Knowing the mule: faring well in Moroccan mountain tourism
View/ Open
Date
03/07/2018Item status
Restricted AccessEmbargo end date
03/07/2019Author
Cousquer, Glen Olivier
Metadata
Abstract
The emergence of the mule’s role as a beast of burden working in mountain tourism is
founded on our appreciation of this species’ great attributes as a means of transport in
the mountain environment. Our appreciation of mules does not always extend to their
care and welfare. This is particularly true of the mountain tourism industry in Morocco,
where this study is situated. Why has there been a collective absencing of the mule
from the consciences of those involved in this industry? In seeking to answer this
question and in moving towards the question of how the mountain tourism industry can
be more present to the mule and to mule welfare, this thesis explores the multiple ways
in which we know the mule. Drawing on a ten-year engagement with the industry,
extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the High Atlas and an Action Research initiative
supporting tour operators as they develop and implement welfare policy and practice,
this thesis explores how mule welfare can be viewed as emerging from a multiplicity of
practices that, in failing to cohere, become subject to negotiation and ontological
politics. An alternative community approach based on dialogue is evoked that might
allow a consensus to emerge over how welfare should be practised. The thesis focuses
on the quality of the relationship between mules and humans. It emphasises the
importance of genuine meeting and dialogue and the need for spaces and places in
which mules and humans can come together to identify how they can establish
relationships based on mutual trust and understanding rather than on control and
domination. In prototyping better relationships between mules, muleteers and their
employers, this thesis offers the mountain tourism industry transformative pathways
toward a more equitable and sustainable co-creative project.