Cultural Commodification and Tourism in Kalash Valley: A Case Study of Bumburet Village, District Chitral

Abstract

Cultural commodification is a process in which cultural items and artifacts such as cultural dresses, customs, rituals, and expressions are brought to the market and sold to the tourists for money. Cultural tourism is one of the key players in the commodification of tangible and intangible cultural artifacts in the market. Through a qualitative research strategy, this paper examines cultural commodification and cultural tourism in Kalash Valley. The data were collected through in-depth interviews, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions for this study, and the respondents were sampled using convenient sampling, purposive sampling, and simple random sampling techniques. Thematic analysis was used for generating themes using framework analysis.
Through thematic analysis of data with a descriptive case study, this paper shows us the impact of cultural tourism and cultural commodification in Kalash valley in district Chitral Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan. The study shows that cultural commodification and cultural tourism have uneven benefits for the stakeholders involved in it by benefiting the privileged ones while exploiting the
underprivileged and the poor section of the society.