Desenvolvimento local e novas ruralidades: representações e implicações do turismo rural no Município de Areia / PB.

Abstract

Local development and new ruralities: representations and implications of rural tourism in the Municipality of Areia / PB. The present paper aims to analyze the territorial representations and dynamics lived in the city of Areia-PB, in face of the new settings of rural space and the emergency of tourism as an alternative activity for local development. One of the guiding principles of the approach regards the influence that the representations exert on the different social actors in face of the emergency of a “new rurality”, which is characterized by social, economic and cultural dynamics, mobilizing logics that reinforce permanencies and continuities, favoring the transformation and maintenance processes of the subjection conditions. In this scenario, the presence of nonagricultural activities is highlighted in properties whose tradition used to be agriculture, more specifically the monoculture of sugar cane, a typical situation of honey and molasses mills, whose expressiveness goes beyond the economic importance, being these producing units social and cultural references, but also concentration and exploration of hundreds of families. Driven by SEBRAE and the Culture and Tourism Secretaries of Areia, the rural proprietaries noticed in the old mills a potential for tourism activity. With the possibility of incorporating the mills and the surrounding areas to the tourism activity, they become one of the main attractions of the town, favoring enterprises, such as: restaurants, ecologic trails, craft houses, among others. In this sense, social actors who were before rendered invisible (as residents and rural workers with no lands and no rights), have their possibilities expanded from the demands generated by the touristic activity in the construction of a new rurality. To carry out the research, analysis and reflections, we made use of a series of research techniques, among which are semi-structured interviews, photo documentation, direct observation, among others. We have found, through the realization of the study, that there are several gaps that make it impossible to locate the rural space of Areia inside of a tourism system, being the weakening of their receptive system, the modest structure of local establishments and the insufficient involvement of public administration, in order to improve infrastructure, some of the major obstacles to stimulating the tourism activity.