Activist Social Capital and Destination Justice in Tribal Tourism: A Conceptual Framework from Chhattisgarh, India

Abstract

Tourism destinations are increasingly shaped by conflicts over participation, cultural representation, ecological responsibility and uneven benefit-sharing. In tribal tourism contexts, these conflicts become more complex because tourism often depends on community culture, forest landscapes, sacred sites, rivers, waterfalls, animals and other socio-ecological resources. This paper develops the concept of activist social capital to explain how tourism-related marginalisation can be transformed into collective capacity for destination justice. Drawing on tourism activism, destination social capital and marginalisation scholarship, the paper proposes the Activist Social Capital Framework for Destination Justice in Tribal Tourism. Using Chhattisgarh, India, as a contextual lens, the framework explains how tourism-led marginalisation may generate proximity-based concern, how such concern becomes organised through bonding, bridging and linking forms of activist social capital, and how collective action may contribute to more just tourism governance. The paper argues that tourism activism should not be understood only as protest, boycott or confrontation. In tribal tourism, it may also appear through community claims for cultural consent, local participation, ecological safeguards, benefit-sharing and institutional accountability. The study contributes conceptually by reframing social capital as a justice-oriented resource and by extending destination justice to include both human and non-human actors.