RIGHTS UP · THE RIGHT TO THE CITY AND THE AMBIVALENCE OF TOURISM: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH TO MEDIA DISCOURSES AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS' DISSENT IN VENICE, AMSTERDAM AND BARCELONA

THE RIGHT TO THE CITY AND THE AMBIVALENCE OF TOURISM: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH TO MEDIA DISCOURSES AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS' DISSENT IN VENICE, AMSTERDAM AND BARCELONA

Global mass tourism is a highly complex industry that contributes to both job and wealth creation in almost every nation around the world. The diversity of this global industry includes ‘big players’ (such as hotels chains and airlines), but also many locally-owned businesses. In recent years, many cities in Europe have experienced the emergence of a series of social movements critical of mass tourism, which have engaged in various protest acts in order to publicize the side-effects related to tourism as a global industry, which include: lack of affordable housing (linked to the popularity of tourist rentals), overcrowding, excessive waste and pollution, the ‘Disneyfication’ of the cities, the ‘disorderly’ behavior of tourists, and the deterioration of the environment. These social movements are also diverse, and while some activists advocated for a reform of the current management of tourism, other groups actively demand tourism degrowth. Moreover, many private stakeholders and local and national authorities are interested in boosting the tourism industry, but they are also aware of the many challenges associated to the tourism management. The RIGHTS UP project focused on the media debate surrounding the emergence of these social movements critical of mass tourism in three European city-cases: Venice (Italy), Amsterdam (Netherlands), and Barcelona (Spain). The overall objectives of the RIGHTS UP project are: To contextualize the role and ambivalence of the tourism industry in post-industrial European cities vis-à-vis changes in the economic structure. To understand how the externalities and benefits of the tourism industry are discussed in the local (European) and global public sphere, by following the narratives/discourses related to both the right to the city and the emergence of social movements critical of global mass tourism. The specific objectives are: • SO1. To identify and describe the discourses related to the social movements critical of global mass tourism published in local, national and international media (printed and online press) for the selected cities (Venice, Barcelona and Amsterdam) contrasting the pro and against tourism narratives. • SO2. To understand how social media networks (i.e. YouTube and Twitter) are used by local social movements to promote their causes (citizen journalism) and/or to challenge discourses/narratives about the anti-tourism protests and the city. • SO3. To compare the discourses and narratives in local and international media (SO1) and the discourses and narratives created by the citizenship (SO2), by engaging in dialogue with a plurality of sources. • SO4. To advance the impact of the urban protest by developing the concept of the right to the urban protest and by creating high-impact materials that contribute to both academic and non-academic audiences in their engagement with local policies and processes of governance (particularly in the European context).

Data: CORDIS, © European Union