Misrepresenting Communities: The Politics of Community‐Based Rural Ecotourism in Gales Point Manatee, Belize1

ABSTRACT While the celebration of community in conservation provides legitimization to contest centrist and coercive protected area management strategies, representations of community in resource management writings and in particular strategies such as ecotourism, are often based on simplistic images and generic models that ignore politics. Based on research in a community‐based rural ecotourism project in Gales Point Manatee, Belize, from 1992–1998, the paper provides concrete examples of how the politics of class, gender, and patronage inequities limit the co‐management of ecotourism associations, equitable distribution of ecotourism income, and support for conservation regulations across the community. Attention to multiple interests and identities within the rural community and their relationships to external actors, political institutions, and national policies are critical to understanding the challenges facing community‐based conservation in Belize and demonstrated the relevance of such attention elsewhere.