ABSTRACT
This thesis investigates the tourism in the State of Paraíba, mesoregion Northeast of Brazil,
from the conventional and alternative axes. The investigation of Paraiba tourism refers to the
turistified territories of the capital, and to the community that raise issues that guide the thesis,
because the relations and correlations between these axes are verified. It focuses on the
insurgencies of community-based organizations in rural areas in the face of the expansion of
conventional tourism, based on the aegis of capital, based on territories and subjects. It
analyzes to the mediations and to the historical, political and social process of formation of
the tourism in Paraíba, the articulations of the productive chains of the conventional and
alternative tourism. The context of tourism refers to the expansion of activity under the
capitalist logic that widens inequalities, promotes appropriation of the territory and
expropriates subjects. The thesis adopts the dialectical method for the understanding of
tourism as a totality, approaching it from the geographical perspective. It integrates the
articulation of the concepts of tourism, territory and community to the analysis of lived
reality. It includes the understanding that reality is the result of human production and
localized temporarily, thus considering the complexity of life, the coexistence of social and
political relations and the formation of multiple territorialities permeated by determinations
and contradictions. It is verified how rural communities are organized and articulated to offer
tourist services. Tourism, whether on the conventional or alternative axis, alters the living
conditions of the recipient nuclei in an unequal and combined way, depending on economic
capacity, accumulated intellectual capital and local cultural dynamics. The tourism of Paraíba
is due to the way in which the activity is treated by state and market policies, as opposed to
the socioeconomic context, a local political framework that articulates oligarchic interests
with the agents of private institutions. Tourism organized by communities is based on
cooperation to increase employment and income, protect the environment and fight for the
maintenance of the cultural identities represented by the rural way of life. It can be said that
community tourism and conventional tourism constitute a totality, components that are
articulated in a contradictory way in Paraíba, but that result in the expansion of access to
education, technical training and improvement of the quality of life of rural communities, the
role of women in business and community leadership.
Keywords: Tourism. Community. Territory. Rural Space. Paraíba.
