RECLAIMING MOVEMENT IN TOURISM DEVELOPMENT PROJECT:

A CASE STUDY OF COSMOLOGICAL POLITICS IN KOMODO ISLAND, WEST MANGGARAI, INDONESIA

Authors

  • Yonatan Hans Luter Lopo Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Nusa Cendana University, Kupang, Indonesia
  • Didimus Dedi Dhosa Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Nusa Cendana University, Kupang, Indonesia

Abstract

This research discusses the role of cosmological politics—an attempt in sustain, negotiate, and
challenge the nature as well as culture—in tourism development project in Komodo Island, West
Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia. The effort to explore this process is based
on the premise that cosmological politics is central in tourist development project since it creates
unequal development which threatening the community’ livelihood, the indigenous animal, and
its environment in general. Based on the case of a super- premium tourism development project
in West Manggarai, Flores Island, in 2021, we aim to understand how communities attempt to
secure rights to natural resources, including land and animals, by having their access claims
recognized as legitimate property by an institution legitimate politics. More specifically, this
research seeks to understand how the cosmological politics comes along with the process of
appropriation, accessing, and contestation in claims to land, the animal, and its environment in
general. This research seeks to challenge the dominant literatures which sees the cosmological
politics in tourist development project merely see as one of the commodities. By using claim
making framework, we provide perspective which see the cosmological politics as the product of
multiple appropriation, accessing, and contested which involves contesting discourse, political
economy interest, and power relations. This research found that there are three ways of
practices of claim making: “grounding claims”; “talking claims”; and “representing claims”.
This article argues that the cosmological politics that occurred in the Komodo Islands show that
culture and historical beliefs are not just tourism commodities, but more than that as a
movement to reclaim the legitimacy of local communities who have been excluded by the state
and the private sector in super premium tourism projects.

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Published

2024-12-27