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" Paradise in the making: Tourism, *development, and the Maldive Islands "
Kelly Reimer
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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54071
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| Doc. No
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TL24025
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| Call number
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NR39049
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| Main Entry
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Kelly Reimer
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| Title & Author
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Paradise in the making: Tourism, *development, and the Maldive Islands\ Kelly Reimer
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| College
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York University (Canada)
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| Date
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2007
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| student score
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2007
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| Page No
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440
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| Abstract
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This dissertation attempts to assess the developmental experience of the Maldives, a small island state in the Indian Ocean, since the inception of tourism, in 1972. By the standard most commonly used (GDP per capita growth), this experience has been perhaps the world's most successful over that period. The starting point of the study is that a much wider and deeper perspective is necessary in order to make any meaningful assessment of Maldivian development. An attempt is made to trace the roots of the global development project in a manner that connects it to the larger world historical forces of capitalism and imperialism. Once the political nature of development is established, one can perhaps make more sense of the twists and turns in development theory and imagine forms of development assessment whose gaze travels in markedly different directions than that of development's primary architects. The use of tourism as a developmental tool carries with it particular opportunities, challenges, and vulnerabilities. This is not always recognized by tourism researchers, who tend to pay little attention to the nature and dynamics of global capitalism and thus often to ascribe to tourism powers that it cannot possibly possess. Both for tourism and (in considerably more detail) for the Maldives, developmental experiences are held up to the criteria of desirability, sustainability, and equality. The main conclusions of the study are that the Maldives has experienced remarkable developmental successes over the last three-and-a-half decades (even if these successes have less to do with developmental planning in the Maldives than with a remarkable geography and the historical absence of colonialism), but that these successes have been attained at the expense of increasing authoritarianism and growing inequalities along class, gender, national, and geographic lines. Moreover, Maldivian development is occurring along lines that contribute to the raising of sea-levels and the destruction of coral reefs—factors that may force the complete evacuation of the country (and even the disappearance of the islands themselves) within the lifetimes of today's Maldivians. There are, then, significant contradictions in what may nevertheless be one of the world's most sparkling development success stories.
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| Subject
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Social sciences; Development; Maldive Islands; Tourism; Political science; Islands; Area planning development; Maldives; 0615:Political science
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| Added Entry
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York University (Canada)
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