Turismo y soberanía nacional: aproximación comparada a los casos del Archipiélago de San Andrés, Providencia y Santa Catalina (Colombia) y las Islas Galápagos (Ecuador)

This paper is based on the need to understand the political functionality of tourism in the case of territories far from the center of State power. Preliminarily explores tourism as a dispositive used by the Colombian and Ecuadorian States to exercise national sovereignty in the archipelagos of San Andres, Providencia and Santa Catalina, and the Galapagos Islands. The questions we seek to solve inquire about the conditions of the emergence of tourism in these areas: How it became the main economic activity of its inhabitants, the role played by States in their emergence and development, and the strategies historically employed to exercise the sovereignty in these sections of national territories. In the end, we hope to show some initial ideas to think the relationship between tourism and sovereignty strategies for the cases analyzed.