Identity as Work: Changing Job Opportunities and Indigenous Identity in the Transition to a Tourist Economy

This article, based on ethnographic research carried out in the Chorotega indigenous reservation in northwestern Costa Rica between 1993 and 2007, traces the social and economic changes that have shifted the dominant trend from masking indigenous identity to embracing and promoting it. The growth of the tourism sector in areas near the reservation and the resulting participation by the Chorotega in heritage tourism have had repercussions on employment options for individuals on or from the reservation.