The influence of the position of the agents in the elaboration of tourism public policies in tourism fields: a comparative perspective in Latin America

Abstract

The purpose of this article was to analyze the dynamics of interaction between the agents of the tourist fields of Juiz de Fora (Brazil), Quito (Ecuador) and Mazatlán (Mexico) around the elaboration of a tourist policy, which is taken as the central object of dispute in each field. Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social fields was used to understand the dynamics of interaction between agents, identifying those with the greatest volume of capital. We used historiographic, qualitative and quantitative techniques to reconstruct each of the tourism fields and analyze the elements that lead to the dispositions and position of the agents. A comparison between the Latin American tourism fields shows that, in all three cases, the process of developing tourism policies tends to be influenced predominantly by the agents with the greatest volume of capital, although the process of interaction and its resultant is differentiated, where the type of agent and the type of specific capital vary according to the context and political structure of each field. Still, in all of them, the resulting public policy tends to assume the supposedly neutral, dialogical and consensual formal point of view, thus masking as universal the particular interests of each agent.