Cultural villages as drivers of rural poverty alleviation in Namibia: the case of Uukwaludhi Royal Homestead / Goodman Gwasira; Martha Akawa; Ndapewa Fenny Nakanyete

Includes list of references

This paper is located in cultural tourism studies. It interrogates the concept of a cultural village as applied in the Namibian context. The paper investigates the viability of cultural villages using the Uukwaludhi royal homestead as a case study. Using visitors’ statistics (from Uukwaludhi royal homestead), we argue that cultural villages on their own are not viable income generation projects and therefore cannot be catalysts for rural
poverty alleviation. Instead, cultural villages are useful for preserving local knowledge systems in the same way museums do. We posit further that cultural villages can stimulate other affiliate projects that can assist in alleviating poverty in rural settings if the unique socio-cultural and environmental characteristics of a given cultural village are harnessed.