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Reconciling formal and informal decision-making on ecotourist infrastructure in Sagada, Philippines

Insofar as numerous ecotourism destinations host indigenous communities, these sites add emphasis to sustainable tourism's cultural dimension alongside its environmental one. Especially noteworthy is the interplay between formal and informal institutions for decision-making regarding ecotourist infrastructure. Contemporary literature advocating participation seldom concerns the often-substantial role played by informal institutions, preferring to focus on formal institutions. As a result, even well-meaning formal institutions meant to encourage participation can be undermined by disregarding established informal institutions that retain contemporary relevance in governance-related matters. In this article, we redress this imbalance by analyzing six distinct projects undertaken in the Philippine mountain retreat of Sagada between 1994 and 2013, focusing on formal/informal institutional interplay in decision-making. That formal institutions do not always dominate informal ones has wider implications for initiatives designed to encourage community participation. To this end, we develop a typological theory which identifies factors affecting informal institutions' adaptations to formal ones: goodness of fit, retrofitting, decoupling and bricolage. These adaptations have policymaking implications for helping to promote indigenous people's rights to self-determination in sustainable contexts. Sagada's backdrop also provides a useful vantage point in discerning how international rights conventions filter down to local-level implementation.