A model for global collaboration on tourism microentrepreneurship

As has been aptly explained before, poverty and development policy are global phenomena, tourism retail channels and supply chains bridge the global North and the global South, and environmental degradation is caused by complex human, ecological and technological conditions.  Accordingly, P1t scholarship transcends disciplinary silos and national borders, and in doing so, it strives to produce impactful research-based solutions for tourism’s persistent failure to engender equitable and sustainable development.  

This month, we are working in Johannesburg, engaging local students and colleagues from various disciplines in the University of Johannesburg in discussions about tourism and equitable development.  We are inviting scrutiny of P1t scholarship and methodologies, and we are exploring first-hand new local manifestations of tourism microentrepreneurship.  More, we are probing the connections between our P1t scholarship and possibly relevant theory and ideology born in South Africa – an epicenter of socio-political renewal and grassroots emancipation against the hegemonic power of local elites and external interests. 

  

Through these informal and often heated interactions, we force P1t scholarship to remain open and relevant. 

P1t started at NC State University in the US in March 2011; but P1t became a registered community-based project in the University of Johannesburg under Gijsbert Hoogendoorn’s leadership in May 2015.  Furthermore, P1t is a key project of Wits University’s Knowledge Hub for Rural Development.

Gijsbert Hoogendoorn, University of Johannesburg

Duarte B. Morais, North Carolina State University