Tradition, Acculturation and Authenticity in tourist reports about indigenous peoples in a virtual environment

Abstract

This article aims to analyze tourist perceptions of tourism activities in Indigenous Lands in Brazil from their publications in virtual environment. In view of the recent and growing phenomenon of cataloging and evaluating tourism activities in Indigenous Lands in Brazil, in applications such as Tripadvisor, through the analysis of tourist publications, an overview of the visible portion of the activity virtual. Through the analysis of all Brazilian indigenous lands registered in said application, it is sought to investigate which concepts and categories are put into play by the social actors to refer to and analyze the Brazilian Indigenous Lands as tourist attractions. It is also important to analyze the way tourists refer to indigenous peoples in their publications, as well as the construction of stereotypes and ways of thinking about indianity. It is believed that this analysis contributes important contributions to the scientific context of tourism research. Both for using relatively new means for conducting research, and for addressing the topic of relatively undeveloped literature in the area, that is, tourism in Indigenous Lands. The methodology used was the simple pairing analysis of the manually tabulated data regarding the discourse and perceptions found in the tourist publications. It was obtained as preliminary results that the perceptions of the tourists focus on basically two visions on the local culture that are organized around concepts like authenticity and acculturation as structuring of the perception. It was still possible to perceive that there is a discourse of valorization of indigenous cultures through the tradition category. Another relevant fact relates to the fact that the comments generally reflect extremity positions, that is, either entirely positive or entirely negative. This situation is credited to a polarizing character attributed very broadly by Brazilian society to the virutal environment. Thus, they are always highlighted and are object of greater interest and attention to the positions that identify themselves as belonging to a particular pole of a specific discussion, as reported in the literature.