Turismo no Rio Negro: pelos caminhos das representações sociais dos comunitários do Lago do Acajatuba e da Vila de Paricatuba (Iranduba-AM)

Abstract

The aim of this study is to identify and analyze the social representation of Nossa Senhora do Perpétuo Socorro, São Thomé and Paricatuba village community residents facing the tourism and leisure activities. In its specifics, the paper aims to describe each communities of the study; characterize the space usage by tourism and leisure activities; recreates the path of the selected communities using tourism and leisure activities; identify the social representations of the institutions that support tourism in communities; and propose sustainable practices for tourism and leisure to community residents from the thesis work. The three communities are located in the municipality of Iranduba, the interior of Amazonas, bordering the protected areas. The protected areas, two are state and a municipal, making the Protected Areas Mosaic of the Lower Rio Negro – PAMLRN. In the face of urban growth in the last decades, the infrastructure works and the municipality have been incorporated into the Metropolitan Region of Manaus - MRM, established in 2007, tourism has been expanding and transforming into a significant activity for this region. It starts with the empirical observation that the study locus communities are places of exploitation by tourism and, although there are Community initiatives trying to develop it, they are insufficient to generate sustainable tourism in its three main areas: social, environmental and economic. Among the different study traditions of social thought, which are present in the field of research in social representations, appealed to the great theory, originally proposed by Moscovici. This means that in conducting the study, the knowledge of the residents of the three communities, generated in everyday communication and social practices are supported by which social representations are revealed. Aiming to facilitate the understanding of the work, the social representations were divided into three categories focused on place, tourism and leisure and to support tourism institutions. These categories were selected realizing that they are often linked to the discourse of community residents elected focused work. It is a qualitative research with multimethod approach, integrating different tools such as observation, interviews, focus groups and participatory workshops for tourism planning and cognitive maps. In every community, there are different social representations of tourism and leisure, the place and the institutions that support tourism. Internal conflicts, the socio-historical context, worldviews, differentiate into each of them and the representations arise and change from each reality. At times the visions consistent, the study of social representations of social actors of Nossa Senhora do Perpétuo Socorro, São Thomé e Paricatuba indicates that their communities are places of belonging; these social actors perceive tourism as an income-generating activity; and the need to strengthen the presence of institutions that support tourism in each.