Ecos da Barra: comunidade, turismo e desenvolvimento sustentável

Abstract

The present work puts forward a community center project to be installed in Barra Grande, a beachside area located in the town of Cajueiro da Praia – Piauí. The proposal is based on the demands of the local population, which claims a more inclusive community with a wider democratic participation, thus allowing local inhabitants to take part not only in the processes of local structural development but also in the decisions concerning public policy aimed at strengthening local economy and tourism. This work analyses the power relations currently in place and the changes that occurred in local lifestyle during the last decades, primarily due to the exploitation of mass tourism. It also examines the concepts of tourism and sustainability, notions deemed here essential to both the study’s theoretical framework and the considerations about the best viable approaches towards a local sustainable development. In order to buttress the final proposition of this work, the study also relies on ongoing projects and practices in different States, thus finally advancing the construction of a community centre with potential to reinstate the local polity of Barra Grande as a central actor in its own sociocultural and economic life through professional training of native inhabitants, cultural integration and shared community management.