Experiences of Resilience and Mapuche Community Based Tourism in the Pre-Cordilleran Territories of Panguipulli, Southern Chile

Abstract

In Latin America, community resilience has emphasized the solidarity capacities and strengths of indigenous communities to face and proactively overcome adversities derived from political and social violence. This is the case of Mapuche communities linked to community based tourism in pre-cordilleran areas of southern Chile. This article analyzes tourism experiences of these Mapuche communities, based on a qualitative exploratory and descriptive approach, in order to determine their relationship with community resilience processes. The conclusion is that community based tourism has contributed to absorbing external disturbances associated with the processes of territorial dispossession, colonization, and extractive and neoliberal policies that these communities face, resist, and overlap without losing their identity. This tourism also reinforces processes of cultural revitalization of communities, connected social capacities, and development of organizational strategies to achieve the collective desire for a favorable future associated with their life plans.

1. Introduction

While some groups, collectives, or peoples disintegrate or disappear by assimilation with the dominant historical culture, others demonstrate great capacity to face adversities and even become strengthened by them. This is the case of the Mapuche People (“people of the land,” in their language, the Mapuzüngun), currently the majority of the indigenous society of Chile [1], which have overcome several kinds of crises with the progressive loss of their lands by legal and illegal means, the breakdown of traditional community economies, the absence or loss of rights and representativeness, and the marginalization of political processes, among other situations [2]. These facts are consequences of the occupation of the Mapuche territories by the Chilean State in the 19th century [3,4,5]. Colonization, dispossession of their lands, territories, and resources, oppression and discrimination, as well as lack of control of their own ways of life [6] are joined, more recently, by the growing migratory processes towards urban areas [7] and an aggressive penetration of neoliberal extractivist capital in search of natural energy, mineral, and genetic resources, which have an important reservoir in indigenous territories [8,9,10,11].

However, this ability of a sociocultural collective to face and overcome all kinds of crises has been scientifically analyzed only since the 1980s [12] through the polysemic concept of resilience, nurtured from various narratives, disciplinary origins, and methodological approaches [8,13,14,15,16]. These studies aim to discern how a sociocultural collective (groups, families, communities, peoples) manages to overcome adversities, whether these are environmental, socio-political, or otherwise.

The concept of resilience has developed from an essentially behavioral, geneticist, and individualist North American tendency to a European psychoanalytic and ethical perspective, and to the most recent intellectual orientation, the Latin American one. This last resilience approach emphasizes “the social” as a logic of response to crisis scenarios [17], arising from natural disasters and/or social problems derived from an inequitable, exclusive, and unfair society, and the dynamics of resistance of the communities against powers that structurally violate human dignity [18,19]. This approach to resilience, also called community resilience (CR), focuses on the strengths, creativity of the individual or group, and their environment, and emphasizes the inherent abilities of the community to resist, adapt, and overcome the consequences of adversity [20] using only available resources [21]. This capacity is the result of the interaction of tangible resources (human, material, and procedural resources) and intangibles (organizational capacity, ties and social networks, collective tradition) that groups have to stabilize, recover, and transform in a socially acceptable way from the different types of difficulties they face [12,22].

Parallel to the epistemological development of the resilience and CR construct, its study has expanded from various areas, including community based tourism (CBT) with the contributions of Ruiz-Ballesteros [23] who analyzes tourism from socio-ecological resilience and Torres-Alruiz et al. [24] who address CBT from a resilience, socio-ecological, and situated perspective. In this area, we can highlight the works of Herrera and Rodríguez [25], who explore CR from the perspective of risk and natural disaster, and more recently Palomino and López [22], who examined the relationships of nature tourism, community, and community resilience.

In Latin America, CBT has been developed mainly in rural areas and by indigenous communities [26]. It is based on the creation of tourism products under the principle of community participation [27]. It can be conceptualized as a form of tourism that seeks to balance environmental and cultural dimensions with management and organization anchored in the community [28]. The community assumes ownership and control of tourism activity to contribute to its own social and economic development, and to the environmental and socio-cultural sustainability of the territories they inhabit [29,30,31,32,33].

CBT is based on three key concepts [34]: (i) community: promotes a sense of security based on belonging and trust for group protection, despite being exposed to fissure and risks associated with the unequal positioning of its members with respect to the social environment. It is a space of hospitality; (ii) coexistence: a social relationship where otherness is expressed, and one is interested in the culture of the other. At this threshold, the relationship established between visitors and hosts exceeds the business relationship, making it possible to establish an intercultural dialogue and power non-economic productive spaces of collective partnership, such as barter clubs or fairs; (iii) everyday life: it considers fundamental aspects of the populations—use of time and space, forms of work organization, consumption of material and symbolic goods, and the media—that are important to understand cultures.

As noticed, some aspects of CBT and CR are coincidental, such as the emphasis on community and the collective characteristics of community practices, including collaborative, fair, and balanced solutions which result in its common good; the impulse for organizational strategies that come from collective, solidarity, and democratic decisions; or empowerment as a sign of increased individual and collective self-esteem, to name a few examples. However, the relationship between CBT and CR has not yet been sufficiently investigated, especially regarding a CBT managed by indigenous communities in a common Latin American context of social, economic, political, and cultural deprivation. In this sense, these CBT proposals offer a platform of empirical experiences that allow the resilience of indigenous communities to be examined.

Consequently, in this article we are interested in knowing if CBT promotes CR in order to expose what its implications are for indigenous communities practicing it in the territories they inhabit.

To answer these questions, the CBT experiences of Mapuche communities are examined in the pre-cordilleran zone of the commune of Panguipulli, south of Chile. This area—like other territories in Latin America—testifies to the processes of territorial dispossession, marginalization, and socio-political and socio-cultural segregation experienced by this population, with more recent problems and socio-environmental conflicts of differing intensity giving this particular area characteristics to examine CR processes.

Methodologically, we apply the perspective of CR analysis proposed by Lopez and Limón [35] which investigates collective cognitive components (cultural knowledge and social skills) materialized in organized social skills (organizational strategies) that allow for exploring the characteristics of the ability of the groups to resist, overcome, and rebuild themselves in the face of adversity [35]. Regarding CBT, a series of specific factors that would contribute to these cognitive components of CR are proposed, which vary from the rescue and revitalization of knowledge and cultural practices invisibilized because of the processes of assimilation to the dominant culture, to the creation and/or participation in local, communal, and national organizations for tourism purposes.

The main conclusion is that CBT managed by Mapuche communities promotes CR while allowing them to deal with historical processes of colonization and dispossession, as well as to develop their identity reconfiguration and to revitalize their culture based on their traditional knowledge and the development of social skills and organizational strategies.

The next section describes the materials and methods used in this investigation to contextualize the study area, then the methodological proposal is developed followed by the presentation of the results achieved, and finally the discussion and conclusion of the study are presented.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Study Area

The study area is located southeast of the western slope of the southern Andes mountain range, and borders to the west with Lake Calafquén and to the east with Villarrica National Park and the Argentine Republic, in the commune of Panguipulli, Region de Los Rios (Figure 1). The total population of the commune of Panguipulli amounts to 34,539 inhabitants, of which 14,463 declare themselves as belonging to the Mapuche ethnic group [36]. The study area has 4561 inhabitants, of which 2832 ascribe to this ethnic group, which is equivalent to 62% [36]. It is characterized by the existence of a natural pond, volcanoes, and the presence of mixed forest (perennial and evergreen) developed in a temperate rainy climate of Mediterranean subtype with short summers and abundant rainfall throughout the year. This area’s natural elements make up a unique landscape with almost non-altered plant dynamics and abundant biodiversity. In 2007, part of the area was declared a Biosphere Reserve of Temperate Rainforests of the Southern Andes by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) [37].

Simultaneously, this landscape embodies a social and symbolic burden linked to the Mapuche population inhabiting the area and preserves elements of their identity and culture, such as language, agricultural and botanical knowledge, worldview, and toponymy or knowledge of the natural environment, among others [38]. However, the existence of extractive dynamics in the areas that alter ecosystems, produce pollution, or affect spaces with high cultural and ethnic value constantly confront Mapuche communities with the State as individuals fight for land ownership and access to use of natural resources [24,39]

Another situation to be taken into account is the existence of high levels of multidimensional poverty above the regional and national average: the national average reaches 20.7% and the regional average reaches 22.2%, while the communal average exceeds 32% [40]. This index, prepared by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), was adopted by the State of Chile since 2015 to identify multiple deficiencies and their intensity at the household level. It considers variables such as education, health, work and social security, housing and environment, networks, and social cohesion [41].

The majority of the Mapuche origin population has only accessed primary education and, in a very small number, secondary and university education [36].

Historically, this area is part of the Wallmapu, Mapuche Territory. After the military occupation and implementation by the Chilean State of the "Pacification of the Araucanía" (1866–1883) [3,4,42,43] many of these communities were forcibly displaced at “reductions,” small portions of territory that the State gave collectively to indigenous families under a land ownership title (Títulos de Merced/Land Title. Figure 1) [44]. The rest of their lands became property of the State and were reallocated to Chilean and European settlers. These reductions were constituted for a time in spaces of isolation and subsistence of the Mapuche population, according to the advances of the colonization and capitalist expansion [45].

However, with the agrarian reform processes (1964–1973) and, particularly, with the counter-reform of the military dictatorship (1973–1990), reserves and their communities have been disarticulated and threatened again by the implementation of the neoliberal development model [42,46]. This situation has contributed to a process of atomization and invisibility of indigenous property and its homologation to the ownership of the dominant company—see for instance, Decree Law N° 2.568 of 1979 and Decree Law N° 2.750 of 1979 that favored the division of community property [47,48].

On the other hand, the main economic activities of this population are subsistence agriculture and, more recently, construction and tourism, especially in summer. In fact, at the commune level, since 2014 there has been a declaration of a Tourist Interest Zone (Law N° 20.423, articles 13 and 17) [49] due to its potential for tourism. In this way, the study area has become a pole of attraction that receives growing tourism motivated by the existence of continental waters suitable for bathing, a natural landscape that conforms to contemporary taste, and the presence of thermal waters associated with the volcanic activity of the area [39,50].

This tourism development has collided with life plans and interests of the Mapuche communities inhabiting the territory that see in CBT an alternative to the mass tourism of recent years and the problems that tourism normally causes. In summer season 2018, 84,517 tourists were received [51]. If it is considered that the study area is inhabited by 4561 people, there is a ratio of 19 tourists per local inhabitant.

For 2019, the total tourist offer in this area amounts to 196 initiatives based on documentary review, web pages, and direct observation; however, only thirteen of them are managed by members of five of the eleven ancestral Mapuche communities (Figure 1). These communities have ventured into a special interest tourism that puts their tangible and intangible heritage value on view. These are considered not only as an alternative to mass tourism, but also as a defense strategy for their territories against pressure from extractive industries and low state recognition. Its managers indicate as main motivations to start in this activity: territorial claim; the visibility of the Mapuche population in the territories they inhabit; the opportunity to generate employment/economic income; and avoiding the emigration of the population to the cities. It is presented, therefore, as an alternative that contributes to overcoming conflicts and deficiencies.

In summary, this area has been selected to develop this research because it gives evidence of the past and present processes of material and immaterial deprivation experienced by the local Mapuche population. CBT practiced by these communities plays an important role in the examination of the CR.

2.2. Methodology

In order to examine the resilience of the Mapuche communities linked to CBT who inhabit the area described above, the analytical perspective of López and Limón [35] has been adopted. Considering studies regarding resilience situation of indigenous peoples—among others—in various Latin American countries, these authors have determined three collective cognitive components as the foundations of resilience processes at the community level: “cultural knowledge and social capacities, formulated throughout the life history of collectives, families, groups and the peoples, which allow to exercise desirable actions and even formulate organizational strategies from unity and hope to the conditions of vulnerability, risk, threats and adversity” [35] (p. 4).

Such components are related to CBT through specific categories formulated, based on the analysis of previous studies on CBT and indigenous communities in rural areas of southern Chile [24,33,34,39,52,53,54]. Some common factors between CBT and CR were detected (

Table 1. Proposal to examine community resilience (CR) from community based tourism (CBT) experiences in the case of Mapuche communities [24,33,34,35,39,52,53,54].

Component	Descriptor	Categories
Cultural knowledge	Knowledge housed into collective memory, built by a community based on the relationships and meanings that unite and link them with the territory. Skills and abilities are generated from this knowledge by the community which allow them to act, resist, overcome, and rebuild themselves in the face of adversity to realize the collective desire for a favorable and desirable future.	1) Rescue and revitalization of cultural knowledge and practices 2) Identity reaffirmation 3) Collective aspirations towards the common good
Social Capabilities	Resources and tools that enable a community to act collectively in situations that require survival, resistance, or reconstruction.	1) Sense of belonging and affiliation 2) Collective self-esteem 3) Promotion of community ties
Organizational Strategies	Concrete actions in which the cultural knowledge and social capacities of a community materialize. They involve internal power relations and negotiations with formal and informal institutions to face and overcome adversity.	1) Participation in traditional Mapuche organizations 2) Creation and/or participation in local, communal, and national organizations for tourism purposes 3) Linking with State and academic organizations

). These categories are specified from the experience of field work accumulated within the framework of the following three research projects carried out in the study area from 2013 to date:

• Project Node of Solidarity Economy and Community Tourism, 2013–2015. The Transdisciplinary Center of Environmental Studies and Sustainable Human Development (CEAM), in the Austral University of Chile (UACh), Corporation for the Promotion of Production (CORFO), Panguipulli Municipality. This project was funded with public resources through the aforementioned institutions at regional and communal levels.
• Project R1216. Tourist activation of cultural heritage, 2016–2017. Center for Studies of Regional Development and Public Policies (CEDER), Los Lagos University, Chile (ULA), regional public institution that has funded this project through its research direction.
• FONDECYT Project N° 11170506: Cultural heritage, tourism and territory, 2017–2020. Center for Studies of Regional Development and Public Policies (CEDER), Los Lagos University, Chile (ULA). This project is currently executed with public resources from the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development of Chile.

The empirical analysis was performed through an exploratory and descriptive qualitative approach based on case study methodology. The use of a case study approach in this research was justified as it is the most suitable for examining relatively new topics [55], such as the one explored by this paper. Moreover, it facilitates the scoping and in-depth study of empirical situations that occur in specific contexts [56]. The relatively recent and still insufficient research on topics such as community tourism and community resilience, especially in Latin American studies on indigenous populations, must be also taken into account. The use of the case study as a method has a fourfold purpose aligned with the characteristics of the empirical work as: a) it examines or investigates a contemporary phenomenon in a real situation; b) the boundaries between the phenomenon and its contexts are not clearly evident; c) multiple data sources are used; and d) it is possible to analyze one single case study or multiple case studies [55,56].

Regarding the study sample, it should be taken into account that a total of 196 tourism initiatives of different types and sizes were detected in the study area, managed by both Chilean nationals and members of the Mapuche ethnic group. For these purposes, representatives of 13 of these initiatives (Figure 1) were interviewed during the 2019 summer season, selected via intentional sampling considering the following criteria: 1) to be representatives of community tourism initiatives inserted in the old Mapuche reductions in the area; 2) to be part of Mapuche ancestral communities, that is, those who have or have had a title of mercy, and; 3) to participate in tourism-related organizations, such as associations or cooperatives (

Table 2. Study sample.

Location	Total	Distribution by Type of Initiative				Mapuche Community Linked to CBT
		F	A	S	R
Pucura	8	2	2	1	3	Juan Chañapi; Pablo Marifilo; Ramón Chincolef
Traitraico	3	0	1	0	2	Juan Caripán
Coñaripe	2	1	0	1	0	Carlos Antimilla
Total	13	3	3	2	5

Type of initiative: F: Food; A: Accommodation; S: Scheduled events; R: Recreational activities.

).

Data have also been analyzed from a series of group meetings and interviews that included the participation of Mapuche actors linked to the experiences studied and other representatives related to the sector at different territorial scales carried out in the study area within the framework of the projects of research cited previously.

All interviews have been transcribed and treated through content analysis and complemented with field observation and photographic records. Results are exposed below.

Research participants have granted their informed consent to be part of this study, developed within the framework of Project FONDECYT N° 11170506, in accordance with the indications established by the Research Direction of the University of Los Lagos, Chile.

3. Results

3.1. Cultural Knowledge

Members of the Mapuche communities linked CBT to well-being associated with the fulfillment of their main aspirations: the promotion of their own visions of well-being in the territories they inhabit, the recovery and control of the Mapuche ancestral territory, and the revaluation of their culture. All this works as a strategy of resistance to overcome a model that drives neoliberal policies that affect Mapuche communities, encourage the assimilation of hegemonic culture, uproots their territory and culture and migration to cities, among other pernicious consequences they experience.

In this scenario, CBT, in addition to a complementary source of economic income, is perceived as an opportunity to rescue and revitalize the historical collective memory and the kimün (ancestral Mapuche knowledge). This process involves a necessary prior internal exercise to rescue, reappropriate, and bring significance to their culture based on a way of understanding and managing the territory linked to their belief system. The Mapuche world is a conjunction of material and immaterial elements that produce a sense of community, articulated to specific spaces such as territories. In there, the Mapuche cosmovision, the blood community or “Küpan,” the territorial identity or “Tuwün,” ancestral traditions, language, and social scaffolding coexists [46].

Thus, the territory is understood by Mapuche as a living space that contains ancestral borders linked to memory, childhood, and spirituality [57,58].

In this way, cultural practices emerge and are rediscovered to take root in invisible or hidden knowledge because of the stigmatization and cultural assimilation processes that made these communities “live in a certain way a clandestine life with respect to their ancestral knowledge” (S.M. personal communication, 2019).

Nevertheless, only some of these practices are valued through CBT. Their link to tourism is not made from ignorance or use of the prevailing socioeconomic opportunity, but from the identification of those elements of traditional knowledge and Mapuche culture. It allows them to decide what can be offered to tourists without transforming their culture into a show to meet the expectations of the tourist demand. At the same time, they keep their most intimate traditions.

In particular, memory is the most important intellectual resource among indigenous or traditional cultures [59]. New generations are able to transform the culture their ancestors have transmitted to them—usually orally—into identifiable elements that can be valued for tourism, helping them “to show more their culture, so that people get to know more the way they are and not what [the dominant Chilean society] says about them” (A.C. personal communication, 2019). In this sense, CBT is perceived by the communities as a tool that supports their claims as they are recognized as heirs of an ancestral culture that has historically been discriminated against and consequently “to teach the tourist to respect their way of life, to know their struggles and the reason for claiming their ancestral lands” (I.C. personal communication, 2019).

On the other hand, this rescue and revitalization of kimün has resulted in a sense of belonging and identity that strengthens the ties of the community, helps to overcome the traumatic past, and provides hopes for a better future, as detected in interviews, “Our culture is so alive, more than ever I would say, because now young people are interested in speaking mapuzungün and maintaining their customs, culture is being reborn in young people, with newen [power, energy]… my grandchildren are all proud to be Mapuche, they want learn the language, and are not ashamed of being a Mapuche, not like me that I had such a marked and cruel childhood, that’s why I tell my children not to repeat that story, quite the opposite, if we are Mapuche we have to die being Mapuche and become more proud with time” (A.M. personal communication, 2019).

An example of this is the reinterpretation of practices linked to places of cultural importance, such as those that have been used by the community for the collection of ngulu (pinion) and the transfer of animals (Figure 2a). Before being valued through CBT, they allowed them to recreate their ways of life in the territories they inhabit, facilitating the intergenerational and intercultural internal dialogue, “When we enter the forest, we go to the volcano, we ask permission from the ngen mapu [spirit of place], and I show that to my children […]. Muday [fermented drink made from wheat, corn or the mixture of both] is taken and thrown [on the ground], and permission is requested, so the ñuke mapu [mother earth] knows that we are Mapuche […]. We go [to the forest] to piñonear [act of collecting pine nuts] above, [but] you must guillatucar [perform a guillatún, the most important ceremony in the Mapuche ritual complex] before entering the forest. We go with the whole family to pick up pine nuts” (A.C. personal communication, 2019).

The same logic applies to the visibility of those routes that connect them to their ceremonial places (Figure 2b), such as the Rukapillan (Villarrica Volcano, constituted in a spiritual center of the Mapuche world) or other sites of cultural importance such as the Huinkul or Wingküll mountainous formations where there are a multitude of spiritual references linked to the forest places that are revealed and articulated in the territory, recognizing both the community and the territory history.

The revitalization of this type of knowledge, material, and immaterial practices contribute to reaffirm the identity of the communities, which observe their way of life linked to new tourist activities, as possible within the prevailing market economy. Thus, these new valuations of their culture encourage the generation of complementary incomes from the recovery and re-signification of traditions, languages, and cultural practices linked at the same time to processes of defense and social re-articulation that arise as strategies to face and overcome adversity in their territories.

3.2. Social Capabilities

In CR, the social capacities examined by CBT are rooted in traditional knowledge and materialized in the strategic processes of recovery and reconstruction that inspire a better future.

Through these social capacities, resistance and/or recomposition of the group is favored. Thus, the interviewees find in CBT a way to recognize themselves within the group and to place themselves in front of others outside it, strengthening their identity and self-esteem. For example, some interviewees commented about their beginnings in the tourist activity: “We started working in the pampas, we had no roof when we arrived the first year, tired, with calamities, but with a longing to stay.” She adds, “We spent like three years without electricity, it was very hard for us to work and stay in the dark, taking care of ourselves, taking turns, and all that was very terrible. Then, thank God, we managed to get power and put a ceiling on our premises that were initially [covered] with plastic” (D.C. personal communication, 2019).

Despite these events, they developed skills to overcome these conditions, regenerating lost confidences by the individualism that drives the prevailing economic system: “… we tried to have a good time and make our living together [festive meetings], we joined and helped each other when we had to do a job, we did it together” (M.L. personal communication, 2019).

In the development of their tourist activity, the feelings of belonging and collective identity derived from their uniqueness are also strengthened: “[the Mapuche] from other places lack local identity… some are not recognized as Mapuche, so you have to give identity to a place, it has to be integrated into the people who live there, otherwise it would be an empty tourism, […] and here we are all empowered with the Mapuche identity” (I.C. personal communication, 2019). They add, “We are working with community tourism to rescue the culture of our people, the one our grandparents fought for so long” (D.C. personal communication, 2019).

In addition, CBT strengthens individual and collective self-esteem, aspiring to generate a positive change in national society regarding the image of the Mapuche people in the hope of a better future. Tourism allows them “to make the tourist know the culture so people leave with another perspective… tourists arrive and say: where are the conflicting Mapuche? And I say: no, here we are defending our rights, so they leave with another perspective, that’s very satisfying, because they come back and want to learn more about us …” (A.C. personal communication, 2019).

It should be noted from the stories of the communities that economic revenues obtained from CBT are valued as well as the feelings of being welcome, trust, belonging, and solidarity, as stated in the interviews, “Here we are all equal, we have to respect each other, we have different capacities, and the common good must be sought, that’s what we aim at with CBT, it must be participatory and community […] with identity, with belonging, from a solidarity perspective” (S.M. personal communication, 2019).

The strengthening of their community and identity ties also favors the collective cohesion of these communities manifested as a collective political project: “Today we are living a re-empowerment of the Mapuche feeling, reaffirming our culture and forms of organization … resisting and, at the same time, forming an offensive to rebuild our culture and ancestral Mapuche territories” (S.M. personal communication, 2019).

These dimensions of the Mapuche world connect community with the territory, and CBT initiatives contribute to strengthening their identity and feelings of relevance and affiliation while mitigating the processes of discrimination and stigmatization by the dominant society. This is so they can articulate, visualize, and forge strategies with a view of a future according to their needs and particularities.

3.3. Organizational Strategies

Members of the Mapuche communities that manage CBT initiatives have created and developed organizational strategies to achieve their goals, either by participating in existing traditional ancestral structures or by creating legal figures in accordance with the regulations of the Chilean State. These organizations discuss and make decisions about actions to follow for the best development of their activities and interests, establishing a link with other organizations of different natures, States, academics, or Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), among others.

Thus, in the study area, CBT practitioners belong to the Juan Chañapi Indigenous Communities; Pablo Marifilo; Ramón Chincolef; Juan Caripán; Carlos Antimilla. It is important to notice the relevance they grant to their lof (family territorial organization unit) headed by the lonko (head or traditional authority). For example, regarding the beginnings of a tourism initiative, the Pucura Fair, located in a land that belongs to the Juan Chañapi community, says, “... it was thought that a good idea was to make a fair so people of communities can generate resources, but authorized by the Mapuche communities of the sector” (E.P. personal communication, 2019).

Another manifestation in the same sense occurs when CBT practitioners develop an activity that they consider important and they consult their lonko for their opinion. In the case of celebrations, commemorations, or ceremonies, these authorities are invited to lead the public events and are placed at the same level or ahead of the institutional authorities of the State as a sign of respect and empowerment in their territories.

At the same time, the interviewees have created and participated in different social organizations related to tourism at different levels of action: local, communal, and national.

At the local level, one of the oldest organizations is the Association of Small Producers and Artisans of Pucura (Figure 3a).

In 2007 a group of Mapuche women initiated this Association and, with the support of local ancestral communities, they began the occupation of a State land located on the shore of Lake Calafquen that has its origin in a Title of Merced belonging to the Juan Chañapi community. In this area, under very precarious conditions, sales stands are built for the marketing of their products. Towards 2011, as a result of their better organization and to overcome the situation of uncertainty regarding the occupied land, they negotiate with representatives of State institutions and obtained a loan (use loan) of the property. From then on, they begin the construction of infrastructure for the "Fair of Pocura," obtaining the support of different public and academic institutions.

Currently, this fair is one of the main CBT initiatives in the area (Figure 3b). In this place they offer their tourist products and services, mainly in the summer. In addition, it functions as a social and cultural meeting point for communities and as a space for holding internal and external scheduled events for the rest of the year.

Through the elapsed time, this initiative has achieved a positive assessment by visitors and inhabitants of the area, mainly by the Mapuche communities and their ancestral political authorities. Therefore, the consolidation of this fair is an expression of the social and organizational capacities of the women who participate in it.

On the other hand, some of the rediscovered traditional knowledge has revitalized their traditional festivities, an issue that also implies strengthening the entanglements of the community and families. This is the case of the celebration of the We Txipantu (Mapuche new year), an important instance to reinforce their identity and revive their traditions that have been lost as a result of transculturization processes. “As a group, we managed to rescue the We Txipantu, here we celebrated the San Juan day that was We Txipantu before, I understand now what we really should celebrate the Mapuche” (P.L. personal communication, 2019). Instances of encounter, reflection, and participation are generated in this holiday.

Other knowledges are also reactivated and valued, for example, the collection and preparation practices of the digüeñe (cyttaria espinosae), endemic edible fungus that grows on some trees (nothofagus obliqua) of the evergreen forest, has given rise to the Fiesta del Digüeñe, which since 2014 has become another important activity that seeks to boost work in low season and recover knowledge of the area. In the same way, the Trafkintu (exchange ceremonies) are developed to allow the Mapuche population from different territories to congregate to rescue and use native seeds and exchange ancestral knowledge about their growing.

The strengthening of individual and collective self-esteem and the reduction of self-stigmatized perception has also favored their confidence to participate in tourism organizations of greater size and territorial scope. For example, all the CBT initiatives explored are part of the Trawun Cooperative that emerged in 2017 based on previous projects incubated in the area that opted for the creation of the Trawun Route and Circuit in 2014. This route highlights the autonomic capacities of these communities, allowing a distancing from the mass tourism practiced in the study area.

The Trawun Cooperative is perceived as a real development alternative for their communities by its members, with high youth participation and valorization of the work carried out as an element that enhances tourism in their territory [24]. This has become a stable source of employment that complements the salaried work of some of the members of the family nucleus [50,60].

The participation in this cooperative has also allowed the generation of networks with academic sectors, public institutions, and non-governmental organizations.

At the national level, it should be noted that communities linked to CBT have been integrated into the National Association of Indigenous Tourism as a manifestation of overcoming and CR. The purpose is to strengthen CBT tourism in Chile for the good of humanity and achieve its positioning as a leading segment of sustainable tourism based on the protection of the territories and natural and cultural attributes [61].

In this way, the confluence of traditional organizations and tourism in the area has allowed them to carry out a series of actions to promote CBT that also contribute to the fulfillment of their socio-political objectives. For example, to strengthen the processes of organizational and territorial rearticulation that has allowed them to claim and occupy spaces of great value to develop tourism and revitalize their culture. For example, the Juan Caripán indigenous community located in the Traitraico locality (Figure 1) invoked their customary rights and after several confrontations with State and private representatives, in 2013 they managed to occupy a property on the shore of Lake Calafquén, where a campsite currently operates to develop recreational and cultural activities.

CBT has also allowed these communities to make visible and confront different types of disturbances and external threats in the study area (Figure 1), for example, conflicts over land ownership associated with the Villarrica National Park, the management of wetlands that are part of the Mapuche cultural heritage because of their filling by real estate companies, the problems derived from mass tourism such as pollution in its various sources (solid waste, acoustics, etc.), or water scarcity derived from the explosive increase in water consumption during the summer season.

4. Conclusions

This work sets a precedent to understand community tourism, its impact on community resilience, and its implications. According to the factors of community resilience hereby analyzed, the CBT practiced by these communities is perceived as a resource, a means, and a strategy. Therefore, it contributes to absorb external disturbances related to the processes of historical and contemporary deprivations, to which they resist and overlap without losing their identity. Internally, it positively reinforces their processes of cultural revitalization, related social capacities, and it develops organizational strategies to achieve the collective desire for a favorable future.

First, although incipiently, CBT has contributed to strengthening the kimün through the revitalization of a set of knowledge and cultural practices that have been reappropriated, resigned, and revalued, favoring their processes of identity reaffirmation and generation of economic benefits. This process demonstrates the community’s capacity for permanent transformation and innovation in the face of the various alterations that threaten its balance and structure. According to its internal needs, expectations, and giving priority to feelings of solidarity, well-being and collective aspirations towards the good common are fostered.

Second, CBT has favored in its practitioners the development of social capacities that strengthen the sense of belonging and affiliation, self-esteem, and community ties. For example, the resistance and/or recomposition of the group and the development of skills (communicational, strategic, recreational, solidarity, etc.) that give the group the opportunities to overcome their particular adversities and motivate them to propose their initiatives as a challenge for a better future rescues their values of solidarity and their overall vision.

Thirdly, CBT managers in these areas have increased their participation within their respective lof, and at the same time have provided greater institutionality to participate in tourism with a local, communal, and national reach. This has allowed them to gradually access product of the best internal and external articulation with academic entities and NGOs. The goal of this process is to spread their positions and also to permeate the will—mainly political—of the authorities so they adapt their policies, programs, and projects, with cultural relevance, to the singularities and needs of the communities.

According to the authors, communities aspire to change-dominating structures which generate and reproduce certain crises and elements which are identified as negatives. By doing so, they counteract disruptions and threats stemming from the neo-capitalist expansion in the context of an incipient political project of emancipation devoted to promote their own conceptions of well-being in their local context, land reclamation, and control of the historical Mapuche territory, as well as the rediscovery of their culture.

Still, further research is needed to understand if the positive results achieved by local communities though CBT could lead to an over-idealization of this activity as a driving force of their life plans. In this respect, a trend towards an increase in the number of tourists in the study area has been detected. This can entail a higher risk of reifying the meanings, senses, and representations of culture according to the tourist market demands. A new threat that can undermine the protection of their territory and culture therefore needs to be analyzed in further studies.