State-led Tourism Development as Neocolonialism in the North Caucasus

• In Event: Decolonization in Eurasia: Revisiting the Unfinished Business of Empire

Abstract

In recent years, the Russian state has pursued the development of mountain tourism complexes across the North Caucasus, touting tourism as one of the most promising industries for economic development in a region that has lagged behind the rest of Russia. While promoting these tourism development projects, state leaders have ascribed characteristics to local non-Russian ethnic groups that portray tourism as an exemplary fit for the nature of local populations.

This paper examines the present-day tourism development ambitions of the Russian state through the lens of its imperial aspirations in the North Caucasus since the nineteenth century. I discuss the connection between military occupation and tourism, and the ways in which present-day state actors, tourism stakeholders, and tourists themselves perpetuate colonial imagery, discourse, and behavior. I argue that the current structure of top-down tourism development under the pretext of economic development is another manifestation of Russia’s ongoing neocolonial ambitions in the North Caucasus. I then examine what community-based sustainable tourism development would entail and what it means for decolonization.

Author

• Christine Le Jeune, U of Florida