Creating a collaborative tourism model to benefit local communities

The project will seek to find ways that tourism companies can operate so they benefit local ethnic communities and the environment.

Dr Jamie McPhie, associate professor of environmental humanities and social science at the university and principal investigator on the project, says outdoor tourism is a growing market in Vietnam.

It can involve everything from activities such as trekking, and other outdoor pursuits, to ecological and ethnic tourism.

"When performed as a vehicle for colonialist activities it can have a devastating impact on vulnerable communities,” says Jamie.

The negative effects can include marginalising people - particularly women - for behaviour which may be seen as inauthentic by their peers.

However, Jamie says there is other evidence which points to a positive impact, including increased self-advocacy for women who act as guides.

It is hoped the study can reveal the true positive and negative impacts of outdoor tourism by getting a first hand perspective.

The study will use a method named Participatory Action Research, which will involve 30 people from Hmong and Tay ethnic minority groups spending a year documenting the effect of outdoor tourism on their lives and environment using digital Polaroid cameras.

"The method that we're using is called collaborative or cooperative action research where even the people that we're researching with are thought of as co-researchers,” says Jamie.

Cameras will be distributed among 10 people living in three separate areas in Northern Vietnam, the Mu Chang Chai region, the Sa Pa district, and the Ba Be National Park.

These will include female guides who make money leading visitors on treks.

The study will also carry out a series of focus group meetings to discuss the photographs and the issues they raise.

Jamie will fly out to Vietnam in November to carry out focus groups with the communities and distribute the cameras.

More focus groups will be carried out a year later and the photographs will be collated and exhibited at Kendal Mountain Festival in November next year, as well as used to produce academic papers and potentially a book.

"We want to give them Polaroid cameras to collect their stories, their narratives, and see what they want to say, rather than us, like a lot of research does, imposing our own research questions and ideas on them,"  says Jamie.
"We want to work with them as co-researchers, co-participants, and say, 'Well, what would you like to say about it yourself?'."

Findings will then be shared with tourism companies so they can adopt practices that are more beneficial to the environment and people they are operating with.

The study will also consider what can be learned from the two communities, for example, about the Hmong practice of animism, in which life is believed to be enshrined and articulated in all things, such as forests, rivers and rocks.

"Animist communities tend to be some of the most sustainable people on the planet, so we might have a lot to learn from them,” says Jamie.

The lessons learned from the study could be applicable in areas far beyond Vietnam in any place where tourism affects local communities, potentially even including the Lake District.

"I've been involved in work in the Lake District here as well, to make it more accessible because it's still quite inaccessible for so many people around the country," says Jamie.

"The borders of the Lake District National Park act as an invisible barrier, where the houses become much more expensive and it's pricing out the local people.

“At the same time, we really need to make it more accessible to many more people other than just the white middle class that can afford the time, space and energy to get there and then go trekking up a mountain.”

A former actor and performance artist, Jamie has personal experience of the adventure tourism industry, having been an expedition leader for operators in locations including North Africa and South America.

"Tourists have a massive responsibility if they are privileged enough to be able to go to these countries to do it in an ethical manner that's going to benefit rather than take away from what those societies and cultures or environments have to offer,” he says.

"There's a lot of greenwashing that goes on with ecotourism, but there's also a lot of good that it can do as well. If you're going to have tourism, it should be something that benefits the environment as well as the culture.”

Dr Lisa Fenton is an expert in ethnobotany and ethnobiology (Image: Dr Lisa Fenton)

Jamie will be joined in the project by co-investigator, Dr Lisa Fenton, from University of Cumbria, an expert in ethnobotany and ethnobiology and internationally recognised for her professional work in bushcraft education and wilderness survival skills.

They will be working with Dr David Clarke, a lecturer in outdoor and environmental education at the University of Edinburgh and academics based in Vietnam. These will include Dr Tran Hoai, a lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Sciences and Arts at Vietnam National University in Hanoi and a post doctorate at VinUni, also in Hanoi, specialising in Vietnamese history and culture.

This is as well as Dr Myles Lynch, a senior lecturer within the College of Arts and Sciences at VinUniversity and an expert in outdoor and experiential education studies.

The study - officially named Outdoor Tourism and the Changing Cultural Narratives in Vietnamese Ethnic Minority Communities - is being funded with £214,760 from The British Academy’s Official Development Assistance International Interdisciplinary Research Projects 2024 programme, which is in turn funded by the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s International Science Partnership Fund.