Bringing Social Reproduction Back In: Contradictions between Marketisation and Social Provisioning in Tourism Development.

Recent debates in IPE have argued for a focus on social reproduction in the theorisation of contemporary political economy. Hoskyns and Rai (2007) call for an ‘international and social political economy’, while Bakker and Gill (2003) identify a contradiction between the ‘extended power of capital’ and ‘progressive forms of social reproduction’. This paper takes up these ideas by focussing on a specific process of marketisation - tourism development in Central America. The analytical framework of production, consumption and reproduction constructed in the paper builds on work by Elson (2000) and Peterson (2003) which characterises political economy as three interconnected spheres of social and economic life. Drawing on research in three Central American tourism destinations, the paper argues that the increasing marketisation of daily life in tourism communities has lead to a decline in social provisioning. As such, these communities are beginning to experience a ‘depletion of social resources’ (Hoskyns and Rai 2007), with consequences for future development. The paper draws on the research findings to consider what the implications of such a depletion may be, and what this can tell us about the relationship between marketisation and social reproduction in the analysis of political economy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]