Critical adaptation to hurricanes in the Mexican Caribbean: Development visions, governance structures, and coping strategies

Global Environmental Change 21 (2011) 249–258

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Critical adaptation to hurricanes in the Mexican Caribbean: Development visions, governance structures, and coping strategies David Manuel-Navarrete *, Mark Pelling 1, Michael Redclift 2 Department of Geography, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 12 July 2009 Received in revised form 16 September 2010 Accepted 21 September 2010 Available online 27 October 2010

The need to tackle climate hazards and development efforts simultaneously is widely acknowledged. However, the possibility of alternative visions of development is seldom contemplated. Instead, adaptation research usually assumes monolithic claims about development constructed from the status quo of global capitalism. This paper outlines a critical approach to adaptation and explores the interplay between visions of development, governance structures, and strategies to cope with hurricanes in the Mexican Caribbean, a region at the ‘front line’ of both globalization and climatic extreme phenomena. Critical adaptation formulates the experiencing of hazards as essentially political and tied to contingent development paths, which may eventually become hegemonic. Over a hundred semi-structured and open interviews were held in Cancun, Mahahual, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum including academics, businesspeople, bureaucrats, journalists, non-governmental organizations and tourism workers in order to characterize development visions in the Mexican Caribbean. Findings show a prevalent hegemonic vision supporting mass tourism growth which encourages hurricane coping strategies based on effective evacuation and attracting investments for rapid economic recovery. The actual implementation of this vision increases social inequalities, degrades ecosystems, and amplifies overall exposure to extreme events. Mass tourism is enforced by undemocratic governance structures sustained by a coalition of government and tourism corporations (a government-capital bloc in Gramsci’s sense). Some weak signs of counter-hegemony were identified in Playa del Carmen, Tulum and Mahahual. These isolated episodes of resistance might have triggered alternative coping strategies despite having little effect in altering the overall course of development. Further critical research is needed to unveil the socio-political foundations of development visions and their influence on capacities to cope with climatic extreme events. ß 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Climate adaptation Quintana Roo Mass tourism Hurricane coping Post-development Critical political ecology

1. Introduction International organizations and governments usually conceive adaptation to climate hazards in terms of expert-led risk management; that is, as managerial strategies to cope with hazards (Burton and Van Aalst, 2004; UNDP, 2005). Typical examples include: increasing the robustness of infrastructures, enhancing the protective functions of ecosystems, incorporating climatic risks in development planning, market solutions, establishing emergency funds, improving societal awareness and preparedness, reducing institutional fragmentation, and creating policy frameworks for disaster management (King, 2004; Klein and Tol, 1997; UN/ISDR, 2004). These are coping strategies to reduce

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 (0) 20 7848 2462; fax: +44 (0) 20 7848 2287. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D. Manuel-Navarrete), [email protected] (M. Pelling), [email protected] (M. Redclift). 1 Tel.: +44 (0) 20 7848 2462. 2 Tel.: +44 (0) 20 7 848 1755. 0959-3780/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2010.09.009

the likelihood of negative impacts on populations and economies. An emphasis on this type of strategy encourages research informed by ‘‘problem-solving theories’’ which take the existing order as the given framework for action (Cox, 1981). Accordingly, adaptation is uncritically framed within existing governance structures and ongoing development policy (Simon, 2006; Yapa et al., 1995). Coping strategies can then be conceptualized against an enabling context of governance and development. An alternative approach focused on reducing the vulnerability of the poor through development is broadly popular amongst academics and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and gaining currency amongst international organizations (Schipper, 2007). By emphasizing the central role of socio-economic inequality this approach typically advocates modifications of governance structures towards increasing inclusiveness, responsiveness and accountability in decision-making. For instance, governance can be improved through effective multi-stakeholder engagement and participatory policy-making (Bulkeley, 2007). Such engagement, however, is not instrumentally circumscribed to better coordinate risk

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management, as in the previous approach. Rather, the goal is to boost the capacity of the vulnerable to cope with hazard risk and impact. Coping strategies favoured by this ‘‘pro-poor’’ empowerment approach include: enhancing the assets of deprived livelihoods (Knutsson and Ostwald, 2006), building capacities for self-protection and group action (Allen, 2006; Eakin and Lemos, 2006), community risk assessments (Van Aalst et al., 2008), revaluing traditional coping practices (Gaillard, 2007), and mobilizing social capital (Mathbor, 2007; Pelling and High, 2005). Pro-poor vulnerability reduction brings a welcomed perspective that transcends technocratic risk management. However, it is still inscribed within problem-solving theories when aimed at ‘‘including the vulnerable’’ onto extant governance and development processes (Pelling, 2007). Emphasis on inclusiveness overlooks the possibilities for radical socio-political change and reduces adaptation to incremental changes highly constrained by the status-quo (Manuel-Navarrete, 2010). We propose an adaptation perspective framed under ‘‘critical theories’’ which call existing power relations into question and enable normative choices in favour of alternative socio-political orders (Cox, 1981). This turns the focus of analysis to the political economy of adaptation as it inquires about the role of hegemonic development visions and governance structures (Newell, 2008). Critical adaptation focuses on how coping strategies, which are specific efforts deployed to deal with the expected impacts of hazardous events, are constrained by governance structures, which refer to established (formal and informal) patterns of relationship amongst the state, market players, civil society, and individuals. In turn, the evolution of governance structures is influenced by, and at the same time influences, development visions, which express something of the intangible quality of peoples’ collective aspirations and the will to anticipate and influence that which may come to be. Recalling Cox (1981:136), development visions can be defined as: ‘‘[C]ollective images of social order held by different groups of people. These are differing views as to both the nature and the legitimacy of prevailing power relations, the meanings of justice and public good, and so on. [. . .] The clash of rival collective images provides evidence of the potential for alternative paths of development’’. The triad of coping strategies, governance structures and development visions can be seen as a version of ‘‘social domains of disaster response’’ defined as ‘‘areas of social life that are organized by reference to a central cluster of values’’ (Hilhorst, 2004:65). Relations between social domains are described by Hilhorst as ‘‘riddled by political intricacies’’. We take this characterization a step further by emphasizing the role of hegemony and the possibility of counter-hegemony. Femia (2006:31) describes hegemony as: ‘‘[T]he predominance obtained by consent rather [()TD$FIG]

Counter-hegemonic Development Vision

than force of one class or group over other classes [. . .] attained through the myriad ways in which the institutions of civil society operate to shape, directly or indirectly, the cognitive and affective structures whereby men [humans] perceive and evaluate problematic social reality’’. Following Gramsci (1971), hegemonic governance structures and development visions are articulated by certain groups and endorsed or consented to by the majority of society as de-facto assumptions about regime trajectories and development paths (Fig. 1). Development visions perform the function of sustaining mental images about the future which bind together the members of a social group, or, in the case of hegemonic visions, a whole society. However, they are not: ‘‘aggregations of fragmented opinions of individuals such as are compiled through surveys; they are coherent mental types expressive of the world views of specific groups’’ (Cox, 1981:153). Characterizing prevailing development visions is important for adaptation not only because they legitimize governance structures and shape response to hazards, but also because development influences the very conditions of vulnerability and may even generate (development-induced) disasters (Heijmans, 2004; Leichenko and O’Brien, 2008; Wisner, 2003). At the same time, experienced hazards may trigger changes in development paths and regime trajectories (Pelling and Dill, 2010) (Fig. 1). 2. Research questions and methods A critical adaptation agenda sees the experiencing of hazards as essentially political and tied to contingent development paths. In addressing this agenda empirically, our research seeks to understand the conflicts arising between visions of development, and how these conflicts create possibilities for altering development paths, transforming governance structures, and generating coping strategies. In this paper we report on an exploration of these ideas in the context of four Mexican Caribbean touristic towns within the state of Quintana Roo. We address the following questions: (1) What are the (hegemonic and counter-hegemonic) development visions and governance structures in these four towns? (2) How are these visions and structures related to coping with hurricanes? (3) Are these two questions useful in building a critical understanding of adaption? Between August 2007 and October 2008, 79 semi-structured interviews and 81 open conversations were held in Cancun, Mahahual, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum (Fig. 2 and Table 1). These are major enclaves subjected to tourism development in the Mexican Caribbean’s mainland. Our chief motivation was to build practical wisdom about the socio-political preconditions of climatic hazards as a way of instigating reflection in the

Development path X

Coping as resilience

Hazard X Governance structure X Hegemonic Development Vision

Coping as changing power relaons Development path Y Hazard Y

Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the critical adaptation framework.

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Table 1 Total population and people interviewed in each town by type of interview and category of informant. Cancun

Chetumal

Mahahual

Playa del Carmen

Tulum

Type of interview Semi-structured Open conversation

16 11

2 17

21 26

23 25

19 19

Informant category Business owner/manager Bureaucrat/professional politician Social organization member Employee/self-employed/citizens

4 5 7 11

3 10 2 4

13 7 6 19

7 10 11 18

5 8 5 20

Population in 2005a

526,701

136,825

282

100,383

14,790

Note: Cancun and Chetumal (the State’s capital) were initially not considered as case studies. However, interviews there had to be carried out due to their significant influence over the three study sites. Cancun ended up becoming a case study in its own right. a Source: INEGI (2005).

consciousness of people, facing or addressing such hazards, in order to facilitate change. According to Gadamer (1979), building practical wisdom involves a research praxis through which we open ourselves to the meanings and claims to truth that others and the world make upon us (Bernstein, 1982). This is significantly different from partaking as mere subjects or spectators standing over and against what ‘‘is objective’’ or ‘‘exists’’. It involves a subtle dialectical and dialogical relation between the interpreter and what is sought to be interpreted throughout their mutual becoming. In the Mexican Caribbean, practical wisdom was sought through interpersonal dialogues that produced interview texts, and subsequently interpreting these texts, also through dialogue with the text (Kvale, 1996). Informants were selected through a snow-ball method. Sampling began in each town by identifying local academics and journalists working on tourism development, as well as members of popular non-governmental organizations within which we hoped to find counter-hegemonic development visions. These organizations included Cancun’s Mayab Ecologist Group, Playa’s Yax-Cuxtal Citizens and Ecologist Movement, and For Tulum!, while the small size of Mahahual allowed random sampling until reaching saturation. The sample was enlarged by asking informants about acquaintances involved in hurricane coping strategies, associated governance structures, and/or hold-

[()TD$FIG]

ing critical development perspectives plus being vocal about them. Informants’ interpretations were prompted through inquiring about their personal experiences and views regarding hurricanes, urbanization, government, climate change, and tourism development. The overall goal was to let personal narratives and stories unfold. Interviews were interpreted in juxtaposition to examination of planning documents and press clips, and participation in meetings and workshops. Interpretation was facilitated by living in the area for over a year and through participation in meetings and workshops. Initial sampling efforts were aimed at two groups. The first group would include development or adaptation-related social organizations with high degrees of independence from economic groups and political parties. Independence was determined according to organization funding sources, relationship of leaders to political and economic groups, and the organization’s mission and goals. The second group would consist of government bureaucrats and private sector spokespersons holding, or knowing about, official structures and discourses. This sampling scheme, however, was hindered by two practical limitations. First, we were unable to identify more than seven reasonably independent social organizations. In addition, none of them counted with a broad base of popular support or had enough capacity to articulate a coherent development alternative. Second, most informants had played, and some were still playing, multiple roles within private, public and social sectors, particularly in the case of small towns. Therefore, our initial sociological categories were rendered impractical.3 This meant that the identification of development visions would need to be undertaken through considering individuals, a process requiring flexible judgement and the ability to build convincing arguments regarding the clustering of people’s meanings into coherent and credible development visions. 3. Results Mexico’s predominant coastal tourism development model (also referred to as development pattern or strategy) has been discussed in some detail (Brenner and Aguilar, 2002; Buades, 2006; Clancy, 1999). The basic mechanism of this model/pattern/strategy roughly relies on three conditions that maximize capital attraction and investment returns, namely: (1) effective public provision of basic infrastructure oriented to tourism needs, (2) cheap beachfront land and low wages in a context of relaxed implementation of environmental and labour laws, and (3) low local competition achieved through all-inclusive resorts and other monopolistic

Fig. 2. Location of the Mexican Caribbean and urban centres under study.

3 Nevertheless, as shown in Table 1, we still considered useful to attribute to each interviewee a position from which we believe she/he was mainly speaking from during the interview.

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practices. We argue that underlying this model there is a collective image of social order, a hegemonic development vision for mass tourism (MT), which legitimizes the exploitation of labour and the urbanization of coastal ecosystems for the benefit of financial elites. Several authors have described the dreadful socio-environmental consequences of MT and its inability to create equitable or sustainable regional development (Murray, 2007; Pi-Sunyer and Brooke, 2005; Torres and Momsen, 2005). However, little attention has been paid to the structures and agents that enable the hegemony of this profoundly inequitable, unsustainable and, as expressed by an interviewed journalist, even ‘‘anti-nationalistic’’ development vision. Some debate has hinged on whether the sponsoring of MT was mostly state-led or driven by the ‘‘forces’’ of corporate globalization (Wilson, 2008). The outcome of this debate seems to point to a coalition of both, a conclusion consistent with the opinions of all our informants. In line with this conclusion, our research argues that MT can be characterized as a hegemonic development vision in the Mexican Caribbean, a vision enforced by the alignment of the two most powerful groups: government and tourism corporations (Manuel-Navarrete et al., 2009; Marı´nGuardado, 2010). The following sections discuss how this vision was conformed through Cancun’s development and was progressively extended towards the south in Playa del Carmen, Tulum and Mahahual, with little resistance from alternative visions. We argue that uniformity in development visions and governance structures has translated into homogeneity in hurricane coping strategies. 3.1. Cancun: genesis of a hegemonic development vision Nowhere is MT hegemony more evident than in Cancun. Since its creation around 1974, Cancun has been the flagship of Mexican enclave tourism (Hiernaux-Nicola´s, 1999). The new town was technocratically designed from scratch according to the premise of spatial segregation between areas of tourist use along the beach, and ‘‘out-of-sight’’ workers’ housing (Torres, 2002). The MT development vision unfolded with little competition from locally established visions, in part due to Cancun’s location in a largely unpopulated and peripheral area (Brenner and Aguilar, 2002). Today, the manifestations of MT hegemony are readily observable. These include, to mention a few examples: first-class tourism infrastructures coexisting with meagre public services for local populations, poor working conditions (and high suicide/accident rates) of construction workers, monumental hotels built on beach dune and mangrove ecosystems, unequal land distribution leading to life-long mortgages to acquire humble residences amidst vast publicly owned lands, and the inability of local residents to exercise their constitutional right to beach access. The idea that governments and big corporations are mostly concerned with advancing MT regardless of social and environmental costs was shared by practically all informants, except for two business spokespersons and three State and municipal government officials. The latter exposed a more nuanced view of governments’ commitment to MT. In their view, MT is not desired by governments but is tolerated due to its unique capacity to create employment and tax collecting, which are important requisites for the political system’s legitimacy, and a classical form of the state-corporate nexus (Harvey, 2010). In the case of business spokespersons, the private benefits of MT were acknowledged, but the emphasis of their discourse was on the inefficiencies, such as the ambiguous enforcement of the law and low accountability, that result from MT and reduce competitiveness. From both government and business perspectives, though, MT is seen as the outcome of an on-going negotiation between globalization, the drive for private profit, and government demands for jobs and financial resources.

Stretching some of the arguments from business spokespersons and government officials, one may speculate that, although far from engaging in counter-hegemonic development visions, these two powerful groups share a reformist vision rooted in ecological modernization discourse. That is, a reformist vision that would seek to redirect current development into the positive-sum game of sustainable development without any significant modification of existing governance structures (Hajer, 1995). In fact, this ecological modernization vision permeates the majority of government planning documents. For instance, the 2005–2011 State Development Plan4 is structured along four development dimensions: institutional, environmentally sustainable, economically sustainable and socially inclusive. Another example is Quintana Roo’s Strategic Plan for Integral Development 2000– 2025, which was elaborated by a trusteeship between government and business (Boggio Va´zquez, 2008). In both examples, the basic premise is that socio-environmental problems derived from MT’s ‘‘inevitable’’ advancement are to be tackled by furthering economic growth. Despite the intentions expressed in planning documents, there are palpable contradictions between the manifestations of MT hegemony and the ostensible embracing of an alternative vision based on ecological modernization. This incongruity may be interpreted as lack of capacity, on the part of the State, to counteract greater ‘‘economic forces’’. However, interviews with people holding critical views about MT interpreted this apparent contradiction in terms of a double discourse. That is, in terms of an actual support of MT coupled, or camouflaged, with a public rhetoric that advocates a constant striving towards ecological modernization. The disjuncture between rhetoric and action in development is not uncommon but is writ large in this region. During a regional workshop with 18 socially critical informants the issue of a double discourse was brought up and thoroughly debated by participants. An intervention by the leader of an ecologist group succinctly captured the spirit of the argument: ‘‘the government makes us believe that they are for conservation by inviting experts to speak about the environment, while at the same time they approve projects that devastate crucial ecosystems and only benefit a few’’. Participants also agreed that there is an ‘‘institutionalization of double discourse’’ which consists of economic groups or political parties creating their own NGOs in order to co-opt any opposition to the hegemonic development vision. In the view of these socially critical individuals, co-opted groups articulate ecological modernization discourses, and may even implement some actions towards environmental reform, while at the same time avoid engaging in any action that would significantly challenge MT. The practice of double discourse was consistently described by socially critical informants as relying on the regional historical encroachment of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its clientelistic and paternalistic system (Manuel-Navarrete et al., 2009). The PRI has held state power since the creation of Quintana Roo in 1974, and, with few exceptions, has also been in control of municipal governments. This helped put in place a strong political network of support constantly lubricated with money from tourism. Such a network not only helps win elections (Kray, 2006), but also provides an effective platform to support hegemonic development visions (or alternatives should they become embedded in the political architecture of the PRI). Nevertheless, a double discourse is not exclusive to the PRI system but has persisted despite changes in ruling political parties. For instance, for the first time in the state’s history, the PRI lost a municipal election (in Cancun) in 2002, to the Green and Ecologist 4 Available from: http://www.qroo.gob.mx/qroo/Gobierno/PED051110JUN08.pdf (accessed 24.03.10.).

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Party of Mexico (PVEM). However, we were unable to find evidence of any governance or development change affected during the ruling of PVEM. Three of our informants agreed that the only significant change was an increase in irregular spending. Three years later Cancun was regained by the PRI in coalition with the PVEM, while the ex-Mayor was formally accused by the Federal environmental agency of illegally restoring the eroded beachfront of his five-star all-inclusive hotel.

cope with rising risks. However, this reduction is partly offset by post-disaster government assistance, effectively channelled through the PRI institutional system, and by one of the few coping strategies carried out by households: the ability of many immigrant workers to temporally return to their towns of origin following hurricane alerts.

3.2. Development visions and hurricane coping strategies

A key task for critical adaptation is to investigate the manifestations of counter-hegemonic development visions. Following our inability to find these visions in Cancun the research turned southwards, towards Playa del Carmen, Tulum and Mahahual (Fig. 2).

The development path set by MT increases exposure to hurricanes, while it attracts huge influxes of people and property to the coast. Conservative estimates from the National Institute of Statistics show that the population of Quintana Roo has grown from 88,150 in 1970 to 1,135,309 in 2005 (INEGI, 1970, 2005), while international tourist arrivals doubled from 3,070,695 in 2000 to 6,113,705 in 2008.5 Consequently, many more people are potentially exposed to hurricanes. Since Hurricane Janet practically destroyed Chetumal, the State’s capital, in 1955, Quintana Roo has been hit by six high intensity hurricanes (categories 3–5): Carmen (1974), Gilbert (1988), Roxanne (1995), Emily and Wilma (2005), and Dean (2007). MT also increases property exposure due to the proliferation of buildings and infrastructure along the coast. Moreover, the cementation of the coast severely degrades ecosystem services for coastal protection, including dune systems and mangroves, thus increasing further the exposure of people and property to storm surges and hurricanes. As a result of coastal cementation, Cancun beaches have, since 1984, suffered from chronic shoreline recession with rates of up to 2 m/year (Silva-Casarin et al., 2006), while similar processes are taking place in other intensively urbanized beach areas near Cancun (Buzinde et al., 2010). This increase in exposure is largely offset by implementation of top-down coping strategies, which are consistent with MT and contribute to its resilience. Chief amongst these strategies is Quintana Roo’s effective disaster management system. In the 1990s a top-down and solidly coordinated ‘‘Civil Protection System’’ for emergency relief was established at the national, regional and local levels (State of Quintana Roo, 1992). Under this governance substructure, the government implements hurricane refuges, evacuation procedures, and well-publicized early warning systems to enhance societal awareness and preparedness. As stated by government officials, the main goal is to prevent human casualties, even though it is acknowledged by government officials that the system also seeks to preserve the image of a ‘‘safe destination’’ amongst international tourists and operators. A relatively original element of Quintana Roo’s civil protection system is the promotion of a ‘‘hurricane culture’’. This is contained in government documents, public discourse, advertisements, and in a multitude of public signage for evacuation routes and refuges. It was also regularly expounded in interviews with civil protection officials. Another key factor for the resilience of MT hegemony is the ability to tap into exogenous resources from national disaster funds, global financial markets and insurance companies. These resources are crucial to repair and rebuild more robust hotels, resurface roads, restore basic services, and undertake beach replenishments. In addition, rapid economic recovery is facilitated by the strict spatial division of land use, between tourists and workers, which promotes discrimination in the targets of protection and reconstruction efforts (favouring the tourist areas). MT resilience also relies on cheap labour for reconstruction. Lowwages reduce the endogenous capacity of workers’ households to 5

DATATUR. Retrieved May 2010 from: http://datatur.sectur.gob.mx.

3.3. The extension of the MT vision towards the south

3.3.1. Playa del Carmen Playa del Carmen (in the following referred as Playa) is located 68 km south of Cancun and was a tiny fishing village until the mid 1970s, when a few hotels were built to serve tourists en route to the island of Cozumel. Soon increasing numbers of tourist were attracted to the tranquillity of Playa’s relatively pristine beach (Redclift, 2006). During the 1980s small-hotels displaying, and symbolically celebrating, materials from the region (i.e. guano palms) were established. Most hotels and restaurants flanked Fifth Avenue; a commercial passageway in the core of Playa which strove to provide a rather chic European atmosphere in which family hotels and small businesses continue to thrive today. Two of the main icons of that time, Las Palapas and Shangri-la hotels, were still operating in 2008. These hotels provide cabins built of local materials and, although located in the town’s centre, are still set into the original fringe of forest and palm trees by the beach. In the early 1990s the rapid growth of Cancun was displaying clear signs of exhaustion, while Playa’s resident population jumped in three years from 3098 to 16,901 (Solidaridad Municipal Government, 2007). From the creation of Playa’s municipal government in 1993 until 2008 (the year when, for the first time, a resident from Playa was elected as municipal president) local governance structures and coping strategies were imposed in Playa from supra-local spheres of power and were, arguably, inspired by the same MT vision that dominated Cancun. The seed of MT had been already planted in 1968 when a Mexican developer bought 27 ha along the southern beach adjacent to Playa’s centre (ManuelNavarrete and Redclift, 2010). This piece of real estate would become Playacar, a gated resort including golf courses, nearly 6000 hotel rooms, country houses, and apartments. Playacar resorthotels have lower densities than in Cancun, but follow the same all-inclusive operation scheme. By 1995 Playa was already drawing thousands of tourists and an equivalent number of migrants seeking jobs in the buoyant construction and tourism sectors. Land became scarcer and some of the early tourist pioneers6 left in search of more peaceful locations. For a few of these pioneers the construction of Playacar’s all-inclusive hotels was the indication to leave; for others it was the first traffic lights; some left with the arrival of Walmart, and a number of them still stay (personal communications with two tourism pioneers). According to accounts from the early pioneers, the opening of international franchises in Fifth Avenue was opposed by a group of them on the basis of aesthetic impacts and the ravaging of Playa’s distinctiveness. Regardless of this opposition, permits for the first American fast-food corporation were granted by authorities giving expression to the hegemony of MT. However, as reported by one opposition leader, the grantee of this 6 Tourism pioneer refers to the first people to start tourism businesses in a locality. Pioneers share the experience of approaching the locality before it attains maturity as a mass-tourism destination.

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first franchise sought some compromise and after discussing the issue with his opponents decided to build a palapa7-like roof as a way of partly offsetting the visual impacts of his fast-food investment. Beyond Caribbean-style embellishments, a more significant concession of the MT vision in its expansion to Playa was the strict limitation of a building’s height; which has been consistently enforced through strict urban regulations. Accordingly, no construction is allowed to rise above three storeys. This regulation can be interpreted as going against the maximization of capital attraction and investment returns and, potentially, as counterhegemonic. Although there are several versions about the origin of this regulation, two of our informants from Playa agreed that this limitation responded to the idea of retaining a distinctive aesthetic identity in contrast to Cancun. A more frequent explanation, reported in four interviews, is that it sought to lower the wind turbulence of storms, thus reducing coastal erosion associated with storm winds. If the latter was confirmed, it would be a good illustration of the influence on coping strategies of, even slight, modifications in development visions (e.g., through negotiation and accommodation with alternative local visions). 3.3.2. Tulum About 64 km south of Playa, Tulum had been until the 1970s a Mayan ejido8 of subsistence farmers. In the ejidatarios’ development vision beachfront land was unproductive and inhospitable (personal communications with two ejidatarios). This, formerly hegemonic, development vision, which differs significantly from MT, took material expression through the location of Tulum’s settlement about 2 km away from the coastline. Thus, protected from hurricanes by a generous stretch of mangroves and forest, Tulum’s early coping approach can be seen as significantly differing from MT risk management strategies. However, the hegemony of the Maya ejidatarios’ vision faded in the 1990s as low density eco-hotels proliferated along Tulum’s outlying beachfront and immigrants flocked to the town. By 2004 there were 53 hotels in Tulum offering 1235 rooms (Solidaridad Municipal Government, 2007). Hotel designs range from concrete three storey buildings to very basic thatched cabins, and often include, unlike in Playa and Cancun, renewable energy and other eco-friendly features. The weight of Mayan culture has consistently decreased, but Tulum is still today the coastal enclave of the Mexican Caribbean with the strongest Maya identity (Jua´rez, 2002). Across our interviews we found that ejidatarios and eco-tourism entrepreneurs hold a relatively coherent development vision based on low-intensity and family-oriented development. However, according to interviews with socially critical informants in Tulum and elsewhere, MT is progressively taking over and confining this alternative vision to the domain of a few individuals’ dreams and aspirations. One of the entrepreneurs explains the process as follows (personal communication): ‘‘At the beginning, all the cabana [eco-hotel] owners were kind of hippies. Then there was a second wave of entrepreneurs who came here looking for an alternative way of life but not as alternative as the hippies. In the last three years, though, most cabanas have been bought by people who do not even live here. They pay someone to manage the business and are increasing the densities. Now it is a business rather than a way of life and they get involved in everything: corruption and so on. They set up bars with techno music and other nonsense. I have already decided to sell my cabanas’’. 7 A Mexican legal and economic form of organization based on the communal ownership of land for agriculture. 8 A palapa is a thatched-roof, open-sided structure very common in the Caribbean.

In terms of governance structure, Tulum was a dependency of Playa’s municipal government until 2008. However, even though budgetary and political decisions were made in Playa, implementation was through Tulum’s Alcaldı´a, an administrative body elected by neighbourhood assemblies. This governance structure provided Tulum with relative independence from Playa and the PRI political system. In contrast to Playa, Tulum’s elected Alcaldes have always been local people and usually backed local visions of development (personal communication with the last Alcalde and a social activist). In fact, efforts from Playa to impose external candidates were successfully resisted by locals through direct confrontation (personal communications with two Alcaldı´a members and one leader of the protest). A key element for this resistance has been a shared local identity. A loose coalition between some ejidatarios and tourism pioneers, highly sensitive to environmentalism and Mayan culture, provided a cluster for social cohesion, which although frail was largely missing in either Cancun or Playa. In addition, hotel entrepreneurs created in 1998 an association to defend both their private interests, and their nuanced interpretations of MT. As expressed by a chief member of the association: ‘‘we are worried about the concept of tourism that wants to be promoted in Tulum [in reference to MT]. I have studies showing that alternative tourism is increasing and leaves more money’’. In 2005 a group of local people initiated a hunger strike at the entrance of the Sian Kaan Biosphere Reserve (a few miles away from Tulum) to protest against the type of ‘‘anti-ecological’’ development that was taking place in Tulum. This was probably the last significant sign of organized opposition to the MT vision of development. The group was dissolved after negotiating with the government in Playa. In April 2008 the State government granted the independence of Tulum as a new Municipio. The first elections were held in April 2009 and won by the PRI. Contrary to Playa, the first Mayor was a Mayan speaking ejidatario. However, supra-local governmental presence radically increased in Tulum. According to local informants, the interest of the State government is increasing due to expectations of building a new international airport. Yet, the involvement of the State government in Tulum started with the construction of a huge resort called initially ‘‘Downtown Tulum’’ and renamed as ‘‘Maya-Zama’’ after local complaints for ignoring that there is already a downtown in Tulum. This development is implemented by Yucatecan entrepreneurs in concomitance with the governor of the State (informants concurred that this is the governor’s ‘‘personal project’’). Maya-Zama is a good example of MT and ecological modernization double discourse. The construction of the first phase is urbanizing 74 ha of forest adjacent to Tulum. The second phase comprises 450 ha; including a mega golf course that would extend up to the beach, and a grid of water channels resembling an inland (Venice-style) marina. If fully executed, this project may dramatically increase the exposure of Tulum to hurricanes by completely eliminating the stretch of coastal mangroves separating the town from the sea. Maya-Zama’s development vision is stated, quite ambiguously, as: ‘‘a tourist development concept created to respect and preserve the importance of the Mayan Riviera in the Yucatan Peninsula’’.9 The presentation of Maya-Zama’s developers is even more coherent with ecological modernization: ‘‘a firm best known for the balanced, sustainable communities it creates’’. However, the use of ecological modernization discourse is best attained in the description of the golf course which is cloaked in statements about the ecologically responsible use of space: ‘‘Over 81 ha will be set aside for open spaces with limited roads and pathways planned with ecology in mind. The Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course will be a focal point of this extraordinary 9

http://www.mayazama.com/temp/ (accessed February 2010).

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community. Beautiful lakes and waterways will comprise another verdant 39 ha for all to see and enjoy’’. More broadly, the ‘‘greening’’ of golf courses is a major trend across the Mexican Caribbean. For instance, the President of the State’s Association of Golf Clubs declared in February 2010 that Quintana Roo is seeking to become the first ecologically certified Golf destination of the World and that people who think of golf courses as damaging the environment are mostly misinformed.10 Local opposition to the Maya-Zama complex prompted the emergence of the ‘‘For Tulum!’’ citizens’ movement in 2006, but the group did not live long enough to articulate any sort of counter-hegemonic development vision. More abstractly, the proliferation of golf courses can be seen as an intensification of the insertion of capital between ‘nature’ and the economy. Early, low intensity businesses such as those still found in Tulum are based on the rich biodiversity of the Mesoamerican reef and benefit from its protection, while MT promotes beach and golf tourism built on large scale reconstructions of nature and loss of environmental integrity. The subsequent destruction of mangrove stands and coastal forest, and concentration of capital assets in new zones of produced risk act like a ratchet effect by replacing ecological hazard mitigation with an increased reliance upon evacuation and insurance mechanisms. Tulum still provides some examples of the coping strategies that emerged outside MT. The area was directly hit by hurricanes Roxanne (1995) and Emily (2005), and indirectly by Wilma (2005) and Dean (2007). Unlike Playa and Cancun, however, Tulum’s hotel zone still preserves a dune system and a mangrove strip. It also enjoys a thicker reef of coral which absorbs a significant amount of energy from waves. Dunes and mangroves are not a direct protection for hotel infrastructure, but prevent beach erosion and disperse the energy from storm waves. In Playa or Cancun, hurricane waves hit directly on hotel walls and wash away the beach sand on their way back to the sea. Even though Tulum hotels tap into the international insurance system, and rely on the state’s civil protection system when it comes to evacuation, the use of local materials and the elevation of cabins above dune height are the principal strategies to reduce storm damage. In addition, some eco-hotels are restoring or maintaining vegetation cover in order to increase dune stability. 3.3.3. Mahahual Located 150 km to the south of Tulum lies Mahahual. Founded in 1981 as a fisher camp, tourism development had a slow start between 1993 and 2001 with the establishment of nine accommodation units totalling 83 rooms, four restaurants, and two diving centres (Daltabuit Goda´s et al., 2007). By 2000 there were still only 149 inhabitants registered (INEGI, 2000). This slow development was dramatically accelerated in 2001 with the construction of Puerto Costa Maya; a US$ 23 million port with three piers and a shopping centre of 6500 m2 located within sight of the fishers’ village. In 2006 the port received 365 ship calls totalling about 750,000 passengers (La Verdad de Quintana Roo, 2007). Puerto Costa Maya can be seen as having abruptly inserted into Mahahual the MT development vision. The village was rapidly transformed as the fishing cooperatives sold their land or turned themselves into small-scale tourism operators. Many ex-fishers moved to the State capital while new immigrants arrived to attend to the demands of cruise tourism. Amongst these immigrants were investors from Europe and North America, who established small hotels and other businesses. Foreign small-entrepreneurs, as in the case of tourism pioneers in Playa and Tulum, imported a slightly different vision of development. This vision is manifested in the few hundred small hotel rooms and cabanas scattered across the village, which add to the dozen restaurants run by ex-fishers as 10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rJDpmgsUh4 (accessed May 2010).

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well as to diving and fishing tours offered by cooperatives. However, middle-class foreigners have little influence on governance structures, while ex-fishers’ leverage is limited with Mahahual being a dependency of Chetumal and thus tightly subjected to the dictates of PRI regional structures and interests. In addition, most restaurants and cooperatives are dependent on income from cruise passengers venturing downtown, a trickledown effect which is tightly controlled by the cruise port. Thus, rather than co-existence of visions one has to acknowledge also in Mahahual the hegemony of the MT vision, which is incorporated in the monopolistic, all-inclusive cruise ship business and the often ferocious episodes of land speculation over beachfront properties. Mahahual is more vulnerable to hurricane risk than Playa and Tulum due to its lack of political visibility and geographical remoteness. In 2007, Hurricane Dean washed away the cruise ship infrastructure and badly affected the town. By 2009, the local economy had not yet recovered to pre-hurricane levels despite the cruise dock and small hotels had been completely rebuilt by the end of 2008. Influenza and the 2008–2009 global economic downturn overlapped with the impacts of Hurricane Dean. The practices to cope with hurricane emergency in Mahahual do not significantly differ from other towns. However, after Hurricane Dean many people left the town and the majority of them had not yet returned by 2009 due to lack of jobs and high housing costs. Early warning and evacuation procedures were as effective in Mahahual as in Playa or Cancun. However, the delivery of postdisaster aid was ineffective and complicated by internal politics of the Red Cross organizations based in Playa and Chetumal. This led to the spontaneous articulation by foreign small entrepreneurs of an original coping strategy in the aftermath of Hurricane Dean. As described by the strategy’s ad-hoc leader (an American real estate agent): ‘‘When we realized that the government’s help would not arrive, the rumour was spread out that they wanted to take us away from Mahahual. This was probably just a rumour. There were two critical moments. One was when we did not have any water left. We decided to resort to external help through the internet. The community could have collapsed in these moments if we could not have secured external help. There was risk of starvation, but the main risk was the desperation of people and the chaos that this was generating. We raised 100,000 US dollars through the internet. This money came from clients and people who knew Mahahual and knew me. When aid started to arrive, we did not know what to do and how. We made several mistakes and learnt from them. The most important was to store the aid, this proved to be disastrous. We started organizing rapid distribution. We needed to coordinate the different communities/groups within Mahahual, identify leaders within each group that would help us with distribution’’. Arguably, this is a good example of a bottom-up coping strategy emerged from a group holding a slightly alternative development visions in co-existence with the hegemonic one.

4. Discussion: hegemony and critical adaptation Critical adaptation involves analyzing coping without losing sight of its development context and underlying governance regimes. In the Mexican Caribbean the hegemonic MT development vision is informed by the cultural discourse of modernisation and political narratives of neo-liberal democratic reform. Progress and security are equated with the capacity to generate economic growth, although very unequally and disproportionately contrib-

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uting to climate risk. MT is globally sustained by its ability to absorb the excess financial liquidity that was generated in the last decades, until the financial crisis broke in 2008, by the international capitalist system (Harvey, 2002). However, the supremacy of the coalition between government and business corporations, for which there is implied consent from low-income workers and immigrants, is its key sustaining structure at the local scale. This coalition can be understood in terms of ‘‘historic blocs’’, in Gramsci’s (1971) sense. A vital factor for consent is the trickledown effect of rapid economic growth in a context of rural–urban migration. As observed by a catholic priest working with lowincome families in Playa when asked about sources of consent: ‘‘All that counts is that people perceive some incremental improvement, no matter how small, but something’’. In addition, the PRI governance structure suggests that MT hegemony relies on a population which is conditioned to play subservient social and political roles. In fact, alternative social or political networks are actively discouraged and systematically co-opted by the government (Kray, 2006). One may speculate that the intellectual and emotional acceptance of current governance structures builds on historic processes of internalization whose origins can be traced to the Mexican Revolution and further back. We found that MT is hegemonic in all study sites. However, some signs of counter-hegemony, although ephemeral, were present in Playa (until early 1990s), and Tulum (up to recently), while manifestations of alternative visions have precariously coexisted with MT in Playa’s Fifth Avenue, Tulum’s hotel zone, and Mahahual. In these instances, resistance is less visible than coexistence. However, some concessions in terms of development traits are extracted from the hegemonic vision in terms of, for instance, limiting the height of buildings or maintaining a resident population of small businesses. One of our most important findings is that these concessions have had intended or unintended effects on exposure and coping strategies (Table 2). A key question for critical adaptation is to understand the interplay between governance structures, development visions and coping strategies. We have found that Tulum’s governance structure has been shaped by a relatively strong sense of identity, relative political autonomy, and a significant influence from Mayan culture, which can be traced back to the Caste War of Yucatan (Reed, 2001; Redclift, 2006). These governance characteristics could be linked to the, perhaps more palpable, manifestations of alternative development visions in Tulum and the town’s relatively high diversity of coping strategies (Table 2). In the case of Playa, the consistent control of institutions by exogenous political factions probably hindered the

capacity of local groups to hold alternative visions. In the case of Mahahual, the cultural diversity supported by the presence of foreign immigrants was vital in creating the germ of an ‘alternative’ development vision, which might have facilitated an independent and workable coping strategy for post-hurricane recovery under more propitious political circumstances. Critical adaptation seeks to unveil how the capital bloc or coalition, which in the Mexican Caribbean rests on the PRI political super-structure and the capitalist groups behind mass tourism, sustains the hegemony of MT. First it builds consent through systematic co-option of opposing groups and individuals. Second, the effective use of double discourse creates a collective illusion of striving for reform and social improvement while in fact the primary concern is to maintain the status quo. Third, the monopoly of strategies to cope with hurricanes through the implementation of top-down risk management solutions creates a paternalistic relation between the bloc and those put at risk by the deployment of the same hegemonic vision. Our critical analysis complements existing work on the politics and cultures of risk (Bankoff, 2002). This work led Bankoff and Hilhorst (2009:686) in their study of the Philippines to emphasize the ‘‘manner in which people incorporate their understanding of disaster episodes into their personal and collective schemas’’. Hazards in the Philippines are much more severe and diverse than in the Mexican Caribbean and community-based, alternative development visions and risk management discourses seem more palpable. It is important to note that Philippine coping strategies emerged from government deficiencies in disaster response that were filled by socially critical and progressive NGOs (Bankoff and Hilhorst, 2009). Further critical research may ask whether the seemingly weaker position of the Philippines government, in comparison with that in Mexico, has also promoted the emergence of counter-hegemonic development paths and visions. In the case of the Mexican Caribbean, the hegemony of the government-capital bloc has proved to be highly effective in terms of implementing hurricane coping strategies, thus leaving little political space for actors who might be critical of this hegemony. In addition, we have seen how groups that are critical of government are initially marginalised and disempowered within political structures. This relative absence of a radical civil society is not necessarily characteristic of Mexico as a whole: one just needs to think of the indigenous movements in Chiapas and the vibrant civil society of Mexico City. However, the State of Quintana Roo, formally created in 1974, is a particular case since it was developed principally as a tourist enclave, or development pole, planned and

Table 2 Manifestations of development visions, governance structures and coping strategies to hurricanes in the Mexican Caribbean. Development vision

Governance structures

Coping strategies

Cancun

MT hegemony without negotiation

- Disaster management and financial structures for fast recovery supported by government and corporations - Low levels of governance autonomy

Playa del Carmen

MT hegemony, but slightly negotiated with tourism pioneers in the 1990s

Hurricane refuges and evacuation procedures Well-publicized early warning systems Federal disaster funds Promoting investments International insurance Idem + Limitation of buildings’ height

Tulum

Tending towards MT hegemony in negotiation with Maya and eco-tourism entrepreneurs

- Disaster management and financial structures for fast recovery supported by government and corporations - Very low governance autonomy until 2008 - Governmental disaster management and small business financial resilience - Relatively high levels of governance autonomy

-

Mahahual

MT hegemony in co-existence with an alternative vision brought about by foreign small entrepreneurs and ex-fishers

-

Idem+ Location of the town away from the coast Respect of coastal vegetation and dunes Easy to rebuild cabanas Hurricane evacuation procedures International insurance Limitation of buildings’ height Foreign private aid from middle-class foreigners acquainted with Mahahual

MT: Mass Tourism.

- Governmental disaster management and relative financial support for slow and partial recovery - No governance autonomy

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implemented from scratch by the government-capital bloc (Manuel-Navarrete et al., 2009). Historically speaking, as we have observed, the region was the location of one of the most important social revolutions of the late nineteenth century – the ‘Caste War of Yucatan’, which began in 1851 and saw large numbers of indigenous Mayan people mounting an armed rebellion against their White Mexican masters (Reed, 2001). However this movement left the interior of the peninsular remote from the nationalist economic development and modernisation undertaken in the 20th century, notably under President Cardenas from 1938 onwards. The economic backwardness of the region, as well as its radical political past and lack of population contributed to the attention that the Mexican state gave to the development of the Caribbean coast in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. This was an area where any dissenting civil society had either been destroyed or marginalised. Furthermore, the current population of the Mexican Caribbean is culturally very diverse as it was attracted from all parts of Mexico and from countries overseas. These demographic and historical factors, together with the hegemony of a development vision which perpetuates job insecurity and deepens social inequality, are all factors that hinder rather than promote community and social cohesion and help explain the absence of an effective oppositional civil society. A question whose exploration deserves further research is whether the absence of counter-hegemonic coping strategies in Quintana Roo decreases overall adaptability. Answering this question is likely to depend on one’s viewpoint and scale. We have contemplated how alternative development visions in Playa, Tulum, and Mahahual may have translated into the emergence of singular coping strategies. But none of these strategies address the root causes of risk that lie deeply embedded within the produced ecological and social spaces of MT. Indeed the apparent success of MT arguably prevents wider questions about risk and development from emerging. Nonetheless, given the global financial crisis the constant availability of exogenous financial resources cannot be taken for granted in the future, and the continuous investment of new tranches of capital to repeatedly reconstruct the same infrastructures, might in the long term be judged as ‘maladaptation’. It then becomes imperative for further research on critical adaptation, in the Mexican Caribbean and in other regions impacted by mass global tourism, to understand the means through which diversity of coping strategies can be increased. 5. Conclusion We have characterized Mass-Tourism (MT) as a hegemonic development vision in the Mexican Caribbean. The coping strategies generated from the status quo of MT are top-down and seek to internalize environmental risks through bureaucratic and technocratic practices; for example, building more robust hotels, implementing beach restoration technologies, or improving early warning systems. These practices rest on commercial insurance, mobilization of supra-local resources, timely action of security forces, and sustained political support from government agencies and local people. They rely on abundant investments and plentiful availability of cheap labour, and are highly carbon intensive (e.g., through construction and maintenance, importing goods, and bringing in the tourists). However, they also involve externalizing risk costs through, for instance, weakening socially critical movements. In fact, the scope of strategies within MT is dramatically narrowed to the interests of capitalistic and political elites. For instance, the soaring concerns over maintaining a good image for the touristic destination leads to prioritizing effective command-and-control strategies that avoid casualties and generate a broad sense of safety without addressing the roots of differential vulnerabilities. Likewise, MT provides copious capital

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availability from international financial markets attracted by high profits expectations. This capital abundance may, to a certain degree, undermine coping strategies for reducing damage, such as restricting developments on hazardous areas. Furthermore, the capacity of undemocratic command-and-control arrangements to avoid human casualties and provide basic relief in the aftermath of disasters makes less pressing the advancement of democracy in general. Our search for counter-hegemonic development visions, and associated coping strategies, across the touristic enclaves and towns of the Mexican Caribbean rendered meagre results. Tulum presented the major diversity of coping strategies and the weakest hegemonic control. This correlation, although weak and inconclusive, suggests a productive line of critical adaptation research in which development paths, the evolution of power structures, and responses to extreme climatic events are to be analyzed holistically. For instance, in the case of Tulum, this critical research would investigate counter-hegemonic development visions that favour the use of traditional construction materials (such as guano for palapas) in order to empower local groups by providing betterpaid jobs (palaperos are generally better paid than other construction workers), and prevent beach erosion; while at the same time this empowerment of local groups can further emancipatory visions of development. This paper has begun to explore the possibility that a diversity of development visions might be one of the most important adaptation capacities of a society. This includes, but transcends, the need to increase accountability, empowerment and participation within established governance structures. In fact, it entails fostering the ability of people to fundamentally influence governance structures and development paths according to both their own aspirations, and the anticipation of the challenges that we will be facing as the result of increasing climatic hazards. Acknowledgment This research was supported by funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council (grant RES-062-23-0367). References Allen, K.M., 2006. Community-based disaster preparedness and climate adaptation: local capacity-building in the Philippines. Disasters 30 (1), 81–101. Bankoff, G., 2002. Cultures of Disaster: Society and Natural Hazards in the Philippines. Routledge, London. Bankoff, G., Hilhorst, D., 2009. The politics of risk in the Philippines: comparing state and NGO perceptions of disaster management. Disasters 33 (4). Bernstein, R.J., 1982. From hermeneutics to praxis. The Review of Metaphysics 35 (4), 823–845. Boggio Va´zquez, J., 2008. Planeacio´n estrate´gica para el desarrollo: El caso de Quintana Roo. Teorı´a y Praxis 5, 69–84. Brenner, L., Aguilar, A.G., 2002. Luxury tourism and regional economic development in Mexico. The Professional Geographer 54 (4), 481–600. Buades, J., 2006. Exportando Paraı´sos. La colonizacio´n turı´stica del planeta. La Lucerna, Palma de Mallorca. Bulkeley, H., 2007. Reconfiguring environmental governance: towards a politics of scales and networks. Political Geography 24 (8), 875–902. Burton, I., Van Aalst, M.K., 2004. Look before you leap: a risk management approach for integrating climate change adaptation into World Bank operations (Paper number 100). The World Bank, Washington, DC. Buzinde, C.N., Manuel-Navarrete, D., Kerstetter, D., Redclift, M., 2010. Representations and adaptation to climate change. Annals of Tourism Research 37 (3), 581– 603. Clancy, M., 1999. Tourism and development. Evidence from Mexico. Annals of Tourism Research 26 (1), 1–20. Cox, R.W., 1981. Social forces, states and world orders: beyond international relations theory. Millennium – Journal of International Studies 10, 126–155. Daltabuit Goda´s, M., Cisneros Reyes, H.B., Valenzuela Valdivieso, E., 2007. Globalizacio´n y sustentabilidad. El turismo en el sur de Quintana Roo. UNAM, Cuernavaca. Eakin, H., Lemos, M.C., 2006. Adaptation and the state: Latin America and the challenge of capacity-building under globalization. Global Environmental Change 16 (1), 7–18.

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