Policies for the rural tourism and the promotion of the environmental language: ethnography about hiking on the Vale do Ivaí, Paraná

Abstract

This article focuses empirically on the promotion and organization of hiking events as Paraná State’s public policy. In this context, we have investigated the way in which the state's action is related to a range of broader changes that have contributed to turn the environmental issue into a sort of language that is not restricted to the ecological realm, but is instead capable of functioning as a moral, ethic and aesthetic paradigm. In this sense, we are interested in both the institutionalization of environmental issues and in their accommodation with specific contexts of social relations. In order to understand that, we have centered our analysis on the hikers themselves and on the way they experience hiking, giving meaning to notions such as ecology, nature and rural landscapes. We have also examined state actions and their ability to coordinate economic development, ecology, family farming and tourism while promoting hiking events.