The purpose of this project is to analyze colonial legacies present in community-engagement tourism (CET) in Puerto Rico. Though the main objective of CET is often understood as empowering local communities through tourism, the inherent colonial power structures often undermine this goal. Because colonialism is a persistent phenomenon in Puerto Rico, a colonial framework exposes colonialism’s intricate and enduring legacy, especially as it manifests through CET and impacts local populations. Through the analysis of a Puerto Rican case study, this research will highlight the emergence of potential colonial legacies through CET. Analyzing colonial legacies through community-engagement tourism in Puerto Rico is significant for tourism geography as tourism continues to shift and adapt in Latin America. Because of colonialism’s complicated nature, it is difficult to propose solutions that adapt to every context within Latin America’s tourism industry.
This participatory mapping project was begun with the goal of giving voice to historically marginalized populations in Latin America by spatially, temporally, visually, and audially recording details of sexual assault and harassment through a Smartphone application (app). Through collaboration with UWEC’s Department of Geography and Anthropology, Latinx and Latin American Studies (LAS), and the Immersions Office, the app prototype was completed in 2022. The app was beta-tested during the summer of 2025 through an Immersions Office partner institution, the Universidad de Congreso in Mendoza, Argentina. Ms. Avery Dresel, a Spanish-speaking LAS and Geography student, and Dr. DeGrave, are now working with the Department of Computer Science to redesign the app based on the feedback from focus groups of university students in Argentina. Ms. Dresel played a key role in capturing the thoughts, ideas, and reflections of these students while openly and successfully addressing our colonial presence and positionality in Argentina and in the representations of local input into the app.
