Tourism: A Collective Trauma in Peru

On my plane ride to Peru, I was lucky enough to sit beside an elderly Lima native named Ines. Between sips of airline red wine, we discussed our families, our values, and our homes. I told her about my excitement to come to Peru. She told me how tourism has stripped Peruvians of their quality of life, limited their ability to utilize Peru’s resources for their own livelihood, and created “un trauma colectiva.” At the end of the flight, she pulled the pink beaded bracelet she was wearing off of her wrist and put it on mine.

My interaction with Ines primed me to notice the trickle-down manifestations–the true reality–of this trauma. When I got off the plane and spent my first few days in Lima, I was struck by the sheer number of tourists flooding the airport and the city streets. So many shops, restaurants, and establishments seemed to be catered to a tourist audience, from stores advertising “authentic” Peruvian souvenirs to surf instructors along the coast encouraging American passersby to come experience the Lima waters. 

This all seems to establish a very particular sociocultural relationship in which Peruvians address tourists’ needs and meet their demands, and tourists provide the compensation that enables locals’ economic survival. Peruvians, then, assume the role of the servers, the hotel custodians, the street cleaners, the business advertisers, and even the street panhandlers; they clear the dirty dishes, wash the soiled sheets, sweep the dusty roads, and do whatever they must to get a hold of even a fraction of the monetary resources brought forth by foreign tourists. 

Within this relationship, a clear power dynamic unfolds–one in which tourists have the means and the freedom to explore the stunning features of the Andes mountains equipped with all the best gear, to enjoy the therapeutic luxury of self-discovery through international travel, to cultivate a quasi-bohemian (and likely culturally-appropriated) aesthetic, all while local Peruvians are constrained to clean up the messes left behind. 

The social impact of tourism isn’t limited only to economic transactions. It seems to also materialize in the most intimate practices of daily life. When our group observed the Quechua mass in the Parroquie de Pisac in the Sacred Valley, I noticed how we were joined by a larger audience of other foreign tourists, hungry for a taste of authentic Incan expression. I tried to put myself in the position of the local attendees. How strange it must feel for your religious space to be constantly infiltrated by tourists who come to watch your spiritual practice because they find it amusing. As I admired the vibrant traditional garb worn by the church’s congregants and the beauty of the Quechua language, I began to feel out of place from the pew where I observed. 

It seems to me that tourism has rendered local Peruvians objects of study, of service, of exotic interest, of economic consumption, and of transactional value rather than as subjects and human beings in their own right. 

I would be remiss not to acknowledge how tourism largely upholds the Peruvian economy and singlehandedly enables the livelihood of many citizens. It is also fair to say that tourists like myself possess the right to experience and discover the stunning features Peru has to offer without an overwhelming feeling of imposition or guilt.

Holding these many truths, I’m not sure there is any real way to address the issues and dynamics I’ve discussed. However, I think it’s worthwhile to illuminate the harms–the “traumas colectivas”–present in the Peruvian tourism industry as it stands today.

My experiences in Peru thus far have made me question my own positionality as a foreign visitor. How much of this land is for Peruvians to truly own, and how much of it is mine to fleetingly experience?

Now, I look down at the pink beaded bracelet Ines gave me, and I wish she had kept it for herself.