Abstract
Tourism icons situated in national parks bear multiple intersecting interests and forms of relationality, especially in colonised lands where capitalism dominates. Regenerative approaches to tourism management re-envisage the industry as a transformational force that seeks to entangle Indigenous aspirations, contribute to environmental abundance, and benefit local communities. The future imaginaries evoked by regenerative tourism plans challenge dominant European human/nature dualities by integrating ontological pluralism and recognising more than financial wellbeing for more than human beings. But by situating commercial tourism as the means of transformation, regenerative plans reinforce capitalism’s reach and grasp over people, place, and relationships.
In this thesis I critically examine the extent to which a vision proposed by the Milford Opportunities Project (MOP) Masterplan challenges or extends colonial and capitalist power dynamics. I do this through a case study of the Masterplan, which seeks to reorganise tourism in Piopiotahi Milford Sound, located in Fiordland National Park, Aotearoa New Zealand. This research employs thematic analysis and critical discourse analysis of multiple data sources, including Masterplan documents and in-depth interviews with thirty-nine individuals who are variously connected to Piopiotahi, and whose views on MOP range from support to ardent criticism.
To develop a critical analysis of the worlds that constitute Piopiotahi and its imagined future, I draw on political ontology to challenge Eurocentric universalism, and Māori scholarship to unsettle colonial myths. I also employ Marxism to render visible the relations of capital, and feminism to expand how I conceptualise labour. Through these theories I acknowledge a tension within tourism. Tourism offers a route to ontological entanglement, economic self-determination, and reconnection with te taiao, the natural world, while, under global capitalism, also being a practice that exploits people, cultures, and environments.
The first of four research questions considers how value is produced by commodification. Findings show this value is considered under threat from multiple crises, including overtourism. Revealing the capitalist relations in which Piopiotahi is enmeshed establishes a theoretical foundation for critical analysis of tourism in colonial conservation areas.
The second question interrogates tourism as a transformational force and contextualises MOP’s vision within a regenerative tourism paradigm. Findings indicate MOP seeks to improve Piopiotahi by interweaving Māori aspirations, conservation, and tourism, opening a pathway to ontological pluralism. However, the thread through which this interweaving occurs, is capitalism.
The third question considers how political authority and narratives of belonging intersect in national parks. Political ontology suggests Indigenous and settler worlds exist in a power differential, which structures national park governance and conservation legislation. The Masterplan’s governance solutions reimagine these relationships but ultimately give precedence to commercial tourism.
The final question considers the processes through which MOP seeks to transform Piopiotahi. Findings indicate that alternative imaginaries emerged, were contested, and ultimately narrowed to favour neoliberal market rationalism. Nonetheless, traces of MOP’s transformational vision remain.
Overall, the Milford Opportunities Project conceptualises tourism as a transformational force for good that ultimately serves to strengthen capitalism’s grip over Piopiotahi. This thesis argues for critical analysis of tourism’s colonial and capitalist structures. While truly just tourism could emerge in a world free from exploitative relations, that world will not emerge from changes to tourism alone, but needs to be accompanied by political action that transforms power structures beyond tourism.
The insights offered in this thesis are significant to tourism management in conservation areas internationally. They are especially relevant to projects that employ regenerative principles. The critical analysis undertaken here provides tools to consider such strategies in the context of colonial and capitalist structures and to begin to imagine non-exploitative alternatives.