Mathis Stock: « Contemporary Controversies Around Tourism in European Cities »

Conference that took place at the French Research Institute on Japan at the Maison franco-japonaise on Novembre 12th 2019.

Speaker: Mathis STOCK (univ. of Lausanne)
Moderator: Sophie BUHNIK (FRIJ – MFJ)
Organization: FRIJ – MFJ

Tourism theory and urban theory are still evolving on parallel trajectories. It is therefore urgent to think together urban theory and tourism theory in order to attempt to understand how metropolises have become major spaces of tourism and how the cohabitation between tourists and residents is prone to controversies. Three issues are scrutinized here: first, tourism as a legal, statistical or moral category affects the ways the « regime of value » of tourism is constructed. Specifically, the concept of urban tourism bears problems of coherence in the context of planetary urbanisation. Second, on which grounds can we oppose the tourist and the resident? Can we consider both of them as mobile inhabitants of the city? Mobilizing practice theory, I will develop a conceptual framework with « inhabiting » as a key concept where spatial competences and « spatial capital » are emphasized. Third, the question of « inhabiting » leads to the question of public space and of the « right to the city ». I will discuss this notion’s stemming by refering to urban theories and show how the presence of tourists challenges this question of the « right to the city ».

Mathis STOCK is a Professor of Tourism Geography at the University of Lausanne. His work is about tourist practices in a context of widespread mobilities and cities as tourist places, as well as resort development. His main research question asks about the differentiated ways people inhabit mobilities and places.