Growing tea and welcoming tourists? Community legitimacy and change at a World Heritage landscape
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21718005 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Xue Sun (0000-0001-9521-5212, Uppsala University), Narcís Bassols (0000-0001-5769-5323, Uppsala University), Narcís Bassols i Gardella (Uppsala University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 795-816 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-03 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Tourism Geographies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1461-6688 • E-ISSN: 1470-1340 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14616688.2026.2668549 |
| OpenAlex | W7161268310 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 49 |
This article examines how UNESCO World Heritage listing and its subsequent tourism developments reshape livelihoods, participation, and cultural continuity. The study case is Jingmai Mountain, Yunnan—a tea-forest cultural landscape maintained by the Blang and Dai communities in southwestern China. The research, carried out 18 months after UNESCO’s earmarking, unveils the early tourism developments and the community changes in response to these. Based on observation and interviews across four villages in the area, the analysis integrates Community-Based Ecotourism, the Sustainable Livelihood Framework, and critical heritage perspectives into a new model. The results show that residents assess benefit-sharing through a moral economy in which fairness is defined as proportional return, while participation is channelled through mediated representation via hierarchical local governmental structures. Ecotourism is largely a supplementary, risk-buffering strategy that complements under-forest tea cultivation, sustaining livelihood resilience while re-weighting valued competencies toward hospitality, Mandarin language, and platform visibility. Heritage recognition has strengthened cultural confidence and renewed intergenerational engagement with tea-related practices, yet environmental pressures and regulatory demands expose uneven capacities to participate and benefit
Cultural heritage · Cultural heritage management · Cultural landscape · Legitimacy · Sustainability · World heritage · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Cultural Identity and Heritage · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research
Heritage
Research Ethics for Social Scientists
Uses of Heritage
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Attachment agency
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Ecotourism
Tourism and Poverty Reduction
Ecotourism for Conservation
A Community-Based Tourism Model
Protecting the Environment the Natural Way
Creative tea tourism in Asian tea villages
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Profit, Responsibility, and the Moral Economy of Tourism
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Decommodifying nature through commoning
Rethinking authenticity in the implementation of China's heritage conservation
Traditional management of ancient Pu'er teagardens in Jingmai Mountains in Yunnan of China, a designated Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems site
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Gazing or Performing
| Highly cited | No |
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