CARING FOR THE ISLAND CITY Venetians reclaiming the city in times of overtourism: contested representations, narratives and infrastructures [Received October 23rd 2020; accepted March 1st 2021 – DOI: 10.21463/shima.117] Cornelia Dlabaja University of Vienna, Austria <
[email protected]> ABSTRACT: Overtourism has transformed Venice into a Disneyfied city in several ways, for example through short-term tourists and their perception and use of the city as a fun park. There is little perception of Venice as a lived-in space which is inhabited by families, elderly people and students going about their everyday lives in a city with only 52,000 inhabitants and a staggering 24 million visitors every year. The article examines the question of how Venetians are reclaiming their right to the island city as a common good for its inhabitants, relating this directly to how the city is cared for. It discusses the phenomena that come with the reshaping of the spaces and everyday lives of Venetian residents due to mass tourism. The different ways the city is inhabited are discussed, and the consequences thereof, based on ethnographic research containing field research in the form of qualitative interviews, participatory observations, analysis of social media activities on Facebook, analysis of secondary data and debates in the media. KEYWORDS: Right to the city, touristification, taking care, inhabiting the city, narratives of change Introduction: contested narratives of the island city This article explores the negotiations surrounding Venice as a contested, iconic, inhabited space, both through narratives and citizen protests, in the conteXt of touristification. It offers a closer look at the challenges of how Venice is cared for (Tronto, 2013)1, and the ways the city is inhabited in relation to the phenomenon of overtourism.