Concurrent Paper Session 2.3 Peace & Partnerships | SDGs Tourism and the Sustainable Development Goals Conference 2019, 24-25 Jan 2019, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand | https://tourism-sdg.nz

1. TOURISM FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
The Case of the Refugee Sahrawi Community in
Western Sahara
Jaume Guia
University of Girona
Sil van de Velde
University of Girona
Lauren Chan
Asian University for Women

2. PEACE, JUSTICE AND STRONG INSTITUTIONS
#16 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) aims to:
1. Significantly reduce all forms of violence
2. Find lasting solutions to conflict and insecurity
3. Strengthening the rule of law
4. Promoting human rights
5. Promoting the participation of developing countries
in the institutions of global governance

3. THE MOBILIZATION OF TOURISM AS A TOOL
FOR SECURING JUSTICE
The recognition that the justice issues of tourism and
justice capacities of tourism are worthy of analysis has
grown over the years.
How tourism can be mobilised as a tool for securing
justice?

4. JUSTICE TOURISM / SOLIDARITY TOURISM
Justice tourism or Solidarity tourism is an ethic for travelling that
holds as its central goals:
1. Political and historical education of the visitor
2. Understanding and support of the visitor to the self-
sufficiency and self-determination of the host community
3. Contributing with economic, cultural, social and/or
environmental benefits to the host community

5. LESSONS LEARNED:
Benefits of Justice tourism
Two main areas where considerations of justice tourism have offered incisive
insights:
- The situation of Palestine
- The use of tourism to advocate for environmental justice.
Tourism is not underestimated as a tool for awareness-raising, building solidarity
and inspiring transformative action.
Tourism’s capacities can be embraced as an educative, consciousness-raising,
political tool that is seized by certain categories of tourists and their hosts to
engage in building bonds of solidarity.

6. LESSONS LEARNED:
Critiques of Justice tourism
Efforts to make tourism more responsible, ethical and just, have
been critiqued:
1. From a neoliberal perspective that tourism is not a site for
moralisation
2. From a critical race positioning many forms of justice tourism
might not attain their goals of solidarity and emancipation.

7. Critiques of Justice tourism
(i) From a neoliberal perspective:
Butcher (2003) countered efforts to push through issues of ethics
and justice in tourism arguing that this “moralisation” of tourism
was a joyless effort by its proponents to castigate tourists for their
boorishness, to keep developing countries in a state of
underdevelopment, to diminish the capacities for local community
agency and to impose their moral values on tourists.
He argues that modern mass tourism brings benefits in terms of
economic development, leisure pleasure for tourists and a pathway
to modernisation and prosperity for developing countries that
should not be diminished by the “moralisers”.

8. (ii) From a critical race positioning:
Mahrouse (2008) has charcterized solidarity activists and she characterizes them as
“white/Westerners as mediators of the Others’ suffering”.
These activists act as mediators as they try to make people back home aware of the injustices
suffered by peoples such as the Palestinians.
She used Arendt’s theory contrasting compassion and pity to assess whether these activists are
successful in goals as justice advocates, and demonstrated that the effort is problematic: when
activists return home and tell of the suffering of the people they have visited on solidarity tours,
because generally both the teller and the audience are both white/western people of privilege, the
teller potentially becomes the object of the compassion of their listeners, while their narrations only
evoke pity for the people whose experiences are recounted.
Thus the activists’ goals are potentially thwarted by the very power differentials their actions are
attempting to address.
One interviewee working in Palestinian tourism was sharply critical of activist tourism. While
recognizing the good intentions behind it, she characterized it as a disempowering activity – a
means for activists to portray themselves as heroes and then walk away from the situation, leaving
locals to feel that political action is a seasonal foreign-orientated activity

9. AN AGENDA FOR JUSTICE TOURISM
An agenda of justice tourism must focus on:
(i) Protecting the rights of host communities & on engaging with
diverse world views to understand the meaning and value of
things, including tourism.
(ii) Designing visiting experiences that are truely effective to
attain the goals of emancipation and solidarity.

10. RESEARCH QUESTION
Therefore, we are interested in better understanding:
How justice tourism could become more effective in
its goals and purpose?

11. THE DISPLACED SAHRAWI COMMUNITY
OF WESTERN SAHARA

12. WHY THIS CASE & METHODOLOGY
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CASE
Political justice & Peace is the main issue – illegal occupation
Hosts ‘suffers’ from deficits in most of the SDG’s – long-term refugees
The tourism industry (nor conventional tourists) does not exist – immoral?
It is unknown to the world (silenced) – additional injustice
Long term refugee community but self-governed people – social stability
RESEARCH METHODS:
Participant observation (3 visits on the field)
Interviews (100+) with all types of stakeholders on the ground
Design thinking analysis.

13. MOBILITIES OF THE VISITORS TO THE
SAHRAWI COMMUNITY
INSTITUTIONAL MOBILITIES:
MILITARY (MINURSO), POLITICAL DELEGATIONS, AND HUMANITARIAN (UNHCR)
WORK-RELATED MOBILITIES (‘VOLUNTEERING WORK’ & OTHERS):
AID WORKERS, JOURNALISTS, POLITICAL ACTIVITSTS, MINE CLEANERS, SCIENTISTS, …
PERSONAL MOBILITIES:
‘VFR’ (RELATED TO HOLIDAYS IN PEACE), EDUCATIONAL-YOUTH (LANGUAGE)
SOLIDARITY MOBILITIES:
LARGE EVENTS (SM, AT, FS), GROUPS OF INTERNATIONAL ACTIVISTS FROM ESTABLISHED
SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONS

14. MOBILITIES OF THE DISPLACED SAHRAWI
COMMUNITY MEMBERS
INSTITUTIONAL MOBILITIES:
MILITARY & POLITICAL MOBILITIES (DIPLOMACY & ACTIVISM)
WORK-RELATED MOBILITIES:
MIGRANTS IN SEARCH OF WORK ABROAD, BUSSINES & WORK MOBILITIES (TRADING,
MINE CLEANING, NOMADISM, ETC.)
PERSONAL MOBILITIES:
VFR, HEALTH MOBILITIES, EDUCATIONAL MOBILITIES,
‘LEISURE’ MOBILITIES:
LIBERATED TERRITORY BREAKS, HOLLIDAYS IN PEACE

15. INNOVATIVE MOBILITIES FOR PEACE AND
JUSTICE IN THE DISPLACED SAHRAWI
COMMUNITY
INTERNATIONAL EVENTS IN THE SAHRAWI REGION
SAHARA MARATON, ARTIFARITI, FISAHARA
SUMMERS ABROAD FOR SAHRAWI CHILDREN:
HOLIDAYS IN PEACE

16. SPORT, ART AND CINEMA
INTERNATIONAL EVENTS

17. SAHARA MARATHON

18. ARTIFARITI

19. ARTIFARITI

20. HOLIDAYS IN PEACE
SUMMERS ABROAD

21. HOLIDAYS IN PEACE

22. ‘ADVOCACY TOURISM’
IN THE REFUGEE CAMPS AND THE LIBERATED
TERRITORIES OF THE SAHRAWI COMMUNITY OF
WESTERN SAHARA:
SOLIDARITY, AWARENESS-RAISING, CULTURE &
EDUCATION

23. THE TRIP

24. THE REFUGEE CAMPS

25. SMARA CAMP URBAN LANDSCAPE

26. INNOVATIVE URBAN VEGETABLE GARDENS

27. POLITICAL ACTIVISM

28. ART SCHOOL

29. CREATIVE ART WORKSHOP

30. THE LIBERATED TERRITORIES
INTERNATIONAL
BORDER MARKER

31. WILD CAMEL

32. HOLIDAYS IN PEACE PROGRAMME
GEOLOGICAL FORMATI

33. HOLIDAYS IN PEACE PROGRAMME
GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS

34. DESERT ROCK ART

35. ANCIENT FUNERARY SITE

36. SAHRAWI
DRIVER
-
COOKING
IN THE
WILD

37. NOMADIC CHILDREN GOING TO SCHOOL

38. ANCIENT WELL

39. HOLIDAYS IN PEACE PROGRAMME
“PETROL STATION” IN THE LIBERATED TERRITORIES

40. MINE CLEANING OPERATIONS

41. FINDINGS
1. Visitor’s longer-stay / higher involvement
The trip is only a very short part of the ‘project’ or mission
Pre-trip and post-trip involvement are paramount
Strong focus on the post-trip awareness-raising actions / involvement
Pre-trip actions: education, crowfunding for donation, ….
2. Aware-raising: from pity to awe!
Focus on beauty, talent, innovation and resilience in the community and region
Exhibitions, news, social media, activism, associations, ambassadorship, lectures, …
3. Privileging the local community and its worldview
Numbers, size and times of trips must be adapted to the community needs
Multicultural and diverse cohorts of visitors are preferred (not white dominant)
Oran & Algiers stop-overs through the eyes of the Sahrawi

42. FINDINGS
4. ‘Reverse tourism’: “mobilities for all” approach
Bringing locals on tour & invite them to your home country
5. Visitors needs cannot be fully ignored
6. The value created through justice tourism is:
For the visitor: Educational – Discovery – Cultural – Moral – Transformational -
Social
For the host community: International advocacy, awareness-raising and
ambassadorship, donations and income, volunteering and diverse knowledge
brought by the visitors.
Therefore, cultural / educational travel is enriched by volunteering, awareness
raising and advocacy

43. FINDINGS
7. Advocacy Tourism for peace and justice, is at the crossroads of:
Solidarity Tourism Indigenous/community tourism?
Voluntourism (post-trip) VFR (for repeaters)
Educational Tourism Cultural Tourism
Political tourism Ecotourism
Transformational Pro-poor tourism
Reverse tourism Slum tourism??
Some recreation time adds value and comes in through socializing,
‘sightseeing’, shopping, …

44. NEXT STEPS
Launching a university start-up (social entreprise’ / NGO)
Implement justice travel to the Sahrawi Region
Continue doing research through the start-up organization
Extend justice travel experiences to other regions and other SDGs