Transit to "modernity": crisis, tourism, administration, evolution, and hybridization

Abstract

In La Aldea de San Nicolás, a village located in the west of Gran Canaria, the current tomato crisis has led to the search for economic and complementary alternatives to agriculture. A possibility that has gained prominence recently, is giving greater importance to “rural tourism”. In this article, I intend to consider the difficulties that this option has to cope, as the disagreement among residents in regard to a further development of tourism, because of the differential use of relevant concepts related to tourism issues, such as “identity”, “culture”, “value” or “tradition” that can encompass both “essentialist” contents as “constructivist” contents. On the other hand, I raise the possibility of observing the administrative process as a transition situation of contemporary societies, which has similar characteristics to rite of passage and modifies the reality at the macro and micro ethnographic level.