Cultural Performance and Sustainability. Comparative Analysis of the Role of Tourism in Two Embera Communities in Panama

Abstract

The comparative analysis based on ethnographic fieldwork of two Embera communities in Panama allows to reflect on the capacity of tourism to propitiate a staging of “traditionalism,” which is not only a passive adaptation to the demand for authenticity and exoticism, but also a process to seize the opportunity to preserve culture. The performative dimension of patrimonial safeguarding, which responds to the will of affirmation of a group worried by its survival, contributes to the sustainability of the development of tourism. However, sustainability is limited by the lack of control over a main resource: tourists.