The Tourism Field in Quito (Equator): an analysis of the agents’ capitals and their (possible) collective action over the public policies of tourism (as a contesting object)
The Tourism Field in Quito (Equator): an analysis of the agents’ capitals and their (possible) collective action over the public policies of tourism (as a contesting object)
El Campo Turístico de la ciudad de Quito (Ecuador): un análisis del capital de sus agentes y de la (posible) acción colectiva sobre las políticas de turismo como objeto de disputa
Resumo: This study aims to approach the social field of tourism conformed by stakeholders with interactive dynamics in the context of a specific tourism policy. In order to achieve this, Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social fields was used to frame the problem of action in tourism, empirically assumed as a social field. Additionally, the structuring model of collective action has been used to discuss how the interaction of collective agents has evolved. Empirically, the interactive dynamics of the agents involved in the development of public tourism policies in the municipality of Quito (Equator) were considered as an object of analysis. It is assumed that, to a large extent, this process would involve a large part of the stakeholders in the field. The methods used for the reconstruction of the tourist field as well for the analysis of the mechanisms that structure the action of the stakeholders were historiographical, qualitative and quantitative. The findings show that the process of tourism policies creation in Quito is predominantly influenced by a few agents. In addition, in the structuring process of collective action, it is observed that there is no interactive dynamics between actors what impedes the formation of collective action. As a conclusion, the main decisions about tourism policy are taken by the public authority with almost no intervention from different stakeholders what difficult the legitimization of tourism and its implementation.
