Graduation Year
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
Geosciences
Major Professor
Martin Bosman, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Estelí Jiménez Soto, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Seth Cavello, Ph.D.
Keywords
Sustainable Tourism Development, Commodification of Nature, Racialized Accumulation by Dispossession, Heritage Commodification, Sacrifice Zones
Abstract
The Caracol Road Project is a new BZ$148,100,000 (US$74,050,000) road infrastructure development in the Cayo District of Belize and financed largely by foreign sovereign wealth funds. The areas adjacent to the road, broken into two phases include: communities, forest reserves, national parks, recreational areas, private lands and estates, and archaeological sites. This paper seeks to ask the questions: (i) For whom is the CRP being developed? (ii) For what is the CRP being developed? (iii) What visual evidence exists of sacrifice zones because of the production of the CRP? I sought to answer these questions through ethnographic observations, interviews, and producing visual imagery which included maps and photographs. The results stem from branches of critical Political Ecology framework, including Sustainable Tourism Development and the production of Sacrifice Zones. Results indicate in Phase I, the road has altered how people are able to travel to and from villages and create community events but has increased access to global northerners who seek to purchase large swathes of land. In Phase II, the Government of Belize will use the new Caracol Road to securitize conservation for the development of tourism sites and continue to militarize the Belize-Guatemala border.
Scholar Commons Citation
Pantano, Lorenzo A., "A Political Ecological Exploration of the Caracol Road Project in Belize" (2025). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/11062
