Form Submission: Participation Entry

Since the creation of national parks, protected areas and ecotourism have been synonymous. Thus, groups associated with protected areas are not only subjected to conservation ideologies but they also readily interact with eco-tourism narratives (Flectcher 2014). While numerous scholars have researched the diffusion of these two, there is limited studies that relate these dynamics with identity politics. This presentation aims to take on this challenge through dissecting and analyzing the tourist narrative of Akagera National Park in Rwanda. Through focusing on three actors, including the park-adjacent communities, the governing bodies and the physical landscape, I will attempt to both examine the process of constructing narratives and the relationship between the construction/dissemination of the narrative and the actor’s identity. Drawing largely on tourism studies, Foucault, and post-humanism, the general thesis seeks to play with the concepts of narrative, identity, power, and agency in a post-conflict eco-tourism setting.