Geoforum 50 (2013) 161–171

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Geoforum

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The competitive (dis)advantages of ecotourism in Northern Thailand

0016-7185/$ - see front matter � 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.09.007

E-mail address: youdelis@yorku.ca

Megan YoudelisDepartment of Geography, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:Received 23 May 2013Received in revised form 24 August 2013Available online 2 October 2013

Keywords:Neoliberal conservationMarket-oriented conservationEcotourismNeoliberal environmentalityDisciplinary environmentalityPolitical ecology

Ecotourism within protected areas is paradigmatically considered a neoliberal conservation strategyalong with other market-based interventions that devolve authority to non-state actors, rely on marketcorrections to socio-environmental problems, and effectively try to ‘‘do more with less’’ (Dressler andRoth, 2011) or ‘‘sell nature to save it’’ (McAfee, 1999). However, the neoliberalisation of conservationis a path-based process that is shaped by local histories and on-the-ground engagements with differentmarket forms, and a growing body of scholarship has demonstrated that there are significant gapsbetween ‘‘vision’’ and ‘‘execution’’ in neoliberal conservation. Through a case study of ecotourism inBan Mae Klang Luang in Northern Thailand, this research approaches the question of why such programsoften fail to reconcile environmental and economic concerns through an exploration of the internal con-tradictions in the governmentalizing processes embedded within market-led conservation projects. Spe-cifically, I argue that the contradiction in encouraging both disciplinary environmentality and neoliberalenvironmentality ironically forces conservation and development interests into opposition. Furthermore,ecotourism’s deployment of neoliberal environmentality contributes to the exaggeration of inequalityand individualism in the village, creating tensions among community members. Despite the win–winexpectations of neoliberal philosophy in conservation policies, the contradictory logics involved callthe long-term viability of such strategies into question.

� 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The growing body of scholarship critiquing the neoliberalisationof conservation governance suggests that there is a significant gapbetween ‘‘vision’’ and ‘‘execution’’ in neoliberal conservation, andthat such programs do not easily reconcile environmental and eco-nomic concerns but rather produce messy and contradictory out-comes for local farmers (Dressler and Roth, 2011; Fletcher andBreitling, 2012; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2011; McElwee, 2012). Despitethe academic critiques, policy makers, NGOs and governmentsworldwide are increasingly promoting market-oriented conserva-tion programs within inhabited protected areas (Brockington andDuffy, 2010; Fletcher, 2012). This approach is a response to theproblems associated with the exclusionary and highly criticized‘fortress model’ of conservation, which involved the territorialisa-tion of protected areas and the strict policing of human activitywithin their boundaries (Vandergeest and Peluso, 1995). Market-oriented conservation programs involve the intensification of agri-cultural production on smaller plots of land (Dressler and Roth,2011), community-based or carbon forestry (Osborne, 2012), bio-prospecting (Crook and Clapp, 1998), or ecotourism (Duffy, 2008;Hitchner et al., 2009). These approaches to conservation assume

that increased income will dissuade local peoples from clearingthe forest for agriculture or sustenance, painting local farmers asthe ‘forest destroyers’ (Forsyth and Walker, 2008) and assumingthat they would conserve intact forests if they could draw valuefrom conservation-friendly behavior (Fletcher, 2012). Since mar-ket-driven solutions to park-people conflicts seemed to proliferatealongside neoliberal state policies, social scientists consider mar-ket-oriented conservation strategies like ecotourism to be com-plicit in – or at least complementary to – the neoliberalisation ofconservation. The neoliberalisation of conservation involves boththe increasing reliance on market mechanisms to protect environ-mental interests and the rescaling of conservation practice to in-volve non-state market-based actors, local communities, andNGOs (Brockington and Duffy, 2010; McCarthy, 2005; Roth andDressler, 2012).

However, neoliberalism is a packed and complex term, andthere is always a rupture between neoliberal ideals and the differ-ent forms of market engagement that actually take shape in differ-ent localities (Harvey, 2005; Polanyi, 1944). As an ideal withinpolicy circles, neoliberal conservation aims to reconfigure localrelations with nature according to the philosophies of the free mar-ket, private property, and individual freedoms (Harvey, 2005),which are assumed to be the optimal means to address all socialand environmental issues. Underlying this logic is the assumptionthat people generally behave as rational self-interested actors who

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simply require the proper incentives to conserve (Dressler andRoth, 2011; Fletcher, 2010). In general, critical scholarship on theneoliberalisation of conservation will argue that it can: increaseinequalities as wealth accumulates in the hands of those betterpositioned to capitalize; disenfranchise communities from local re-sources as these become commodities in larger networks; degradethe environment if profits are used to build or extract more forprofit; and reorder the values attached to ‘nature’, consequentlyreordering socio-environmental relations (Castree, 2010: Fletcher,2010; McCarthy and Prudham, 2004).

Neoliberalisation loses its effectiveness as a concept that canhelp us understand marketization policies when all forms of mar-ket engagement within conservation zones are lumped into a ‘neo-liberal’ category (Castree, 2008; Hodge and Adams, 2012). It isimportant to note that market engagement in conservation zonesdoes not necessarily make it neoliberal, as there are many differentforms of possible market engagement. Polanyi’s (1944) concept ofthe ‘‘double movement’’ is useful to consider here, as the push to-wards more neoliberalised self-regulating market forms is oftentangled up with a push back from different actors demanding moreprotectionist markets. Different forms of ecotourism managementcan be either more protectionist or more neoliberalised as the casemay be, and accordingly have very different effects on the lives ofrural peoples.

Empirical work on market-led conservation interventions isgrowing, but separate cases are path-dependent and not necessar-ily easily comparable, so the implications of different kinds of mar-ket engagement in protected areas remain relatively unclear(Castree, 2008; Roth and Dressler, 2012). Geographers have ap-proached research on market-based conservation in differentways. Dressler and Roth (2011) have demonstrated that local peo-ples significantly shape the operation of markets in relation to theirlocal livelihoods, histories, and contemporary realities, and thatneoliberal conservation can rearticulate earlier forms of coerciveconservation. Others have shown that neoliberal conservation pro-grams still require strong state intervention (Fletcher, 2012; McEl-wee, 2012), that neoliberal conservation can put pressure on localcommunities to commodify ‘nature’ according to growing capital-ist markets (Büscher and Dressler, 2012), and that market-orientedconservation programs do not necessarily meet conservation anddevelopment goals simultaneously (Fletcher and Breitling, 2012;Higgins-Desbiolles, 2011). Little work, however, has approachedthe question of why we continually see contradictory and unsatis-factory outcomes in market-oriented conservation through anexploration of the internal contradictions in the governmentalizingprocesses involved in market-oriented conservation projects, andhow these contradictions play out and affect rural peoples’ livedrealities.

This paper therefore adds to these debates by taking a post-structural political ecology approach (Fletcher, 2010) to explainthe contradictions and tensions involved in adopting ecotourismas a market-oriented conservation strategy. Fletcher (2010) arguesthat within any given neoliberal conservation strategy, multipleand discrete environmentalities can operate simultaneously andin contradiction with one another. He explains that neoliberal con-servation programs employ neoliberal environmentality, which isan approach to conducting conducts that draws on Foucault’s(2008) concept of neoliberal governmentality. Neoliberal govern-mentality works by setting up incentive structures within whichrational economic actors will be motivated to act appropriatelyto receive monetary rewards. This approach differs slightly fromdisciplinary governmentality, which seeks to ‘conduct the con-ducts’ (Foucault, 1991) of subjects through the internalization ofethical norms – although neoliberal governmentality operates inconjunction with disciplinary techniques that encourage subjectsto become homo-economicus (Fletcher, 2010), ‘‘the ideal, entrepre-

neurial, self-made individual’’ (McCarthy and Prudham, 2004:276). When this approach is taken in conservation zones withthe goal of producing particular neoliberal environmental subjects,the approach is termed neoliberal environmentality. Put differ-ently, neoliberal environmentality describes the increasing beliefin policy circles that the most efficient way to reach conservationgoals is to marketize ‘nature’ and set up monetary incentive struc-tures within which rational actors will be motivated to conserve.On the other hand, disciplinary environmentality takes an ap-proach to conducting conducts in line with disciplinary govern-mentality, and encourages subjects to care about a particularunderstanding of nature and thus to behave in conservation-friendly ways.

Ecotourism as a market-oriented conservation strategy com-bines disciplinary and neoliberal environmentalities, ‘‘involvingnot only the promotion of economic incentives but also the useof various disciplinary techniques intended to condition local par-ticipants to an ‘ecotourism discourse’’’ (Fletcher, 2010: 177). Localfarmers are encouraged to live modest, conservation-friendly livesthrough discourses of ecotourism, while they are simultaneouslyencouraged to seize the monetary benefits associated with the pro-duction of natural, picturesque landscapes by running ecotourismbusinesses.

This research thus also builds on and departs from the literatureon ecotourism, the majority of which looks at ecotourism as a lar-gely material practice. Much of the scholarship on ecotourism hasanalyzed factors contributing to the relative ‘success’ or ‘failure’ ofecotourism initiatives in relation to conservation goals (Buckley,2009; Hvenegaard and Dearden, 1998) and the politics of ecotour-ism as a tool for poverty reduction in the Global South (Duffy,2006; Horton, 2009; Laudati, 2010; Scheyvens, 1999; Scheyvensand Momsen, 2008). Other work has demonstrated the problemsof commodifying and marketing a particular aesthetic (but notnecessarily biodiverse) image of nature through ecotourism – or‘‘selling nature to save it’’ (McAfee, 1999)—while ignoring inequal-ity in access to resources (Braun, 2002). This paper, however,works to explain the relationship between discourse, governmen-tality, and practice by considering ecotourism an ideological force– one that works to produce and promote an ‘ecotourism dis-course’ (Fletcher, 2009) which employs contradictory governmen-talizing processes that can create messy and unsatisfactoryoutcomes for resident peoples.

Through a case study of Ban Mae Klang Luang, located withinthe Doi Inthanon National Park in Thailand, this research arguesthat the tendency for certain community members to pursue indi-vidual entrepreneurial business goals instead of community-basedgoals stems from the deployment of neoliberal environmentality inthe ecotourism project, where community members are encour-aged to act as self-interested rational actors and pursue personalincome maximization. This is contradictory to the disciplinaryenvironmentality operating within ecotourism discourse, and sothe contradiction in encouraging both self-maximizing entrepre-neurial ethics and modest, conservation-friendly living ironicallyforces conservation and development interests into opposition.Furthermore, reordering social relations with nature in accordancewith the neoliberal philosophies of individual freedoms, privateproperty and competition are aggravating issues of inequalityand individualism in the village, resulting in many communitymembers pushing back against entrepreneurial ambitions anddemanding a more communally-managed and controlled from ofmarket engagement through ecotourism. Many villagers in BanMae Klang Luang have been mobilizing ideas of traditional cultureand traditional environmental knowledge in resistance to theprofit-seeking and individuality associated with entrepreneurialecotourism in the village. This discourse can arguably be consid-ered a third kind of environmentality based on Foucault’s ‘art of

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government according to truth’ (Fletcher, 2010), and is being mobi-lized as a basis for critique of neoliberal environmentality in thevillage. This research thus demonstrates how the distinction be-tween different environmentalities is not just theoretical, but cre-ates contradictions and tensions in how people experience andpractice ecotourism as a conservation strategy. Despite ecotour-ism’s promise for maximizing both local income and conservationgoals, the tendency for local community members to pursue indi-vidual business goals rather than socially and environmentallyproductive ends poses significant challenges to the long-term via-bility of ecotourism as a market-oriented conservation project.

2. Methods

This research was conducted over a period of three months,during May, June and July of 2011. The majority of this time wasspent living within the village of Ban Mae Klang Luang where I con-ducted participant observation in the community while gatheringmost of my data through semi-formal, in-depth interviews. BanMae Klang Luang is located in the Doi Inthanon National Park, anhour southwest of Chiang Mai (see map).

Interviews with key members of organizations that helped be-gin ecotourism in the village were conducted in the city of ChiangMai (see Fig. 1).

I employed a Research Assistant from the community who wasfluent in Karen, Thai, and English. With his help, I interviewed 30community members (both participants and non-participants inthe ecotourism project) including tourist guides, villagers workingfor the CBT, villagers who started entrepreneurial businesses, vil-lagers working other jobs within the Park (growing food for theRoyal Project), and villagers working for the National Park itself. Iinterviewed people of varying ages, between 20 and 78 years ofage. It is mainly men who guide or run ecotourism businesses,but I conducted 1/3 of the interviews with women (both involvedand not involved with ecotourism) to gain a broader range of per-spectives. Three of the interviews done with community memberswere with elders of the community, where I took a life history ap-proach to address perceptions of change in the community frombefore and after the adoption of ecotourism. Additionally, I inter-viewed the National Park Conservation Authority, the head of theCommunity-Based Tourism Institute of Thailand (which helpedto establish ecotourism in Ban Mae Klang Luang), the head of Thai-lande Autrement (a French tourism agency that helped begin anecotourism project in a neighboring village after Ban Mae KlangLuang’s pilot project), and the member of the Thailand ResearchFund (funder of CBT-I projects) who dealt with the project in BanMae Klang Luang.

Living in the village, I was able to observe community interac-tions, tourist interactions, and day to day activities. I gained infor-mation and insight through conversing and forging relationshipswith various members of the community as well as with tourists.In addition, I obtained information regarding how the projectwas framed by the Park and affiliated organizations by collectingand analyzing documents.

3. Conservation and community livelihoods in Thailand

‘‘For many readers, ‘‘northern Thailand’’ inspires images of teakforests, Buddhist temples, lush green rice fields, and remotehillside villages inhabited by colorful ‘‘hill tribes.’’ The regionhas grown rapidly in popularity as a tourist destination, andfor many visitors from both inside and outside Thailand it is aplace of astounding beauty, environmental wonder and culturaldiversity.’’ (Forsyth and Walker, 2008)

Northern Thailand is considered an important region for ‘‘wil-derness’’ and biodiversity conservation, and has been the focus ofa great deal of integrated conservation and development work.The region also has a long and troubled history of conflict betweenconservation authorities and ethnic minorities. Ethnic minorities inthe highlands, often referred to as the ‘‘hill tribes’’, have long beenconstructed as different and exotic ‘Others’ to lowland Thai citizens(Lohmann, 1999; Vandergeest, 2003), and until recently they weredenied the status of citizen. As a buffer region between China, Laosand Vietnam, northern forests provided refuge for communistinsurgents in the 1970–1980s, and so the ‘‘hill tribes’’ were consid-ered to be in danger of communist indoctrination. Highland tradi-tional rotational shifting cultivation practices were alsostigmatized as being environmentally damaging, while the cultiva-tion of opium in the highland region was declared illegal and illicit(Roth, 2004). Highland ethnic minorities were therefore both illeg-ible and threatening to state actors and lowland citizens.

The Thai state responded to these potential threats throughstrict and coercive conservation regimes. The Royal ForestryDepartment, established in 1896, appropriated forested lands pri-marily to oversee teak extraction for commercial forestry (Vander-geest, 1996). From the 1940s to the mid-1980s, highland ethnicminority groups were targeted for state-led displacement projectsfrom these areas due to their racial stigmatization as ‘‘non-Thai’’,their perceived vulnerability to communist indoctrination, andtheir opium production practices (Leblond, 2010; Lohmann,1999). However, with the rise of environmentalism in the 1980sand the official ban on logging in 1989, the Royal Forestry Depart-ment’s motives for controlling activity within lands under theirjurisdiction shifted, and conservation became a legitimizing factorin the displacement of ethnic minority groups. These conservation-induced displacement programs (CIDs) were most numerous in theNorthern region, with 60% of the total CIDs in Thailand between1986 and 2005 targeting upland ethnic minority groups (Leblond,2010). Several villages were relocated or forcefully evicted fromnewly designated conservation zones, with evictions slowingdown after the 1980s (Walker and Farrelly, 2008). Communitymembers in Ban Mae Klang Luang explained to me that they toowere being targeted for relocation to the town of Chomthong justoutside of the Doi Inthanon National Park, though this displace-ment project was never implemented.

When Doi Inthanon National Park was established in 1972, thepark boundaries were drawn around 39 pre-established communi-ties who suddenly became ‘‘squatters’’ on state land (Anan, 1998).The park took a classic ‘fortress model’ approach, where local peo-ples were faced with new restrictive land use laws that challengedtheir ability to subsist in the Park. Residents were forced to stoptraditional rotational shifting agriculture and opium farming, andinstead were only allowed to cultivate wet rice in paddy fieldson smaller plots of land. They were also barred from hunting orgathering any materials from the forest, which had been an impor-tant part of their traditional livelihoods. Traditional Karen under-standings of nature and conservation were incongruent with Parkconservation policy (Pinkaew, 2002), thus local residents came intoincreased conflict with Park authorities who were administeringconservation law. Conservation law prohibiting the use of any for-est materials for subsistence required residents to use the casheconomy to acquire building materials, so villagers were requiredto market their crops or try to find wage-work in or nearby thepark. Elders of the community expressed to me the great strainthey felt to make their livelihoods under this new regime. Tensionsbetween villagers and park authorities grew until the Royal Projectattempted to ease livelihood pressure by bringing agriculturalmarkets (to replace opium markets) into the area.

The Royal Projects are community development projects initi-ated by His Majesty King Bhumibol and members of the Thai Royal

Fig. 1. Map of Thailand, Doi Inthanon National Park (http://www.ephotopix.com/thailand_political_bw_map.html).

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Family. In the Northern region, most focus on agricultural develop-ment and promote sufficiency economy ideology, which the Kingencourages as an alternative to export-oriented development.The Royal Project in Ban Mae Klang Luang offered the community

assistance in cultivating cash crops such as cabbage or peppers,offering seeds to community members who would sell their prod-ucts back to the Royal Project. Acting as a middle-man, the RoyalProject sold to larger regional markets and to consumers in

M. Youdelis / Geoforum 50 (2013) 161–171 165

Bangkok. Though still operating in the village today, the project hashad varied success in allowing community members to comfort-ably meet their livelihood needs. Elders I spoke to explained thatin some instances the crops encouraged by the Royal Project wouldfail, or, if they grew successfully, they often would not sell for agood price. Some incurred debt this way, and many continued tohunt and harvest forest resources to meet subsistence needs. Thisprompted further Royal Projects like growing organic coffee or cutflowers. These projects have been more lucrative, although grow-ing cut flowers requires heavy inputs of pesticides and costly plas-tic coverings, so having capital is a prerequisite to this line of workand the pesticide use discourages many community members. Vil-lagers explained that the cost of living increases each year with theincreasing cost of gas, electricity, and commodities, and an increas-ing number of parents in the village now wish to save money tosend their children to school outside of the village (there is onlya primary school in Ban Mae Klang Luang). Thus other income-gen-erating opportunities remained necessary for community mem-bers, which – along with encouragement from Park authoritieswho wanted to bring greater volumes of tourists into the parkand motivate villagers to stop gathering forest resources – led tothe adoption of ecotourism.

Community members in Ban Mae Klang Luang self-identify asbeing part of the Karen ethnic minority. While they were once con-sidered forest destroyers for their shifting cultivation practices andopium farming (Chusak, 2008), today Karen community members –with their relative success in altering livelihood practices in accor-dance with Park laws – are widely heralded as being guardians ofnature and great conservationists by researchers and environmen-tal groups alike (Forsyth and Walker, 2008; Walker, 2001). De-scribed as the ‘Karen Consensus’ (Walker, 2001), this particularimagining of a Karen identity is linked with low-impact land useand non-commercial interests in ‘nature’. ‘‘Genuine Karen liveli-hood, this consensus suggests, is based on a subsistence-orientedproduction system that is underpinned by a rich body of local envi-ronmental wisdom, a vigorous communal orientation and consis-tently non-commercial values’’ (Walker, 2001: 145). This is onereason that Karen communities have been less frequently targetedfor conservation-induced displacement (Leblond, 2010). This imageof the Karen is also recognized by conservation authorities andNGOs as a lucrative selling point for community-based ecotourism.

Ban Mae Klang Luang was chosen as the site of the first commu-nity-based ecotourism project in the region, established in 1999 asan attempt to reconcile environmental and economic concernsthrough increased market engagement. It is a community ofapproximately 300 people located at an elevation of around1200 m above sea level in the mountains of Doi Inthanon. Thevillage is covered with picturesque paddy fields surrounded byforested mountains and several waterfalls that are of particularinterest to tourists. This village became part of the Community-Based Tourism Institute of Thailand (CBT-I), which aided thecommunity with education and training in how to manage anecotourism business. They also received administrative supportfrom the Doi Inthanon National Park and the Thailand ResearchFund. Their project was meant to be used as a guideline for othervillages in the region that may be interested in beginning theirown ecotourism projects.

Ban Mae Klang Luang is uniquely accessible to tourists as it islocated along the main road leading in through the National Park.There are now 30 other communities in the Park, and of those, only4 have welcomed any tourists as most are much further inlandfrom the main road and very inconvenient for tourism. Ban MaeKlang Luang was chosen as the first ecotourism site in the area lar-gely due to its easy accessibility, which has also allowed for severalcommunity members to begin entrepreneurial ecotourism busi-nesses with varying degrees of success.

Tourism has operated within the National Park since its estab-lishment, however before the CBT-I project it was facilitated en-tirely by the Royal Forestry Department, which has now becomethe Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservationin Thailand. By law, local communities were not permitted to de-velop community-based tourism projects separate from the Park’saccommodations, and although certain communities have beenpermitted to begin community-based ecotourism in the last dec-ade or so, the official law has not been changed. Today, communitymembers in Ban Mae Klang Luang could be penalized if they con-struct buildings without Park permission, however they are nowable to welcome tourists into their own accommodations.

Originally, the community-based project (henceforth CBT) wasspearheaded by a few charismatic local leaders, under the adviceof some National Park authorities with funding and research assis-tance from the Thailand Research Fund and the CBT-I. At first, mostcommunity members were wary and skeptical about bringingtourists into the village. Many felt that this would bring in un-wanted noise, pollution, and negative influences from the cities.Many were also concerned that ecotourism in the village would al-low Park authorities to keep a closer watch on villagers’ activitiesin the forest. Frustrated with the lack of support from fellow com-munity members, one local influential farmer, who I will call Ka-som, pushed to start the CBT anyway to show the communityfirst hand that tourism would be in their best interests. Decision-making in the village was typically done through group discussion,with the elected Headman of the village given greater authority invillage matters. In this matter, however, Kasom enlisted the sup-port of the Headman and a few other villagers willing to work inthe CBT accommodations, and started the community-based pilotproject with the support from the CBT-I and the Thailand ResearchFund.

The CBT model of market-oriented conservation is based on amore controlled, or ‘instituted’ (Polanyi, 1944) market, where theproject belongs to the community at large, people who work forthe CBT receive standard monthly wages, and all extra earningsare re-invested in the community through various projects (pri-mary school fund, road maintenance, etc.). However, as the villagebecame more popular as a tourist destination, certain villagers be-gan breaking away from the CBT and started their own entrepre-neurial ecotourism businesses alongside it. This entrepreneurialmodel of ecotourism is a more ‘neoliberalised’ form of marketengagement, as it is based upon ideas of free competition betweenindividuals to maximize profits by investing in accommodationson their property. At the time of my fieldwork, there were 4 entre-preneurs in the village who had started their own individual eco-tourism businesses apart from the original community-basedventure (CBT).

For the most part, however, community members do not havethe means to become entrepreneurs in ecotourism. Communitymembers in the village mostly all own several rai (Thai unit of landmeasurement equal to 1600 m2) of rice paddy fields, and often sev-eral rai for other vegetable crops. Most people in the village pro-duce a large portion of food for their own subsistence with ricebeing the staple food, and many are also engaged in some otherform of market activity to purchase the rest of the provisions theyneed each month. Some villagers occasionally offer their homes forguests who want to do a homestay, so they are able to make a littleextra money that way, though it is very modest. Women who havethe free time can also make a bit of money weaving and sellingtheir products to tourists, though again, this income is very mod-est. Most households rely mainly on agriculture and having somefamily members engage in either wage work in the National Parkin some capacity—as caretakers or cooks, for example—or sellingflowers and/or other vegetables. Most would tell me that theyare living month to month, and it can be very difficult to save

166 M. Youdelis / Geoforum 50 (2013) 161–171

money or to pay off debts. It is clear that some villagers have beenable to capitalize a great deal on ecotourism, while others continueto try to make their livelihoods with few options for generating in-come. The prevalent fears among the different stakeholders arethat community members will increasingly make decisions basedon economic self-interest, build more accommodations as theygrow their businesses, and degrade the environment and/or breakNational Park conservation regulations.

3.1. Disciplinary environmentality

In the initial stages of ecotourism in the village, the NationalPark conservation authorities and the supporting organizations—the CBT-I and the TRF—were frontrunners in educating and encour-aging community participation, with the help of some charismaticlocal leaders. The park authorities’ initial goals were to bring inmore tourists through the checkpoints—since tourists were moreinterested in staying within the villages, and the fees tourists payat the checkpoints provide the main source of income for thepark—and to encourage community members to practice park-ap-proved conservation without strict supervision. There are twomain ways that ecotourism discourse effects conservation-friendlyconduct among community members. I will begin with disciplin-ary environmentality, which seeks to ‘conduct conducts’ throughencouraging the internalization of discursive concepts, producingand reproducing regimes of truth about ‘nature’ that would nur-ture community members’ beliefs, educate their desires, and directtheir self-conducts accordingly (Foucault, 1991). This form of disci-pline involves producing and promoting governmentalizing ideasabout how one should ‘care’ about a particular understanding of‘the environment’ (Agrawal, 2005; Fletcher, 2010), inscribing newand often contradictory understandings of what environmen-tally-friendly behavior is and why it might be in one’s best interestto behave as such (Agrawal, 2005). In this case, park authoritiesand supporting organizations sought to reform villagers’ rotationalshifting agricultural practices and to stop community membersfrom gathering forest resources, cutting trees, or hunting. Whilesome have argued that shifting rotational cultivation in the high-lands was not environmentally destructive, but rather was carriedout sustainably by local peoples and contributed to increased lev-els of biodiversity (Pinkaew, 2002; Yos Santasombat, 2003), theintegrated landscapes created by such agricultural practices donot fit with the lush forested landscape that park authorities seekto conserve or that ecotourists wish to visit. Thus, new understand-ings of what it means to ‘care’ for a particular imagining of the‘environment’ were actively promoted through ecotourism.

Park conservation authorities came to the village each year totrain local guides in how to ‘properly’ care for and portray natureand culture to tourists, hoping to foster environmentalities thatwould bolster the efficacy of the monetary incentives of tourismand encourage community members to continue practicing park-approved conservation without supervision. Interestingly, theNational Park conservation authorities consider these trainingsessions to be successful. Many community members told me thatecotourism helped villagers to conserve, and they understoodconservation to mean not cutting trees, hunting, or burning forestpatches for agriculture. They expressed a love of nature con-structed as lush forested landscape and largely regarded the swid-den agricultural practices of the past as destructive. There was nota complete consensus on these points among communitymembers, and many also argued that cutting trees occasionallyfor living purposes is necessary and does not harm the forest. How-ever, for the most part, the ecotourism discourse appears to haveremade both community members’ land use behaviors as well astheir memories of the past. Rotational shifting cultivation thatwas considered sustainable and close to nature in the past is

now regarded as something that destroys nature and is no longerdesirable.

The disciplinary environmentality promoted by park authoritiesand the ecotourism project is therefore distinct from ‘Karen consen-sus’ (Walker, 2001) ideology associated with NGOs and academics,according to which rotational cultivation can be compatible withnature and sustainability. Both the environmentality and ‘Karenconsensus’ discourses retain a strong focus on community, self-suf-ficiency, and a love of nature and forests, however the environmen-tal narrative promoted by park authorities and the CBT-Iemphasizes a need to move away from rotational agriculture andfavors more intensive wet rice cultivation along mountain streams.

In addition to expressing a love for ‘nature’, community mem-bers also linked their desire to conserve an attractive nature withtourism incentives:

‘‘When tourists come here, they would like to see the forest,wildlife, the environment. They’d like to have a vacation in anice atmosphere. If we don’t protect the forest and the touristscome here and don’t see a good atmosphere. . . some peoplegrow vegetables, weave, and make things to sell to tourists.Without tourists, they can’t sell to them.’’ (‘Kasak’, Male Com-munity Member, May 25th 2011)

‘‘If tourists come, villagers would like to show them plentifulforests. Plentiful nature like waterfalls, trees. . . that’s why peo-ple don’t want to cut down the trees anymore.’’ (‘Rai Di’, FemaleCommunity Member, June 5th 2011)

Constructing nature as a place of wonder, satisfaction andenjoyment works to ‘conduct the conduct’ (Foucault, 1991) of com-munity members who wish to receive the benefits tied to ecotour-ism. As monitoring community members’ activity requires timeand resources, producing subjects who will conduct themselvesin adherence with park conservation goals through the govern-mentalizing practices of ecotourism is a far more efficient andeffective way of reforming community members’ behaviors.

Ecotourism itself is also an industry based on fantasies and de-sires for pristine, remote and romantic natural locations. Ecotour-ism advertisements portray community members in Ban MaeKlang Luang to be living ‘natural’, non-destructive and suffi-ciency-oriented lives (although swidden agriculture is no longerconsidered a desirable type of self-sufficiency). Conservation ethicsand practices are imagined to be inherent to their traditional cul-ture, passed on through generations through the sharing of rich lo-cal wisdom. The following quotations from the CBT-I website tienotions of pristine wilderness with a representation of Karen life-styles and local wisdom:

‘‘Enjoy trekking through pristine forest in Doi Inthanon NationalPark; see how the Karen people live in harmony with natureand start the day with a cup of hot, fresh, Hill tribe coffee!’’(CBT-I, 2011)

‘‘Mae Klang Luang’s rice terraces illustrate local wisdom inwater management. This is just one aspect of the Karen people’srenowned traditional knowledge, which enables a harmoniouscoexistence with the environment. From childhood, villagersexplore the forest, developing an intimate knowledge of their‘natural supermarket’ of flora and fauna.’’ (CBT-I, 2011)

In these passages, ideas of the traditional, the natural, the wiseand the exotic are bundled and imagined to characterize the livesthat community members lead. The passages imply that commu-nity members live this way simply by virtue of being Karen. Whennature is marketed in this way, community members strive toreproduce a visually stunning nature and traditional culture to en-sure tourism income, supporting the production of particular envi-ronmental ethics and behaviors.

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Through another lens, however, successfully producing andconserving a plentiful image of nature can also be a source of prideand power for the community. Many have purposefully capitalizedon ecotourism and other market opportunities, and are using theirquintessential role in ecotourism to refute myths that they are ‘for-est destroyers’ (Forsyth and Walker, 2008), as highland ethnicminorities have long been stigmatized. Community members can,to some extent, transform top-down domination into localempowerment through discourses of nature in ecotourism, con-tending that the presence of beautiful forests that tourists enjoyis testament to their skill in conservation. Community membersexplained that they are the ones who actually care for and conservethe forest, and do so far more effectively than the National Parkrangers. Respondents also felt that ecotourism had helped to in-crease understanding of their culture to both park authoritiesand lowland citizens, dispelling ideas that Karen people destroythe forest and opening space for discussion and the exchange ofknowledge with tourist audiences.

3.2. Neoliberal environmentality

The second way to effect conservation-friendly conduct amongcommunity members involves the creation of monetary incentivestructures, which comes with the marketization of landscapesand lifestyles in ecotourism. ‘Conducting conducts’ through thecreation of monetary incentive structures is what Foucault(2008) calls neoliberal governmentality, which simultaneously as-sumes and aims to produce rational economic actors who will bemotivated to behave in particular ways to receive monetary incen-tives. The increasing use of monetary incentive structures as a formof eco-government in conservation initiatives can thus be consid-ered neoliberal environmentality (Fletcher, 2010). Ecotourism dis-course uneasily incorporates both neoliberal and disciplinaryenvironmentalities, however neoliberal environmentality canoperate in contradiction with disciplinary environmentality ascommunity members find that it is more profitable to continuedeveloping their businesses than to maintain smaller, lower-im-pact ventures. Neoliberal environmentality undermines the envi-ronmental narrative as more businesses and materialdevelopment have negative environmental impacts (greater vol-umes of tourists degrade trails, use more electricity and pollute).

Community members in Ban Mae Klang Luang are pessimisticabout the development of entrepreneurial ambitions because theyfeel that this will lead to more accommodations being built bythose who are better positioned to capitalize on entrepreneurialopportunities:

‘‘The negative is that before we only had CBT, but now we havemany. People keep wanting to build more. I think the villagersshould understand that we should only have CBT. In the future,if people keep building there might be misunderstandings.’’(Wom Too, Male Community Member, July 4th 2011)

‘‘I think it’s our village, they should not build more accommoda-tions. We should just stop with what we have now.’’ (Nak Ha,Male Community Member, May 27th 2011)

The National Park conservation authority echoed some of theseconcerns:

‘‘If the community builds more accommodations, the touristswon’t feel like they’re in the country. It will feel like a small city.Tourists won’t feel comfortable.’’ (National Park conservationauthority, June 23rd 2011)

‘‘The negative thing in Mae Klang Luang is that they need quan-tity of tourists over quality. I worry about at what point thiscommunity will feel it’s enough. Some money-holders may

come and advise people to make accommodations which won’tbe in harmony with Karen culture, they’re more like bunga-lows. . .The community needs to change their concept, to thinkmore about quality than the amount of tourists. They see manytourists coming in and want to respond by building more, butthis might not be suitable for the community.’’ (National ParkConservation Authority, June 23rd 2011)

Though park authorities and the CBT-I encouraged communitymembers to embrace and seize market opportunities through eco-tourism initially, they now hope and expect that community mem-bers will be satisfied with a minimal level of business growth andmaterial development – that they ‘will feel it’s enough’. This is aninternal contradiction in the faith in market corrections to socialand environmental problems. Encouraging subjects to take stepsto maximize income can often mean expanding their businesses,however in conservation areas expansion is either illegal or contra-dictory to conservation principles.

Of course, not all community members are against entrepre-neurial ambitions. Undoubtedly those who have started ecotour-ism businesses are excited to have more opportunities forincome in the village. Several community members without themeans to start their own businesses at the moment also hope tostart businesses in the future, indicating that despite any currentdisapproval, they too would choose to participate if they had theopportunity. The fact that many community members desire to en-gage in business opportunities regardless of whether they have de-nounced the entrepreneurs indicates the production of particularentrepreneurial economic subjectivities in the village. The entre-preneurs share the desire to improve their businesses and seemto want to continue building accommodations. One business own-er professed to me, ‘‘If I have the money to build one accommoda-tion a year, I will’’ (Pai Tu, Female Community Member, May 28th2011).

Neoliberal environmentality thus undermines disciplinary envi-ronmentality through encouraging material expansion, but alsoundermines community development goals by encouraging indi-vidualism and through the unequal distribution of tourism bene-fits. The CBT model of market engagement through ecotourismcan be understood as more protectionist (Polanyi, 1944), as thebusiness is meant to belong to the community at large, standardwages are given to CBT employees, and there is an attempt tospread surplus earnings back into the community through variousvillage programs. This distribution system would make it more dif-ficult for certain people to amass surplus earnings, and the com-munity could theoretically decide as a group whether or not tobuild new accommodations. However, the business and manage-ment training involved in initiating ecotourism in the village alongwith the incentives to try to capture tourist spending—in otherwords, the neoliberal environmentality embedded within the eco-tourism project—has led to the development of a more ‘self-regu-lating’ entrepreneurial model of ecotourism in the village.Entrepreneurs have no limit to what they can make through eco-tourism, and they are not obliged to share their earnings withthe rest of the community by investing in community projects. Ifthey do choose to donate, it is up to them how often or how muchthey will give. This system is more individualist, as it is understoodthat entrepreneurs are free to do as they please with their ownland and their own money. However, as many don’t have themeans to become entrepreneurs, the development of new busi-nesses in the village is causing tensions among communitymembers:

‘‘I disagree with this. If they build their own business, the ben-efits only go to themselves, not the whole community.’’ (Soyeh,May 26th 2011)

168 M. Youdelis / Geoforum 50 (2013) 161–171

‘‘I’d like to see everyone work as one group. I don’t agree withthe people who start their own businesses. If people worktogether, even if not everyone gets money from tourism theywill get knowledge. People with their own businesses get thebenefits just for themselves, it doesn’t go to anyone else inthe community.’’ (La Pon, June 21st 2011)

‘‘When we use the environment, or nature, we use the sameenvironment. We conserve together. But people who build theirown businesses, they use more than the community uses. Alsothey get more benefits than the community gets. They’re look-ing for money.’’ (Sak Pat, May 20th 2011)

It is clear that the monetary incentives of ecotourism have con-tributed to the perceived increase in individualism among commu-nity members. Since livelihood choices as well as personal luxuriesare made possible by available capital, increasing one’s personal in-come increases one’s individual freedom of choice. Frustrated withthe loss of communal control over tourism in the village, many vil-lagers now blame the idea of money and the pursuit of profits forchanging the ways that people relate to one another, eroding theperceived community cohesion of the past and replacing it with self-ish, individualistic behavior. Furthermore, increasing individualismis making many community members feel that despite their disap-proval of new businesses starting up beyond the CBT, they do nothave the right to voice their discontent. Or, they feel that perhapseven if they did voice their discontent, it would have no bearing onhow entrepreneurs would choose to proceed. If certain communitymembers have the economic means to build accommodations, thegeneral consensus in the village is that they have the individual free-dom to do so despite opposition within the community.

In addition to increasing individualism, empirical work on mar-ket-led conservation has demonstrated that there is a tendency forsuch interventions to exaggerate inequalities between local peo-ples, as the faith that market engagement will improve the livesof everyone ignores existing patterns of stratification and unevenaccess to resources (McElwee, 2012; Pokorny et al., 2012). Thiscase is no exception, as certain community members have beenable to seize entrepreneurial opportunities in ecotourism whilemost have not. To join with CBT at its inception, community mem-bers either needed money to invest as a shareholder, or needed tobe secure enough already in meeting their livelihood needs to havefree time to work as guide or work in the CBT accommodations. Asmany were struggling to meet livelihood needs under restrictiveconservation laws, many did not have the money or free time toget involved and thus received no returns from ecotourism. At first,this separated members of CBT from non-members in terms ofbenefits received from ecotourism. Since the start of new individ-ual ecotourism businesses, the new business owners now receiveeven more benefits than both members and non-members ofCBT. To start an individual business and build accommodations,community members need capital, free time and, most impor-tantly, land space to build. Since few have this, the hierarchy ofopportunities and benefits received continues to grow.

There is also some division in opportunities between men andwomen in the village. Community members agreed that there areless lucrative opportunities for women in ecotourism—they mainlyweave and sell some products to tourists—and some women in thevillage feel that there is also inequality between women. Womenwith the free time available to weave Karen-style clothing to sellto tourists are able to make some income, while women who areoccupied with full time jobs do not:

‘‘Mostly women do the weaving, some sell things to tourists.Not many guide or have their own businesses. There aren’tmany opportunities for women.’’ (Pai Tu, Female CommunityMember, May 28th 2011)

‘‘People who weave get benefits from tourism. People like mehave to go work every day, so we don’t have time to do weaving.It’s not the same.’’ (Jin Pa, Female Community Member, June13th 2011)

Of course, some women like Pai Tu, who runs an individual eco-tourism business with her husband, will say that women have justas much opportunity as men do, and that it is their choice whetherto participate or not. ‘‘If they are bold, they can do it’’, she told meassuredly. However, she had access to land and capital left to herthrough family, and so was in a position to capitalize from the out-set. Furthermore, framing opportunities and successes in ecotour-ism as being based on individual choices is frustrating for somecommunity members who do not feel that they truly have a choiceto participate given their financial situation.

3.3. Internal tensions and conflicts

Many community members have been mobilizing ideas of whatit means to be properly ‘Karen’ in resistance to the individualityand profit-seeking that they associate with entrepreneurship inecotourism. This discourse draws from the historically constructed‘Karen consensus’ (Walker, 2001) ideology that paints Karen com-munities as sufficiency-oriented and resistant to commercial inter-ests, although it differs in that it condemns rotational shiftingagriculture and promotes new understandings of ‘nature’, ‘suffi-ciency’, and ‘sustainability’. This discourse is itself arguably a thirddistinct form of environmentality that draws on traditional envi-ronmental knowledge (TEK) and sufficiency economy ideology asthe basis of governance. This culturally specific version of environ-mentality corresponds with what Foucault calls the ‘art of govern-ment according to truth’ or truth environmentality, which arguesfor particular kinds of land and resource use ‘‘based on claims con-cerning humans’ essential interconnection with nature, an inter-connection commonly understood as evolutionarily derived’’(Fletcher, 2010: 177).

Along with anxieties over ‘losing culture’ and concerns thattheir village will become like a ‘small city’, community membersshared very specific ideas about what is natural – and thereforeassociated with beauty, morality and ‘Karen-ness’ – and what isnot natural – and rather associated with city-dwelling people, anindifference towards nature and a lack of community values. Cor-responding ideas of nature to the ‘traditional’ Karen way of life(although the rotational shifting cultivation of the past no longerfactors into what is considered traditional) reinforces feelings ofmorality around conserving both the natural environment andthe culture of a small-scale rural community. Nature and culturein past and undeveloped states are cast as more ‘Karen’ than mod-ern, built environments. This encourages conservation through asort of normalizing pressure – the idea being that if communitymembers love nature and love being Karen, they should not wantto build many modern-style accommodations or abandon their ricefields in search of profits through ecotourism.

Another important aspect of the discursive (re)construction ofKaren culture, and one that is consistent with romanticizing thepast, is the prevalent idea that ‘rice over money’ founds the Karenvalue system. The mindset that rice should always be more impor-tant than money and profit-seeking is increasingly considered amark of ‘Karen-ness’, and those who care more about income-gen-erating opportunities are considered to have lost their way. SeveralKaren songs have been written expressing this idea, and are playedfor tourist audiences during cultural performances around the CBTaccommodations. I had the chance to watch one particular Karenmusical performance with a group of students visiting from Malay-sia. The musician made a point of explaining the meaning of thelyrics of each song before he began, each preaching the importance

M. Youdelis / Geoforum 50 (2013) 161–171 169

of valuing rice and sufficiency agriculture more than businessinterests. This was translated into English by a teacher from theMalaysian school for the audience to absorb and appreciate.

Community members also repeated the ‘rice over money’ ideato me consistently during interviews:

‘‘Rice is very important for life, more than money. If you havemoney but no rice you cannot survive. This is what the oldKaren people always teach the children.’’ (‘Sa Rak’, Male Com-munity Member, May 15th 2011)

‘‘Some people care about money, they don’t care about plantingrice for surviving. We should care about rice more than money.’’(‘Tam Kom’, Male Community Member, May 19th 2011)

‘‘If Karen care more about money than rice, they can’t survive. Ifthey care more about rice, that’s Karen.’’ (‘Too Poh’, Male Com-munity Member, June 14th 2011)

What is fascinating is that even the community members whohave broken away from the community-based venture in pursuitof their own business goals will echo this rhetoric. It seems thatthis attitude is one of an ‘ideal’ Karen community member, anddifferent members of the community negotiate and grapple withthis idea to varying extents. In terms of conducting conduct,denouncing money and linking morality with sufficiency ricefarming works to slow business growth and to make people morereluctant to turn their cropland into tourist accommodations. The‘rice over money’ aspect to the performativity of a Karen culturalidentity is therefore consistent with the park’s vision of ecotour-ism continuing to bring in park revenue, but not having villagersfeel free to overly capitalize, develop and challenge the park’sconservation regulations. Ironically, though, the image of a tradi-tional and nature-loving Karen community is precisely what at-tracts tourists to the village, and thus entrepreneurship inecotourism can also benefit in some ways from this discourse.However, appeals to ‘Karen-ness’ and the socio-environmentalbehavior this prescribes seems to be the best recourse for com-munity members who disagree with the entrepreneurial ecotour-ism businesses but cannot otherwise stop entrepreneurs fromdeveloping.

It is interesting that the neoliberal and disciplinary environ-mentalities were discussed very differently within the community.The disciplinary environmentality discourse was not overly criti-cized – at least it was not overly criticized in interviews with me.Community members generally endorsed ideas that nature shouldbe loved and conserved, and that conservation entails eliminatingswidden, hunting, and cutting trees. Of course, several communitymembers admitted that they continued to hunt or cut trees on oc-casion, but not often or to the extent that it would damage the for-est. Some community members also did not agree completely withthe way that the park rangers envisioned and enforced conserva-tion and, behind closed doors, I suspect many did not fully agreethat shifting rotational cultivation destroys the forest. However,in general, disciplinary environmentality was accepted in the vil-lage, while neoliberal environmentality was roundly criticized bymany villagers even as they engaged in entrepreneurial activities.The way that villagers criticized neoliberal environmentality wasby drawing on environmental narratives and linking them to Karenidentities—making the (re)constructed ‘Karen consensus’ ideologya third kind of ‘truth environmentality’ in itself. In part, villagers’criticisms were about how neoliberal environmentality—or ‘‘sell-ing nature to save it’’ (McAfee, 1999)—was undermining the envi-ronmental narrative. Thus, mobilizing ideas of ‘Karen-ness’ inresistance to entrepreneurship is, in effect, a way of mobilizing aKaren-specific truth environmentality as a basis for critique of neo-liberal environmentality.

4. Discussion and conclusions

This paper attempts to explain contradictory outcomes in mar-ket-oriented conservation by looking at the internal contradictionsin distinct types of governmentalizing processes deployed throughecotourism as a conservation strategy. Fletcher’s (2010) post-struc-tural political ecology framework explains that different discreteand contradictory environmentalities operate simultaneouslywhen ecotourism is used as a conservation strategy. The simulta-neous operation of neoliberal and disciplinary environmentalities,promoting the internalization of ethical norms as well as creatingeconomic incentive structures to condition subjects’ behaviors,clearly forces conservation and development interests into opposi-tion. Both types of environmentality are necessary for ecotourism,but they fundamentally contradict one another. This point is evi-dent in the case of Ban Mae Klang Luang, as community memberswho are positioned to capitalize on entrepreneurial opportunitiesin ecotourism are finding that it would be more profitable to con-tinue developing their businesses than to maintain smaller, lower-impact ventures.

The incentive structures of ecotourism along with the trainingprograms encouraging community members to seize ecotourismopportunities as an alternative to clearing the forest have also con-tributed to an increase in individualism, where individuals are freeto pursue personal business goals and enter into competition withone another rather than managing ecotourism as a community.Since entrepreneurs are merely acting as rational economic actorswithin their means, others in the community feel that they cannotrightfully speak up and tell entrepreneurs to stop building. Theethos of economic individualism that sees the desire for more asa necessary motivating force behind economic growth obscuresthe social and environmental implications of behaving as such(Gibson-Graham, 2006; Polanyi, 1944). This is creating palpabletensions and increasing inequality among community membersas some are able to amass surplus value from ecotourism whileothers are not.

Although ecotourism is quintessentially considered a neoliberalconservation strategy by social scientists (Roth and Dressler, 2012;Fletcher, 2012; Igoe and Brockington, 2007), there are differentforms of market engagement possible through ecotourism, somemore protectionist and some more in line with neoliberal philoso-phies than others. Karl Polanyi (1944) distinguishes betweenprotectionist or instituted markets and the ‘neoliberalised’ or‘self-regulating’ market form. His concept of the ‘‘double move-ment’’, where neoliberal policy makers push for ‘free’ market man-agement while networks of actors push back to enact protectionistmeasures, is pertinent to the debates around market-led conserva-tion. Through this lens, neoliberal conservation and developmentinitiatives do not necessarily represent a break from the past, butrather are part of the struggle and strains involved in the pursuitof self-regulating market systems and the moves people make toconstruct more controlled markets. As I explained, the CBT modelof ecotourism can be understood as more protectionist than theentrepreneurial model which is more compatible with neoliberalphilosophies of free market competition, individual freedoms andprivate property. Despite the neoliberal ideal, managing conserva-tion and livelihoods through ‘free’ market engagement in this waydoes not bring the greatest good to all community members, andthe expansion of individual businesses runs contrary to the conser-vation goals of the park and to those of the ecotourism discourseitself. Many respondents expressed a desire to return to the CBTmodel of ecotourism and manage the business communally, ensur-ing surplus value is redistributed and invested in community pro-jects such as road maintenance, conservation or youth programs.Feeling as though they cannot force entrepreneurs to return to a

170 M. Youdelis / Geoforum 50 (2013) 161–171

communally run project, however, many community membershave begun appealing to ideas of a self-sufficient Karen identityto dissuade entrepreneurs from developing too quickly.

In Northern Thailand, the ‘hill tribes’ and the rural agrarian life-style provide an exotic draw for tourists, and Karen ethnic minoritymembers in particular are represented as self-sufficient and natureloving peoples with rich local wisdom in nature conservation(Walker, 2001). It has been argued that articulating particularself-sufficient or traditional indigenous identities can be politicallyeffective in gaining rights to land and access to resources for indig-enous peoples, but that this also often seriously restricts how thesecommunities are able to live and develop (Li, 2000; Tsing, 1999;Walker, 2001). In these arguments, however, the communitiesand their allies have articulated collective indigenous identitiesin response to threats external to the community, or to receivesupport from governments or NGOs (Tsing, 1999). However, differ-ent people within each community have very different motivationsfor internalizing and articulating particular indigenous identities.In Ban Mae Klang Luang, several community members articulateand promote a self-sufficient, nature-loving Karen identity to resistand express their disapproval of the individualism and inequalitythat they perceive to be associated with entrepreneurship in eco-tourism. In this case, villagers are articulating traditional Karenidentities in response to internal threats produced through in-creased entrepreneurship and expansion of accommodations. Putdifferently, villagers are promoting a Karen-specific truth environ-mentality in resistance to the negative effects of the contradictionsbetween the neoliberal and disciplinary environmentalities operat-ing in the ecotourism project. As time goes on and ecotourismdevelopment continues, tensions between the community’s idealvision of ‘Karen-ness’ and entrepreneurial ambitions are likely tointensify.

Despite the critiques from social scientists, the neoliberalisationof conservation governance continues to proliferate in policy cir-cles as the neoliberal ideal still implies that conservation anddevelopment interests can indeed be reconciled, and that develop-ment will benefit the community at large – a kind of ‘rising tideswill raise all boats’ rhetoric. As Gibson-Graham explains, ‘‘Mosttheories of neoliberal rationality assume a certainty and a suffi-ciency that blind us to the potential failures or faltering momentsof this new governmental technology’’ (2006: 4). The rationalitybehind the neoliberalisation of conservation governance has cer-tainly been critiqued in academic literature, but market-basedinterventions will remain popular with policy makers withoutempirical data that details the contradictions and the challengesof incorporating market logics in conservation (Roth and Dressler,2012). This research therefore contributes to these debates bydemonstrating the messy, ironic and contradictory ways that mar-kets in conservation zones are embraced and contested through lo-cal on-the-ground engagements. The internal contradiction inencouraging both disciplinary and neoliberal environmentalitiescalls the long-term viability of ecotourism as a neoliberal conserva-tion strategy into question.

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