Report on field work in Mozambique I
In 2002 the Swiss NGO Helvetas hosted in Maputo obtained funds from USAID to be applied as aid to the surrounding region of Tihovene, in Mozambique. This area is included in the buffer zone of a Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) which calls Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park. It is located in the southwest part of Mozambique. After several regional diagnostics, the Swiss NGO decided to support the population of a specific local community – Canhane – building and establishing a tourist lodge. The lodge officially opened in May 2004. It is called Covane Community Lodge. The project entailed not only accommodation, but also traditional dances, village visits, traditional food, hiking trails, boat trips with a local fisherman, and the opportunity to purchase local crafts. The Covane Community Lodge was thus planed to proportionate a cultural experience to the tourist. (fig. 1)The Covane Community Lodge was labeled as the first community-based tourism case in Mozambique. The most relevant aspect is that the lodge’s infrastructure and the tourism business itself are owned by the population of Canhane. This local community ownership and the projection of this case by the “development” sector as a touristic exemplar case clearly reflect the attempt to include Mozambican communities into wider systems. Moreover, the usage of tourism, which is something positioned in the core of flux and change within societies, as the principal mechanism for that purpose represents an interesting anthropologic challenge to be studied. In January 2008 I went to Mozambique to carry out my research for four months. During this period I have tried to get deeply in Canhane’s live; I have seek to understand the local tourism dynamics and locals live practices. Several methods for gathering data were applied. These have changed according to what I have considered it were the more adjustable ones to the context I was researching on.
As I was collecting data new paradigms were presented to me. One of the most relevant ones was the fact that tourism wasn’t so much significant as I had seen in previous visits I had done to the village. Despite the irregular presence of few tourists in the Covane Community Lodge, the (self) cultural projection of locals for tourism purposes wasn’t almost manifested at all. But on the other hand, different and pertinent manifestations came on. The tripartite relation between locals, tourists and “development” experts revealed to be playing an essential matter. This had made me to opt by reallocating my field research. I have decided then to compare the Covane’s case with other Mozambican case – the Nkwichi Lodge, located in Mbueca lands in the Niassa province. The Nkwichi’s case has been also presented worldwide as a local successful story “where tourism meets the needs of local communities”. Because of the predominance of “development” in the Canhane’s case, this time I have opted for other situation where “development” is not so manifested and not so central in the tourism management’ principles. (fig. 2)
Despite the fact that I have spent short time in Mbueca, I could collect relevant data which underlines aspects that are important matters for my research. I am referring here to important patterns of local discourses, locals’ (re)actions to tourism, the ascent of morality on tourism, gender-based problems consequence of tourism incomes, and so on.
