Abstract

This thesis investigates the impact of development tourism initiatives on communities of Quechua women in Taray, Cusco Peru. It examines how transnational development strategies
that aim to achieve women’s empowerment through cultural and artisanal tourism are negotiated and lived by Indigenous communities in Cusco (Bricker et al. 2013; Holden 2013; Scheyvens 2011, as cited in Knight et al. 2017). Through ethnographic fieldwork within Planeterra, a non- governmental organization (NGO) working to improve the lives of local communities in the Global South through tourism efforts, this study draws on both organizational discourses and
practices and the lived experiences of grassroots women supported by Planeterra, G Adventures, and the Ccaccaccollo Women’s Weaving Co-Op. This thesis examines the ways in which tourism initiatives have shaped the local realities of marginalized Indigenous women in Peru.
The research is grounded in transnational feminist praxis. Such theoretical framework helps to 1) interrogate the hierarchies of power present in benevolent development initiatives; 2) foreground local agency by attending to how Indigenous women reshape transnational models; and 3)
understand how local experiences are shaped by global political economies and transnational “empowerment” discourses espoused by NGOs (Mohanty 1991; Alexander 2005; Grewal and Kaplan 1994). Overall, the thesis provides a contextualized understanding of how Quechua women in Ccaccaccollo navigate structural inequalities, negotiate neoliberal power relations at the heart of community-based tourism, and define meaningful participation and empowerment on their own terms.