Abstract
We examine the development of tourism in the Lofoten Islands in Norway to show how the operation of symbolic capital transforms the political economy of space. Whereas prior research has explored the role of symbolic capital in the formation and operation of state structures, less attention has been given to its role in neoliberal transformations within states and efforts to open new markets and opportunities for capital. Our empirical findings show that symbolic capital transforms the Lofoten Islands in four distinct ways through the mechanism of accumulation logics: defining territory, commodification of time and space, legitimacy and authorization, and symbolic power and resistance. We discuss how processes of symbolic accumulation emerge as the most enduring and powerful forms of accumulation by dispossession in advanced capitalist contexts and that the struggle for symbolic capital is often the necessary precursor for the expansion of international tourism markets.
Highlights
Commodification of a place brings economic interests to the forefront of conflicts over use
This study considers how the operation of symbolic power and symbolic capital is implicated in the transformation of places into commodities
Tourism development involves the transformation of pre-existing resources into tourism resources for the purposes of the tourism economy
Summary
Commodification of a place brings economic interests to the forefront of conflicts over use. There are parallels between these processes and theory of primitive accumulation (Marx, 1990) which delineates how resources in the form of labour, land and natural resources are made available to capital While all of these resources can be said to pre-exist in the sense that they are not created by capital, a wide range of processes and systems must be enacted in order for them to be appropriated and made available for development.
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