Search

The objective was to reflect about the transformations condition of internal colonialism, reverberated in ecotourism practices in the Quilombola-Kalunga Historical Heritage Site, in Goiás. This site has been adapted to meet the growing demand for tourism and the assimilation and containment of environmental degradations that accompany the increase in tourist visitation, which predominantly aims at accessing areas of scenic beauty associated with waterfalls and viewpoints. The results indicate that this adaptation has moved away from the ideological ecotourism principles, as the profile of tourists has changed in recent years and the highlight is on natural attractions and some cultural aspects, which results in internal and external conflicts and still establishes development.

The fairs that take place in the urban area of the municipalities of Mambaí and Posse, in the state of Goiás-Brazil, are important ways of commercializing the production of the settlements, and, also, affecting the lives of the settled women. In this article, it is proposed to analyze the changes in the lives and conditions of women who started to earn their own income from their work and entered the public space of the fairs that take place in those municipalities. Methodologically, theoretical and field researches were carried out with women from the Agrovila, Cynthia Peter, Mambaí, Paraná and Capim de Cheiro settlements, in the municipality of Mambaí (GO) and in the Nova Grécia settlement in the municipality of Posse (GO). Settled women’s participation in the public space and in commercial activities, as producers and marketers, influences the process of empowerment and, consequently, in the relationships established with the family and society. When leaving the private sphere and conquering her space in the public sphere, women break with the patriarchal structures, still strong in the rural space that dichotomize the spaces according to sex and naturalize the public as masculine.

Quilombola communities at northeastern Goias, known as Kalunga, contribute to the maintenance of the regional savannah, Cerrado. It’s understood that these communities, because of their culture and territoriality, interact with nature and mediate their relations with the world in a manner that builds up a particular way of life. We exemplify with the ‘Kalunga backyards’ as “culturalized territory”. They hold a Kalunga cultural identity. Based on participant observation and interviews with the Kalunga, following qualitative methodological approach, as the means to understand their socioterritorial organization of backyards, their uses and new uses to and for tourism. Even though the Kalunga live in a Cerrado region, their backyards usually don’t have plants of this biome.

Situated in the Brazilian State of Goiás, the National Park Chapada dos Veadeiros has been singularized due to its landscape, which comprises elements of physiographic and cultural values. Such forged singularity attracts, annually, thousands of tourists seeking consecrated attractions. The attractiveness of this highly preserved redoubt of the Brazilian Savanna biome (cerrado) increases with its inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List, which makes tourism (as a modern productive activity) one of the most important sources of income for the different groups dwelling in the region. Thus, through the performance of fieldworks to compose a primary data base, as well as documental and bibliographic resources, this article presents an ample and current overview on the logic of tourism and on the main socio-spatial relationships it promotes at the National Park Chapada dos Veadeiros, which integrates the municipio of Alto Paraíso de Goiás and the village of São Jorge.