The role of merchants in the Zumbahua market in the transmission of ancestral knowledge and their tourist potential

Abstract

This article analyzes the role of vendors in the Zumbahua market, in the province of Cotopaxi, in the preservation and transmission of ancestral knowledge, while simultaneously evaluating its potential as a cultural tourism attraction. This market space transcends the commercial sphere, consolidating itself as a center of social, cultural, and economic resistance for the Kichwa people of the region. Traditional knowledge related to agricultural practices, ancestral medicine, handicrafts, typical gastronomy, and the use of the Kichwa language converge there. Through a qualitative and ethnographic approach, complemented by mixed data from 45 people and interviews with 20 vendors, the results reveal a worrying crisis in intergenerational transmission. Migration, monolingual Spanish-only schooling, and globalization are causing disinterest or alienation among younger generations from local agricultural and botanical practices. Additionally, the study reveals the partial continued existence of reciprocal economies such as bartering and haggling. Finally, the research determines that the current relationship between tourist flow and the market follows a transit or enclave model, where visitors to Quilotoa Lagoon make brief stops for purely photographic and contemplative purposes. This fosters cultural and visual extraction without direct economic redistribution to the community. The study concludes that there is an urgent need to formulate local co-management public policies that provide the market with adequate infrastructure and promote community-based tourism with distributive justice.