Resisting Venice: individual and collective housing practices to stay put in the tourist city

Abstract

ABSTRACT Whereas Venice (Italy) has been extensively analysed through the lens of tourism, little has been written so far regarding the resistance practices emerging due to increasing tourism-led gentrification. This paper presents two examples of housing initiatives taking place in the historic city and its neighbouring lagoon islands. The first, promoted by a collective actor (Assemblea Sociale per la Casa), concerns the selection, occupation, and self-restoration of public dwellings located in the historic city; the second, an individual choice made by some citizens, concerns moving to the small lagoon islands as not simply a form of displacement, but as a resistance mechanism against the progressive expansion of the tourism industry into the lagoon margins. Drawing on Annunziata and Rivas-Alonso’s work, the aim of this contribution is to provide an interpretation of such initiatives as examples of resistance practices in gentrifying contexts, and to enrich the literature on resisting gentrification by stressing their informal, invisible, and ambiguous nature.