More Like Ourselves: Indigenous Capitalism through Tourism [American Indian Quarterly, AIQ]

"Indigenous peoples have been involved with tourism since they first hosted guests through exploratory and early colonial encounters, yet Indigenous ownership and control of such venues is a relatively new phenomenon worldwide. Indigenous tourism encompasses a wide range of experiences, including cultural tourism, ecotourism, adventure tourism, gaming, resorts, and other related services. Most Indigenous tourism venues are less than a decade old, made possible largely through increased communications technology, the rapid expansion of the international tourism industry, and neoliberal government policies aimed to boost national economies through international visitorship and to rectify multigenerational trauma resulting from past colonial engagements, assimilationist policies, genocide, and slavery. While a growing body of literature in a variety of disciplines touches upon aspects of the Indigenous tourism industry, such scholarship has tended to emphasize a development-based theoretical framework that regards tourism as a panacea for struggling communities to revitalize their economies. This article considers the development of Indigenous business from an American Indian studies perspective, pointing out similarities in business strategies rooted in what could loosely be termed "Indigenous value systems" while keeping in mind the individual nature of each community's engagement with dominant political economies over time."