Urban transformation and diffusion of tourist practices: visiting Alcântara at the turn of the twentieth century

Abstract

This article examines the effects of tourism on the transformation of the perception of the urban world. I aim at exploring the role that tourist practices have played in the evolution of the organisation and uses of urban spaces or, in other words, in the way the city has been experienced and lived. The development of tourist practices and situations has contributed to framing the discontinuous progress of urbanisation. To better understand this process, I propose to move beyond exploration of specific tourist contexts and places, and to think about the complex relationship between, on the one hand, the material and social arrangements of the city, and on the other, the discourses and representations produced around it. My research draws on a specific case study, namely: The transformation of representations of the Alcantara neighbourhood in turn-of-the-century Lisbon, from an industrial suburb to a popular and 'urban' place [Vidal, F. (2006). Les habitants d'Alcantara. Histoire sociale d'un quartier de Lisbonne au debut du XXe siecle [The inhabitants of Alcantara. A social history of a Lisbon neighbourhood in the early twentieth century]. Villeneuve d'Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion]. During the turn to the twentieth century, Alcantara became 'visible' and 'visitable'. The former industrial suburb was thenceforth perceived as a pleasant and urban place, both in a practical way (patent, for example, in the experience of walking down the streets or of visiting industrial sites) and in a symbolic way (through the construction of neighbourhood identities and heritage policies).