"Tourist phobia" and "the myth of the tourist Barcelona", among the topics of a seminar at the Faculty of Geography and History

The seminar will start with a lecture by the professor of Contemporary History of the UB, Mary Nash, which will analyze the role of tourism in gender representations in Spain during the Franco regime, ranging from the erotic icon of the Swedish women to the reinvention of the Latin lover. Then, Donna Chambers, from the University of Sunderland (United Kingdom), will talk about the trips made by feminist western women third world countries and the image built by the women in Africa or Latin America. Afterwards, Eduard Moyà, from the University of the Balearic Islands, will treat the representation of the islands of Majorca and Ibiza as “sexy” destinations for tourists. Majorca will also be the subject of the lecture by Pau Obrador, from the University of Northumbria (United Kingdom), and Antoni Vives, professor of the UB, who will comment on the current popular festivals in Majorca as a meeting place for tourists and locals and the establishment of a mixed culture.

Saida Palou, from the University of Girona, will explain how tourism has become a “pretext for the cultural assertiveness of Barcelona: it creates and produces an image of Barcelona with values of an idyllic and idealized identity of the city”. “Tourism is expected to have a refracting effect: to turn the city into the myth that powerful classes had created”, adds. Then, Claudio Milano, from Ostelea- School of Tourism and Hospitality, affiliated with the University of Lleida, will analyze the “tourist phobia” in certain social movements and how this phenomenon opens new debates on the current tourist models. Eric Storm, from the University of Leiden (the Netherlands), will tell why tourism had a decisive influence between 1890 and the 30s in the 20th century to shape national and regional identities in Europe. The subjects for the last two sessions are the food menus offered to tourists -Eugenia Afinoguenova, from the Marquette University (United States)- and Majorcan traditional dances as a tourist show -Antoni Vives.

The seminar is organized by the Consolidated Research Group on Multiculturalism and Gender of the UB, in the project Tourist and Immigrants: post-colonial systems of cultural hierarchy in Europeʼs Mediterranean border, a gender perspective. This project analyzes the social classification and hierarchy in Spain between 1959 and 2008. In particular, it focuses on gender identities built in contact with other cultures such as, on the one hand, the case of tourism, and on the other, the immigrants from third world countries. Apart from the historical study, the objective is to provide useful resources to design and manage public policies, both in the field of mass tourism and in migratory flows.