Sense of place narratives of residents in neighbourhoods under touristic pressure: Making, entering and enjoying local sociocultural worlds

Abstract

Tourism intensification is today a powerful transforming force in many European cities. Supported by new policies, it brings the displacement of long-time residents and influxes of new ones, transforming located relations of urban neighbourhoods and their sociocultural worlds. Contributing to a sociopolitical psychology of place, this study explores how residents in touristified contexts make sense of place and its changes and claim rights for located relations. We conducted a narrative analysis of interviews with residents (n = 30) in two Lisbon neighbourhoods under tourism pressure, exploring how their storied accounts of events-in-time and self-and-other roles and relations construct senses of place and intertwine with claims for place-rights and located relations. Findings reveal three shared, competing narratives, offering different roles to Selves and Others and their relations, some advancing more individual, some more collective rights-claims and relational demands and constructing a different sense of place—rooted, elective and cosmopolitan. The study highlights the value of theoretically grounded narrative analysis for extending a sociopolitical psychology of place. It advances too a better understanding of how sociocultural worlds emerge from the inter-relations of people, place and policy and of the ‘battles of ideas’ over located relations and rights in urban contexts, in particular those affected by tourism.