Esperire l’alterità. "Migrantour" tra turismo e riqualificazione

Abstract

This work analyzes intercultural tours of Porta Palazzo and their rolein building symbolic and economic value around places of multiculturalism. Theethnography of Migrantour, which guides tourists to discover otherness in the “world athome”, has made it possible to maintain two levels of analysis: the first concern of howcultural difference is produced and consumed as a commodity in the tourist experience.The second has to do with the co-production of the place as a touristic attraction: walkersand tourists, when they consume the place and the otherness that marks it, contributeto produce it. The tours encourage mechanisms of aestheticization and exoticization ofmigrants through selective narratives and cultural stereotypes and the display of objects,food and people, creating symbolic value that big investors capitalize on, contributingto activate gentrification and touristification process. For these reasons, in the case ofPorta Palazzo, responsible tourism cannot be entirely separated from mass tourism: onthe contrary, the two phenomena are extremely intertwined and very often the formerfeeds the latter.