Table of Contents
1. Introduction 3
1.1 Introduction to Easter Island and the Rapanui 3
1.2 Research Questions 4
2. Easter Island Background 5
2.1 Tourism on Easter Island and Prevailing Resident Perceptions 5
2.2 Loss of Rapanui Identity and Chileanization 6
2.3 A Brief History of Colonization and Exploitation on Easter Island 6 2.4 The Advantage of Tourism: Indigenous Sovereignty and Autonomy 9
3. Previous Research 11
3.1 Hawai’i Example: Staged Authenticity and Cultural Commodification 11
4. Theoretical Framework 14
4.1 The Impact of Tourism and ‘Authenticity’ on Indigenous Chileans 14 4.2 Cultural Commodification within the Centre-Periphery Dichotomy 15
4.3 Objective and Existential Authenticity 16
5. Methodology 18
5.1 Limitations 19
5.2 Ethics 19
6. Results and Analysis: Performance Venues 20
6.1 VAI TE MIHI 20
6.2 TE RA’AI 25
6.3 BALLET KARI KARI 28
6.4 Analysis of Performance Venues 33
7. Results and Analysis: Tour Companies 38
7.1 EASTER ISLAND TOURS 38
7.2 MAURURU TRAVELS 45
7.3 GREEN ISLAND TOURS 50
7.4 Analysis of Tour Companies 55
8. Discussion 58
9. Conclusion 64
10. References 66
1. Introduction
1.1 Introduction to Easter Island and the Rapanui
Considered to be one of the most isolated places on the planet, Easter Island is Chile’s most prominent tourist attraction known primarily for its impressive, humanoid monoliths known as moais. These are situated in Rapa Nui National Park, a site established in 1973 which accounts for 42% of the island’s surface area (de la Maza 2018). While it is both a comuna and province of Chile located 3700 km off the coast of South America, the island’s indigenous Rapanui culture is of Polynesian origin (de la Maza 2018). According to a 2016 figure, 60% of the population is indigenous, and “[s]ixty-six percent of the island’s attractions are of ethnic-cultural origin,” so the tourism industry naturally relies heavily on these Polynesian customs and performances (de la Maza 2018, p. 96).
Amongst visitors surveyed by Figueroa (2016), the three primary motives for vacationing on the island are its archaeological heritage (78% of foreigners and 69% of mainland Chileans), cultural heritage (52% of foreigners and 73% of Chileans), and tranquility (24% of foreigners and 65% of Chileans). Meanwhile, islanders perceived the three primary visitor attractions as being archaeological heritage (96%), followed by cultural heritage (90%) and lastly, tranquility (62%). The implications of these statistics are curious, because in addition to revealing a slight difference in values between foreign and mainland Chilean tourists, wherein foreigners prioritize the tangible archaeological heritage and Chileans are drawn by the Polynesian cultural heritage, we can conclude that cultural heritage is generally prominent by virtue of being amongst the top three attractions. Easter Island’s cultural heritage is not only the priority for Chilean visitors (73%) and for over half of foreigners, but it is also highly emphasized by local Rapanui islanders at 90%
(Figueroa 2016).
Thus, considering the great value attributed to island cultural heritage by locals, Chileans, and foreigners alike, and the fact that it is a primary attraction in the island’s heavily tourism-based economy, it is perhaps essential to measure how this central role impacts the local culture. When indigenous cultures like that of the Rapanui--populations which have typically been subject to colonization, historical oppression, and aggressive efforts at cultural assimilation--are suddenly harnessed as a lucrative commodity by an industry as powerful as tourism, this is bound to influence the state and well-being of the local culture, as well as how it manifests itself in its
tangible customs. With such a significant shift in the culture’s role--from an insular, isolated entity, to the vulnerable victim of colonizers, to the heart of a destination’s appealing image--we would perhaps expect that both outsiders (i.e. foreign and Chilean visitors) and insiders (i.e. indigenous islanders) would see Rapanui culture in a different light. Furthermore, given the inherently exploitative nature of Chile’s historically tenuous relationship with Easter Island’s population, this evolution of roles also encourages an assessment of the tourism industry’s use of local culture: is it an empowering force that liberates rapanui from the legacy of colonization, or is it merely an insidiously disguised mechanism that perpetuates historical exploitation?
1.2 Research Questions
While ascertaining the current state of a destination’s local culture may be a highly context-dependent line of questioning determined by relatively subjective factors, analyzing the representation of cultural heritage may very well provide insights into the underlying inquiry of cultural empowerment versus exploitation. Thus, during this time when Rapanui culture lies as the heart of the tourism industry, one approach is to determine the current level of pride the local population has for their own identity and history, as well as the level of agency they possess over the processes that preserve and display their heritage to visitors. There may be a multitude of relevant perspectives on this matter, but in light of certain constraints, this study will focus on visitor perspectives of the quality of their cultural heritage experiences and the role that indigenous Rapanui play in this transmission of culture. Thus, the primary guiding research questions are as follows:
How do visitors to Easter Island perceive and value the concept of ‘authenticity’ when they engage in cultural heritage tourism?
1. What factors render a cultural tourism experience valuable and ‘authentic’ in their eyes?
2. How do visitors perceive the local Rapanui and their relationship to their own culture within the context of cultural heritage tourism?
3. According to visitors, are the sampled tourism companies empowering or exploiting native Rapanui people and their heritage? Do they perceive locals as having agency over how their culture is shared?
While the primary, bolded question is not directly representative of the inquiry seeking to shed light on whether the industry ultimately exploits or empowers indigenous Rapanui culture, it
speaks to the most pertinent, available data regarding the tourist perspective on the representation of local culture. However, this surface level analysis of the tourism industry’s display of cultural heritage naturally leads into this underlying matter, as evident in the ensuing sub-questions regarding their perceptions of indigenous pride and agency over their own culture.
2. Easter Island Background
2.1 Tourism on Easter Island and Prevailing Resident Perceptions
Figueroa (2016, p. 245) points out an island’s inherent inability to take advantage of features like economies of scale, and limited human capital and natural resources due to their “relatively closed and bounded ecosystems, whose typical characteristics, such as small size, remoteness, and isolation, add extra strain on their development process.” Thus, because they lack the built-in economic advantages of more accessible destinations, destinations like Easter Island often come to rely on tourism by default (Figueroa 2016).
When properly managed, tourism is documented to bring many benefits to a destination, particularly within the economic sector, as it has the capacity to raise the standard of living, drive economic growth, and create new employment opportunities (especially for women) (Figueroa 2016). Furthermore, Figueroa (p. 247) adds that “tourism can support infrastructure development, protection of natural and cultural resources, and training and transfer of technology, management and technical skills.” Because of these tangible benefits, there is a high level of awareness and acceptance amongst Easter Island inhabitants when it comes to the necessity of tourism, as most islanders work in the industry and 96% of surveyed residents acknowledge its current and future role at the core of their economy, even if they simultaneously recognize its drawbacks (Figueroa 2016). Although they wish that the industry would place a larger emphasis on sustainability and take into account factors like carrying capacity, Figueroa recounts how “61% of those interviewed believed that tourism in Easter Island should increase because it is the main source of employment and income, while 82% believed that the overall impact that tourism has on the island is positive, very positive or excellent” (2016, p. 255). This widespread mentality is due to the general improvement of local quality of life, infrastructure development, and improved education and health services as a result of tourism to Easter Island (Figueroa 2016).
However, given the industry’s rapid growth in recent years (with an increase from 17,305 arrivals in 2002 to 65,065 in 2014), this development exacerbates the deleterious effects of the
industry (Figueroa 2016). Not only does this entail environmental impacts like threats to biodiversity, air and water pollution, and issues with solid waste disposal, but the industry also engenders certain social consequences as tensions grow between indigenous Rapanui and the increasing number of ‘temporary’ workers from the mainland who become permanent residents;
a dynamic which generates Rapanui distrust of the Chilean government and has led them to lead many protests and demonstrations (Figueroa 2016). Most importantly for our purposes, however, is the perceived loss of Rapanui identity.
2.2 Loss of Rapanui Identity and Chileanization
According to Figueroa’s 2016 study, 55% of surveyed Rapanui residents reported that they were
‘highly concerned’ that tourism was contributing to a loss of Rapanui identity on the island (although this figure was not marked as significant by the researcher). Many feel threatened by a perceived ‘Chileanization’ of the island as more and more mainlanders who initially come to work in the tourism industry become permanent residents, thus catalyzing the marginalization of Polynesian values, customs, and language. This dynamic furthers the divide between continental Chileans and native Rapanui, and we witness the emergence of a classic dichotomy between the
‘invaders’ and the ‘primitive’, wherein Chilean workers are subject to resentment and the Rapanui are perceived as a lazy and ‘underdeveloped’ people who take advantage of Chile’s special interest in their destination (Figueroa 2016). Thus, this population shift and tension fosters a deep distrust of the Chilean government as they feel that invaders are encroaching upon their territory, which ultimately speaks to the notion that locals do not attribute any of these social tensions to tourism, but rather to the mainlanders and foreigners who decide to reside on the island permanently (Figueroa 2016). For this reason, perhaps indigenous sovereignty would be better framed in the context of Rapanui representation and rights within the Chilean government in general, as opposed to treating the tourism industry as the primary factor that either liberates or exploits the Rapanui. To develop a more thorough understanding of this tension between Rapanui and the Chilean state, it is thus necessary to explore its origins stemming from the colonization of the island and exploitation of its original inhabitants.
2.3 A Brief History of Colonization and Exploitation on Easter Island
Even in the early stages of Easter Island’s colonization, there was a sense of entitlement to the island’s territory and culture on part of the Chilean government, who declared it to be Chilean
public land in 1933 on the basis of ‘occupation’, a right wherein “[t]erritories inhabited by
‘barbarian or savage’ people, who don’t constitute a society with a recognized political organization, can be declared terra nullius and taken over by ‘civilized nations” (Delsing 2015, p.
34). This very much echoes the logic of European nations in regards to their conquest of African territories, whose populations they perceived as primitive, ‘barbaric,’ and incapable of self-governance (Delsing 2015). Naturally, this historical line of reasoning is offensive to modern Rapanui, as their ancestors did indeed have an organized society and system of governance, even if only 100 or so members had survived the consequences of initial contact with Westerners (Delsing 2015).
In 1966, the Chilean government passed the Ley Pascua; while this was intended to foster equality by effectively granting the Rapanui voting rights and Chilean citizenship, it also engendered many social tensions between the local population and mainland Chileans that persist to this day (Delsing 2015). It granted special advantages to mainlanders, such as the right to reside on the island without property and income taxes and serve in government institutions on the island with a salary twice as much as what they would receive on the mainland (Delsing 2015). Meanwhile, indigenous Rapanui lacked (and continue to lack) decent educational institutions to obtain the same professional posts in government, but most importantly, the Ley Pascua “fomented Westernization, in a way the Rapanui are still trying to come to terms with today” (Delsing 2015, p. 69). According to Delsing (2015, p. 69), this granting of equal rights to land ownership on the island marked the beginning of many social tensions, so that “culturally, the law created more problems than it resolved.”
After an influx of newcomers in the wake of the Ley Pascua--mainland functionaries coming to take up posts on the island, American army personnel, and even early tourists--52 Rapanui sent a signed letter to the Chilean Senate and the Cámara de Diputados expressing their concerns in light of this population shift that left their people greatly outnumbered (Delsing 2015).
They condemned the declaration of Rapa Nui as public land (although unbeknownst to them, the Chilean government had covertly done this back in 1933), the fact that mainlanders on the island received superior salaries (thus establishing unequal social classes and economic dependence), as well as the inhumane treatment of diseased islanders confined to leper colonies (Delsing 2015). Perhaps most important of all was the letter’s “emphasis on the Chileans’ deep-seated disrespect for the Rapanui as a people and for their cultural differences” (Delsing 2015, p. 71).
The traditional Rapanui way of life was thus fundamentally altered by the Ley Pascua in a multitude of ways. Not only did it disrupt their ancestral diet as several native plants were lost to
road construction and invasive insect species, but they also lost their “traditional cooperative activities,” and “the generalization of money as a means of exchange [created] a sense of private property among a people who were used to sharing their belongings” (Delsing 2015, p. 72).
Furthermore, the law and its ensuing changes generally severed the link between the Rapanui and their ancestral territories, as “the Chileans who were assigned to the island did not have enough cultural sensibility to perceive these possible alterations of Rapanui island life” and the Chilean government’s emphasis on Hanga Roa reinforced the erroneous idea that the rest of the island was uninhabited and uncivilized (Delsing 2015, p. 72).
These issues were further intensified during the 17 year dictatorship of Pinochet, a strong nationalist who aspired to both integrate the indigenous Rapanui into the Chilean state and use their acquired territory as a point of departure for further conquest in Oceania (Delsing 2015).
While his policies were appealing to the wealthier islanders working in the tourism industry, as the Ley Pinochet of the Ministry of Land and Colonization granted him the right to give land titles to mainlanders born on the island (and those with a parent born on the island), most perceived his rule as destructive to their traditional sociocultural system and rights to their ancestral territory (Delsing 2015). Furthermore, Pinochet put an end to the islander organizations, like fishing and agricultural cooperatives, that had enabled some degree of self-government, and in 1982 his appointed military governor prohibited the use of the Rapanui language in public meetings, sparking outrage (Delsing 2015).
Pinochet’s dictatorship did not go unopposed, however, as the Elders’ Council was established in 1980 in response to the Ley Pinochet (Delsing 2015). When their petitions to the Chilean government fell on deaf ears, they expressed their concerns through letters to foreign powers, explaining not only the land right disputes, but also “abuse in cultural aspects, forgetting that we Easter Islanders are a racial group with a culture and idiosyncrasy different from the continental Chilean, and as such we should have more involvement of local affairs” (Delsing 2015, p. 80). Ultimately, the Elders’ Council, which still exists today, succeeded in persuading people to reject the land titles offered to them by the Ley Pinochet (Delsing 2015). Later, when asked about his granting the United States the right to land space shuttles on Easter Island (all without consulting the native Rapanui), he stated, “They are always complaining about something. [...]
This is typical of rustic people: they talk and talk and always seek to attack small things” (Delsing 2015, p. 81).
Perhaps this description of the Rapanui as “rustic people” speaks to Pinochet’s underlying conviction that the native islanders were simple, primitive, and even inferior, thus making the
Chilean state entitled not only to their territory and their resources, but also justified in robbing them of their sovereignty. Furthermore, it reinforces the classic dichotomy between the ‘civilized’
colonizer and the ‘savage’ native, and very much echoes the contemporary attitude towards indigenous Rapanui, who are often perceived as lazy, uneducated, and ungraciously leeching off of the Chilean state. Nevertheless, while the colonization of Easter Island originated many of the sociocultural tensions that persist to this day, Delsing emphasizes how this oppression has historically galvanized the native Rapanui to resist, and gave them incentive to “mark their difference and define their own identity as a people” (2015, p. 79). It is exactly this adversity that targeted their territorial rights, as well as their cultural sovereignty and integrity, which has inspired the Rapanui to take pride in their culture and fight for its preservation.
2.4 The Advantage of Tourism: Indigenous Sovereignty and Autonomy
Since its establishment by the Indigenous Law of 1933, six total Rapanui representatives of the Commission for the Development of Easter Island (Comisión de Desarrollo de la Isla de Pascua) have taken it upon themselves to demand certain indigenous rights from the Chilean state, including “the recognition of Rapa Nui’s legal rights to the national park territory, and immigration control law to regulate visitors’ entry to and residence on the island and political autonomy from the state” (de la Maza 2018, p. 104). These are political strifes that remain unresolved to this day, and as is the case with many National Parks throughout the world situated on indigenous land, territorial disputes between the Rapanui and mainland Chile’s tourism interests are highly contentious (de la Maza 2018). In lieu of the trust and collaboration between stakeholders at the local, regional, and national levels necessary to foster sustainability within the tourism industry, mounting tensions have resulted in many demonstrations and violent protests against the Chilean government (Figueroa 2016).
Fortunately, tourism is more than a mere economic driver, and in many cases a destination’s touristic appeal grants it a certain degree of leverage in such disputes, and serves as a means to generate cultural pride for what may be a historically devalued community. For instance, because of Chile’s indigenous Atacameño population’s association with San Pedro de Atacama’s archaeological heritage, they have been able to negotiate some of their desired regulations on the unchecked tourism industry that emerged so suddenly, thus proving that
“externally imposed value of indigenous culture can be subjectivized by indigenous people themselves” (De la Maza 2018, p. 107). Similarly, Chile’s Mapuche culture has benefited from
tourism in that it has cultivated a positive, attractive image of the region to replace one previously defined by instability, poverty, and conflict, as well as invigorate a certain pride for indigenous culture (De la Maza 2018).
Even so, Easter Island has considerable advantage over the Mapuche and Atacameño populations, as they are indigenous territories still in the early stages of tourism development.
Being an internationally renowned destination gives Easter Island a certain degree of leverage over the Chilean government when negotiating demands for Rapanui sovereignty and autonomy, and has “opened the way for full transfer of administrative control over the territory in the future, setting a precedent for indigenous management of tourist activities in other protected areas linked to indigenous territories” (de la Maza 2018, p. 104). When carrying out comparative studies of Easter Island with other indigenous regions on mainland Chile, de la Maza (2018, p. 108) concluded that “[i]n the two indigenous territories with established tourist industries [Rapa Nui and San Pedro de Atacama], we found stronger demands and claims for territorial control associated with tourism.” So while tourism on Easter Island has, in some capacity, enabled the native Rapanui to demand and maintain comparatively higher agency over the promotion of their customs and histories, de la Maza points out that the state has yet to truly take Rapanui demands to heart and relinquish its extensive control and involvement, as well as consider the long-term sustainability of the island’s industry.
Because a large body of research to this date has established a link between the potential for sustainable tourism and the level of acceptance within the local community, Figueroa (2016, p. 247) emphasizes that “[t]his is particularly true in the case of islands, which are characterized by fragile ecosystems and limited size, since the increased interaction between tourists and residents can reveal more easily any negative impacts caused by tourism development.” This lends credence to the notion that any development of Easter Island’s tourism industry must absolutely take into account the durability and well-being of the destination in order for these efforts to be successful. Otherwise, the Chilean state and businesses would run the risk of opposition from the local community when threatened with any irresponsible tourism development (Figueroa 2016). Thus, it is within everyone’s interests to ensure not only economic and environmental sustainability, but also safeguard the island’s sociocultural diversity and integrity.
Fortunately, the prevailing, local perception of tourism is that it is an advantageous industry overall, but we observe mounting concerns regarding sustainability issues that jeopardize the island’s future well being as both an attractive, functional tourist destination and a
