TOURISM AND COLONIALITY GLOSSARY
ACTIVISM is an organized attempt to create change for the better in society and the world. Activism comes in many shapes and forms, such as organizing PROTESTS, advocating at policy makers, writing texts, giving lectures, and starting petitions. An ACTIVIST is a person involved in activism.
ANTICOLONIALISM is a broad term used to describe various resistance movements, initiatives, and actions against the colonial, neocolonial, and imperial exercise of power.
BIODIVERSITY describes biological diversity, such as the diversity of species.*
BIOMASS is the mass of living biological organisms in a given area or ecosystem at a given time.
CARBON FOOTPRINT is the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions caused by the activities of a person, organization, event, service, or area. It includes direct emissions, such as those that result from fossil-fuel combustion in, for example, transportation. It also includes indirect emissions required to produce the electricity needed for the provision of goods and services.
CLIMATE CRISIS describes the consequences of global warming due to the heavy CO2 emissions of specific countries. The increasing occurrences of droughts or floods have already been noticeable for years, especially for countries in the GLOBAL SOUTH.**
COLONIALISM is the violent subjugation of foreign territories (in particular in Africa, the Americas, South and South East) by European countries. The structures and relations of power and the forms of knowledge that developed during this era persist until today.*
COLONIALITY describes the ways of thinking and acting under COLONIALISM, and the way they are still present in contemporary social, cultural, economic, and political structures. It means that colonial power relations continue in new forms.**
DISCRIMINATION is the unjust treatment, or treatment with prejudice, of a person or a group of people, based on characteristics such as race, gender, nationality, religion, age, sexual orientation, etc.
EXPLOITATION means that a person or group of persons lives at the expense of other persons or groups of persons. Exploitative structures often ensure that the exploited persons cannot invoke democratic rights and are forced by social, political, and economic circumstances to yield to the structures.*
GLOBAL NORTH/GLOBAL SOUTH describe the different position of countries in the global political and economic order. They are not geographic terms. Global South describes countries and places in a disadvantaged social, political, and economic position in the global system. Global North, on the other hand, defines an advantaged, privileged position.*
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* Cited from and/or based on the publications by the I.L.A. Collective: “At the expense of others? How the imperial mode of living prevents a good life for all” (2019) and “Das Gute Leben für Alle” (The Good Life for All) (2019)
** Based on the #YoungMuseum texts of the Grassi Museum of Ethnography Leipzig.
GOOD LIFE FOR ALL is a concept that describes the solidarity-based coexistence of all people in respectful interaction with the environment. It represents an alternative concept to Western development models which focus
on economic growth and material prosperity. The concept is based on the philosophy of Buen Vivir of the indigenous cultures of the Andean countries in Latin America.*
INDIGENOUS peoples/communities are the descendants of a region’s original inhabitants before the region was colonized by a group that dominates it until today. Human rights specifically for indigenous peoples guarantee their right to be able to meet their social, cultural and economic needs, and their right to land.*
MASS TOURISM is a form of tourism that involves large numbers (tens of thousands) of organized tourists going to a tourist destination at the same tim (for example, in the summer).
NEOCOLONIALISM highlights the economic and political structural dependencies of former colonies that continue today in spite of their formal independence. Certain trade agreements, for example, force countries of the GLOBAL SOUTH into the role of suppliers of cheap raw materials.*
OPPRESSION is a situation in which people are treated in an unfair and cruel way by authorities or people in power and are prevented from claiming their freedom and rights.
PASTORALISM is a way of organizing society so that raising domesticated animals is the main economic activity. PASTORALISTS guide and feed their animals through landscapes such as savannas and often live nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyles.
POSTCOLONIALISM describes critical analysis of the impacts that Western COLONIALISM has had on different cultures and societies.
PROTEST is a public gathering organized by a group of people or a community to express their demands or their dissatisfaction with a current issue in their society. At protests people often carry signs or shout out slogans to communicate their ideas or demands.
REFERENDUM is an event in which all the people in a country or a specific region vote to decide on a current political question.
REPARATIONS are compensation payments for damages caused and atrocities committed in the past by a group or nation to another group or nation. Through reparations, the side that caused the damage to the other side tries to acknowledge and make up for it.