The relational value of urban commons: towards a new epistemology of (creative) tourism.

Illustrations from Barcelona

Albert Arias Sans & Antonio Paolo Russo Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Research Group territorial Analysis and Tourism Studies

Abstract The increasing interest of cultural and everyday life manifestations in urban tourism can be seen as a clear attempt to reorient stagnant destinations through the differentiation and exclusivity of the genius loci (Zukin, 1991) and a sophisticated social construction of places. In creative destinations (Richards & Wilson, 2006) tourists are not only gazers but active actors in the production and consumption of creative places. However, the relationship among the different stakeholders has to be taken into account in order to understand the construction of the place and its landscape (Bianchi, 2003). Considering urban landscapes of both traditional and post-industrial origin as part of the urban common pool that resources tourism activities (Healy, 1994), this paper aims to analyse the dialectical process in the creative landscape performance. On the one hand, evidencing the risk of appropriation and enclosure of the commons through the commodification process. On the other, identifying the benefits accrued by a creative intermission of tourists in the process of social emancipation and affirmation that sustains the commons, allowing mutual empowerment as well as a disfranchisement of these landscapes from the restructuring logic of the capital. Thus, commons (and their social engineering) are nuanced as a relational force-field which could represent a new epistemological paradigm for sustainable tourism, in the vein of the critical analysis of Russo and Segre (2010). Building on the conceptual corpus offered by three other published references by these authors (Russo & Arias Sans, 2009; Russo & Segre, 2009; Russo, 2012), this paper substantiates this statement through the analysis of the leisure and creative activity in those neighbourhoods of Barcelona that are characterised by a strong local commons-based character such Grcia, Poblesec o la Barceloneta. In this context, the construction of a commons-based analytical framework aims to enhance the value of the commons and the need for their preservation as a key asset to be taken into account for the tourism policy agenda. The impacts of

free-riding (Ostrom, 1990), the tragedy of overuse collapse (Hardin, 1961) or the dispossession due to the accumulation process (Harvey, 2012) are nowadays more than evident even in a city as Barcelona that has been marketed as a liberal, tolerant and culture-laden global tourism capital. The neighbourhoods quoted above will be described as struggling to maintain and valorise their traditional as well as socially constructed identities above and beyond the strategies pursued by power coalitions, from the margin in which several social and artistic collectives operate References Bianchi, R.V. (2003) Place and power in tourism development tracing the complex articulations of community and locality in PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio cultural, 1 (1): 13-32 Hardin, G. (1961) The Tragedy of the Commons in Science, New Series, 162 (3859): 1243-1248 Harvey, D. (2012) Rebel Cities: from the right to the city to the urban revolution. Verso. London Healy, R.G. (1994) The common pool problem in tourism landscapes in Annals of Tourism Research, 21 (3): 596-611 Ostrom, E. (1990) Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Richards, G. & Wilson, J. (2006) Developing creativity in tourist experiences: A solution to the serial reproduction of culture? in Tourism Management, 27: 12091223 Russo, P. & Arias Sans, A. (2009) Student communities and landscapes of creativity. How venice the worlds most touristed city is changing in European Urban and Regional Studies. 16 (2): 161175 Russo, P. & Segre, G. (2009) Destination models and property regimes. An Exploration in Annals of Tourism Research, 36 (4):587-606 Russo, P. (2012) Branding Brazilian slums through freeware cultural production: the case of Rio de Janeiro in Go, F. & Govers, R. Place Branding Yearbook 2012. Smart Growth and Sustainability. MacMillan: Palgrave Zukin, S. (1991) Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disneyworld, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press