of the induced poverty includes the endangering and further endangering of the eastern lowland gorilla." And I mention this because in my research leading up to this interview, this conversation, I looked into the tourism offerings in Kahuzi Biega, in the National Park, and I found the following. I'm just gonna read off a list of what I did find. " Gorilla safaris, or trekking. Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center tours. Camping safaris. Cultural tours. Bird [00:12:00] watching. Hiking. Climbing and boat cruises." And so my next question is this. To what extent does the safari tourism in the national park play a part in this conflict? Linda: Oh, that's a super interesting question. I mean, it obviously depends on the specific park that you look at. But I think I would say in almost any national park that we look at in Survival, there is some kind of idea that this park needs to have tourists. Tourists need to come and go and see the beauty of nature, ideally Western tourists, so that they become involved in conservation and donate money, and also in a way that tourism would be a way to pay for services that are related to maintaining the park. So it's something that usually always pops up. It's kind of, it's like twins a little bit. And, you know, I, I work on, on [00:13:00] mostly German politics and how they relate to this conservation. And it's something that you can't really separate where you read about conservation projects that the German government funds, you will always also read about tourism. So they're very interlinked. In some parks, you know, there isn't a lot of tourism because the situation is not very attractive to western tourists, but the idea is always there. And then the extent to which tourism actually happens obviously differs and then has different effects. In some parks that we work on, There's a lot of tourism, there's a lot of creation of infrastructure for tourists, hotels, for roads, for tourist vehicles to go places. Then it obviously has a much stronger impact on the area and also on the people that live there. If there are less tourists, then the actual effect of tourism is, of course, a little bit less than it might sound in these proposals to have tourists there at all. Chris: In the [00:14:00] context of conflict zones, which from what I understand this particular park in the Congo is a conflict zone, or at least parts of it, that tourism can act as a kind of barrier between local populations or local ecologies and the consequences of those conflict zones, right? But it doesn't necessarily stop the conflict. It just turns it underground, it turns a kind of blind eye to it, waiting, in most instances that I know of, until the organized crime in the area ends up getting, you know, their hands into the economy of, of the tourism itself. Martin: Yeah, I mean, I agree with Linda that it's always there and it's always under the discourse and it's never only about conservation, there's always tourism. And often the national parks are created for this purpose. If you read the UNESCO definition or the IUCN definition of what a national park is, it says it's also for [00:15:00] recreation. So these places are built for tourists. against the locals. So, yeah, it's always there and it's even in the definition. Linda: So yeah, when you said tourism is a barrier in some cases tourism can amplify the problems that are there because there is more eviction or there's more interest of, for example, governments to evict people, to create this great picture of nature, which is so attractive to tourists. So I think, I would find it as something that can really worsen the situation. I think from what I've seen, you know. We sometimes talk about sustainable tourism or respectful tourism, but in the terms of conservation projects, my impression really is that it's been harmful. And the indigenous populations that work in tourism, which is one of the things that funders of conservation projects often [00:16:00] say, that they can find jobs in tourism. A lot of these jobs are not very good. And I would argue that a lot of times people need to take these jobs because they have lost the choice to not take a job and live from the forest. Chris: Yeah, it's an interesting thing to wonder about in the little research that I did around what's happening in this particular park in the Congo, that there are rebel groups. It is a conflict zone, and yet there are these tourism offerings, right? And that surely, the champions of the National Park and conservation and in many areas would say, "well, you know, the more, the more tourism we can get in here the more we can undermine at least the economic causes if not the political ones that are contributing to the violence," when in fact, from what I can understand from Survival's work, that this is just deepens the causes that produced that conflict and that exile in the first place. Linda: Yeah. And I think there's also [00:17:00] perception of injustice, which we shouldn't underestimate. I mean, if you're an indigenous person that has been violently evicted or whose family has been violently evicted from a certain area, and then you see, Western tourists mostly, which are rich, you know, pay a lot of money for these trips, are allowed to go in and use that area in a way. I think that also creates, yeah, a sense of injustice, which is also, yeah, it's quite, quite sad. Chris: Mm hmm. Definitely. And then that's certainly what we see in over touristed places around the world and in places that are just starting to become over touristed, this kind of deep resentment amongst locals for the inequalities, the growing inequalities and yeah, as well, the injustices that these industries bring. And so on that point of conflict zones, especially in and around Kahuzi Biega. I wanted to ask you both a question around the militarization of conservation. So, [00:18:00] some people believe that militarized park police, which is what exists in this park, are a necessary evil. Officially, at least, "the guards protect the park from armed militias or rebel groups in the area, ensuring that they stay out of the park." Of course, those who they confront and sometimes attack also include the indigenous people, the Batwa in this case, who are trying to retake and reclaim their ancestral lands. And the argument is that without the guards, the land would fall into the hands of much more malevolent groups or forces. And so how do you think the presence of armed conflict as well as militarized conservation guards complicates the issue? Linda: That's a tough question. Well, maybe I can just give like a little anecdote. It was actually about this park, the [00:19:00] Kahuzi Biega National Park, and we were talking to German politicians and government officials about the problem of conflict and about the problem that these park rangers you know, are trained and have a lot of weapons, which seems very militant. And they, they were seeing the problem. They were seeing that this is probably not the best thing they should do, support security forces in an area which is already so problematic. But their thinking was, if we don't give them the money, now we have created this this force, basically. We have hired people, we have trained them. Now, if we stop supporting them, what are they going to do? You know, they're gonna maybe take the training and their weapons and make it even worse. So in a way, I mean, this was off record, right? They were just kind of thinking out loud. But in a way, they were seeing that the projects that they have supported have created structures which [00:20:00] very likely will increase conflict. And it seems quite obvious also because you see all these conflicts with indigenous peoples. So, I'm not going to say that it's a very peaceful area and there is not a need maybe for people to defend themselves. But in a way, the structures that we have in militarized conservation are not the solution. You know, they make the situation much more complicated than it initially was. And now, like, in this park, we're in a situation where we witness terrible human rights abuses, and everyone's scared to act and do something because it could get even worse. And it's, yeah, it doesn't seem like a very good solution. I think we need another way. We can't just stick our head, and say, oh, you know, we just go on, we'll just go on and then let someone else deal with it in a few years. I don't think that's a very good solution. Very good example. Martin: And it's questionable also to what extent do these these guards, these armed [00:21:00] rangers actually protect the, the parks and the species because they are here supposedly to fight against illegal wildlife trade and poaching and everything. But what studies have shown is that the root cause of of poaching and of the, of the illegal wildlife trade is mostly the demand for such products that comes from industrialized countries or at least other parts of the world and the system is made for the guards to take action against the local population and not against the actual criminal networks that lead to illegal wildlife trade and poaching. They get money for people they arrest and the easiest people to find are the locals that are trying to get to their ancestral lands. And there's also sometimes the park management involved in these criminal networks. So, you pretend to put in place a system to fight against illegal wildlife trade, but there ends up being no choice but [00:22:00] for the guards to, to take on the local people. Linda: Maybe we should also think about the indigenous populations as guards, or maybe guardians is the better word, of this area. And if we zoom out of the DRC and look at South America, where we have much stronger land rights... it's not perfect, but of course, better for indigenous people. They often act as guardians or guards of these territories, even though they're also confronted with illegal logging, quite brutal illegal logging, for example. But in a way, they are there and they, of course, are supported by authorities ideally, in defending these territories, but you see a less violent or militarized conflict because you have the indigenous guardians, as opposed to starting out with their protected [00:23:00] areas and armed guards, which are not just there to defend themselves, but have extensive rights of use of violence, and they don't have to fear any repercussions if something goes wrong and they kill, for example, an indigenous person. I mean, that's what we've seen in this park, that they can basically act with impunity. Chris: And thank you, Linda, for offering that example of the difference or the contrast between places like the Kahuzi Biega National Park and the DRC and other places in South America, for example, where there is this inherited intergenerational understanding of guardianship and while there's only maybe a half a century of conservation industry in these places, of course, they're an extension of the colonial project or projects that were undertaken much further back in time in places like Africa and places like the DRC before it was known as such. And then what happens, you know, after X amount of [00:24:00] generations after this kind of exile and displacement, that there is no lived memory anymore of what it means to be a guardian of your place. And I don't just mean as a title, but in terms of how you guard that place, as an indigenous person. We might be able to say that the Western world or the modern world that that's very much what we've become is people who are unable to remember or have a lived memory of what it's like to adequately stand as guardians for a place. You know, I think with the work that you two in Survival International are doing, there's a path forward towards that. And I'd like to remind our listeners that we're also here speaking today in part because there was a victory that was won by Survival International on behalf of the Batwa people and activists like yourself. And so I'd like to just read very briefly from [00:25:00] July 2023 press release from Survival International, in which it is said that, quote, "in a landmark decision, the French government has scrapped its plan to fund the controversial Kahuzi Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo." France's Minister of State for Development, francophonie and International Partnerships, Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, confirmed that the plan to begin financing the Kahuzi Biega National Park has been scrapped. Ms. Zacharopoulou said, quote, "It has been abandoned, in line with our requirement for the respect of human rights." So first of all, I'd like to say congratulations to you both and to your teams at Survival for for getting this this victory and for doing the work you need to do in order to get there. And I'd like to [00:26:00] ask about the strategies that were employed in order to revoke French support for the park. You know, so many of these efforts and victories are either ignored in the context of the endless dilemmas or they're celebrated kind of superficially without considering the work it took to organize such campaigns. And so my question is, how has this campaign been organized by Survival International? Martin: Well, to give a bit of context the first time we heard about the French Development Agency planning on funding Kahuzi Biega, it was in the exact same time period as the publication of a report by Minority Rights Group International detailing brutal waves of violence in 2019 and until 2020 of appalling human rights abuses. So, atrocities that including murder, torture, rape [00:27:00] the burning alive of children, the burning of villages. So, we are, in this context, where we are reading the minority rights group report and understanding the scale of these waves of violence against the Batwa. And around the same period, we see that the French Development Agency has been a delegation, including the director, has been to the park and plans on funding it. So, of course we are appalled and and decide to write to the French Development Agency, but also to the to the ministry that has oversight. So, one of them is the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. And then we wait. And then we also got the support of a senator who also sent a letter and asked a question in Parliament to the government about their plan to fund this park in the context of these human rights violations. And so in July 2022, so last year, they decided to suspend temporarily the project. It was also in the context of an internal scandal because there was an expert[00:28:00] in the field and contracted by the French development agency to carry out a feasibility study. And he was basically saying around, and it can be heard in recordings saying that basically the study is just a formality and that the decision to fund the park has already been made. So there's both scandals. An internal scandal about the due diligence apparently being considered a formality on the field and the scandal of the very detailed report that had just gone out about the atrocities. So, that led to a temporary suspension. And they said that they would conclude the study and look into the abuses into social aspects. And then a year passed and we kept sending letters, of course, and doing some public campaigning about it on social media, et cetera. And then the senator asked again a question in July this year, and that's when we learned that the project was cancelled. So, of course, it's a victory, and it shows that sometimes the government actually does have the oversight[00:29:00] on the development agencies and takes the right decisions. But, of course, it's just the whole model still needs to be challenged and the park still has many international backers, even in the context of the atrocities that we that we know about. Chris: Mm. So the senator that asked about the status of the funding and found out that it was in fact scrapped, the scrapping of the funding was never made public until that point? Or there was never any press release saying so? Martin: No, they made it public, In the answer to the question, orally, in, in commission in Parliament. Chris: Mm. And would there be no way that the French public, for example, would be able to find out about this otherwise? Martin: I don't think so. And to be honest, I'm not even sure the decision had been taken before. I think they looked into it again because the senator asked a question again, but that's just speculation. Chris: And you spoke about writing letters, obviously to politicians and to the ministries [00:30:00] and also social media campaigns. Do you think there was more of an effect on the scrapping of the funding because of the public campaign, the social media campaign? Martin: Yeah, I think and that's basically the whole premise on which our campaigns are based is that an efficient mobilization of the public opinion will lead and the fact that the public cares and is informed will lead to a more efficient lobbying and advocacy of the governments and, and other government agencies. So yeah, I think one can't go without the other. And I don't know what would have happened if only the Senator had asked the questions or if only the Senator had asked a question or if we had only sent a letter and no public campaigning at all, or no press release, or no social media, I don't know. So I think, yeah, both go hand in hand. Chris: Mm hmm. So do you think that without the report from the Minority Rights Group, that the funding would have gone ahead, regardless of what was actually happening there? Martin: It's possible because we know that the funders were aware for years and [00:31:00] years of the human rights violations. And even before the waves of violence that are described in the report, we know that they were aware of that risk of violence at that time and of the human rights violation in the whole context of the militarized park. So, I think it could have very well gone ahead, because the other funders knew and kept funding it. And yeah, it's very important to get that kind of report with very detailed testimonies and information from the ground, and really documenting these atrocities. Otherwise, it's just business as usual. Chris: And the original proposal for the funding at least by the French government or the ministries involved, they were basically just promoting conservation in the way that it typically is. That's what the funding was for? Martin: Well, it's hard to know because they never published anything and actually, they never actually started funding it. It was just, just a project. Like I said, they went on a visit there and started making [00:32:00] promise to the local conservation agencies and to the local authorities. It's not clear to this day what exactly they were planning on funding, but it was clearly stated that there were planning on supporting the park itself, but I don't know for which kind of activities, but still, funding the same structure that that has been responsible for these abuses is still unacceptable. Chris: Mm hmm sounds "sketchy," as we say in English. And and so for our listeners, just a little bit of further context while France simply abandoned plans, the country had not yet made, or the government had not yet made, Germany continues to finance the park despite France's, however, subtle acknowledgment of human rights violations. And so, Linda, my question for you is, first of all, why is Germany funding a national park in the DRC to begin with? And, if you know, [00:33:00] how does that money get spent? Linda: Well, I guess the, the German interest in this park is pretty old, so the German government started funding the park already in the 80s. And there were some other projects even before that, supposedly. But it's considered to be a very, well, it obviously is a very long running project financed by the German government. And some local people call it the German park, because they assume that without the German funding, it wouldn't even exist. Like the kind of money that has been given over decades and the kind of things that have been funded, the infrastructure, the Congolese conservation authorities, the park rangers, you know, all the things that were funded basically crucial for the park to function. So yeah, it is a very German funded project. And also the German government has for very, a very long time looked at it as being a prestigious [00:34:00] project. You know, it was this great park, the gorillas, you already mentioned it, you know, and the Germans been funding it, which when you know a bit about German history, post World War II, there was a lot of interest in biodiversity and conservation funding because it was a good thing to do, which gave Germany a little bit of a different international picture than it had after the war. So there was a lot of interest in funding projects, and they were perceived as being fantastic, and they were shown to be these great projects that Germany is supporting internationally. And then, obviously, it isn't, but the German government has been very, very good at denying that there are these problems, and the role that it has had in facilitating these horrific human rights abuses. Mm. Chris: And how, if at all, has the German government responded to the [00:35:00] scrapping of the French funding? Linda: Very good timing, because I just got a response today, actually from the German government. Mm. 'cause we did point out to them that the French government has decided to not fund the park because of the violations of indigenous people's rights and because of human rights concerns. So we pointed this out to the ministry again, just in case, they would not have learned about this themselves. But the reply basically doesn't address this at all. You know, this was what we wrote the letter about and the replies about all the great things that the German government keeps funding and the improvements it is supposedly seeing on the ground and these improvements justifying their continued support. So it's just a letter explaining why they continue funding it and not addressing why maybe partners like the French government have decided not to fund it. And it's something that we have seen over the years. I think [00:36:00] survival first raised human rights violations in the Kahuzi Biega National Park in actually 2017, so that's quite a few years ago. There was a Batwa family. A father with his son, a teenage son. They were going into the park to collect herbs for medicine because another son of the family was sick. They encountered park rangers who killed the teenager and hurt wounded the father. So it was quite a terrible incident. And the father wrote to the German government, to the funders, and he complained about these human rights violations and the fact that the Batwa had lost access to the park and to their livelihood because of the German funding. The German government just said, "well, you know, there's not much we can do about it, basically." They tried to pay some money, but then really nothing, nothing else happened. And over the years, the situation hasn't improved. It has [00:37:00] gotten worse. But the German government keeps saying that they have faith in the Congolese conservation authorities and they do not see grounds to stop the funding or the project. They keep saying that they see progress. And things will get better. And we know it hasn't gone better. Chris: I'd like to return anyways to this this question around tactics and strategies and organizing. It seems that activists and those not directly involved in social movements struggle with the weight of our times. I mean, it's you know, kind of hard to ignore these days. And so, given that the German government, I imagine, is the obvious next target in the campaign to defund Kahuzi Biega, or at least the conservation authorities and programs there, what tactics, what strategies are being employed by Survival in your campaigns, [00:38:00] and how might our listeners in Germany, France, Europe, and, and beyond, how might they participate? Linda: That's a very good question, because, as I said, you know, Survival has been working on this for a few years, and there's a little bit of frustration, of course, that not much is happening in the terms of acknowledging the problem of funding this park. I think what Survival, what we're thinking is, quite important in this issue of conservation is making sure that donors in the West understand that this is a very symptomatic problem. So, a lot of conservation projects function like this and it is because there is this underlying problem with them, that they do not acknowledge land rights. But they continue to say that certain government authorities or certain conservation organizations are best put to run these places. It's the same with the [00:39:00] Kahuzi Biega National Park. The German government now says, "well, we know there are problems, so we pull in the WCS. They're the conservation organization and everything will be better. But it won't because they also have a record of not respecting indigenous people's rights. So, we need to make them understand that there is this underlying issue of not acknowledging indigenous people's land rights. And we try to do this by pointing out that this is a problem which is happening in a lot of national parks. So, protected areas that Survival has looked at in Africa and Asia, almost all of them, even the ones that we were told were good examples, have these problems. And we try to show that to the donors that have such big impact on these conservation projects and make them rethink what they're doing. It's a very difficult process, of course, because they've always done it in a different way. And now it's hard for them to think [00:40:00] about, you know, giving control and power to local people, which until now they've always said is a threat to conservation. It's like a total turn of what they assumed so far. But for us, it seems like that's the thing that we have to do for them to actually acknowledge the problem, because otherwise all the solutions that they come up with are not real solutions. They put people like the WCS in power, which is also not going to respect the Batwas' rights. Chris: Yeah, I think one of the critiques around development is in the context of these industries, especially things like conservation, volunteerism is another one that as industries, you would imagine that they would have in their mission statement, or vision, or ten-year plan, the slow and intentional disappearance of their own industry, right? Because if what they were [00:41:00] doing was working, we would need less of them. And there would be less of them, but here we are, right? And it's just, of course, a massively growing industry, both conservation and volunteerism. Martin: Yeah, it's true that our key targets are the donors, because like many of the issues that indigenous peoples are facing across the world, the root of the problem and the funding for these problems come from the West and our societies. So that's going to remain one of our targets and key part of the strategy. I think we are starting to see a shift in the discourse, in France, at least. And when we talk to the politicians, we also see that shift, that shift in the discourse of the conservation NGOs, but it's still as harmful. So instead of saying that these places are wild and empty and that the local artists are destroying it or encroaching, well, they still say it, but they also say that what we were saying before about the poverty issue and that [00:42:00] they will generate new projects and new activities and development basically. So, I think that they are starting to acknowledge the presence of these people. They couldn't be further from recognizing their land rights because, like you said, otherwise it means their own disappearance, and they're not built for that. Linda: Yeah, so it's a difficult, it's a difficult thing. I mean, I think we try to talk to people that are more inclined to understand the importance of indigenous people's rights so that we can have a base of people that support our campaigning, which is very important for us. And then we select our targets and try to engage the people that support us in convincing these targets to change projects or change their minds. And sometimes, you know, that can just be it a tweet that texts someone who we know makes decisions about certain [00:43:00] projects, try to raise awareness that there is concern about this project, that some people disagree, that this doesn't comply with human rights, that this doesn't comply with, agreements or treaties they're supporting for indigenous people's rights. And sometimes it's a more complex lobbying strategy. So there are different things we try to do and sometimes, like we saw with the example of the French government, sometimes it works because there's timing, there's different things coming together. But obviously, even though we have a lot of strategies, it's always difficult to know what will work in the end. So we try different things and try to engage with people that will help us spread the word about the need to decolonize conservation and do it differently and acknowledge land rights. And sometimes it's little things that really change a lot. Sometimes we work on something for a long time and it wasn't the right strategy and we need to change.[00:44:00] Chris: Well, speaking of how might our listeners find out more about Survival International and the decolonize conservation campaigns and especially around the work that you two are doing. Martin: Well, I strongly encourage people to read more of our campaigns on the website, on social media, also to subscribe to our newsletter, because that's where we mostly share our urgent actions. So which are one of our tools to put pressure on the targets. So, mass emails basically sent by our supporters to the targets about specific projects. And we also publish some video, direct video testimonies in our tribal voice projects, as we call it. So if they want to listen to, to the victims explaining the problems they are facing, but also the way of life that they have lost or sometimes more inspiring things about the resistance and and the fight. I think it's also very interesting to hear directly from the people affected. But yeah, I strongly encourage people to join the movement by [00:45:00] any means possible. And sometimes as Linda said, just small actions like a tweet or sending an email through these campaigns can be can really make an impact and and it does help ensure that the advocacy and the lobbying is effective. Linda: Yeah, and I think it's also a nice way to picture that you're showing solidarity with, for example, the Batwa, who often perceive the Western donors as being the cause of their problem. And I think for them, it's nice to see that there are also people in the countries that, where the problems originate that are standing up for their rights and supporting them. And I think it's probably the least we can do also, because we're so obsessed with African nature that I think it would be a very good step for us to think about the people that live in these places. Chris: Yeah, absolutely. And maybe not immediately or superficially in part because of the inundations and the dilemmas in our times, but that kind of [00:46:00] solidarity can begin to break down as well, the largely like unconscious nationalist tendencies we have when we think of other people in other countries, we always associate those people with their governments, right? Which is just like, absolutely ridiculous when anyone thinks of themselves in relation to their own government, right? But these are two faces, two voices of the resistance that are working on behalf of many others. And so I just wanted to reiterate that we're here today just to have the chance to be able to speak about a little bit about this this small victory that all willing will lead to many more to much bigger ones in regards to the Decolonize Conservation campaign of Survival International. It takes work and I'm grateful to be able to speak with you both today and to have you share some of your work and your dedication with our listeners and I will make sure that all of those links that you mentioned, Martin, will be on the End of Tourism website and available for our [00:47:00] listeners to sign up to the newsletter and follow on social media and of course participate if they so wish. Thank you both. Linda: Thanks. Martin: Thank you. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

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S5 #4 | Hillwalking & Homecoming in the Highlands w/ Christos Galanis 1:02:33

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On this episode, my guest is Christos Galanis , a friend and scholar who recently completed his PhD in Cultural Geography from The University of Edinburgh where his research centered on themes of displacement and memorial walking practices in the Highlands of Scotland. A child of Greek political refugees on both sides of his family, Christos' work looks at ways in which ceremony and ritual might afford us the capacity to integrate disconnection from place and ancestry. Further, his research into pre-modern Gaelic Highland culture reveals animistic relationship with mountains which disrupt easy definitions of colonialism and indigeneity. Show Notes: Summoning and Summiting a Doctorate The British Empire & Everest The Three Roots of Freedom Hillwalkers and Homecoming The Consequences of Staying and Leaving The Romans Make a Desert and Call it Peace Farming Emptiness Landscapes as Mediums Ritualized Acts of Walking Homework: Christos Galanis’ Official Website Transcript: Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome, Christos, to the End of Tourism podcast. Christos: Thank you, Chris. Chris: Thank you for joining me today. Would you be willing to let us know where you're dialing in from today? Christos: Yeah, I'm calling in from home, which at the moment is Santa Fe, New Mexico in the United States. Yeah, I moved out here for my master's in 2010 and fell in love with it, and and then returned two years ago. So it's actually a place that does remind me of the Mediterranean and Greece, even though there's no water, but the kind of mountain desert. So there's a familiarity somehow in my body. Chris: Sounds beautiful. Well I'm delighted to speak with you today about your PhD dissertation entitled "A Mountain Threnody: Hill Walking and Homecoming in the Scottish Highlands." And I know you're working on the finishing touches of the dissertation, but I'd like to pronounce a dear congratulations on that huge feat. I imagine after a decade of research and [00:01:00] writing, that you can finally share this gift, at least for now, in this manner, in terms of our conversation together. Christos: Thank you. It was probably the hardest thing I've done in my life in terms of a project. Yeah. Nine years. Chris: And so, you and I met at Stephen Jenkinson's Orphan Wisdom School many years ago. But beyond that from what I understand that you were born and raised in Toronto and Scarborough to Greek immigrants, traveled often to see family in Greece and also traveled widely yourself, and of course now living in New Mexico for some time. I'm curious why focus on Scotland for your thesis? Christos: It was the last place I thought I would be going to. Didn't have a connection there. So I did my master's down here in Albuquerque at UNM and was actually doing a lot of work on the border with Mexico and kind of Southwest Spanish history. I actually thought I was going to go to UC San Diego, partly because of the weather and had some connections [00:02:00] there. And two things happened. One was that you have to write your GRE, whatever the standardized test is you need to do for grad school here in the US, you don't have to do in the UK. So that appealed to me. And it's also, there's no coursework in the UK. So you just, from day one, you're just doing your own research project. And then I wanted to actually work with what Was and probably still is my favorite academic writer is Tim Ingold, who was based in Aberdeen up in the north of Scotland and is kind of that thing where I was like, "well if I'm gonna do a PhD What if I just literally worked with like the most amazing academic I can imagine working with" and so I contacted him. He was open to meeting and possibly working together and so I was gonna fly to Scotland. I was actually spending the winter in Thailand at the time, so I was like, if I'm gonna go all the way to Scotland, maybe I should check out a couple more universities. So, I looked at St. Andrews, which is a little bit north of Edinburgh, and then Edinburgh, then visited all [00:03:00] three schools, and actually just really fell in love with Edinburgh, and then in the end got full funding from them. And that took me to Scotland. And I didn't know what was in store for me. I didn't even follow through on my original research project, which had nothing to do with Scotland. The sites that I was actually proposed to work with was on the Dine reservation out here in Arizona. There's a tradition, long tradition of sheep herding and there's a lot of, some friends of mine have a volunteer program where volunteers go and help the Diné elders and herd their sheep for them and what's happening is they're trying to hold on to their land and Peabody Coal, a coal mining company, has been trying to take the land forever and so by keeping on herding sheep, it allows them to stay there. So I was actually kind of looking at walking as forms of resistance and at that time, most undocumented migrants trying to enter Europe were walking from Turkey through Macedonia. So I was actually going to go there. And yeah, once I kind of hit the ground, I realized that that's way too ambitious. And I [00:04:00] decided to focus on this really strange phenomenon called Monroe Bagging in the Highlands of Scotland, where people work all week in their office, Monday to Friday, and then spend their weekends checking off a task list of 282 mountains that they summit. There's 282 of them and they're categorized that way because they're all over 3, 000 feet, which for us in North America, isn't that high, but for the Scottish Highlands, because they're very ancient, ancient, worn down mountains is pretty high. And also the weather and the climate and the terrain make it pretty treacherous out there. So it's, it's not an easy thing. Yeah. And I just thought this is a really weird, strange way to relate to mountains and to land. And it seems like a very British thing to do. And I kind of just got curious to figure out what was going on and why people would actually do this. And it came from a very, actually, critical perspective, to begin with. As things unfolded, that changed a fair amount in terms of getting to know people. But, yeah, that was Scotland. And, I think looking back, I think [00:05:00] I was called there by the mountains. I can give the bigger context maybe later on, but essentially one of the main mountain called Ben Cruachan, in Argyle that I ended up most working with and kind of going in and doing ceremony for, and with. I ended up later meeting my what would become my wife and married into her family and on one side of her family, they are literally the Macintyres who are from that mountain. So yeah ended up kind of going there and marrying into a lineage of a mountain that was the center of my my dissertation. So in the end I think I was called there. I think I was called to apprentice those mountains. And then I feel like my time ended. And I think this dissertation is kind of the story of that relationship with that courtship. Chris: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for that beautifully winding answer and introduction. So, you know, a lot of your dissertation speaks to kind of different notions of mountain climbing, summiting, hiking but you also write about [00:06:00] how our cultural or collective understandings of mountains have defined our ability to undertake these activities. And I'm curious, based on your research and personal experience, how do you think mountains are understood within the dominant paradigm of people who undertake these practices. Christos: Yeah, good question. I would say, I know I don't like to speak in universals, but I could say that one universal is that, as far as I can tell, all cultures around the world tend to not only revere mountains, but tend to relate to mountain peaks as sacred. And so in most cultures, at least pre modern culture, you will always find a taboo around ever actually climbing to the top of a mountain, especially a significant mountain. So ways that you might worship a sacred mountain, for example, you know, in Tibet is to circumnavigate. So hiking, walking around a mountain three times or walking the perimeter of a mountain, kind of circling [00:07:00] around and around the summit. But it would be absolutely abhorrent to actually ever climb to the top. So one thing I was interested in is what happened, what shifted, where in the past people would never think of climbing a mountain summit to that becoming almost the only thing that people were focused on. And I didn't know this, but out of all countries, the country that most intensely kind of pursued that practice was, was England, was Britain, actually. So it's really fascinating. There's this period, the Victorian era, where basically Britain is invading other countries such as Nepal, India, into China, into Kenya, parts of Africa, South America certainly here in North America and the Americas and of course mountain ranges serve as pretty natural and intense frontiers and barriers, especially back then before. You know, industrial machinery and airplanes and things [00:08:00] like that, you're going over land. And so to be able to get through a mountain range was a pretty intense thing. Really only became possible with kind of Victorian era technology and because they were able to penetrate these places that people really couldn't have before it was a way of kind of proving modern supremacy or the supremacy of kind of modern secularism. Because even in places like Sutherland and the Alps, the indigenous Swiss also considered like the Alps sacred, the mountain peaks and wouldn't climb them. And so as the British kind of came up into these mountain ranges. They had the idea of proving that essentially there were no gods on these mountaintops. There was nothing sacred about them. It's just a pile of rock and anybody can climb up and nothing's going to happen to them. And so they really started setting out to start summiting these mountains. And it was mostly military engineers. There's a big overlap between kind of military engineering and surveying and [00:09:00] map making and this kind of outdoor kind of Victorian kind of proving your manhood against nature kind of thing. And so it's a strangely poetic and very grief soaked proposition where increasingly humans had the technology to penetrate anywhere on the planet, you know, more and more. And maybe I'll just go into the story of Everest because it was perceived that the, the earth had three poles. So the North pole, the South pole, and Everest is the highest peak on the whole planet. So there was this race to set foot on the North Pole on the South Pole and on Everest. I don't know much about the North and South Pole expeditions I think they were first but Everest was kind of like yeah I think Everest was the last literally the last place on earth that humans weren't able yet to physically step foot on. And so the British set out to be the ones to do it after World War one. And there's another overlap where most of the men that were obsessed with mountain summiting after World War I had [00:10:00] been through the horrors of World War I and had a lot of PTSD and shell shock and kind of couldn't reintegrate back to civilian life. They kind of needed that rush of risking your life for some kind of larger goal, which warfare can provide. And, slowly they kind of got better technology and eventually by, I think it was maybe 1952, 1953, they finally conquered Everest. And it's almost like the moment that they penetrated this last place of wilderness that was holding out the British Empire started collapsing, which the timing is quite fascinating. You know, they lost India and Pakistan. And as soon as you kind of are able to dominate everything, there comes this nostalgia immediately for wild places. And this is where Scotland comes back in. Where, Scotland, the Highlands have been inhabited for tens of thousands of years. There's nothing wild about them. There were villages everywhere. But what happened through the [00:11:00] 16, 1700s was the Gaelic population, the indigenous population were ethnically cleansed. And then kind of the lands that follow for maybe 100 years. And then when the English started coming in, they were like, "Oh, this is wilderness. These mountains have never been climbed before. We're going to be the ones to conquer them because we're the superior race." And they did so, and when I chose the the title of my thesis used this little known word, Threnody, which is actually from Greek, Threnodia, which translates something as like a song of grief or a song of lament. And I think for me, this incessant kind of like summiting of mountains and risking and sometimes losing your life to penetrate these places where you actually don't retain control, or it's very hard to retain control, right, because of like storms in the weather, that it's almost like a kind of mourning for the loss of the very things that this technology has kind of erased or has compromised. So it's almost, I can't even put into words the feeling around it, but it's almost like, [00:12:00] You're doing the thing that's destroying something, but you have the impulse to keep doing it as a way of connecting to the thing that's being lost, if that makes sense. And I can imagine, you know, maybe all the work that you've done around tourism might have a similar quality to it. There's, I don't know, there's like a melancholy that I experience interviewing and going out with these people that I don't think they would ever be conscious of or even name, but there's a longing for something that's missing. And so that's where also this kind of song of lament theme comes into my, into my dissertation. Chris: Yeah, it's definitely something that shows up over and over again in these conversations and thank you for putting it into such eloquent words is that. I think it really succinctly speaks to the, the condition or conditions at hand. And I guess I'm curious you know, in regards to what you just said about notions of freedom [00:13:00] that are often experienced in touristic experiences or contexts and some of your dissertation centers around the freedom that your friends and hill walking acquaintances experienced there in the Highlands and freedom can often seem like a kind of recurrent trope sometimes in describing the tourist's reasons for travel. And surely outside of a trope for many people's reasons for travel you know, especially in the context of migration. Beyond the surface, we can wonder about the inheritance of ancestrally or ancestral indentured servitude, the commons and the lack thereof in our time and also like a kind of communion or relationship with what you refer to as other than human worlds. And I'm curious what kind of contradictions or insights came up for you in regards to the supposed freedom that was either found or sought after by the Hillwalkers you encountered.[00:14:00] Christos: Thank you. Yeah, I think before I started going deep into this, I probably, I probably shared most people's notion of freedom, which most of us don't ever really sit and wonder that deeply about. But there's a section of my dissertation where I go deep into freedom and I actually look at three different cultural and kind of etymological or linguistic lenses through which to understand freedom. And there's two that the people I interviewed, I think, were most practicing. So the word freedom itself comes from the Germanic, and it's two words. It's broke frei, which is "free," "to be free." And dom, translates kind of as "a judgment." So if you know like doomsday or the doomsday book. What the doomsday and judgment day actually mean the same thing It's just doom is like the older Germanic word for judgment. Okay, and so freedom can kind of translate as like freedom from judgment freedom from constraint and it has this quality of like spatially removing [00:15:00] yourself or getting distance from something that might constrain you, so you mentioned indentured servitude and slavery, which are as old as human civilization across the world. And all these different things that, basically, we are more or less constrained by, whether it's, family, the state, our living conditions, poverty, excess wealth, you know, all these things that might, or the expression of our true life force. And so for a lot of the people that I was working with, that was certainly what they would describe, you know, like I work in an office as a manager Monday through Friday in Edinburgh, and then it's only on the weekends that I get out into the hills and I truly feel alive and free, right? Because I'm in this vast expanse and, I mean, It's not my climate. I'm Greek by both sides. Wet, soggy moss and mold and endless rain and drizzle and cold and dark is not my thing, but it is visually stunningly beautiful. And you know, [00:16:00] and I'm sure we all know the experience of getting up to a peak of something and that sense of kind of almost being removed from the everyday and that sense of like maybe connecting to something higher or bigger. So that sense of freedom is obvious. The other, another lens is through Latin liberty or libertas, which comes from ancient Roman society, which was a heavily hierarchied society where up to 60 percent of people were actually slaves. So, there's a big distinction between those who are free and those who are slaves. And so the idea of liberty, and this also came up with my informants is the idea that you have to compare yourself to another and the more freedom you have compared to someone else, the better it feels. And I think of that as all the mechanics of like air airports and you know, first class lines and first class seating. I had the experience once flying because flying from New York through back to [00:17:00] London to get back to Edinburgh. And for the first and only time in my life I was bumped up to first class for some reason, I don't know why. But it was on, I don't know, one of the newer kind of jumbo jets, and the difference between economy class and first class in many ways is pretty profound. At the same time, it's ridiculous because you're all sitting in the same tube. But I remember the feeling that happened once we took off and they drew the curtain between the first class and everyone in the back. And it was this experience where everyone back there just disappeared. It's just kind of like, you can't see them, they're out of sight, out of mind, and you're just up front. You can lay down completely horizontally in these chairs, you have real glass, glassware and real cutlery, you know, and people treat you super, super nice. But like, in order to enjoy that, you need other people to not be enjoying that, right? So the idea of liberty kind of requires another, or it's almost a zero sum game where someone else has to be losing for you to be winning. And you know, I think of that with tourism, the idea that those of us from the North, you know, are stuck [00:18:00] at home in the winter while those with money, you know, can fly off to Mexico or Costa Rica and stuff like that. So that difference that like your experience is enhanced by other people's discomfort or suffering. And then I came across another lens, which comes from the Greek. So the Greek word for freedom is Eleftheria. And I didn't know the etymology, but one of my office mates in Edinburgh was from Greece, and we sat down with like a Greek etymological dictionary and I discovered that the Greek notion of freedom is completely different. It's almost counterintuitive, and it translates as something close to " loving the thing you were meant to love" or like "being the thing you were meant to be." And even more distinctly, the rios part in Eleftheria would translate into something like "returning to your home harbor after like a long voyage," and it's that, it's literally the experience of coming home, [00:19:00] which in a way is the freedom of not wanting to be anywhere else or to be anyone else, which is in some ways, I think to me, the most true freedom, because you don't want for anything, you actually love everything you are and everywhere you are, and you don't want to go anywhere else. So in that way, I think for me, cultivating a connection to place as an animist, you know, and I think that's a lot of what you and I I imagine experienced, you know, listening to Steven Jenkinson's many stories that keep circling around this idea of, you know, belonging is cultivating that place in you or that muscle in you that doesn't want to be anywhere else, doesn't want to be anybody else, but is actually satisfied and fulfilled by what is, which it's probably at the heart of most spiritual traditions at the end of the day, but to think of that as freedom, I think for me, really, really changed my perspective from, the idea of going around the world as I have and certainly in the past to experience all these different things and to [00:20:00] feel free and to be a nomad versus I would say the freedom I have here of loving Santa Fe and not imagining myself being anywhere else right now. Chris: Well, the theme of homecoming is definitely woven into this work, this dissertation, alongside hill walking. They seem, generally speaking, superficially very disparate or distinct activities, homecoming and hill walking. One is going and then it's coming. And I'm curious if you could elaborate for our listeners a little bit of what those terms mean, and where or how they come together in your work. Christos: Yeah. So the title of my dissertation, you know, is a "A Mountain Threnody: Hillwalkers and Homecomers in the Highlands of Scotland." So I set out to study hill walkers, which is basically a British term for going out for a walk or a hike where the focus is summiting some kind of peak, you know, whether a hill or a mountain, but that's what most people do there. When you set out on a walk, it's just assumed that you're going to end up going to the top of something and then [00:21:00] back down. What ended up happening is actually through Stephen Jenkinson's Orphan Wisdom School, I met several other Canadians of Scottish descent who had already or were planning on going quote "back" to Scotland to connect with their ancestral lands and their ancestors which is a lot of the work with Stephen's school and that, you know, that idea of connecting with your ancestry and with your roots and with your bones. And I kind of just started following along and interviewing people and talking with people that became friends just out of curiosity, because, you know, that's a lot of my background with being first generation Canadian and growing up in a huge Greek diaspora in Toronto and speaking Greek and going back to Greece multiple times and this idea of kind of being Canadian, but really home is in Europe and Greece, even though I've never lived there. So, there's a lot there, personal interest and eventually against my supervisor's advice, I was like, this might be an interesting [00:22:00] conversation to put these two groups together, these people who are spending their weekends summiting mountains in the Highlands and then these other people coming from Canada and the US and New Zealand and Australia who are going to the same mountains to connect with their ancestral, you know, lands and and people. And these two groups are probably the two biggest sources of tourism, like, in the Highlands, which is fascinating. Wow. Except that the one group, the Hillwalkers tend to imagine that they're in a pristine wilderness and that there's never been anybody there. And the homecomers like to imagine that the hills used to be covered in villages and their own people that were there for thousands of years and that they're reconnecting. So it's interesting how the same landscape is both imagined as being repopulated and also emptied. And that both groups are kind of searching again for this kind of belonging, right? This belonging through freedom, for this belonging through ancestry. The other piece that gets, [00:23:00] well, you know, we're interviewing this, we're doing this interview November 21st and we're, I think most people these days are pretty aware of what's going on in Israel and Palestine and this idea of home because to have a homecoming means there has to be somewhere out there that you consider your home. And that's such a loaded, loaded, loaded concept, right? Like many wars are fought over this idea of who a land belongs to, right? I mean, I know you and I have talked about both our families being from the borderlands with Greece, Macedonia, Albania, and those borders just change over and over and where you belong to what is home keeps changing depending on which war has happened, which outcome and things like that. And I think for those of us, I'll say in the Americas, who don't have deep roots here this idea of home being somewhere else other than where you live, is a very complex prospect because certainly when I go to Greece, people don't recognize me as being home, you know, they, they consider me a Canadian tourist. And at the same time growing up in Canada, I certainly never felt [00:24:00] like, "Oh, Canada is like my ancestral home. You know, it's, it's skin deep. My parents came over in the sixties. Right." So this idea of homecoming and, you know, maybe we can just riff on this for a bit. Cause I know you've explored this a lot. It's like, is it tourism or is it something else? Because a lot of people in Scotland, including people I interviewed, just laugh at these Canadians who come over and just start crying, standing over some rocks in the Highlands and who will buy some shitty whiskey at a tourist shop and feel that they're connecting with their roots and buy bagpipes and by kilts and all this stuff, whereas like most Scottish people don't wear kilts and don't blow bagpipes and don't necessarily drink whiskey all day, so there's these kind of stereotypes that have often been just kind of produced by the media, but it's almost like, other than that, how do people actually connect with the homeland, right? Like, what does it even mean to connect with a homeland? And one thing that I found that I think is one of the most powerful things is the idea of walking. So [00:25:00] this is why the comparison and the contrast with hill walking and homecoming is most people, when you go back to your homeland, there's something really central about walking in the footsteps of your ancestors, right? So walking around in the same village, walking the same streets, going to the same house, maybe even if it's not there anymore, going to... I remember going to my mom's elementary school in the little village that she grew up in the mountains of Greece and walking down the same hallways with her, and we went to the auditorium, and she, showed me the little stage where she would literally be putting on little plays when they were, like, in third grade and there's something about standing and stepping in the same place that is so fundamental. And so I'm kind of looking at homecoming through these kind of memorial or commemorative practices of walking. So it's not just walking, but walking and activating a landscape or activating the memories that are kind of enfolded in a landscape. And I've come to believe and understand that walking is a kind of almost magic technology that I [00:26:00] almost see it as really like opening up portals to other times and other places when done in a ceremonial kind of ritualized manner. So a lot of my work again, as an animist and kind of being as far as I know, the first in my field was just cultural geography, to kind of bring an animist lens to the field and kind of look at how, doing ceremony on a mountain, going into these glands and doing ceremony is more than just the material kind of walking, but is actually kind of connecting with these memories and these people in these places. In a way that's, I think, deeper than tourism and that's maybe the distinction between tourism and let's say homecoming on the surface that you might actually be doing almost the same thing, but I think there is this kind of animist lens to understand homecoming through where you let's say you bring a stone from home or you take a stone and bring it back home you know, like these kinds of Ritualize little practices that we do to connect with the place that I don't think tourists do in the same way, [00:27:00] you know? Because in tourism, you're often just trying to get away from where you live and experience something different, where this is trying to reconnect with something that's been lost or something that's in the past. Chris: Yeah, definitely. This leads me into a lot of different directions, but one of them is this question of animism that I'd like to come back to in just a moment but before we do, I want to ask you about. These heritage trips sometimes they're referred to as within the tourism industry, homeland returns which in most cases is a paradox or an oxymoron because most people are not returning to the places that they either were born in or lived in. They, typically, like myself, had never actually been there before. I'll just pull a little quote from your dissertation because I think it precedes this question in a good way. You write that quote, "the commissioner of Sutherland advocated for a state administered program of colonization in the Scottish Highlands, similarly arguing that the [00:28:00] Gaelic race and its inferior temperament presented an obstacle to the onward march of civilization. Locke set out a vision for the colonization, displacement, and reeducation of Gaelic Highlanders, where eventually, quote, 'the children of those removed from the hills will lose all recollection of the habits and customs of their fathers.' Locke's vision has broadly come true," end quote. And so, within the context of the wider spectrum and calendars and geographies that we've kind of been discussing, but more specifically in the context of Scotland, I'm curious if the people that you met there, either locals or visitors and especially in the case of those coming for a homecoming or heritage trip had an understanding of these things, of this history. Christos: No, that's what I found out. [00:29:00] What I've found in my lifetime, cause this isn't the only kind of project around this kind of theme that I've done. Maybe we'll get, I did another project with Mexican friends going back to Spain and kind of repatriating or reconnecting back through the kind of the displacement of the Spanish civil war. But what I've found is those of us of the colonies, that's kind of what I consider myself in ourselves, like people of the colonies. I'm not sure if it's better or worse that we're the ones that hold on to the stories and the memories and the people back quote "home" or in the "homeland" for the large part have moved on and don't really give much thought to these histories of displacement. It's almost, oh my God, it was strange to be in this country where most of the place names in the Highlands are Gaelic, and 98 percent of Scottish citizens cannot read or understand Gaelic, so partly it was this strangeness of being in a country where only two out of every hundred people could even understand the names of the places where they lived, even [00:30:00] though they had never left there and their people had never left there. And you know, if you let that sink in, it's like, let's say you and I being of Greek descent, imagine if 90 percent of Greeks couldn't understand Greek, you know what I mean? And couldn't understand the name of their own village. And well, there's, here's another angle to this in Scotland. When you want to learn traditional Gaelic fiddle, you go to Cape Breton in Nova Scotia in Canada because that's where the Highlanders who immigrated to Nova Scotia in the past kept the tradition pure and kept fiddle playing what it had always been. Whereas, you know in Scotland now, they're into hip hop and trap and drum and bass and stuff like this. And so if you're Scottish and you've never left Scotland in order to connect with the music of your ancestors you have to go to Canada, so most people that I interviewed and I think this is fair, you know to assume of most people Don't [00:31:00] think much about the ethnic cleansing that went on whichever side that they were on And it's kind of left to us in the colonies either to also let it go and move on and try to settle into these new lands or you kind of keep holding on to this memory of a place you've actually never lived, you know, and it's almost like both propositions are grief soaked. Both are kind of almost an impossible poem to hold because obviously there were people here before our European ancestors came. Obviously, we don't have these deep roots or memories or connections to this place. We don't have ceremonies or songs or much that's derived from this land, at least not yet. And yet many of us lose the language and the ceremonies and the traditions of the places where our ancestors came. It's almost like at least we still know where we've come from. Whereas to be in Europe, or at least in Scotland, and to have never left, but to nevertheless have also lost the connection with [00:32:00] your own ancestors and your own language and those places it's almost like a parallel process where there are people that get on the boats and leave, but there are people that are left behind. But it's almost like, regardless whether you leave or whether you stay, the fabric of that culture just gets completely rendered and torn apart by that displacement. And somehow, even though you never leave having so many of your people leave actually kind of compromises the ability to stay where you are, and to be connected to where you are. ⌘ Chris Christou ⌘ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber! I interviewed one woman who had an ancestor who in Scotland, they call like psychic abilities, the second sight. So the idea of having kind of psychic premonitions or all of a sudden knowing that like your brother has died, even though he's in Australia, you know, that kind of thing. That people had that when I lived in Scotland and when they moved to Canada, they actually lost that ability. You know, so it's this idea that it's not that you carry almost these knowledges or abilities just in you, but it's actually comes from the connection [00:33:00] to the place. And once that connection becomes severed, you lose those capacities. And I've actually never said this out loud, but I wonder how much the people that stayed behind actually lost because of all the people that left, if that made sense. It's almost like, how does a culture stay resilient when almost everyone between the ages of like 20 and 40 leaves and never comes back. I think you could consider that this is all just stuff to wonder about. But like, for those of us that come from these kind of like largely settler countries like Canada and the U. S, we're still living through these questions. We're still living through these implications of like, how long do you hold on to the past? And at what point do you just kind of let go and move forward? And If you do so, how do you move forward in a place that you don't have any roots? Chris: You know. I remember going to see, going to my father's village in northern Greece for the first time some eight years ago, and knowing that I had [00:34:00] one baba or grandmother left there, and after searching for a few hours, she was hard of hearing at the time, finally found her, finally found the house and shared a delicious meal and traded photographs. I had no Greek or Macedonian language ability at the time. And then I was I called a taxi later on some, you know, at the end of the day to go back to the city, to the hotel, and standing in her garden there, she began to weep, right, without having said anything, even with the language barrier, I could understand what she was saying, and she was, she was mourning the migration of my family or my side of the family, or my father's side of the family to Canada, and then, her son and his family to Germany. And so, there's this question of what comes upon the people that quote unquote "stay." that's so often lost in the discourses [00:35:00] around migration, kind of always focusing on the individual, the migrant themselves, or the places that they arrive in. But do we just let it go? And how do we do that? I have this other quote from your dissertation that lands really strangely in this moment, in this conversation and it has to do a little bit with the kind of what I think you refer to as a national geographic imaginary. And so this is the response of the people in Scotland, in the Highlands embedded and engaged and indebted to these hill walking and homecoming industries. And so in your dissertation, it's written that "in February of 2017, an uproar on all sides erupted when, in a rare sign of bipartisan solidarity, both Mountaineering Scotland and the Scottish Gamekeepers Association attempted to pressure the Scottish government to abandon a [00:36:00] proposal to increase woodland cover, trees, from 17 percent to 25%. by 2050. The commitment to plant 10, 000 extra hectares of trees between now and 2022 was made in the government's draft climate plan. The protesting organizations argued that there had not been enough consultation and consideration given to the changes to the highland landscape that would come about by this tree planting initiative. And they were voicing their concern on whether, quote, 'adequate weight is being given to the significant changes this will have on the landscape of Scotland, and in particular, the dramatic open views and vistas which have come to signify to the outside world that which is unique about our country.'" End quote. And so this seems to be, to some degree, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but a manner of contending [00:37:00] with that past in a way that is, you know, perhaps ignorant of it. Or that is perhaps also faithfully serving the needs, the economic needs of the people, of the place. Christos: There's a lot there. I'm, what's coming to me, do you know this quote? It's from ancient Rome. It's a bit convoluted, but this is a Roman text talking about the colonization of Britain, so of the Romans conquering the Gaelic people in the Picts, but it's In a speech written by this Roman historian that he's attributing to like the Gaelic king, basically. So it's not, this wasn't actually said by a Gaelic king, it's just a Roman kind of putting these words in his mouth to kind of create like a battle scene, but but a lot of people quote this and it's from the Gaelic perspective referring to the Romans saying "the Romans make a desert and call it peace."[00:38:00] And that's kind of what's happened in Scotland is the villages were cleansed, literally. You know, the houses were burned down and knocked down. The people were forcibly, sometimes violently, thrown out of their homes into the cold. Many of them just had no prospects to be able to stay and move to Glasgow. And many of them, you know, came to Toronto and Saskatchewan and North Carolina and all this. And so after they left, these highlands kind of became empty, like this vast emptiness. And then once the Victorian English came into that landscape and started painting it and writing Victorian poems about it, this aesthetic of this, treeless, vast expanse became kind of that National Geographic kind of aesthetic of the mountain peak and the colorful heather and then the loch or the lake, kind of [00:39:00] reflecting the mountain. You can just imagine the scene, right? Of like the mountain peak being reflected in inverse in the lake, you know, kind of thing. It's just that perfect kind of symmetrical perspective photograph or painting. And then that kind of became the symbol of freedom and tranquility which is basically like a site of ethnic cleansing becomes a symbol of beauty. And then what happens is you keep managing the landscape to maintain that aesthetic, which is why you find the strangeness of, like, environmental groups arguing that planting trees is ecological vandalism, that you're ruining the ecology of a place because your trees are gonna get away in the way of these vast expanses. So it's it's this weird wondering on, like, how certain aesthetics become symbolic of something. And then you manage the land, to maintain that aesthetic. Even though it's [00:40:00] absolute death for the wild, the wildlife and even the people in that landscape, to maintain it in that way. The thing that might not be obvious to most people which wasn't I didn't know about this whole world before I moved there, but Scotland's one of the few if not only place in all of Europe where you can still be a feudal lord like they call it a laird, l-a-i-r-d, but it's like a lord where all you need to do to be a lord is you just buy land and if you have enough land you're you claim title of Lord Wow. And most people that are lords in Scotland these days are not even British. You have people from Saudi Arabia, from all over that have bought up the highlands in many ways. And they have these estates and you know, Balmoral estate, which is like the Queens, or I guess she's dead now. Now it's King Charles's estate. And what you do is maybe once a year you and all your rich friends from all over the world fly in [00:41:00] and do this traditional game hunt where you might be hunting deer, but more often you're actually hunting wild birds. You know, so grouse especially. If anyone's seen, I find it fascinating watching Downton Abbey, that TV series, because it's kind of, it covers a lot of the kind of that, that time in Britain. And there's an episode or two where they go into the Scottish countryside to go, you know, go hunting. So it's this weird aesthetic where you dress up in a certain way, kind of like an old time Scottish lord, and you go out on the land with dogs and you shoot down birds, and in order for the birds to live there you need the landscape to basically be wide open, because that's actually what they prefer. And so, this is why, again, for the context of that quote, you have an environmental group, and basically, rich, elite gamekeepers working together to keep the government from planting trees in this landscape because it's in both their interest to maintain [00:42:00] this landscape as an ecological wasteland, essentially that people can't sustain themselves off of or people can't live in So you're kind of farming emptiness if that makes sense in a way you're like cultivating emptiness. Yeah. For tourism. Which again I mean, you've been talking to so many people about this subject. To me, it's fascinating what tourism can be or what it can mean, you know, or like what need is trying to be fulfilled in these, in these landscapes that often get kind of territorialized as touristic, you know, because most people, when they travel, they don't go to walk around the suburbs of a city. There's only certain places that tourists are drawn to, right? Hmm. And so I'm always curious about why and what tourists are drawn to, you know, what is like almost like the resource there that is being extracted. In Chris: the context of your work, you know, largely in regards to, to landscapes and we've spoken a fair amount today about [00:43:00] landscapes as, as objects at the very least. But in, in your dissertation, you know, there was a line that struck me certainly I think coming from your animist tendencies and sentiments where you say that "landscapes are mediums and landscapes are a process," and I'm curious, as we kind of wind ourselves towards the end of our time together, if you could elaborate on this for our listeners a little bit, this, this idea of landscapes as mediums or as processes. Christos: Yeah, so I've done my, my PhD in the field of cultural geography, or sometimes called human geography, which is kind of like anthropology except kind of rooted in place, I'd say that's the big difference. It's not as popular here in North America, but in the UK it's much more popular. And probably the primary focus in that field is landscape, which I think most people might be familiar with that term in terms of like, maybe landscape [00:44:00] gardening or landscape painting. But when you get deep into it, which is kind of what grad school is, is you're like a big weirdo and you just get so deep into something so friggin specific that, you know, most people think you might think about once in your lifetime, but you end up spending nine years thinking about and writing about. It's almost like you can't perceive a place without some kind of filter, if that makes sense. It's almost like there's no such thing as just like a place or land that's just objectively out there. Like, I spent most of a winter, you know, down where you are in Oaxaca, but you having lived there for this long, like if you and I walk around in the streets of Ciudad Oaxaca, you're going to perceive so much more than I am, or at least many different things than I am, right? I'm going to be purely a tourist, I'm going to be reading on a surface level where you might have dozens of memories come up from your time living there and different things that have happened. And [00:45:00] so, in that way, like a landscape is almost, is always like a medium, meaning like our own perceptions, our own projections, our own memories are always affecting the way that we perceive a place. And so cultural geography, the field that I'm in, kind of looks at that. It looks, literally at the kind of the, the collision of culture and geography and like the politics of a place. You know, I was talking about like earlier about landscape management. You know, there are people that are choosing how to manage the landscape in the highlands, where to allocate money and where to cut money from. And all of those decisions are based on preferences of aesthetics and land use, in terms of landscape. So for anyone that's interested, it's a fascinating field to start looking at what we perceive in a place or in places [00:46:00] and how, what we perceive or what we wish to be there affects, you know, the politics of a place. And again, the contemporary crisis right now, Israel Palestine, this question of like, who belongs there? Whose land is it? What do you see in that landscape? For some people, they see an ancient Jewish homeland that these persecuted people are trying to return to and reclaim and for other people, they see, you know, an indigenous Arab people that are being displaced by outside colonizers and, you know, both in their way are right and wrong. I'm not going to wade into the politics of it, but the way that landscape is used as a medium, politically, economically, culturally, is a really fascinating subject, at least for me. Chris: Well, thank you for that, and to finish up with a question around pilgrimage, which Jerusalem being the quote unquote, "holy land" and where so many pilgrimages landed in in previous times and of course in contemporary ones as [00:47:00] well. I'm curious about what you could describe as ritualized memorial acts of walking. And I'd like to finish by asking what have been the most achieved and enduring acts of ritual that you've encountered? What lessons might they have to teach us in a time of hypermobility? Christos: Again, that's like a huge question. Okay, I'll try to be succinct if I can. I don't know why I'm drawn to these kinds of histories, but anywhere I go in the world, I tend to be drawn to, yeah, histories of displacement, I would say. It's a strange thing to be interested in for most people, but it probably speaks to the fact that I am the fourth generation of men to leave the country that I was born. You know, that's between both sides of the family, it's not all one lineage. But being of Greek descent, Greece has long been a country where people leave, you know? Like, right now, the [00:48:00] United States is a country where people come to, but to be claimed by a place where for hundreds of years now, so many people, whether by choice or circumstance, leave their home probably does something to you, you know? And so Anywhere I've traveled in the world, I tend to either seek out or be sought out by these kinds of histories, and so I referred a bit earlier to this project I did years ago where I was spending a lot of time in Mexico and ended up meeting what became a friend is an artist from Mexico City, Javier Arellán, and he was second generation Mexican. His grandfather was from Barcelona in Spain and was a fighter pilot for the Spanish Republic, so like the legitimate democratically elected government of Spain. And when Franco and the fascists kind of staged a coup and the Spanish Civil War broke out you know, he was on the side [00:49:00] of the government, the Republican army. And Barcelona was basically the last stand of the Republicans as the fascist kind of came up from the from the south and when Barcelona fell everyone that could literally just fled on foot to try to cross into France, nearby to try to escape, because knowing that if they were captured they would be imprisoned or killed by the fascists who had basically taken over the country now. But the French didn't want tens of thousands of socialists pouring into their country because they were right wing. And so rather than letting people escape they actually put all the Spanish refugees in concentration camps on the French border. And that's where my friend's grandfather was interred for like six months in a place called Argilet sur Mer, just over the French border. And then from there, Algeria took a bunch of refugees and he was sent to Algeria. And then from there, the only countries in the whole world that would [00:50:00] accept these left wing Spanish refugees was Mexico and Russia. And so about 50, 000 Spanish Republican refugees relocated to Mexico City. They had a huge influence on Mexican culture. They started UNAM, like the national university in Mexico City. And my friend Javier Grew up in Mexico city, going to a Spanish Republican elementary school, singing the Spanish Republican National Anthem and considering themselves Spaniards, you know, who happened to be living in Mexico. And so when I met him, with my interests, we, you know, overlapped and I found out that him and his wife were soon setting out to go back to that same beach in France where his grandfather was interred, in the concentration camp and then to walk from there back to Barcelona because his grandfather had died in Mexico before Franco died, so he never got to return home. You know, maybe like a lot of Greeks that left and [00:51:00] never did get to go back home, certainly never moved back home. And so we went to France and we started on this beach, which is a really kind of trashy touristy kind of beach, today. And we thought you know, that's what it is today, but we then found out talking to people that that's actually what it was back in the 1930s, 1940s was this touristy beach and what the French did was literally put a fence around and put these refugees on the beach in the middle of like a tourism beach literally as prisoners while people on the fence were like swimming and eating ice cream and, you know, and being on vacation. So even that site itself is pretty fucked up. A lot of people died there on that beach. And it was 15 days walking the entire coast from the French border back to Barcelona. And whereas Javier's community in Mexico city actually raised [00:52:00] funds for us and we're really excited about this idea of homecoming and going back home to Spain. We quickly discovered when we started talking to locals about what we were doing, they would stop talking to us and walk away and they didn't want anything to do with us. They did not want to know these histories. They didn't want to touch it. And what we found out is like Spain has never really dealt with this history. And it's such a trauma and nobody wants to talk about it. So again, it's this strange thing where it's like us from the Americas, you know, my friend from Mexico was wanting to return home and it was a strange trip for him because he thought of himself as a Spaniard returning home and these Spaniards were like, "you're a Mexican tourist and I don't want to talk to you about the civil war, you know?" And I think that really hurt him in a lot of ways because he almost kept trying to prove that he wasn't a tourist, whereas for me, I knew that I was a tourist because, you know, I have no history there.[00:53:00] In terms of pilgrimage, I've done other pilgrimages, other walks I won't get into now, but there's something about walking a landscape or walking a land as opposed to driving, obviously, or flying that the pace of walking, I think, allows you to interact with people and with places at a rhythm that is maybe more organic, maybe more holistic. I did do the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage in Spain, like I did that another 15 days as well. And for me there's nothing like walking. You know, there's, there's something that happens. To your mind, to your body, to your spirit when you're moving that I've never experienced through any kind of other travel. And unfortunately there are only so many places in the world where you can walk for days or weeks on end that have the infrastructure set up to do so. And I know that here in the Americas other than walking on busy roads, it's pretty hard to get long distances through walking. And so I think another thing that tourism has done is kind of cut off the transitional kind of walking and you just kind of fly off and just kind of plop yourself [00:54:00] down and then get extracted out through an airplane, but you don't have the experience of seeing the landscape change day by day, footstep by footstep, and experiencing the place at that speed, at that pace, which is, you know, a very slow pace compared to an airplane, obviously. Chris: Mm hmm. Perhaps, perhaps very needed in our time. Christos: I hope so. I think there's something about it. I think there's something humanizing about it. About walking. Chris: Well, I've asked a lot of you today, my friend. And we've managed to court and conjure all of the questions that I've, that I had prepared for you. Which I thought was impossible. So, on behalf of our listeners and perhaps all those who might come to this in some way, your dissertation at some point down the road, I'd like to thank you for your time and certainly your dedication. And I imagine a PhD, nine year PhD [00:55:00] research process can be extremely grueling. That said, I imagine it's not the only thing that you have on your plate. I know that you're also an artist a teacher, writer, and Kairotic facilitator. I'm saying that right. To finish off, maybe you'd be willing to share a little bit of what that entails and how our listeners might be able to get in touch and follow your work. Christos: Yeah, first I'll just say thanks for reaching out, Chris, and inviting me to do this. I've listened to your podcast and love these kinds of conversations around these topics of place and belonging. It's obviously deep in my heart and I said this to you earlier, other than my supervisors and my examiners, I think you're the first person to read my dissertation, so I appreciate that you took the time to read it and to draw quotes and to discuss it with me because, I think most people that have done a PhD know that it can be a pretty solitary process to go so deep into such a tiny little corner of like knowledge that for most people is not what they're interested in every day and to [00:56:00] share these stories. Thank you. So yeah, my website is ChristosGolanis. com. And part of what I do is working with this Greek term, kairos. So in Greek there are at least three words for time. One is chronos, which is like linear time. One is aeon, which is like kind of eternal time. And one is kairos, gets translated as kairos, which is like almost the appropriate time or ceremonial time. And my best definition of that is you know, there are some things that are scheduled, like you and I for months ago planned this particular time and this particular day to do this interview. But deciding, let's say, when to get married with your partner doesn't follow any kind of rational, linear timeline. That's more of a feeling. And so the feeling of like when some, when it's appropriate for something is what Greeks consider to be keros, like, you know, keros for something like it's, it's the appropriate time for something. So. What I do is I kind of counsel people to craft [00:57:00] ceremonies or rituals for big transitions in their lives to mark things in their life through ritual or ceremony. Like I said, for like a homecoming two weeks of walking the coast of Spain can be a ceremony, right, of kind of walking your dead grandfather back home. I think there's something about the impulse to go out into the world, to find something, to integrate something, to process something, right versus staying right where you are and kind of with community, with others. It's kind of ritually marking it, integrating it, and you know, it's cheaper, it's easier on the environment, and sometimes can, can go a lot deeper than going away and coming back, and maybe not much has changed. But it can be dealing with the transition of someone from life into death or a birth or a career change. And so basically using ceremony and ritual to really mark and integrate these significant moments in our lives so that we can be fully with them as they're happening or as they've happened in the past, but haven't been able to be integrated. So that's some of the kind of [00:58:00] work that people can do with me if you want to reach out through my website. Chris: Well I very much look forward to seeing and hearing your dissertation in the world outside of these small groups of podcast interviewers and academics. So, hopefully one day that's the case if there's any editors or publishers out there who enjoyed what you heard today and want to, want to hear more, please get in touch with me or Christos and we can, we can get that into the world in a good way. Christos, thank you so much brother. It's been a pleasure and I hope to have you on the pod again soon. Christos: All right. Thank you. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe…

The End of Tourism

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S5 #3 | We Are Not Americans w/ Healani Sonoda-Pale (Ka Lahui Hawai'i) 45:12

1 year тому45:12